Breakfast of Choices
Everyone has stories of transformation. And some of them include moments, or years of intense adversity, a time when it felt like there was no hope. This podcast, "Breakfast of Choices," holds space for people to share their true, raw and unedited stories of overcoming extreme struggles, like addiction, mental illness, incarceration, domestic violence, suicide, emotional and physical abuse, toxic family structures, relationships, and more. Trauma comes in so many forms.
Every week, as a certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist, Recovery Coach, Life Transformation coach and your host, I will jump right into the lives of people who have faced these types of adversity and CHOSE to make choices to better themselves. We'll talk about everything they went through on their journey from Rock Bottom to Rock Solid.
Through hearing each guest's story of resilience, my hope is that we'll all be inspired to wake up every single day and make our own "Breakfast of Choices". More importantly, that we'll understand we have the POWER to do it.
When someone shares their story, it can be unbelievably healing. And it can be just what someone else needs to hear at that exact moment to simply keep moving forward. So I hope you can find "that one little thing that sticks," along with hope and encouragement to just keep taking it one day at a time.
And now let me be the first to welcome you to the "Breakfast of Choices" community, a non-judgemental zone where we learn from, lean on and celebrate one another. Because the opposite of addiction is "connection", and we are all in this together.
If you would like to tell your story, I sure would love to listen. Please email me at Breakfastofchoices@gmail.com.
Respects,
Jo Summers.
Breakfast of Choices
From the Shadows of A Gambling Addiction to a Journey of Healing and Hope-Gail Fraser's Story
What happens when the thrill of the game becomes an all-consuming escape? Journey with us as we unravel the compelling story of Gail Fraser, a courageous and inspiring woman who bravely bares her soul and recounts her tumultuous battle with gambling addiction. Gail's story is one of heartbreak and resilience; and the fight to reclaim her life. She lost a long-standing marriage, a thriving career, and the comfort of her community to the seductive grip of online gambling. Raised in an environment where addiction loomed, she knew she was playing with fire but couldn't resist the allure of gambling as an escape from life's pressures and pains. Listen as Gail shares the raw and painful reality of her financial downfall, the lies that kept her trapped, and the moment she realized she could no longer hide from her addiction.
In this episode, we also shine a spotlight on the often unnoticed dangers of gambling addiction, exploring how easy access through technology has ensnared younger generations. The conversation transitions into an inspiring exploration of the road to recovery, where accountability and self-awareness are key. Through personal anecdotes, we explore the challenging yet rewarding journey to self-love and healing, emphasizing that recovery is not just about abstaining but transforming oneself for the better. Gail's journey offers hope and proof that no matter how far one has fallen, there is always a path to rebuild, rediscover, and ultimately thrive.
From Rock Bottom to Rock Solid.
We all have them...every single day, we wake up, we have the chance to make new choices.
We have the power to make our own daily, "Breakfast of Choices"
Resources and ways to connect:
Facebook: Jo Summers
Instagram: @Summersjol
Facebook Support: Chance For Change Women’s circle
Website: Breakfastofchoices.com
Urbanedencmty.com (Oklahoma Addiction and Recovery Resources) Treatment, Sober Living, Meetings. Shout out to the founder, of this phenomenal website... Kristy Da Rosa!
National suicide prevention and crisis, hotline number 988
National domestic violence hotline:
800–799–7233
National hotline for substance abuse, and addiction:
844–289–0879
National mental health hotline:
866–903–3787
National child health and child abuse hotline:
800–422-4453 (1.800.4.A.CHILD)
CoDa.org
12. Step recovery program for codependency.
National Gambling Hotline 800-522-4700
Good morning. Welcome to Breakfast of Choices life stories of transformation from rock bottom to rock solid. I have with me my guest today, Gail Fraser. Gail's from Canada and we met on a Facebook site for recovery. Gail is a recovering gambling addict and I am so amazed to meet with Gail today because this is something that really needs some attention put to the recovery of gambling and how widespread that it actually is and why, and Gail is really going to fill us in today, not only on her life story but really give some insight to how this can become such a situation very quickly. Good morning, Gail.
