I’m a firm believer that addiction is strengthened by isolation. Removing the isolation through communication weakens the addiction and allows us to begin a path of recovery. In this episode, I share my thoughts on how over-communicating is key for both the addicted and their support system in order to find success.
Jamie: Hey there, and welcome to the After Gambling Podcast. My name is Jamie. I’m the host of this show, and the last time I gambled was July 15th of 2010. Now, the topic for today’s episode of over-communication has been something that’s been on my mind and kind of lingering for a while. It’s a concept and a topic that keeps coming up in all of my readings and all the content that I read online, videos, social media, you name it, from everybody from Brene Brown, who’s an awesome author that I really, really like, and you should definitely check her out, to Gary Vaynerchuk, who is completely on the opposite end of the spectrums from Brene in a lot of ways, but the common thread seems to be that over-communication is one of the key elements behind both of their philosophies.
And this is something that’s really come to light recently, not only on the compulsive gambler side of things, but also as I jump in and try to really kind of understand the pulse of the loved one as well. And as you know from listening to this, or maybe if this is your first time, I’ll remind you that before I became a compulsive gambler myself, I dealt with this addiction as the friend. And I desperately, desperately tried to help my friend with their gambling problem. And I was doing everything from giving them money to creating plans, to doing all that type of stuff. So I know just how devastating both sides can be. And I know how hurt and how just upset I would get, and probably to this day still feel hurt and upset about stuff that happened almost 20 years ago.
So I guess I just bring that up just to point out that I understand both sides of it. But I really, really think that today’s episode might be the key to overcoming a lot of that pain and suffering. And I’ll start off by saying that this approach is going to make things worse. And so that’s kind of a weird thing probably to say up front, but over-communication will definitely make things worse. And I think that’s the really hard thing is that you have two sides, right? You have the compulsive gambler, the addicted person. And to be honest, this topic, I’ll use gambling, but this approach, this philosophy, I think is applicable to any type of addiction. So you have the addicted, and the addiction in almost all cases thrives on some kind of isolation.
There’s a removal from kind of people or things, and it also is rooted in a lot of lies, right? So you have this addicted person that they have shame and they have stigma and they start lying about their habits, their behaviors. For us as gamblers, we start lying about our wins or losses. But an alcoholic might lie about how many drinks they had. So you have these lies. And then with gambling, especially, it becomes this mountain of lies. You tell one small lie, but then you need a bigger lie to cover it up, and then a bigger lie to cover that one up. And pretty soon you have this wall of lies that you realize the only way to kind of knock the wall down is, in our minds, win all the money back and hide the wall before anybody finds out that the wall exists.
Jamie: And unfortunately, with the loved ones, I mean, once you come into the picture, you know that wall exists, right? And so you’re looking at this wall of lies and this tangled web of one lie after another. And so there’s so much just emotional pain involved with having somebody that we’re supposed to be so close to that’s just not being truthful with us. So on the loved one side of things, I mean, there’s just so much pain involved with having somebody that we’re supposed to be so close to that’s just not being truthful with us. So on the loved one side of things, there’s so much hurt, so many questions. There’s more questions than answers. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
And then even when they do tell you or they get caught, whatever the case may be, then relapse is real. Relapses happen probably more often than not. So then it’s just like a double down on the hurt and pain. It’s like, “Man, you told me you weren’t going to do this anymore.” And as the gamblers, the addicted, we really desperately want to believe that it’s our last day, that we’re not going to do this habit, this behavior, this addiction any longer. And so we make these big promises, but ultimately we’re setting ourselves up for failure in a lot of ways because relapse and addiction is a real thing, like I said. So you have this mountain of lies, and the question then becomes, how do we unravel it all?
And how do both sides look at this mountain of lies and this just tangled mess of a situation? And then both sides look at it and say, “Okay, the best way to get through this is to make this whole situation uglier.” And that’s really what engaging in a deep conversation and over-communicating does. Because I’ll start off with, on the compulsive gambler side of things, we look at the situation, we say, “Wow, that’s a huge mess.” And the reality is they don’t know everything. In fact, they know very little at this point. So we look at it, and we say, “Wow, this person’s so upset already, and they only know 5%, 10% of the situation.”
They don’t know about this other loan. They don’t know about this big debt. They don’t know that I lied about taking money from the college fund. All these other things, these additional details that we look at, and we say, “Well, they’re going to make it worse.” And it’s especially difficult because we do, I mean, you’re a loved one for a reason. Because we love you, and we don’t want to hurt you. And we’re frustrated, we’re mad at ourselves that we put ourselves in this situation, that we put you in this situation. And that’s where I think the lies start to compound again, because we look at it and we’re like, “I’m only going to make this thing worse. Like, this is not going to get better by sharing all the details.”
