My Truth : Gambling

Phew.  It has been a long time since I've wrote.  It has been quite a journey over the last three months.

On Janurary 9th,  I almost lost my life.  I had a plan in place and was determined to carry it out to take my own life.  If not for Jodi pressing me that night,  I may not be here writing this today.

I have wrote a lot about my journey with bi polar 2 disorder.  Sharing some of the ups and downs and part of what it is like to live with this illness.  In one of my earliest blogs, I mentioned that I had a gambling addiction.  But I did not give it the attention it deserved and left out a lot of my struggle over the years.  I want to help others but, I was only sharing part of my story.

I am a compulsive gambler.  I have struggled with it on and off for twenty years.  It has controlled my life for far too long and over the last three months, I have finally taken steps to address it properly.
I have been abstinent from gambling for over two months now.  The first week was the hardest but, it is getting a little easier to manage cravings.  I went to a week long day program through ADAPT in February and I credit that program for the progress I have made.  I have have been seeing a therapist at homewood the last two months and am in a 6 week program there right not which is once a week.  I also found my own therapist who can help with the complexity of my disorder and addictions.

Gambling made me a dishonest person and that is what I am most ashamed about.  Lying to those closest to me to feed my addiction.  The problem was my gambling addiction and I always thought the solution to that was to gamble.  It was a viscious circle.  I have learned a lot about addiction over the last few months and the affect it has on brain chemistry.  I learned about dopamine and seratonin and how gambling affected those levels in my brain.  I will hopefully go in to more detail of what I learned in a later post.

Since I have stopped betting,  it is amazing to see the amount of radio and television adds focussed on gambling.  I try not to listen too often to them anymore.  They feed on weakness.  They feed on short term pleasure.  The OLG and any other gaming company wants you to believe that you are only one win a way from changing your life. 

It is estimated in Ontario that 2-3 per cent of the population are problem gamblers.  I would surmise that number to be lower than what is reality.  If you polled everyone in Ontario who gambled and you asked them to give an honest summation of their gambling practices,  I would almost guarantee that the percentage of problem gamblers would be greater than 2-3 per cent. 

But still their is advertising every minute of every day pushing the illusion that you are only one bet, one spin, one ticket a way from life changing winnings.  That is a bold lie.  They always show winners on television for OLG adds.  They don't show the devestation gambling can reape.  They don't show people losing their houses, their jobs, their spouses, their self respect, their sense of worth.  They don't show the affect addiction has on not just the gambling addict but, all those around them.  It has a domino affect.  Once the first domino of addction is knocked over,  it topples everything in a persons life.  And even if people such as myself can finally find their way in to recovery,  those dominos can take years to be put back in place.

Gambling Addiction has the highest rate of suicide of any addiction.  So many times I thought of ending my life because of the havoc it reaked on my life.  It makes you lose self respect, self worth and sense of yourself.  It isolates you.  It brings you down in to a very dark place at times.  It is not pleasant as you often feel there is no way out, not solution and no hope.

Yes their are a lot of people who can gamble responsibly.  But I would summise that there are a lot more people like me than the gamblling establishments would like to admit.

It felt good writing this today.  I have been putting it off for a long time.  I miss writing.  And there are so many things I feel compelled to write about.  I want to help others and I am hoping I can speak to groups at some point.  Is something I am working towards. 

I hope this finds you well.  Thanks for listening.  Take care,  Shawn.


The only way to stop your gambling debt, is to STOP gambling!!!!!

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