Speaker 2:Good morning Jo. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course I am, like I said, I don't know if excited to have a gambling addict is the right way to put that. What I'm excited about is just being able to give this some awareness and bring it to light and explain and let everybody know how this becomes such an issue so quickly with, especially, the online world. So thank you so much, gail, for helping me do this this morning.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it Of course, for me, it's being of service and giving back and trying to create awareness, because it is a huge issue.
Speaker 1:And you're going to be able to share. You know addiction and recovery is already such a huge issue but you're going to be able to really fill in the bubble and the gap of gambling addiction. So that is what I'm so happy about today to put that awareness out there. So share a little bit of your story with us, Gail, and how that kind of came about for you. You started to share with me a little bit how you grew up, about your parents. Tell me a little bit of your story, with a scale, and how that kind of came about for you. You started to share with me a little bit how you grew up about your parents. Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:So my dad was alcoholic, my grandfather was an alcoholic. My mom actually had a tendency for addiction to pain medication and I watched her go through withdrawal when I was a teenager and so I always had this awareness of the fact that genetically I could be predisposed to addiction. So I always watched myself very, very carefully around substances. But yeah, gambling just snuck up and hit me in the back of the head and came out of nowhere. So I gambled for 20 years total. It cost me a 33-year marriage, a career, a home community. It cost me everything, absolutely everything. At 56 years old, I had to start my life over again in a new place, living on my own, trying to figure life out and trying to figure out how to recover in a new life away from everything that I had known for so long. Traumatic event and our daughter had had had had some. A very traumatic event happened to her and my my then spouse had a job where he worked away from home a lot and I was. I was really left to handle everything on my own, to, to sit with her to, you know, and I actually slept with her for six weeks. Um, I had no one to support me. My my then-spouse was emotionally unavailable and that was just his nature. He just powered through and handled his feelings and pushed them all down and I felt like I had no support and was giving all the support, which is something I did my whole life.
Speaker 2:I was a people pleaser. I made sure that everything was okay. I think, growing up with an alcoholic father, my formative years, it always made you super cautious and you always wanted to be perfect and you always wanted to make sure everything was okay. So nobody rocked the boat, and so I did that. I went into my marriage like that. I went into a marriage where I would lie to make sure that no one got upset and everything was fine. It started as just my gambling started. I was totally online gambler, did not live anywhere close to casinos, and so I just found a game one day where I was, you know, offering free coins for deposits. You know how they do it and it was just, you know, a way to just kind of tune everything out and have something to do. It was just a way to just kind of tune everything out and have something to do and it quickly, very quickly, became my escape, became all-consuming, became something that if I went a day, without having checked into my accounts and saw what was happening, that I would get anxious. It became the place that I lived instead of living in my life and it very quickly became a financial thing. I controlled all the finances in our family and I learned really quickly that I could lie and manipulate and do all kinds of things and not get caught and not get found out.
Speaker 2:And I think my husband probably suspected something was going on because some of my lies when I look back on some of my lies I think, oh my gosh, I can't believe you believed that. So I think he had an idea. Before it all came out I had sat and actually added up my debt, added everything up. I had put mortgages on a house that he thought was paid for title loans on vehicles they were going to foreclose on our house, they were going to repossess vehicles. And he had no idea. And I sat one day and added everything up, everything that I could remember, because there was a lot of stuff when it came out. There was a lot of stuff that I didn't even have any recollection of.
Speaker 2:But I added up what I could remember and I remember looking at the number going, my gosh, my gosh, and then that sick addiction in the back of my head. I don't think I'll ever remember thinking to myself it's okay, you can fix this, you can fix this. You've been fixing this for years. It's okay, you can fix this, it's going to be fine, it's going to be fine. And then I just couldn't. I couldn't anymore.