Jamie: And as I’ll later kind of touch on, it’s actually the best path forward. And then I’ll flip over, and I’ll be on the loved one side. I mean, you look at the situation, you see this, this web of lies, and you’re like, “I don’t know how much more of this I can deal with.” I mean, literally, like, we’re supposed to be kind of a unit here. We’re supposed to be friends, we’re supposed to be family, we’re supposed to be married, spouses, significant others. You’re supposed to tell me things that nobody else knows. So there’s so much hurt there. And you look at the situation and say, “Man, I don’t know how much more I want to deal with.” And that’s just the first time around.
Then the second, third, tenth, hundredth time of relapse, you really are at the point where you’re like, “No, I’m checking out. I am done with this. I can’t take any more.” And there’s so much emotional pain that comes with it, in addition to the financial pain, which, with gambling, that’s one of those things that’s unique. I mean, like alcohol, like we don’t bring the other people down with our alcoholism. I mean, I guess it could be like kind of that co-addicted where you, by engaging in a habit, all of a sudden somebody else becomes addicted with you. But gambling is different in that we kind of reach out to our friends and family members for money. And so we’re pulling their asset down, pulling them down with us.
And so that’s, I think, the other root cause of a lot of this anger and the emotional pain is that, “Man, if I would have known you were just going to use it to gamble, I would have never given it to you because your situation sucks, and now it’s worse. But you also made my situation a whole lot worse.” So, like I said, you just have this situation where lies and both sides look at the same set of details that’s known at the time. And we’ll kind of talk about that, that, like I said, the 10% that they both know, and they look at it and say, “Do I really want to know 20%?” Or, on the other side, “Should I really share 20%? Can they handle more?”
And it’s on both sides. I mean, I know I dealt with it as the friend, and you also look at the person, you’re like, “Man, I don’t know how much I can get them to talk about this because I don’t want to make it too much for them.” I mean, we talk about suicide, self-harm, all those types of things that definitely play in, especially with gambling addiction. When somebody has had a low point, they may look at it and say, “The world is better off without me.” I know I’ve had those thoughts, and as loved ones, we look and we don’t want our loved one to have that thought. And so we’re real cautious in how we approach it because we don’t want to make things worse for them as well.
Jamie: So like I say, just stepping back, hopefully now you can start to see like how both sides, no matter which side you’re on, hopefully you can start to, I mean, switch shoes with that other person, understand why they may feel like they feel. If you’re the gambler, you’re looking at your spouse, and you’re like, “Come on, I need your help and your support.” Understand that, I mean, they feel like they’ve been doing that for a long time. They don’t know how much more they can give. And on the other side, you look at the gambler, and you say, “Man, you got to be truthful with me if we’re ever going to have any chance of success or establishing this relationship again.” But they’re looking, they’re just saying, “I don’t, I can’t do that to you anymore. I can’t make things worse than they already are.”
And that’s what I guess telling the truth is going to do. So where does this leave us? It leaves us with this web of lies and this huge mess of a situation, which both sides are looking at, and they’re hesitant to, I guess, dive in and potentially make things worse. And as I alluded to earlier, both sides know that diving in deeper, things are probably going to get worse. And so then it really becomes a pros and cons of, “Do I dive into something that’s going to get worse? Can I withstand it? Can I put the other person through that situation with just the hope that in doing so things will be better on the other side?”
And I want to say, yes, I think that it absolutely is worth it. I think it’s absolutely the best path. Over-communicating, telling the whole thing all at once. I mean, for the compulsive gambler, I mean, I heard this at GA once, and I wish I would’ve heard it on my first night. It would have saved me a lot of personal headache, was rip off that bandaid once, get it all out, tell everything. The person, they’re already hurt, they’re already upset, but it’s going to get much, much worse if they find out future lies down the road after they think that they know everything.
So that’s where, I guess, over-communicating on that side is definitely the best path. And for the loved one, I think it’s definitely the best path as well. I mean, over-communicate your feelings, how you’re feeling, that you don’t know how this is going to go, but trying to create a situation where you’re both willing to go in a little bit deeper is the best, best path if you’re looking to stay together and if you’re looking to help somebody through something.
Jamie: And don’t get me wrong, this is not calling anyone out. I don’t think leaving the situation, if you decide that, “No, I can’t do this anymore,” that is 100% understandable, acceptable, all those things. You should feel no shame in that because it is—it’s really, really difficult. And it’s, like I say, just understanding that we can only take so much, and at some point, you have to put yourself first because if you don’t, nobody else will. So please know that if you’ve tried and tried and it just didn’t work out, sometimes that happens, and that’s life, right?
