“AA was created in 1935; GA was started in 1957. I think I'm safe in asserting that we know orders of magnitude more about addiction now than we did back in the thirties and fifties. The AA methods, the dogmatic culture, and the written materials (especially true of GA) are stuck in a time before most of today's addicts were even born.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“There is no reason that you cannot attend both GA and Smart Recovery meetings. It's not like going to a Catholic mass early in the morning and a Baptist revival in the afternoon. Do both! They can both help you recover.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“To change that negative behavior (going to the casino), CBT asks you to go back and examine your thoughts. Why did you think those things? What other thoughts could you have had that wouldn't have resulted in going to the casino?”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“When we addicts finally reach the point where we know we have a problem, and when we know we want to stop, from that point on we need to come up with a strong and reasonable excuse of some kind to go use, or go gamble. We become masters at generating these seemingly legitimate excuses for our addictive behavior. This is perhaps the most critical skill that our addiction employs - creative excuse making. Your addiction always is hiding in your brain waiting for an opening.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Do this. Right now, while you are thinking clearly and can prepare positively (sound familiar?) make a list of all the excuses that you use to justify your gambling. You know them all too well. Keep the list handy, memorize it. Tell yourself that when your addiction is cramming any one of those excuses into your brain, that this is the trigger to get you to pause, go back, and figure out why this is happening. What were the emotions? What were the thoughts that caused the emotions? What thoughts would your better-self have had instead?”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Mindfulness will play a prominent role in learning how to derail your urge to go to the casino.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The game is free but the epilogue is sold separately”
Source: Love, Lust and Regrets: While the lights were off
“In nuclear war, except for the evil forces, no one is a winner. Science and humanity become the villains. Everyone knows that, but the gamblers want to play their cards. Beware of the nuclear gamblers.”
Source: Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth
“I want to address something here specifically about the intersection of mindfulness and slot machine addiction. Remember that mindfulness is a practice that helps you be in the present, that helps you shut off the guilt and shame of the past and shut out the thoughts of fear and anxiety about the future. Mindfulness asks us to live in the present because the present is the only thing we can control.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Compulsive slot machine playing, i.e., sitting on that ugly stool, pushing that stupid button for eight hours without a break, does the same thing as mindfulness! Mindfulness asks us to be acutely aware of our current surroundings, of the sights and sounds right in front of us. I can think of no activity, including mindful meditation, that has us slot machine addicts focused so intently on the sights and sounds in the present moment as when we compulsively play a slot machine. And while most people can meditate for several minutes (some even up to an hour or more), us slot machine addicts can push that button for many hours without a break, all the while very mindfully aware of the present sights and sounds. This is why the treatment professionals call slot machine addiction "escape gambling". This is why those evil machines have such a hold on us. When we sit down on that stool pushing that button, we know we will enter another world, a world outside of our day-to-day existence, outside of that day-to-day world that is too often full of confusing and painful thoughts. In the slot machine world, our focus becomes completely involved with the machine - the visuals, the sounds, the anticipation of a win. There is no room what-so-ever for any other thought to intrude into our consciousness. We are totally in the present (for however long it takes to lose all our money). Mindfulness by machine addiction.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.