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Tag: gambling

  • Addicted to Dimes, Confessions of a Liar and a Cheat – Part 4

    manhattan_bridge_post_versionThis week’s guest blogger is  Catherine Townsend-Lyon, an author, blogger and  marketing guru. Catherine lives in Arizona and is a recovering gambling addict.  In this blog Catherine features a segment of her book “Addicted to Dimes”.

    Belts, Handles and Spoons

    My family background was like any other family – or so I thought. My mom was a homemaker, and she’d baby sit other children to make a little money on the side. My dad was career Air Force. I was born in New Jersey and lived there until I was 7 ½. I had an older sister, Rose, and an older brother, Rob, and a younger sister, Angela, who was born a few years after we moved to Southern California.

    My dad finished his tour in Vietnam in January 1970, and got his last transfer orders before retiring in 1975 from Norton Air Force Base in Highland, Calif. My parents bought a home in Highland and that’s where I grew up until I moved away, out-of-state, to Grants Pass, Ore., in May 1987. I had a fairly normal childhood up until I was about 11 or 12. That’s when I was sexually abused by a close family friend. It was the most awful, shameful thing for a young girl to have to go through. I watched the value and respect I had for myself be stripped away each time it happened.

    I wanted so desperately to tell someone, but the fear and anguish put upon me by my abuser held me back. He said no one would believe me, or they would say I was a liar. My parents were the kind of parents who were a little “unconventional” when it came to punishment. I’m not saying my parents were bad parents, just which by today’s standards, some of the physical discipline we received could be considered abuse. I’m also saying that, for me, it was traumatic events that bothered me later in my life.

    For example, one of the events that occurred which really bothered me was when my mom sent us kids to the store to get her a couple things. She gave my brother extra money to get us an ice cream cone at the store. We got outside, my sister’s ice cream fell on the ground and she started crying, so Rob went back to ask for another and the clerk told him, “No.” Rob wanted Rose to stop crying, so he went over to the Brach’s candy bins and took a couple of pieces. He got caught by the owner, who knew my mom. So, my mom had to come pick us up from the store.

    We got home and Rob told her what happened. She said, “You don’t steal, no matter what.” Making this a “teachable” moment, she made them hold out their hands and she took a large sewing needle and pricked the tops of their hands until they bled! That was too much for me to watch, but she made me, and it still disturbs me to this day . . . .

    I hope you enjoyed reading the first few sections of Catherine’s book, Addicted to Dimes. We know in recovery that we turn to addiction for many reasons, and that we can recover without knowing the reasons why we walked down a dark path. And sometimes, we discover some of the underlying issues of the addiction sucked us in.

    Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon lives in Arizona writes a blog on her web site: https://catherinelyonaddictedtodimes.wordpress.com/author/kitcat4459/

    And works with other authors on marketing their books at:

    https://anAuthorandWriterinProgress.wordpress.com You can Email her at: LyonMedia@aol.com

  • Addicted to Dimes, Confessions of a Liar and a Cheat – Part 3

    manhattan_bridge_post_versionThis week’s guest blogger is  Catherine Townsend-Lyon, an author, blogger and  marketing guru. Catherine lives in Arizona and is a recovering gambling addict. For the next two weeks, Catherine will feature segments of her book “Addicted to Dimes” in this blog.

    The Woman in the Mirror

    I used gambling to get reactions from people who didn’t communicate feelings or get reactions from people who had hurt me.

    I know I’ve always had a compulsive type of personality and high anxiety most of my life. I had to always be moving or engaged in something. While in treatment, and during my first time in the crisis center, I found out I suffer from severe depression, severe anxiety and PTSD from my childhood trauma. I started on medications for them, in November 2002. I also remember, while in the crisis center after being there only a few days, I was getting ready to take a shower and I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize the woman looking back at me. I’d always been a fun, bubbly, caring person, but this woman looking back at me, I didn’t know or recognize. I also was suffering with mood swings sleep problems and felt as though the medications I was taking weren’t helping these symptoms. I sure wished they could come up with a cure or a pill for gambling addiction.