Speaker 2:I was drowning very quickly because there was just all resources were exhausted and so I had to fess up and say, okay, this is where we're at, this is what's going on.
Speaker 2:I fully knew that it was likely going to cost me everything, that I was likely going to lose Everything in my life that I had come to know. And my husband left the next day for 10 days and went to our son's and during that time wanted all the information for all the debt, all the loans and everything. And I sat for 36 hours trying to figure out if my life insurance policy would pay out for suicide, because I thought that at least it would help. It wasn't going to make a very big dent, but at least it would help, and I believe that the only thing that kept me from going down that path was that two months prior to that, our neighbor who we lived next door to and were friends with our kids, grew up together. He committed suicide one afternoon and we were home and we lived through the trauma of calling 911, having everybody there. We lived through the trauma of the family with them and I honestly believe that his passing was what saved my life at that point.
Speaker 1:You saw the devastation that that caused and that helped you. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Then it was recovery. There was no option. I came into recovery during the pandemic, so I had no resources, no in-person resources where I was living. There was resources for alcohol, there was resources for drugs, no resources for gambling. So I found all my resources, you know, strangely enough, I found them in the same place that I found my gambling. I found them online Online and I dove in. I dove in headfirst, knowing that I had to do this in order to break old patterns. I had to do this in order to make changes, so that I could be safe from gambling.
Speaker 2:And I was in a new place, living by myself for the first time ever in my life, trying to find a new job, trying to get myself centered, trying to figure out recovery and how to do life without escaping to gambling. And it was overwhelming and terrifying gambling. And it was overwhelming and terrifying. I wouldn't you know. Looking back, I wouldn't have done it any differently, honestly, because it's given me, it gave me a strong recovery. It gave me the ability to start completely over, without old patterns, without all that guilt, without, I mean not without the guilt, the guilt kind of, you know, goes with you, but without someone every day looking at you with that look that shame. Yeah, that you've ruined everything my ex's. His narrative was that I ruined his life, I ruined his retirement, I ruined our family. So being away from that on a daily basis was actually good for me.
Speaker 2:And six months into my recovery I met someone who I told right away I told him right away my history, this is where I'm at, this is what's wrong with me, and told him everything and expected him to run the other direction and he didn't. He leaned in and he said that's your past, let's just keep moving forward. And it turned out. We've been together ever since he is my person. He has been completely and totally supportive of my recovery and whatever that required for me to be successful. He's the most caring, kind human that I've ever come across and I'm so, so honored that he chose me in spite of all my past transgressions, that he saw something good in me when I didn't see anything good in myself. Really, I couldn't love myself at that point in my life. I couldn't see any good and he saw good and it's been transformational, I think, for me in my recovery having someone who so totally, completely loves me, for the person that I really truly am. It's made it super easy to be honest and transparent and accountable to someone else in that type of relationship. It's because he has been accepting.
Speaker 2:When I tried to talk him into when I moved in and wanted him to take over finances, because I didn't want to have control, I knew what happened when I had control before and I didn't want to leave us open to financial devastation should my recovery go off the rails. So it took a few weeks and then I finally convinced him of all the things we needed to do to keep us safe, from all the things that I had previously done when I was in action, from all the things that I had previously done when I was in action. And it was a hard weekend, you know, saying we need to have my pay go into your account. It can't go into my account, I can't show income because then I can get payday loans. We have to protect against all these things. I used to do and I had limited access to money because I knew that that was the best thing for me.
Speaker 2:And now things are, you know, a little bit more relaxed, but I'm I still. I only have limited access. I only use. There's one card I use and I'm accountable for everything I spend on that card. I don't carry around cash because we live near a casino. Now I'm self-excluded.
