Hi Thawley
Welcome from me to Gambling Therapy.
When I read that you said that you son ‘had better start walking’, I thought wow that is a strong mum who handled a situation in a way that many of us think ‘if only’ we had done the same. Then I read on and your regret jumped out at me because you think that if you had carried on in the same vein it would have been different. Well Thawley from all I understand and from the mouth of CG living, now, in control of his addiction – you never stood a chance either way, so don’t do ‘what’ ifs’ or ‘if onlys’, they don’t help and they don’t change a thing
It is so difficult to realise how impotent we are in the face of the addiction to gamble – it is foreign to us; it is something that we neither asked for nor wanted and over which we have no control or understanding – but that is also the lot of the CG, until he seeks change.
Don’t fear ‘what is coming’, rather learn and be prepared as you have not been before. Knowledge of your son’s addiction will give you control over it, he now has someone who has knowledge of what is hurting you both, rather than taking everything personally, it makes a difference. Your son will never have deliberately sought to hurt you although his actions have shown everything to the contrary.
I am not sure whether your son is in GMA yet or waiting to go in, so I cannot comment on your words ‘when he wanted to go to GMA’. Please don’t give any information that could identify him on this forum. I would love to speak to you in the F&F group, (Tuesday 20.00-21.00 hours UK time) where we can discuss freely all your worries without anything appearing on the forum. I hope it helps you to know that I had no hope, whatsoever, of any change for my CG, who did lose his home, his job, his family and who had no self-respect or self-esteem until he went through the GMA programme and now lives happily in control of his addiction.
I will leave this first post there apart from one observation. Many, many CGs steal, they do things that defy logic, reason and morality but if there was no hope of them changing – I would not be writing you now.
Well done starting your thread
Velvet