    Needing My Parents Love I Never Got

    I found that there were other people going through some of the same things with their addiction as I was. The amount of money lost to our gambling may have been different, but I didn’t feel as though I was alone in this insane disease. There is a lot more to the addiction than just placing a bet or being in action. I learned to use my addiction as a way to cope with feelings and disappointments that I had pushed deep down rather than dealing with them. I would gamble to escape reality, which was very immature in retrospect. I was selfish and only cared about myself. Just as the addiction makes you selfish, so does recovery. Recovery requires hard work and the desire to want to stop gambling.

    You have to put those first, before everything else, to get well again. For me, I know the problem started a long time ago. As I was growing up, I had this nagging feeling of always having to prove myself to others, especially my parents, and I wasted many years doing just that. The only thing I ever wanted was my parents’ unconditional love. I became emotionally drained after years of waiting to hear they were proud of me. My parents were not the type of people to share their feelings or emotions, so it led me on a long journey of trying to win their approval of me.

    Bah, Bah Black Sheep

    It seemed I was destined to be the black sheep of the family, and seemed to be treated as such as I got into adulthood. I think that’s where I got my feelings of a sense of entitlement, later on in my life. Because of the way my family had hurt me so much through the years, I used my addiction to hurt them. But the only one I really hurt was myself. Growing up, I just wanted to be heard, or acknowledged. That’s all. We didn’t have any family history of gambling problems. When my parents had friends or family over, they would play cards, or my mom would play bingo now and then. My dad was in the Air Force, so she’d go to the air base at Norton to play bingo. My sister and I would tag along sometimes and we’d win things like irons and toasters.

    I hope you enjoyed reading the first few sections of Catherine’s book, Addicted to Dimes. The series will continue for another week. We know in recovery that we turn to addiction for many reasons, and that we can recover without knowing the reasons why we walked down such a dark path. And sometimes, we discover some of the underlying issues of why the addiction sucked us in.

    Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon lives in Arizona writes a blog on her web site: https://catherinelyonaddictedtodimes.wordpress.com/author/kitcat4459/

    And works with other authors on marketing their books at:

    https://anAuthorandWriterinProgress.wordpress.com

    You can Email her at: LyonMedia@aol.com

     

     

     

     

  • Addicted to Dimes, Confessions of a Liar and a Cheat – Part 2

    manhattan_bridge_post_versionThis week’s guest blogger is  Catherine Townsend-Lyon, an author, blogger and  marketing guru. Catherine lives in Arizona and is a recovering gambling addict. For the next three weeks, Catherine will feature segments of her book “Addicted to Dimes” in this blog.

     Baffling Exposure

    Another part of this addiction that baffled me was the medical side of the disease. When you see people with drug or alcohol addictions, by most outward appearances, you can usually tell when someone is under the influence.

    With a gambling addiction, the chemicals in your body have the same effect as substances do for other addicts. I just could not wrap my head around that. Gambling addicts have the same types of physical symptoms such as the shakes from withdrawals, feeling sick to one’s stomach, sweats and chills. The feelings of fear, hopelessness, emotional and mental blackouts and suicidal thoughts after a gambling binge or relapse, and after the reality of the devastation you’ve just caused financially … feeling the loss of control, and powerlessness over being able to stop gambling. You’re on edge and stressed all the time, and often thinking about how, when and where you will gamble again, and how to get the money. There is a never-ending gambling cycle. It runs in many phases. This was the most important thing I learned later on, in intense therapy, with a guy who came to my aid in 2006. I will share more about that later in this book.

    I learned with the cycle of my addiction, it goes in an insane cycle when you cross the line into uncontrollable gambling. I also learned there are many reasons why we turn to compulsive gambling in the first place. It can be from childhood or adult traumas, or events like child abuse, sexual abuse, or mental and emotional abuses. It could be from some underlying behaviors, a death, or that you may have grown up with addicted gamblers. You use it as a coping skill or as an escape from everyday life.

    The cycle of my addiction starts with the winning phase. At first, you seem to win often, which makes you want to gamble more often. I remember how the feelings of excitement build, and how I thought I could win enough to make all my dreams come true, and pay off my bills. That’s when you start increasing the amount you bet, and how much money you bring to play with. I’d tell everyone how I won all the time. (Red flag of denial.) Then you’ll go through the losing phase. That is, when I noticed I was gambling more by myself. That’s when I started to lie and cover up the money I lost, and when I started to obsess about gambling all the time. I started to borrow money from family and pawned some jewelry. Bills started being late and I noticed a change in my attitude and personality.

