Gambling addiction recovery: Self-pity, victimhood and relapses. why you must distinguish between self-love and self-pity
Disclaimer: The mention of victimhood gets people angry, so read this first
I thought I’d start this post with a small disclaimer as I am aware that the topic of victimhood and self-pity gets peoples’ reactions going. Before you embark on reading, please know that by using these words, I am not saying that you have not been victimized. I am fully aware that casinos, gambling facilities and all sorts of traumatising situations you have endured will have left you feeling like you had a raw deal in life (and for many, it is the absolute truth that they have).
The degree of victimhood is however not really correlated to the external cause. It is a state that we arrive in through a certain type of thinking about the cause of our felt distress. It removes our sense of power over situations and makes us feel vindicated in our stance that something outside of ourselves has to change for our situation to feel different.
What I will discuss in this blog post is tied in with ways of thinking and emotional coping; an area where operating from a victimized state will never be of help. Why? Because it will remove your individual sense of power and put the locus of control outside of yourself. With that, it does not mean no other people or institutions hold any responsibility or blame. They may well do! But you will still need to help yourself in the position where you are now. Irrespective of what actions you then take to properly deal with any other situations that have contributed to your pain.
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A common stumbling block for people in addiction recovery is low self-worth. Not feeling good enough, feeling unloveable and or like a ‘failure’ can represent both the chicken and the egg of the addiction. At its roots, the addiction might have been an attempt to plug a hole where connection to the self and/or others otherwise would have been a better solution. The continued use of substances, gambling, sex, food (or whatever the addiction may be) typically results in disgust, shame, and hence a continued loss of self-worth.
The early days of recovery are tough (and that’s not to say that the rest is easy). Not only might you notice that some difficult, and previously avoided, feelings are suddenly surfacing- but also, your only ‘coping strategy’ - gambling- (although a very bad one) is now off limits. It leaves you feeling defenceless and vulnerable.
How self-pity sabotages your recovery
Recovery involves not only discontinuing gambling but also learning how to recognise and take better care of your emotional needs and the gradual building of trust in oneself. While doing so, it is important to have your own back and love yourself even when the going gets tough. The inability to relate to oneself in a supportive (yet firm) fashion often leads to unnecessary self-blame, shame, and an increased sense of hopelessness and negative self-view. None of which is going to strengthen a person’s ability to fend off an ingrained addictive behaviour.
Ruminations= self-blame= hopelessness
The extended ruminations on one’s wrongdoings, lapses, and general ‘failures’ often become all-consuming and lead the person down a hole of sorrow and energy loss. The result is often a state of paralysis. If you are a person going through recovery, you would know that it requires a lot of energy to stay proactive and conscious and to show up for yourself every single day. You need your bandwidth! Sadly, the process of rumination is very likely to deplete it and you will instead find yourself obsessively preoccupied and fixating on the things that are not going to plan.
If self-pitiful thinking is allowed enough airplay — it will result in a sense of victimhood. The result is often the need for temporary remedy in the form of a lapse back into the addiction…
Self-pity dissected
Self-pity is largely based on heavy and repetitive ruminations on things we are unhappy about. They often centre on the uncontrollable and external aspects of situations which means that no matter the thinking, the easiest conclusion to be drawn is usually one of non-action and just plain victimhood.
The idea of walking around and feeling ‘wronged’ and ‘hard done by’ may also be paired with a sense of irritation at the fact that nobody else appreciates just how hard things really are.
Self-pity might bring about the short-term ‘advantage’ of providing immunity to having to take action, solve a problem or actually tackle something. A bit like when we procrastinate, self-pity might lead to a state where you exonerate yourself from having to take constructive action in response to hardship. It feels slightly easier short term but creates a lot of pain long term.
In the treatment of addiction, self-pity is a very common ingredient that precedes relapses and prevents people from moving forwards with their lives (which inevitably results in stagnation and more lapsing).
