Finding comfort in vulnerability

13 months without gambling, fuck. Let’s talk about some recent tough discoveries and achievements along the way.

Gambling isn’t on my mind anymore. Gambling isn’t in my mind anymore.

It’s often only when I sit down to write about how things are going that I remember. I flashback to what it has taken from me and the parts that will remain intertwined with me for the rest of my life. I’m realising that this isn’t something you can recover from and then just forget about. Though the bleak memories are mine and the man who went through them all is undoubtedly me. Though the ownership of choices and the frightful situation was mine; the man then and the man now could only wish to have known each other. I empathise with him, I reach out wanting to help, wanting to save him; yet saving him would be to destroy the person I am today. A phoenix rises only from ashes that once burned.

Tough discoveries

I don’t know myself very well. I often wonder whether recovering addicts feel the same way in their bodies as I do mine. I’m starting to feel emotions that I can’t comprehend; that they are there is a wondrous thing, and yet I sit frustrated trying to establish whether they are good or bad, and whether I’m okay. Perhaps my body was conditioned once to grab the feeling and to hide it somewhere, burying it deep into the pit of escape.

Little wins

I told a good friend of mine about my addiction, he listened and shared his own pain - he has also read my writing which makes me really happy. The more I share about this subject, the more I realise I had my own preconceptions about how people would react, and that they are probably clouded by anxiety rather than reason.

I went away on holiday with a bunch of guys who like football and betting, but I didn’t want to be involved; I watched and hoped they were in control whilst being at ease with myself. This problem goes deep in our society and what we know so far really is the tip of the iceberg.

I’m learning to limit my expectations on how much change I can make, but at the same time I want to pull down the whole system. I really believe I will make a difference and can influence change in the way we see gambling in the UK and beyond. Whether that’s delusion or ambition is hard to tell - we can only try.

I’ll leave you with this poem I wrote this week.

I am vulnerable,

Yet seek no trench nor shield,

Neither escape nor yield,

My heart I wield.

I am vulnerable,

So many lies concealed,

Now to the surface I kneel,

I confess, I feel.

I am vulnerable,

By chance I lived,

I would take but not give,

Preferring alone and not with.

I am vulnerable,

To the friends who know not,

Why I continued upon ruin but did not stop,

I am sorry, I know it’s a lot.

I am vulnerable,

How I remember the desperation so,

That lay in love and not woe,

I will hang on, I won’t let go.