Speaker 2:I went on a trip to Ontario a couple of years ago, which is across Canada, and I self-excluded online before I went to Ontario because I was going to my dad had passed. I was going to visit family in Ontario. I knew it would be stressful. I didn't want to leave myself open, so I just always tried to ensure that I've been really safe and I'm 50, on the 26th will be 53 months in recovery and successful recovery. That whole 53 months is always conscious of the fact that all it takes is one bat, one bat placing one bat in any way, shape or form and that could take me back down that or it would. I know it would take me back down that ugly hole that I crawled out of and I don't know that I have another crawl out of that hole in me.
Speaker 1:So, gail, you said you started 20 years ago. So you started by in your mind. You're just playing a little game online, right, just taking yourself away. You're just escaping a little game online and with that type of addiction you don't see it in your face or see it in your body. You're not losing yourself in that way, you're not getting skinny, you're not sunken in, your teeth aren't rotting, you know all the things and so nobody's noticing that and it's giving you that little place of what you felt like was safety and escape and comfort. And I can just go over here and do my thing and you know kind of escape in my own little direction. You know, you said with your marriage you even walked into it, kind of walking on eggshells. Do you have? Have you thought about, like, what do you think might have happened if you had said something to him in the beginning? Where do you?
Speaker 2:think that would have went In the very beginning. I think it may have, I don't know. I think in that marriage it still would have been something that always would have hung over my head. It always would have been something that made things in our marriage less than perfect defeat. You don't admit there's problems, you don't admit that there's anything like that. So I think it still would have had an effect. It would have affected so many things for a very long time and it would have made things even unhappier.
Speaker 1:That's why I asked you, that's why I'm taking you back there, because in addiction oftentimes we feel like there is nobody we can talk to, for many reasons, various reasons, and so then we hide it even further and then that takes us even more of a spiral down that guilt, shame, not knowing how to deal with it. You know addiction in the brain is addiction and you had a handle on physical addiction. Like you knew that was an issue. This one, like you said, snuck up on you and kind of looking at that and seeing what that can cause and the devastation of that Any addiction, right, any addiction whatsoever and kind of like you see people with medical illnesses that people can't see so they don't take it seriously or they don't think something is wrong. Did you see gambling like an addiction?
Speaker 2:Not until it was too late. I was really really in way over my head, you know, vehicles being repossessed that we'd have to go and get, and I'd have to make up some excuse or some lie as to why we had to go and get a vehicle. And I was in too deep before I realized that it was a problem, that there was something going on, that there was something wrong, that this was not normal, that this was just sucking everything out of me. And I think what you mentioned too about it's an invisible addiction, like people don't see it, and I've often wondered if that's why there is such a low success rate for long-term recovery from gambling addiction.
Speaker 2:You know, we're told it's somewhere around two or three percent of us who seek recovery have a successful recovery and I think it's because it's hidden, because we're on our device or because we go to the store and we can, you know, gamble at the store and buy scratch-offs and do all these things. It's because there's no physical anything that shows. I often wonder if that's why you know we're on our phones all the time. Who knows what we're doing on our phones or on our computers, or it's. It's something that you don't, I mean, I know for me I didn't see it as an addiction until I realized I needed help and went looking for help and then realized there was this whole world of people who had the same problem I did and who did the same things I did and who lied to their spouse and who lost their marriage and their family.
Speaker 2:And my son still hasn't spoken to me. You know, my son does not speak to me because he doesn't believe that I didn't purposely set out and make these choices and do these things. He doesn't understand and I think that gambling addiction is actually one of the only addictions I know of that. All your repercussions and all the things you have to face come after you've admitted that you have a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that really works.
