We Lose Our Home
"Nothing is, unless our thinking makes it so." - William Shakespeare
By early 1997, the gambling was full blown again. Looking back on this particular year, I can see now just how deeply infected we get with the gambling virus. At one point in our lives we were for the most part normal human beings, living life day to day, enjoying our families, our friends and dealing with the everyday challenges that life offers up. When gambling becomes the primary focus of our life, a once responsible individual, becomes so focused on himself that he can hurt the people he loves the most without regard for their feelings.
For the first half of 1997 my life consisted of gambling, telling lies and finding money to gamble some more. Everytime that I gambled, this was going to be the time that I would start winning enough to pay off my debts and make everything wonderful again. The ironic twist was that every day that I lost, that was the day that I would swear I would gamble no more.
By mid 1997 it became very clear that we would lose our home and once again I made a commitment to my wife and family that this would be the end of my gambling. We moved out of our home in the fall of 1997 and rented a house in Carbonear. (If you put yourself in my wife's shoes, can you imagine how she felt the day she had to walk away from her home. She had done nothing wrong, except to continue to live with a gambler.)
It was around this same time that we declared personal bankruptcy, because we believed this would give us an opportunity to start over again. I went back to Gamblers Anonymous meetings and started to seek professional help again. My life however, was in a full downward spiral and at the time I didn't have the tools to deal with anything. While I was going through the motions of seeking help and I was admitting for the first time that I was a compulsive gambler, everything was on the surface, there was nothing penetrating my inner soul.
I didn't know it at the time, but life was about to get a lot worse.
By early 1997, the gambling was full blown again. Looking back on this particular year, I can see now just how deeply infected we get with the gambling virus. At one point in our lives we were for the most part normal human beings, living life day to day, enjoying our families, our friends and dealing with the everyday challenges that life offers up. When gambling becomes the primary focus of our life, a once responsible individual, becomes so focused on himself that he can hurt the people he loves the most without regard for their feelings.
For the first half of 1997 my life consisted of gambling, telling lies and finding money to gamble some more. Everytime that I gambled, this was going to be the time that I would start winning enough to pay off my debts and make everything wonderful again. The ironic twist was that every day that I lost, that was the day that I would swear I would gamble no more.
By mid 1997 it became very clear that we would lose our home and once again I made a commitment to my wife and family that this would be the end of my gambling. We moved out of our home in the fall of 1997 and rented a house in Carbonear. (If you put yourself in my wife's shoes, can you imagine how she felt the day she had to walk away from her home. She had done nothing wrong, except to continue to live with a gambler.)
It was around this same time that we declared personal bankruptcy, because we believed this would give us an opportunity to start over again. I went back to Gamblers Anonymous meetings and started to seek professional help again. My life however, was in a full downward spiral and at the time I didn't have the tools to deal with anything. While I was going through the motions of seeking help and I was admitting for the first time that I was a compulsive gambler, everything was on the surface, there was nothing penetrating my inner soul.
I didn't know it at the time, but life was about to get a lot worse.
posted by Taximan at 12:26 PM
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