Hi Mairi
I agree your mother-in-laws attitude seems rather cruel but of course I cannot judge as I am sure she is at her wits end and saying those words probably made her very unhappy.
In my opinion, I don’t believe that giving actual food to a person who must be hungry is enablement. If it was me I would give him bread, beans, eggs, milk and basic things that contained goodness for his body but nothing that he could sell.
He doesn’t need to go to a doctor for therapy, he can get support from Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and/or if he is in the UK there is a wonderful rehab, run by the Gordon Moody Association, details of which are in the section below entitled GMA residential treatment Q&A. You can also get information on the rehab from our Helpline.
I appreciate why you are worried about him. I wouldn’t be writing to you if I didn’t know that the addiction to gamble can be controlled even if it has talked about it before with no action – rock bottoms come for different people at different times and nobody can tell when a real recovery is possible. My CG was in a desperate state when he changed his life, so I know it can be done.
I can hear that you know what enablement is but I will reiterate that giving him cash will not help him; it will only keep him in his addictive behaviour. I believe in giving directions to good support to CGs because they often don’t know where to go for it and he may be willing to listen at last.
I hope you keep posting, you have been through a terrible experience and I believe it helps to know that you are talking to people who understand ‘you’.
Velvet