Speaker 2:You can hide everything and right up to that point, and then, as soon as you admit to it, that's when everybody goes, oh my gosh. And then there's all this. It's like that's when the bomb goes off. Yeah, whereas other addictions. You've got little mini bombs going off all over the place with people because of the situations and the characteristics of that addiction?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and people have seen it all along the way. Like you said, little mini bombs. You've seen that all along the way, you've seen the lies, you've seen the manipulation, you've seen how they look, you've seen what it caused and you can see it all along the way With gambling. You're right, it is very one of those silent addictions, for sure, and somebody actually just brought that up on Friday at the treatment center. She said I have a couple that's in there and she said he has an online addiction. And you hear so many people say that and kind of just toss it off to the side about online addictions whether it's gambling or porn addiction or whatever it may be, and just kind of toss it to the wayside because it's like, oh, you can't. People kind of have this thought in their mind that you can't get addicted to something like that. And oh my gosh, yes, you can. Your brain works the same way with any addiction and that dopamine that's going off during your addiction. That's not addiction. Exclusive, that's not addiction exclusive?
Speaker 2:No, no, and there's so many. What's happening too, with the gambling and the online is we have a generation of kids growing up that are addicted to their devices first and foremost. They can't put those devices down. They're addicted to their devices, and we've seen that there's, especially with the sports betting and things like that. There's young, you know, young men at you know, in their teens, that are becoming addicted to gambling on their phones, and so this, this addiction, is hitting way younger. Oh, you know, it's, it's multi generational and it's hitting kids that are way younger now, that are in their teens, that are gambling on their phones.
Speaker 1:You know, I never really even thought of that. You know, my son is 13. And of course, he's grown up on devices, right, that's just their generation, and they don't even know how to speak to people properly because they text and everything's on you online, and so that, looking at people in the eye and all of those things that you learn from socialization and you know, I never even really thought of that for him, even as far as like a gambling addiction online, I watch his social media. He's not on Facebook or anything like that. I watch that stuff, but I had never even thought to watch well, and it starts with.
Speaker 2:It starts with some of the games, whatever they're playing, and then there's ads on the games and there's ads on TSN or Sportsnatter. So there's these ads, and so the ads sneak into whatever it is that they are doing and just pull them out of there and lead them down a road. You know, first it's playing. You know, and lead them down a road. First it's playing and it doesn't involve money, and then it involves money, and then it becomes more, and then they figure out oh, I can bet on sports.
Speaker 2:I read something that was sent to me not long ago about some 13-year-old boy who had maxed out his parents' credit card on gambling. Boy who had maxed out his parents credit card online gambling. This is, this is what's happening. This, the this is, this is the reality of gambling, because people don't look for it, they don't watch for it, they don't think it's out there, they don't think kids are doing it, they don't realize the, the far-reaching effects that it has.
Speaker 2:And and that's why it's so important for you know, parents, to check your kids' phones, check your credit card statements. You know, watch what your kids are doing, watch for these behaviors, these addictions, see what apps are on their phones and it's yeah, it's just out there and it is so prevalent and there's so many. I hear that there's so many more states down in the US now that have the machines going into corner grocery stores and gas stations and all these things. And I mean in Canada. Here it's a little bit different, but yeah, it's out there and once you cross that line, we have a saying that you know, once a pickle, always a pickle, and that means that did you know to do that?
Speaker 1:Who did you talk to? How did you know you said your parents had some addictions. Did you ever do Al-Anon or anything like that?
Speaker 2:I did. I did Alateen when I was a kid because my dad went to AA, so I knew I was familiar with 12-step program.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So when I decided, okay, I've got to find something, there's got to be something, I thought, okay, well, I wonder, I wonder if there's something for gambling. I wonder if there is. So I started a search and I came across one online community and then found more. And then you know, once you're in one community, then you meet people that go hey, I go to this meeting, that's really great. And do you want to give it a try? And my home GA group, my home Gamblers Anonymous group, is actually a virtual group out of Georgia. That is the kindest, most caring bunch of people that there's a lot of really solid, great recovery and wisdom in there. And that's kind of where I've stuck. And I have to at this point give a shout out to Christina and Broke Girls Society and the work that Christina does in the space of harm reduction for gambling and creating a safe online space for women to recover in their own unique way and to be curious about recovery. And I give a lot of service in Broke Girl Society also helping Christina out.