Self-pity is not self-love!
Lola had been doing her very best to stay away from gambling. She was finally gaining some momentum and was proudly announcing to her partner that she had now been ‘clean’ for one month. .One evening when she arrived home from a long day at work she felt the urge to speak to someone about her day. She was reminded of how much nicer things used to be when she was still married and her husband would wait at home and have dinner with her…
She thought to herself:
‘Poor me.. If he had not left me none of this would have happened. Why does everything bad have to happen to me. I clearly can’t make good choices in my life. I won’t be able to make it in recovery so just ‘fx it’ — I may as well just give in. Besides I deserve some comfort. I might just have a few bets to give me some hope’
And with that Lola broke went ahead and reinstalled one of her previously deleted gambling apps.
Curiously, at the time of her first few bets, Lola had thought she was engaging in an act of ‘self-love’. ‘Isn’t it nice to give myself what I need?’ she had thought to herself.
The following day, however, her ruminations were going strong. She was calling herself a failure and a fraud and concluded that she will never be able to master recovery.
On reflection, Lola realised that in the moment of despair, she had been overcome by sadness, and self-pity and felt powerless. Although she could afterwards identify that gambling in this context had not made her feel better- it felt at the time as the only thing that could provide escapism from the pain. Her mind had unhelpfully been rationalising the gambling as a way to ‘help herself’ through a tough time.
The inconvenient truths and pitfalls of self-pity/victimhood
# It gives you an illusion of being immune from accountability
When you feel sorry for yourself, you may end up with a feeling of powerlessness and hopeless defeat. There is a sense of ‘but I can’t…’ that can be used as an excuse for having to act one’s way out of something.
When self-pity is used to disown accountability- whether conscious or not- you are unlikely to want to accept feedback. Although you might hate the position you are finding yourself in, self-pity itself can play the role of ‘protectant’ against the unwanted hardship of having to be accountable.
I have noticed that the mention of self-pity can evoke strong reactions in those who are in the habit of engaging in it. Even as a therapist I often find that I have to be cautious in bringing it up in case it comes off as offensive. If left unchecked, it can however lead to a fast-moving spiral of self-blame, negativity, self-loathing and ultimately- relapse. ‘There is no point in trying’ goes the thinking, and in the next minute, you might think of your addiction again as a worthy response to an impossible situation.
#In a state of self-pity the devious nature of your thoughts will be firing away with bogus excuses for why you can go back to using
The mind, more specifically your thoughts, is notorious for constructing excuses to help rationalise addictive behaviours. These same thoughts that got you into an addiction, to begin with, are now being treated as gospel for how to help yourself through recovery- so be alert!
Please note how irrational this is. Once and for all, we want to recognise that there are certain lines of thinking that we want to treat with caution. A large group of those could rightfully be labelled ‘ruminations’ or obsessive dwelling on the past and your misfortunes.
Here are some examples:
‘why did I become addicted…it is not fair.. I could have done so much more with my life’
‘if only I had recognised that I needed help sooner, I could have saved my family so much trouble and suffering..’
‘I should have been able to stop this madness sooner…the fact I haven’t suggests I must be either an idiot or plain evil…’
Some of the effects:
acts as an excuse for having to be accountable. This creates a free pass to return to your addiction.
makes you feel utterly horrible inside and keeps you entirely internally focused — just not in a positive way. I am not trying to get you to neglect yourself — quite the opposite. But the idea of fixating only on what you feel you have done wrong is unlikely to bring up much enthusiasm for the continued recovery journey. By fusing with the difficult and seemingly unstoppable feelings of self-contempt you can rest assured you will want to stick your head in the sand or worse, resort right back to your addiction.
# Erodes your motivation and willingness to help yourself
Victimhood will make us feel powerless and low in energy. These feelings are going to act as obstacles and make each proactive step towards recovery much more difficult and strenuous.
