Prayer does not change God, wrote Soren Kierkegaard, but it changes him who prays. Those of us in the Gamblers Anonymous Program who’ve learned to make regular use of prayer would no more do without it than we’d turn down sunshine, fresh air, or food—and for the same reason. Just as the body can wither and fail for …
Taking a long hard look at those defects I’m unwilling or reluctant to give up, I ought to rub out the rigid lines I’ve drawn. Perhaps, in some cases, I’ll then be able to say, Well, this one I can’t give up yet…. The one thing I shouldn’t say: This one I’ll never give up. The minute we say, No, never,” …
What causes compulsive gambling? Did we gamble because of some inner flaw or shortcoming or life situation? Gamblers Anonymous: A New Beginning says: We don’t know and … we cannot afford to care. Those who come to us need help immediately…. The benefits of introspection and speculation are paltry when compared to the rewards of helping others regain …
Without freedom from compulsive gambling, we have nothing. Yet we can’t be free of our obsession to gamble until we become willing to deal with the character defects that brought us to our knees. If we refuse to work on our glaring defects, we’ll almost certainly return to our addiction. If we stay clean with …
Some of us, after we’ve taken the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and then the Seventh Step, sit back and simply wait for our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings. The Gamblers Anonymous Program reminds us of the story of St. Francis working in a beautiful garden. A passerby said, You must have prayed very hard to get …
I heard someone in the Gamblers Anonymous Program once read, Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well, regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house. That is what Step Seven means to me—that I’m going to clean house and will have all the …
So often, in the past, we prayed for things, a windfall, or a streak of luck. I’ve learned in Gamblers Anonymous that real prayer begins—not ends—in asking God to change me. In fact, that’s exactly what the Seventh Step suggests: humbly asked God (of our understanding) to remove our shortcomings. We ask God for help through His …
After we take an inventory, determining and admitting the exact nature of our wrongs, we become entirely ready, as the Sixth Step suggests, to have these defects of character removed. Sure, it’s easy to feel like that and be entirely ready on a morning-after a gambling fiasco, but we know in such desperate moments that our motive may be colored by …
All of the Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural inclinations and desires; they puncture, squeeze, and finally deflate our egos. When it comes to ego deflation, few Steps are harder to take than the Fifth, which suggests that we admit to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our …
How does the Gamblers Anonymous Program work? newcomers sometimes ask. The two answers I most often hear are very well and slowly. I’m appreciative of both answers, facetious as they may first sound, because my self-analyzing tends to be faulty. Sometimes I’ve failed to share my defects with the right people; other times, I’ve confessed their defects, rather than my own; at …