Speaker 1:I love that a lot. That's really really meeting, a need that, as you said, is kind of harder to find out. There you can find, you know, you can look on the meeting sites and you can find all of the AA and NA and SA and even codependency, and you can find gamblers and anonymous, but, like you said, you're even having to go online. So finding meetings in your area was not even a thing for you. That's interesting. That's interesting Really no.
Speaker 2:I had no meetings in my area because there was nothing for gamblers, so I had to go on the device that I gambled on to find recovery, and some people find that they can't do that. There's some gamblers that are online gamblers, that have to seek out the in-person meetings because they're just not capable to use their device for anything other than than gambling. There's people that go, that leave, get rid of their smartphones and go back to a flip phone. Yeah, so that they cannot because it's a block for them. There are programs like Gamban and BetBlock that are out there that you could put on your device, which I did that online to start with also, but it's I mean, it's a challenge, right, because it's not widely out there, and there's some people that to go to a live meeting, even in the bigger centers, it takes them an hour and a half to drive to an online meeting or to drive to an in-person meeting.
Speaker 2:So the online meetings, especially during the pandemic, are what saved me, because I could go to a meeting whenever I wanted. There's meetings 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can hop onto a meeting from somewhere by Zoom, and a lot of these meetings have continued even after the pandemic because they realized how convenient it was for people and how much better people were able to perform in their own recovery when they can hop onto a meeting whenever they need one. You don't have to wait until Thursday at seven o'clock and drive an hour and a half to go. You can contact people. I mean, my phone is full of contacts that I've made in meetings. That contact is only seconds away. A meeting is only seconds away because you can hop into a meeting anytime.
Speaker 1:I love that for you and I love that you sought out recovery for yourself, because that is not easy to do. That's definitely. You are a strong personality already. You know you're strong, you're courageous, you're resilient. While, yes, you lost a lot, I think you've also gained a lot knowledge and wisdom.
Speaker 1:Being one, but loving yourself again and being in a space with someone that you don't have to walk on eggshells and being able to open up and fully be yourself and be authentic, that in itself is huge and you know I hate that it took everything that it took for you to get there, because that does not sound like that was an easy road at all. I I am glad that you're still here. I think I shared with you. I've had someone very close to me in my life that committed suicide and that is very devastating and there is no coming back from that. So I am glad that you did not choose that road and you chose the road of recovery. I have a saying it's not my saying, but it's something that I use all the time and that's connection is the opposite of addiction and you have found that to be so true with just being able to get connected. You know, you've said, just a phone call away, a Zoom meeting away, and I think I hope that anybody that's out there struggling that may be listening to this can realize that it can be just a Zoom meeting away to jump on for recovery, not only gambling, but AA, na, sa.
Speaker 1:Those online addictions are very serious because, like you said, you have your phone with you all the time and that's not something that you can just get away from. I suppose you could just not have a phone, but everything that we do today is online related. You know, making a doctor's appointment, just so many things that we do now require us to get online, and that in itself was definitely not thought through, was it when it came to addiction? I don't know that anybody really could have imagined the devastation of online addictions when online first started, from the social media perspective to the gambling perspective, to porn addiction, to all of it. I don't know if anybody ever was able to sit and think that through, because it's a lot. It really touches every part of our lives, like every single part of our lives, which is just crazy. It's just crazy. I am so happy that you're getting this out there in the statistics too, of that percentage of people when I think about.