But I guess what I’m trying to get to is, if you’re both interested in continuing on the relationship, then the best path forward is going to be just to over-communicate on both sides. And as I like to do, I like to do pros and cons. And I’ll say this is, when you look at the pros and cons, I mean, if you don’t over-communicate, the chances are that things are just going to continue to get worse or at some point down the road—like I’ve experienced—things come up and things get worse. So in that situation where you don’t over-communicate, you don’t dive into it deeper, basically you’re just kicking the can down the road, and things at some point are going to blow up.
So I don’t think that’s the best route. Whereas over-communicating, yes, things are going to be worse for a little bit. You’re going to find out things that you didn’t know, but tearing things down to that base level, I think, gives both sides something to be on common ground and to start to build again. And it’s a long process. I think it’s a lifelong process. I don’t think that the trust is ever fully repaired. I think it’s just something that each day gets better and better, and that’s all we can ask for at this point.
But yeah, it’s just one of those things that over-communication just seems like it’s the place that we can all kind of dive into this, this web of lies, this mess of a situation, and hopefully come out on the other side better.
Jamie: And that’s really my goal here is just to kind of talk through ideas, strategies, approaches that lead people from addiction into recovery. And this is one, like I said, I see a lot and I understand both sides, having been on both sides, and it makes a lot of sense to me why you wouldn’t tell things to somebody. It makes a lot of sense to me why you’d be really pissed off if somebody’s not telling you all the facts. So at this point, I feel like I’m rambling, so I’m going to wrap this one up, but I just want to say thank you so much for listening.
And I just want to say that if you do want to give it a full go on both sides, the key is going to be to figure out a way that you can over-communicate. And it starts off right at the beginning and saying, “Look, we need to over-communicate. We need to understand that things are going to upset each other.” And then you need to have strategies in place. What are we going to do, like, when things get heated? I mean, maybe you need a mediator. Maybe you do need some kind of couples counseling, group counseling, or you need to have set parameters that, okay, if it reaches this point—I mean, almost like there’s a code word—to look, nope, I’m reaching my limit, I can’t go anymore.
But have the agreement that you’re going to revisit and pick back up at another point to push through, to keep getting to a point where you tear that bandaid off completely so that you can have some common ground. So you can have a full understanding of the situation. And it may be that once you tear it off fully, that the other person says, “You know what? I’m glad you shared that with me. I love you, but I cannot be part of your recovery.” And it’s one of those things that we just, we can’t control how the other person responds to us being fully transparent and to over-communicating all of our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, but it’s a whole lot better to over-communicate and get all that stuff out than to live this life in limbo.
Jamie: So hopefully it gets to a good result, but if nothing else, we need to get to some kind of result. And I think this is just the fastest way. And that’s really kind of where I’ll wrap this up as saying that what I’ve learned over the eight and a half years is that the more that I begin to over-communicate, the better things get. And it’s extremely uncomfortable. It’s something that my default reaction is always going to be to cover it up, to avoid complicated discussions, discussions that may go south, discussions that may upset the other party.
But the more that I just kind of dive into them and say, “Hey, look, I just need you to know this. This is what I’m thinking,” and we talk through it, most of the time things—in fact, I can’t think of a time where it’s gone completely off the rails to where it’s ended a relationship. In all of my cases, it’s led to a better understanding from both parties and the relationship becoming stronger going forward. And I suppose even the first time when it does lead to an end in a relationship, I still think there’s something there, that at least you don’t have that tension there and a place where they agree that it’s not going to work out.
So again, if you’re a loved one, thanks for tuning in. Man, I hope the best for you. I know it’s hard to hang in there. Reach out for other support. I think it’s awesome that there are support groups that are just for family, just for friends, just for spouses. I think it’s an incredible thing. Use the internet, use all those things, continue to talk with people outside your comfort zone. I mean, the shame and stigma is real, and it is as real on the family and friend side of things as it is on the gambler. We don’t talk about addiction, especially gambling addiction, at all.
Jamie: So it’s something that, if you bring up with a friend or family member, they may just look at you and say, “What are you talking about? What do you mean gambling addiction? Why don’t they just stop?” And obviously, if you’re listening to this, you kind of understand that it is an addiction. It’s something that they’ve lost the ability to stop. But hopefully, this will help push through and get through some of those really tough times, knowing that success can happen on the other side. And I just like to throw myself up there as one of those people that is a success story, that yes, things can get better. They do get better once both parties get involved and kind of communicate and over-communicate their thoughts and feelings, and yeah, good things happen.
So that’s going to wrap up this episode. As always, keep in mind that I am just a guy with a gambling addiction. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a therapist. As I said in the episode, please reach out and get the help of all those people. You deserve it. Your loved one deserves it. Use all the resources that are available to you and get professional advice because gambling addiction is a serious addiction, a serious illness, and deserves professional help.
And then finally, the music for the show is Something Elated by Broke For Free and is licensed under the Creative Commons license. My name is Jamie. I thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.