The legitimising of taking no action happens easily by the time you have written yourself off as a helpless victim to circumstance.
#Acts like a fan to the flames of shame, humiliation and self-loathing
In a state of self-pity, you might find yourself wallowing in painful memories and cringeworthy situations that your addiction has given way to. Rather than recalling that the past is the past, you become engrossed in the emotional ‘reliving’ of such events and basically recreate all the bad feelings- with the ramping-up that comes from feeling that these memories are ‘haunting’ you and will never leave you alone.
So what can you do instead?
1. Assume immediate and full accountability
No matter the situation, you will need to be able to face the reality and deal with it. Even if it does not come naturally, try to recognise that the only way forwards is to assume responsibility for your situation and any feelings about it - and take charge of learning the necessary skills that can assist you long term. Being reliant on short-term fixes and/or hiding behind a state of victimhood is never going to make you feel better inside.
2. Let go of pain by validating and processing — release some of the pain in a constructive manner
Nobody is going to rescue you from your addiction and the pain you have been covering up is going to feel very real. The pain does need to be taken care of! Just not via the process of self-soothing with self-destructive measures.
The idea of disengaging in self-pity has nothing to do with the validity of your emotional pain. You are 100% entitled to feel hurt, let down, upset, traumatised etc.
There is however a big difference between feeling our pain and wallowing in it for the purpose of giving ourselves an ‘action-immune’ victim status.
We need to allow the pain to be felt. So stay with it, validate your feelings and allow them airplay by writing, speaking or expressing it internally to yourself. Seek out a support group to gain a community where you can safely share, but also be ‘called out’ on unhelpful processing styles. Stay with how it feels and try to maintain the stance of a ‘neutral observer’ of your pain. It may feel like crap but you still have choice and control over how you act.
3. Try and connect your goal with your higher purpose
I would argue that NOBODY has on their goal list ‘to be a victim’.
The victimhood status is often the result of immature and poor coping skills, early unmet needs and abundant negative thinking. The good news is — you can heal from all of this! Yes, it will be hard at times but it can absolutely be done.
Remind yourself that in order to rise above this low feeling and keep with some positive actions, you need to aspire to be more than just a helpless victim. To conquer your addiction long-term, you need to be able to upgrade your destination and visualise and connect with your own idea of what that person will be about. Try to focus on that for a minute and then backtrack and set some small achievable sub-goals for yourself.
4. Replace your self-pitiful inner ‘dialogue’ with some positive benchmarking and gratitude
Positive benchmarking is a term I made up but is essentially the idea that you remember where you’ve been before, and dwell for a moment on how far you have come. You can apply this to any area of life and it yields a really nice feeling of accomplishment.
Example:
‘look how much I used to struggle with my mornings, yet now I am actually getting out of bed most days without much ado’
‘in the past I would have definitely relapsed if I was this stressed, at least now I am able to keep on going with a level head’
When you guide your mind to pay attention to the many steps forward you are already taking, you will start bringing up a feeling of gratitude. Gratitude is THE antidote to most other negative mood states and actually, as research suggests, something that we can train our minds to get better at.
Takeaway: Self-pity may masquerade as self-compassion but the two have vastly different outcomes
Some people I speak to (particularly those in addiction recovery) will say things like ‘surely I need to be allowed to live a little’ — — and with that, they provide themselves permission to return to their addiction in the name of acting with ‘self-compassion’. This is warped reasoning, yet it is understandable how the two can become mixed up. In order to check whether your motivation is one of genuine self-compassion — ask yourself:
‘Is the long term of this action going to take me closer to my values and the kind of person I want to be or further away from them?’
Self-compassionate acts, even at the level of speaking kindly with yourself, will yield a good feeling long term even if, at times, it means firmly depriving yourself of something that you desire in the short term! Self-pity and victimhood on the other hand will not. Instead, you will end up feeling demoralised and helpless in the face of your addiction.
image credits BreizhAtao at Shutterstock