I fought hard against Gamanon.  It ‘wasn’t for me’, I saw it as it wasn’t my issue and to be brutally honest, at the time just the mention of anything gambling related- even GA or Gamanon – made my blood boil, I was so angry.  My partner had been in GA for 5 years when I realised, I was still angry, bitter, unreasonable and I was miserable.

Nearly 4 years ago, I decided I was fed up of being miserable.  My gambler stopping gambling wasn’t making me happy or back to the person I once was so I decided Gamanon was the last resort.  It was the best decision I ever made.  I get to focus on myself and not my gambler and through working the 12 step programme, my life is much happier, calmer and my mind clearer.

Wendy, Aberdeen

When I arrived at Gamanon, many moons ago, I didn’t even really know what it was. I had decidedthat I needed to find someone or some people who could explain to me why my husband gambled, why he couldn’t stop even though we had 3 young children that I knew he loved (even if I wasn’t sure he still loved me), and what this illness was?

I did understand that it was an illness, but that didn’t mean I was coping with it any better than before I understood. I was a bit less angry but just as perplexed, despairing, sad, beaten down and hopeless as I had been when I thought he was just selfish and (quite frankly) mad….I arrived in a room in Falkirk with 2 elderly ladies (or so I thought, probably about the same age as I am now, but I didn’t realise time would catch up with me as well as everyone else) and a couple of younger women. They seemed quite happy, it was strange. I couldn’t understand how people could be sane and fairly happy if they had a Compulsive Gambler in their lives. I didn’t want to speak, I wanted to listen but still no-one revealed the secret of how to stop someone gambling. I realised I’d have to come back the following week to find out the answer to that one. And I did, and I still didn’t get the answer, so I thought I’d have to come back again. Twenty or so years later and I am still going. And I still don’t have the answer, but I do understand when people come in looking for it and I hope I am able to support them to gradually realise that, as there is no answer, they need to find a different way to live.

My years with my Compulsive Gambler were similar to most people’s experiences. Up and down like a roller coaster, until it gets to so few ups and so many downs. While we were together my husband came in and out of GA. The one thing this taught me was how, when he wasn’t gambling, things were so much better. I realised how much he must have been gambling, because finances were so much healthier and in the few gambling free periods life was better all round (although I never quite got to being relaxed about it). Sadly, while we were together he never committed enough to GA to make it to a recovery of any length and finally it was too much for me and we separated. This was not an easy decision, or an easy time, but all during this I attended Gamanon, possibly more consistently than I had previously. I missed fewer meetings and got constant support from my friends in the room. Everyone has their own issues, but everyone is prepared to listen to someone else’s problems. This generosity of spirit is key (certainly in my own group), because no matter how bad a week each of us has had, we still make time to listen and support others in the group if they’ve had a bad week.

My divorce could have been acrimonious, we could have used the children to build a barrier, we could have been bitter and we could have stopped communicating. But the reminder within Gamanon, that this was an illness, not a matter of lack of affection and love for the family, and that the Gambler has become powerless in the matter of gambling, was the thing that stopped me becoming bitter. I did feel resentment, I did dislike my husband, I did lose respect for him, I did feel all the things that you would imagine someone could feel in that situation. However, I moved through those feelings and Gamanon helped me manage this: I received reminders that ‘This too shall pass’; prompts that we only need to deal with ‘One day at a Time’; mentions of ‘Don’t dwell on yesterday and don’t worry about tomorrow’; all these were constants in my life and by being constant became part of my thinking.

It’s not always easy, and sometimes it’s almost impossible. I often find myself within my current life (because, strangely enough, compulsive gambling is not the only thing that we sometimes have to worry about) heading toward catastrophising, worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, going off on that slippery road to meltdown. I have to make a conscious effort to pull myself back from the brink and remember what my friends in Gamanon would say and this calms me down. Even if only temporarily, it calms me down, and when I start spiralling again, I just remind myself again and, with conscious effort, it works.

Gamanon helps me with the bad and the good. It helps me remember to be grateful when things are going well, and to understand how many reasons I have to be grateful, and to remember that I can cope when they aren’t. And top of my gratitude list is Gamanon and Perth, Tuesday.