Speaker 2:In the rooms that I've been in over the years and even currently, you see people come in and go back out. They come in and go back out no-transcript. It's partly that also is because it's hidden it's easier to go back out and it's a lot of hard work. Recovery is a lot of hard work and I think people sometimes think that when they enter recovery that there's some I don't know magical pixie dust that they sprinkle on you that all of a sudden makes everything okay. And no, you know, if you don't change anything, nothing changes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely and you have to be willing to put in the work, you have to be willing to make better choices in your life, and choices I mean that's kind of what drew me to you is the whole choice thing Like for me. I make a choice every single morning that I am not going to gamble that day. I make a choice, if something comes up in the day that that's not going to be my go-to, that I choose a different way to handle things. And if I wanted to gamble again, it would take not just one choice, it would take a very, very long series of choices in order for me to be able to go back out. And then at the end of those choices I would be facing having to be completely accountable for what I did, because I had things in place that would make me, that would force me, to be accountable. So it would take a really long series of choices, knowing that in the end I have to be accountable probably by tomorrow morning, that's good to know For what I did.
Speaker 2:So I make better choices and it's taken me a long time in my recovery to get comfortable with not gambling and now I can start working on. Okay, how do I control my emotions, how do I control my reactions? How do I choose how I'm going to react to something? I can't control the thoughts that come in my head, but I can control how I react to them and what I do to follow up. But I think I had to come to a point where I was comfortable, that I had a good, solid footing in recovery to then be able to explore all these other facets of my personality and my character that issues for me that created issues for me, that still have continued to create stressors in relationships and now I'm able to kind of kind of work on those and mold those into being something different.
Speaker 1:I love that you're touching on all of this, because that's truly what recovery is. Recovery isn't just waking up tomorrow and not using a substance or doing what you are doing. It's truly about digging into who we are as people and why we do some of the things that we do, and learning to make those different choices. And that's what makes recovery so hard. Because just addiction, just a substance or just money, which is truly the root of all evil that isn't the change. You know what I mean. We have to make the change within ourselves, to learn to stop doing the things that we do and to make those new choices every day. And that is truly where the work comes in. It isn't anybody that's willing to take the deep dive and look at themselves and go what am I doing and what do I need to do differently to make this successful? And it's very difficult and it is what I do every day. I'm the group facilitator in a treatment center, so it's every day providing those steps to learn how to make those changes.
Speaker 1:And I am so glad that you saw what I was talking about with choices, because it truly is about choices, and you set it up to where you have to be accountable, and that's what you have to do. You have to get real and you have to get honest and you have to set your life up for accountability. And a lot of people do not want to do that, do not want to be accountable for what they're doing, and that little oh nobody's going to know. That's the step that gets you in trouble, because it doesn't matter what anybody knows. What it matters is if you have integrity and you're doing the thing when nobody's looking. That's what matters, and I'm so happy for you that you've come to that place, because I can see it in your face. You've got this happiness and this glow about you, and that comes from feeling good about yourself, right. That comes from loving yourself and feeling good about yourself again, and I love it it's been.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's been a long time coming there. There's been a lot of guilt. There's been a lot of. I mean, I did some terrible things in my addiction. I should have gone to jail, I should have. It's only by a sheer miracle that I didn't. And people having empathy for me you know my previous family and I carried around a lot of guilt for a really long time. I didn't think that I deserved happiness. I didn't think that I deserved good things in my life. I struggled, you know, here in the last year with work. You know I had a job and then I was let go from my job Actually, all of our staff was let go when the business sold and then kind of struggled trying to find my way. And what do I want to do? It's hard to put yourself out there if you're not feeling good about yourself. And so I did a lot of work in the last few months about trying to, you know, trying to build that up and feel good about the skills that I had, and I actually got my dream job.
Speaker 1:You said that. You said that you had been working towards something, and we talked about this, you know. You said you were getting older and making a change, and I truly felt you're never too old to make a change, you are never too old to do something different and make a change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I decided to, you know, to venture into the healthcare field and I, you know, I have a ton of administrative experience, and so I took some, registered for some online courses and took some online courses and applied for a job that I thought that I wouldn't even have a chance of getting, and I got it, and so it's been an amazing, an amazing last month since Christmas Eve. I got my dream job on Christmas Eve. What a great present it was. I actually had two job offers that day and one of them was for my dream job. So it was.