    Finally, after several years, I got into a desperate phase. I started feeling hopeless. I fought with my husband a lot, and I blamed our financial problems on things other than my gambling. I lost time from work, family and friends. I was gambling every chance I got, then more credit cards and more debt. I stole, lied and cheated. My reputation and good character was damaged. All that and more happened before I got help.

    I hope you enjoyed reading the first few sections of Catherine’s book, Addicted to Dimes. The series will continue for the next two weeks. We know in recovery that we turn to addiction for many reasons, and that we can recover without knowing the reasons why we walked down such a dark path. And sometimes, we discover some of the underlying issues of why the addiction sucked us in.

    Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon lives in Arizona writes a blog on her web site: https://catherinelyonaddictedtodimes.wordpress.com/author/kitcat4459/

    And works with other authors on marketing their books at:

    https://anAuthorandWriterinProgress.wordpress.com

    You can Email her at: LyonMedia@aol.com

     

     

     

     

  • Is boredom a gateway to relapse?

    manhattan_bridge_post_versionIt’s late in the day on a Saturday. Time slows down. Nothing seems interesting on TV, just reruns of Criminal Minds, another PGA tournament with a splash of MMA Kickboxing. There is a feeling of yearning, but for what? This is boredom. We tell ourselves that we are bored! But what exactly does this mean to us?

    One meaning we give to our boredom is that the TV show we are watching is not interesting. Another meaning might be that the classes we are taking are not teaching what we need to know. Or we wish we lived in a condo instead of this house in the suburbs that needs the lawn to be mowed. In other words, we look to something external to blame. Sound familiar? Boredom is not trivial. It is out of boredom that some people turn to drugs, gambling, over-eating, sex and alcohol abuse.

    Boredom, when chronic, is very stressful and has serious consequences for an addict. For example, we might be waiting for a response from a job interview. The time it takes seems eternally long. Feelings of irritability and anxiety set in. This is where we start to feel stressed. It seems as though the solution is to blame the HR department of this company (that we are very interested in working for), for their ineptitude. Is anger and resentment lurking around the corner?

    Another example might be that boredom would cause someone to lose interest while driving and getting injured because of the lack of attention. How many times have you been driving, become bored with the road and switch into some sort of fantasy, losing your focus on the road and bang! The car in front of you is at a dead stop. My guess is that a good number of traffic accidents are caused this way.

    We are blaming the boredom on something external, like the TV, the HR department or the jerk in the car in front of you. Perhaps it is not. Perhaps boredom is internal in nature. Psychological scientist John Eastwood of York University (Ontario, Canada) and colleagues at the University of Guelph and the University of Waterloo wanted to create a precise definition of boredom, one that can be applied across a variety of theoretical frameworks. Their article, was published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, and the website, ScienceDaily, quotes from the article:

    “Drawing from research across many areas of psychological science and neuroscience, John Eastwood and his colleague[s] define boredom as an aversive state of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity.”

    This wanting has a dangerous similarity to the craving of substances experienced by addicts during the withdrawal stage. In other words, if a recovering addict finds themselves bored, they are on the very slippery slope of wanting. Here are some additional analogies:

    • Addicts have difficulty paying attention to their internal thoughts and feelings. They have difficulty focusing on the external or environmental information required for participating in a satisfying activity. Eastman uses these characteristics to define boredom
    • Some addicts are aware of the fact that they have difficulty paying attention. Yes, this is another characteristic of boredom.
    • Addicts tend to blame and/or believe that the environment is responsible for their aversive state. Again, this is a characteristic of a person entrenched in boredom.

    The point is that research indicates that there is a relationship between boredom and lack of attention to what is happening inside and outside of ourselves. But, there is no concrete research linking boredom to addiction or relapse. However, it may be worthwhile to refocus our attention to what we are thinking, feeling and/or to the stimuli in the environment instead of simply chalking it up to being bored. Maybe we can focus by completing 90 meetings in 90 days.

    There is also the concept of embracing boredom. As the Buddhists put it; boredom is a form of impatience. Therefore patience is an antidote. There is nothing that is intrinsically boring. There are examples of prisoners of war, sitting in complete isolation, who are able to focus their minds and find interesting things to prevent boredom. Does this sound like Step Eleven?

    And then we can think about what they say about the weather in Minneapolis:

    Wait, in five minutes things will change.