MM, Perth

I have had to put up with gambling for over 40 years, my husband is a compulsive gambler.

I felt so alone and unable to talk to anyone. I could not talk to my husband about his gambling addiction or even our children, I was at the end of the road in fact I thought I was going insane.
Thankfully, I found Gam-Anon!

On entering the Gam-Anon room, I was extremely apprehensive and nervous. I am a stroke survivor and find speaking in front of people very daunting. For a few meetings I listened and slowly but surely, I began to open up. In the room, I felt safe.

Relating to other members stories I now feel safe enough to unburden myself to all. I know longer feel like I am alone or going mad. For this, I am truly grateful.

I have been going to Gam-Anon for nearly 2 years. During that time, I have kept listening and learning. I know there is a long way to go and much more for me to unburden but feel safe that I can talk to people who are going through a situation similar to mine. They understand.

To be completely honest, I do not know what I would have done if I had not picked up the phone and reached out for help. Thank you Gam-Anon!

Lyn, Edinburgh

I had been married for 24 years during which time I had built, brick by brick, a wall round myself. I built this wall initially with small bricks made from doubt, suspicion and irritation. As time progressed the bricks I used got bigger and bigger. Some were made from lies, some from fear and some from jealousy. As I completed my wall I used my biggest bricks made from debt, self loathing, insecurity, pain, hurt and anger.

My wall protected me from reality and as I could not see over my wall I could not see what was happening to my life. No one could get through my wall I thought I was safe

Six year ago I discovered that my wife was a compulsive gambler and my wall came crashing down.

Probably for the first time since I got married I was forced to deal with the reality that my life was a sham. My wife had become a stranger, I had lost all my friends, I had debts I could not repay. I was not a husband or father, but a person whose only purpose in life was to enable my wife to gamble.

I did not know what to do or where to turn. Then I found Gam-Anon.

Like many others I came to my first meeting not knowing what to expect. My wife had phoned the GA help line who had mentioned Gam-Anon and been to her first GA meeting earlier that week. I thought I should go along to her next meeting to give her a bit of support.

I walked into a room full of strangers dragging my bricks behind me. From the minute I began to tell my story I knew I was in the right place. No one judged me and I could start to find me again.

Gam-Anon made me realise that my wall may have fallen down but the bricks I used to build it were still lying all around me.

But for the first time I had choices. I could either used my bricks to rebuild my wall or I could use the new bricks that Gam-Anon were giving me to rebuild my life and my marriage.

The first brick I was given was hope. I decided to used this brick and one day at a time, brick by brick, I began, not to build a new wall, but a path I could follow to serenity.

I have been in the fellowship for 6 years and have been steadily moving along my path.
The path has not been straight. Sometimes I would walk along my path, sometimes I would run but some part of the path were so steep I did not think I could climb them.

When I was unsure of my route or came to a crossroads and did not know which way to turn, I knew that I could ask my Gam-Anon room who would help me choose the right path.

I have continued to build my path, but the bricks I now use are happiness, contentment, self worth, confidence, love and serenity.

I also know that I will never need to walk my path alone. I will always have my Gam-Anon friends with me and I know they will pick me up if I stumble or fall on my path.

I can only thank my higher power for putting me on the path to my first meeting.

Without Gam-Anon and GA. I would not have rebuilt my marriage, fallen in love again and found the strength to try to atone for the damage I did while building my wall.

Words alone are not sufficient to thank my room for the bricks they have given me to build my path and for new friendships I have made that will last a lifetime.

Dave, Dundee

One night in July 2006 I practically bounced through the door filled with excitement as my husband had promised to take me to a restaurant I had wanted to go to for ages. I came down to earth with a bump when I found him in the lounge in floods of tears telling me that I was going to leave him because of what he had done. And so it was that I found out that my husband who I had been with for over 10 years had a gambling problem, that we had considerable debts and that he had been lying to me for years.

