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What is Gamblers Anonymous?
“GAMBLERS ANONYMOUS is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from a gambling problem.”
Gamblers Anonymous was started in January 1957 when a couple of men just started to chat about their misery due to their compulsive gambling habit. As time went on and they met each other regularly, they both realized that they had a concept here since they had not returned to gambling. They were able to discuss their issues with it and overcome. They decided that they would use the basic 12 step program from Alcoholics Anonymous to live their daily lives from. With this, they held their first official Gamblers Anonymous meting on Friday, September 13, 1957 in Los Angeles, CA. Since this meeting, Gamblers Anonymous has grown world wide.
When and if you decide that you would like to take back control of your life and decide that you would like to go to Gamblers Anonymous, the first thing you need to know is that it doesn’t COST anything and there are no expectations from you except that you have the desire to stop gambling. The group is not associated with anyone or anything. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, black, white, catholic or Jewish. All that matters is you have decided to stop gambling and want to build a support group. They do ask that all members remain anonymous.
Gamblers Anonymous has implemented the 12 step program that Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous have used and been successful with. Since the 12 step program is a commonly used program, I would like to give you the 12 steps so that you can see how simple life can be without gambling.
- We admitted we were powerless over gambling - that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to a normal way of thinking and living.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of this Power of our own understanding.
- Made a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have these defects of character removed.
- Humbly asked God (of our understanding) to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having made an effort to practice these principles in all our affairs, we tried to carry this message to other compulsive gamblers.
Now that you have decided to at least think about the idea that you may have problem with gambling, let me help you by answering some very common questions.
First, how do you stop gambling? ADMIT you have a problem with gambling. Admit that gambling has taken control. Admit that you no longer decide that you don’t want to gamble. Once you admit that you have a problem and succumb to it, the task of getting and maintaining and support group to help you with your problem will be that much easier.
How do I know I am a compulsive gambler? When did you start gambling? When did you stop? When you first started gambling, what type of life were you living? When you stopped, what kind of life did you have left? Has gambling become the primary focus in your life? Look at some of these questions, and then look at yourself. Are you a different person?
Will I be able to gamble again? NO. Once a compulsive gambler, always a compulsive gambler. It’s a treatable disease, not curable.
I only gamble once in awhile, but when I do, it’s kind of a binge. Do I need help? Refer to the question concerning How do I know I am compulsive gambler.
Can I just read the literature from Gamblers Anonymous and quit? Yes, you can, but normally this does not work. Gamblers Anonymous is not about the written material. It’s about the fellowship and sharing with other compulsive gamblers.
Will everyone know that I am going to these meetings and I have a problem? NO, this is why Gamblers Anonymous has anonymity. You use only your first name and anything said within the walls of a Gamblers Anonymous meeting remain in the room.
How do I go to a meeting? Check your local newspaper or call your local Gamblers Anonymous chapter for meeting times and places.
GOOD LUCK and remember, ONE DAY AT A TIME!!!!!
Current News
Smoking ban still applies to bingo halls
A Jefferson Circuit Court judge has stuck down a district court order that prohibited the Louisville Metro Health Department from enforcing the city’s old smoking ban in bingo halls.
A district judge had ruled in April that the bingo halls are private clubs and exempt from the ordinance.
But in a Dec. 28 ruling, Jefferson Circuit Judge W. Douglas Kemper ruled that District Judge Sheila Collins exceeded her authority in striking down the ordinance as it relates to bingo halls.
He ruled that state law only allowed her to determine if the Louisville Metro Code Enforcement Board of Appeals acted arbitrarily.
The Jefferson County Attorney’s office only obtained a copy of the Circuit Court order this week.
Kemper effectively ruled that if the bingo halls want to challenge the ordinance, they must file a separate suit in Jefferson Circuit Court.
Kemper remanded the case to district court and ordered the judge to make a finding as to whether the code enforcement board acted arbitrarily.
Whatever the final outcome of the case, it will probably not matter in July, when a new smoking ordinance takes effect that bans smoking in virtually every work place.