Speaker 2:It was really I don't know. It was humbling and it was amazing, and it's, it was life-changing moment for us because it's going to make a huge difference to our way of life and things we can do and setting ourselves up for retirement Get to work from home three or four days a week and only on site, you know, one or two days a week, and I get to provide support to some amazing physicians that are doing really great work in our communities, and so it's yeah, it's, it's great.
Speaker 1:I love that for you, I love hearing that and you know, give yourself some credit because you worked for that, you worked hard for that. Remember that that you, you have the capability to work hard and succeed and make those right choices and you're seeing the benefits from that and the repercussions of that, and that's beautiful. And learning to love yourself is really beautiful. That's something we talk about every day. I have a little saying called fly. You know, before you touch your feet on the ground every morning, tell yourself to fly, and it stands for first love yourself, because that's the first thing we have to do is learn to love ourselves again, because it's very difficult to give love or receive love when we don't love ourselves.
Speaker 1:And things tend to change naturally somewhat when we start loving ourselves again. That the way that you feel in the morning when you wake up is a little bit different and the choices that you start making are a little bit different and what you want for yourself becomes a little bit different. And it does snowball, you know, just like addiction can snowball, loving yourself can snowball as well. So it is about making those choices in the right direction and I really, really love that for you. Thank you, you, yeah, um, I'm really glad that you came on to help spread some awareness today.
Speaker 2:It's and you can do christina's info and have you get in touch with her, because I actually already talked to her about whether I could, whether it was okay to to give a plug for for for real girl society when I did this podcast, so she would not be at all surprised to hear from you, so I'll send her contact info. She's doing some amazing work in the area of women seeking recovery and being safe in a space that they feel they're safe in. I mean because there's a lot of women that have been in bad situations and don't feel safe just in their own life, nevermind seeking recovery in a space.
Speaker 2:So, Christina is doing some amazing work and I'm so proud and honored to be able to help her out in that space and chair a meeting once a week and be a moderator and be available to kind of help her out on her.
Speaker 1:I love that very much, and helping her also helps you right with not only the 12th step, but just being able to see it from a different point of view, being able to see the whole picture and all the light from a different point of view when you're in the online meetings. What would you say? The ratio of men to women is.
Speaker 2:In a mixed meeting way more men, Mind you. Having said that, I have noticed that then, like over my four just over four years, the number of women has been increasing, as more women have found the online space for recovery, but not all of the women that come in are comfortable in a mixed room.
Speaker 1:Understood.
Speaker 2:Same with the passenger Very safe yeah of course, and so that's why the work that Christina has done has truly made a difference for many, many women in finding a space that they feel comfortable in and they feel safe in.
Speaker 1:I really, really love that. I definitely will contact her because that is truly what it's about finding a space that you feel comfortable in, a safe space that you can open up and be vulnerable, because that's what it takes. It truly takes authenticity and vulnerability and recovery. So I definitely will reach out to her and I will also add Gamblers Anonymous to my show notes, because I don't have that on there. This has been enlightening for me as well, and I really appreciate that. I really really do. I've talked about it several times and I've not really dove into it, so I am grateful. You know, I really truly feel everything happens for a reason and I'm grateful that you reached out to me, because just spreading that awareness is key. It truly is. So thank, you.
Speaker 2:It is, yeah, it is Like we've talked about it. It's sometimes a very silent addiction that people are totally and completely unaware of.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you so much for spending your Saturday morning with me. I do appreciate that and taking the time to do this, because it is your time that you're giving and that's also you giving back as well. So thank you for that also.
Speaker 2:I was honored to be the first compulsive gambler on your podcast.
Speaker 1:I am honored to have you and, again, you taught me something today as well, and I love that so much. I love learning as well, and growing, and that makes me a better person also, so thank you for that, thank you.
