Day 430 - Dealing with temptations a year after quitting
I have said before that I still think about gambling all the time, most of that thinking is not actually related to temptations to gamble or desires to gamble, but rather keeping up a consistent narrative about why I am quitting, why it is important, and why it is hard. Yet, I do still get temptations to gamble, sometimes more severe then others. Recently, I had a temptation to play some poker, you know, just put on a small amount of money and play a single tournament.. you know.. easy, no big deal.
In recovery, it often seems like the temptations you get are so simple… I mean, one single poker tournament? That isn’t going to destroy my life, that isn’t going to make me go broke. Think about all the times I enjoyed playing in a nice long online MTT tournament… just relaxing and having a good time. Temptations like these are incredibly dangerous. I know that one small poker tournament would turn into more then just one… that it would end up with me again destroying my life. Yet, in the moment it seems so easy to give in, so easy to want to just gamble a little tiny bit. I certainly do not have the answers for how to best overcome such temptations, yet I am going to detail some strategies that I have successfully employed.
Begin the battle with your brain
The first thing you need to do when facing a temptation is to initiate the battle with your brain, your rational brain against your gambling brain. As soon as I get tempted to gamble I make sure to start up a battle in my mind. It helps to separate my mind into two parts here, the first is my rational mind, the mind that is 100% done with gambling and knows it. The second part is my gambling mind, the part of my mind that wants to gamble, that wants to rationalize gambling. By making it a battle, by defining an enemy, it helps me separate the temptation from the actual decision to gamble again.
By taking the time to start up this battle you break the link between the trigger to gamble, and the immediate action. Regardless of how tempting it would be to gamble again, regardless of how deep an urge I feel, regardless of how down on myself I am in the moment, before I give in… I start the fight.
Truly, the method is pretty simple: SLOW DOWN AND THINK ABOUT IT.
Realize the danger
If you ever see a person who is struggling with addiction in movies or TV shows there is a 100% chance that there will be some scene involving the dialogue “it is just x…”, “how bad can it be..?”, “I can handle just a little…”, “what harm can it do?..”, and so on. Basically, before the relapse you have some kind of thought that is basically “Giving in a tiny bit in this moment won’t be a problem”. Your brain is trying to tell you that there is no danger, that a lapse now won’t mean anything. Relapse is dangerous because no matter how long you have in recovery, in abstaining, your brain is still at some level going to want you to give in, to get its fix back. The longer in recovery, the more our defenses to these urges weakens. In the first weeks of quitting, I was spending hours and hours a day of dedicated thought building up my defenses to the urges. I had to, or I would of been gambling again in no time. But now, a year later, these defenses have slipped, this is mostly just do to time and the fact that I don’t have as many urges and they are not as strong.
Yet, a big urge is always right around the corner, it will happen, and what is critical is that you realize just how dangerous they are. One small slip will lead you back to addiction, 100% of the time. The danger with relapse is that no matter how much you tell yourself it is just a tiny slip, just a sip of wine, just one poker tournament, you will relapse completely and it will be worse and you will hate yourself more then ever.
Give me the choice between making a singe bet on the game tonight and running in traffic at night…. I am choosing traffic, because I know that the bet is more dangerous, that it has more of a chance of destroying my life then anything else. I am more scared of that one bet, that one sip of win, that one bump of coke, then I am of running traffic.
Find the essential argument
Every temptation is different, and thus every battle inside your mind will also be different. The reason I dismiss an urge this time may be completely different then the reason I dismiss the next. I may fight off this urge by realizing how dangerous relapse is, yet the next time I may not find this argument as powerful. I may need to find a different reason. Personally, the technique I have found most useful is the following:
Brainstorm all the reasons why you don’t want to give in, all the reasons why you don’t want to relapse, the reasons you shouldn’t give into the urge.
Find the strongest argument in the moment, which one is holding the strongest this time? Which one bubbles up and seems to be hardest for the urge to dismiss? Maybe it is the danger of relapse, maybe it is realizing that giving in won’t change anything, maybe it is realizing how giving in will hurt your loved ones, maybe it is the way your cat is looking at you. Whatever the reason that seems the strongest, pick it, it is your essential argument this time around.
Make the argument as strong as possible. Hype up the reason, throw away any thoughts that are weakening the argument. Believe it, put all your faith in it.
Use the essential argument to attack all components of the temptation
The next step is easy, take that essential argument, and start using it against the urge. You are tempted because you are bored? Use the essential argument to attack that thought, does being bored matter to your essential reasoning to not gamble? Probably not. Does satiating that boredom line up with your essential reasoning to not gamble? I doubt it. Then go to the next reason for gambling in the moment, maybe you are feeling depressed. Once again, use your essential argument. Does feeling depressed right now change your essential argument? For example, I may be feeling depressed right now and want to gamble… but what does that have to do with the danger of relapse? Nothing. Pick a reason in your brain that is telling you to gamble, and pit it against the essential argument that you have built up for this specific moment. You will notice that no matter what reason you have for gambling, if you are considering your essential argument, you will find that the decision to NOT GAMBLE falls in line with your argument far more then gambling. And if it doesn’t, go back a few steps and find a different, stronger essential argument.
Once every aspect of the urge has been attacked you should be able to actually make the decision to act, and that act will be to NOT GAMBLE.
Also, sometimes this process can take a long time, even a few days just to fully deal with a strong urge. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t seems to reason with your brain, just keep fighting, keep finding new essential arguments. Quitting gambling is a decision you hopefully only make once, but not relapsing is one you know for sure is a decision you have to make for the rest of your life.