It was such a shock, but he was in such a state, talking about how he wanted to end it all, that I felt I had to comfort him, tell him that we could sort everything out and that I wasn’t going to leave. In desperation we found ourselves at our first GA and Gam-Anon meetings – both nervous and unsure what to expect. The truth is I only attended my first meeting because I wanted to make sure he went into the GA meeting, but actually I found that I needed a meeting as much as he did. You see I was completely full of resentment: for the money he had lost and what we could have done with it, for my time which was being taken up sorting out the mess, for the distraction from my work (I could barely think straight but I had to pretend everything was normal), for the lies I had to tell other people to cover up the situation, but mostly for the lies I had been told. When we started going to the meetings I was paranoid and neurotic, wondering where he was every minute he was out of my sight, phoning all the time and interrogating him when he got back.

Going to Gam-Anon meetings gave me the opportunity to talk things through with other people that truly understood what I had been through (everyone in the meeting has a compulsive gambler in their lives). The meetings help me to get things in perspective, to work out when the things I am worrying about are not important and when they are things that we genuinely need to sort out. After our meetings we are able to have rational discussions about issues which we otherwise might have skirted around or shouted about.

These days we both look forward to our meetings, after all the rooms we go to are filled with friends and however emotional the meetings are they are always good for us. There are still days where I feel a bit resentful over what he put us through, but mostly I feel lucky because GA is working for my husband. He is still, and will always be, a compulsive gambler, but our meetings have given us a normal life back and I am extremely grateful for that.

Things came to a head in June 2006. My daughter was due to go to Turkey on her first foreign holiday. She had given her mum her passport application and her fee some months before. She had also given my wife all of her spending money which had all been gambled away. My wife was at rock bottom and she had no option but to be honest with me.

The next day she attended her first G.A meeting and our journey began. Seven months went by and I could not deal with the feelings of resentment, anger and paranoia. Every minute, all I could think about was where she was and what she was doing and it was starting to destroy our marriage.

The G.A meeting she attended did not have a Gam-Anon meeting but then one Saturday night in January a couple of G.A friends took us out for a meal and the subject of attending Gam-Anon was brought up and a week later I attended my first meeting in Doncaster. I walked into that meeting not really wanting to be there and expecting a room full of “old women”. I was only going because my gambler had been gamble-free for seven months and I had to do something to support her.

HOW WRONG could I have been? For the first time in years I sat in a room with people of all ages: wives, mothers, partners from all walks of life, who had all been through the same problems and feelings, and I did not feel ALONE or ASHAMED. I finally realised all the years I had spent struggling to sort my wife’s gambling problem had been pointless. I realised I could do nothing and I finally let go.

Then my journey began and I started to sort my life out, dealing with all the feelings that I had bottled up for far too long. I learned that I could only move forward by taking one day at a time and sharing week by week with the group, sorting out all the issues in my life that came up, and moving forward.

Five years on and life is good. YES my wife is still a compulsive gambler one day away from her next bet but together we are stronger and now we have a future. We still take one day at a time but Gam-Anon and G.A. have given each of us our life back and for that we are thankful but always watchful lest we go back to where we once were.

My first experience of Gamblers Anonymous and GamAnon was in June 2004 when my partner and I had been together for nearly 2 years. I took him to that first meeting, just like many others have taken a loved one to a meeting, desperately looking for help for a problem that they know they cannot deal with alone.

What brought us to that meeting was that he had finally admitted to me the extent of his gambling problem. Before this, I knew he liked to play fruit machines but I saw this as part of the ‘one of the lads’ lifestyle he had when we first met. Our finances were separate at the time so the financial impact of his gambling was not obvious to me. From the early stages of our relationship, I had suspected that he spent a lot compared to what he earned but I was not too concerned about what the money was being spent on. I believed this was something he could control and that it would change when our relationship became serious and he moved in with me after 12 months together. There were also things that happened that seemed strange, like the odd lost wallet incident (something that will probably be all too familiar to many reading this), but at the time I never suspected the truth.

In the end it was the emotional impact of his gambling that made me realise there was something very wrong. Making arrangements and promises and not keeping them. Going ‘AWOL’ and turning up drunk with stories that did not seem to ring true. Then one day, when I expected him to be at home when I returned and he wasn’t, I decided to go off myself. ‘See how he likes it’ I thought. I drove around for a while until I realised it was not going to help either of us and that I needed to confront things so I returned home. As I drove through our village, the thought occurred to me to stop at one of his usual haunts, the local pub, guessing I would find him there. But I wanted to be wrong and was too embarrassed to face him if I was right so I just carried on home. I still did not know that gambling was the root of his behaviour at the time. I had started to wonder if he was seeing someone else; whether another woman was the reason for how he was behaving. I decided whatever was wrong, I could not go on any longer with things as they were and decided to confront him when he came home. Finally, much later, when he returned, drunk again, with a story of a lost wallet yet again, I handed him a letter I had written while I was waiting for his return.

