Gamblers Anonymous

Responsibility
Author : GA

We have been irresponsible for a long time and it takes some time to get back on the right road. There is an old saying in GA: “Nothing is forever.”

“I’ve stopped gambling for a while, so where is all the money I used to have for gambling? Why am I no better off?”

Throughout our gambling years, most of us ignored the responsibilities of life, interested only in our own devious means of feeding our addiction. We were oblivious to the facts that bills had to be paid, children (if we had them) had to be fed and clothed, and all the other responsibilities had to be faced.

Have we overlooked the fact that a lot of the money we used for gambling was stolen, or that it was money that should have been used to pay the household bills? As part of our recovery, we need to reeducate ourselves in the art of handling our finances and responsibilities.

In the early days some of us were so far out of touch we did not know where or how to begin. Our spouse or someone close to us was a great help. Some of us started our recovery by handling no money at all, gradually easing into it as we began our recovery on a daily basis. Recovery is not about abdicating from our responsibilities and shoving them upon someone else’s shoulders. We must learn to become responsible members of society, but we must be careful in the early days not to become overconfident. We need to get help from our spouse (if we have one), our sponsor, and other GA members.

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