In it I described all my emotions; anger, frustration, hurt, fear, sadness, shame, and my concerns that there was something he was not telling me. I wrote that I loved him and really wanted us to have a long and happy future together but that there was something standing in the way of this.

This sobered him up pretty quickly! I think he might have been expecting a shouting match so to be faced with a letter from someone telling him they loved him just knocked him sideways. He broke down and told me how much gambling had taken over his life and that he wanted to find help. We went out together and found the wallet he had thrown into a waste bin and the bank card he had tossed into some bushes; his attempts to cover up his gambling by disposing of the evidence of an empty wallet and a bank card that had been used to withdraw all the money in his account. The fact that there was nothing left in the wallet except 2 photographs, one of me and one of his daughter, made me feel like he was throwing away the people that he loved and that loved him and that broke my heart. However, I believed that he had realised what he stood to lose if he did not try to change, and that he was willing to find help to do this and that is how we ended up at GA.

His recovery since then has had its ups and downs but GA and GamAnon has been a constant in our lives and without it we would not have got married and had a daughter together. I am very proud of his achievement in not having placed a bet since 2008 but I believe it is wholly because of our meetings. Since first being ‘brought to’ that first meeting, my husband gradually started to work very hard at his own recovery, attending meetings all over the North East and North West. In fact I have sometimes worried that he was in danger of becoming a compulsive meeting- attender! His attendance at his original meeting group has not been so regular because of work commitments but he attends meetings elsewhere and he still keeps in touch with many other GA members by phone, and we are both so very grateful for the friendship and unity he has experienced from GA members everywhere.

Until I first attended a GamAnon meeting, I was unsure of how best to help my husband. Since then I have been on my own journey of recovery from the gambling problem, starting from the point of establishing a new local GamAnon group.

GamAnon has helped me to work through and resolve the anger and resentment resulting from hurtful experiences due to compulsive gambling and all that comes with it, as well as provided solutions to the practical financial issues. Jointly seeking help through the GA and GamAnon programmes has helped the recovery process for both my husband and myself. I am very grateful to everyone I have met in GamAnon rooms over the years who have helped me to do this, and I look forward to all the future meetings which will allow our recoveries to continue.

The other week at our meeting a recent member asked the question, why do people attend the group meetings? I thought fast and then responded.

Over six years ago our family was hit with the absolute bombshell of compulsive gambling. Never had we felt so alone and powerless and lacking any understanding of what had just happened. Luckily we were able to search the Internet and find the details of the local group. We turned up on a freezing cold February night, the place was in darkness and we stood with the cold and the despair for an hour before we gave up and went back home. Back home we called a number and were told that there was a mistake and the meeting was the next night…

So back we came and at least the place was open – we went into the room we were directed to and stood around feeling very awkward and waited for people to arrive. It seemed like ages – in reality around 10 minutes and another person arrived. He sat down with us and began to help us make sense of what we were going through….
As I say that was over six years ago, and aside from when I have been away from home due to work commitments, or a holiday I have only missed one meeting.

Had that one other person not been there that night we’d have been left in our own personal despair and who knows what the result would have been.

So my answer was I always want to be sure there will be someone there when a newcomer arrives needing help, advice, sympathy. The memory of that first night, shivering outside a dark building is burned in my consciousness. I want to be there to offer support and to keep a bargain agreement that just as someone was there for us that first night I will be there for others, and to know that others will be there for me whenever I need help and support again.
Over the years I have seen many people at meetings, at present our group is very strong – I hope it continues that way. Many people attend a meeting, get the information and are not seen again – we never know what has happened to them.

Its a small price to pay of a couple of hours once a week to feel you are part of a support group that can make such a difference to your own life and that of others. The strength of the support offered by Gam Anon is the group, its not an add on or an optional extra…