00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Margaret 00:26
Welcome back to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. I am eager to continue sharing Terra’s story, where she offers more about her journey with her gambling addiction and the poignant moment when she surrendered and asked for help. Wait till you hear who she turned to. We also discussed the challenges of early recovery and the need to prioritize one’s own recovery journey.
00:55
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:13
So your bottom, per se, reached the bottom.
Terra Carbert 01:17
I call it that. I decided it was the bottom. That’s kind of how I see rock bottom now, I’m kind of tired of the world of personal opinion. I’m tired of the world of addiction saying, oh, you just need to hit rock bottom, like I just decided it’s the bottom and start taking, you know, the necessary steps to move to the next level, in the positive direction.
Margaret 01:39
Before you move on to that point, I think we will continually dig for a worse bottom if we’re not deserve a need to find a way out, right? I also believe consequences are what woke me up to say I’m willing.
Terra Carbert 01:54
Yeah, yeah. That’s true for me, too, and the consequence that I experienced that day, that I that I became willing to admit to another human being that something was going on, and then start taking action. Was the thoughts of suicide, and also this, I was out of money, or ways to get money that led me to the thoughts of suicide. The thoughts of suicide were related to money. In particular, I’m worth more dead than alive, was something that crossed my mind, and I had a, you know, like a fleeting visualization of what I could do. And immediately I was like, I want to live, and I truly believe I chose to live that day. But one of the things that happened that early, early morning, late, late evening, however, we like to tell time in your world. I was out of ways to access dollars at the casino, and I didn’t want to go home. And they give you a little card where you get, they call it free play. And I had $5 that was going to hit at a certain time in the evening, so I was just going to, I just meandered around, and I for hours. I had to spent my whole paycheck. And my car was in the parking lot with a I don’t even think it had a full gallon of gas in it.
And I had this moment where I remembered when I had started gambling actively again. So, I stopped gambling in 2016, I had started actively gambling a lot after Grandma and died and dad and so that was, we’re talking like five, six years of just escalating behavior. But in the early part of that, I had this night where I encountered a woman as I was going from one casino to another. There’s two neighboring casinos owned with they’re kind of by the same organization, but they take a there’s a little shuttle that’ll take you from one to the other, then a couple blocks apart, walking distance. So, I was going to go from one building to the other, because I, you know, my luck had changed, and I have changing buildings. It’s going to change my luck. Of course, the rational thinking that I had going on even then, and I encountered this woman who said, hey. They picked they had busses too, that same spot. Hey, I missed the bus. I have to get to work. I spent my whole paycheck anyhow. And I remember how harshly I judged that women in that moment. And here I was at a Keno machine playing one nickel at a time, thinking somehow that’s going to get me the amount of money that I had lost that night and get me home. And I ended up really, really, really, really being hard on myself. But that is the moment that brought me to make a call for help, and my big brother was my first phone call, and I was met with love and compassion and a push to decide, what are you going to do about it?
Margaret 05:11
So, can we talk about that? Anything called your big brother after beating yourself up, being in that dark place thinking you had no options. You took the risk and called your brother and you said, I was met with love and a push to what you’re going to do about it.
Terra Carbert: Yeah.
Margaret: Tell the listeners what that sounded like and felt like, what you needed because you got it, obviously, because it helped you.
Terra Carbert 05:37
These are happy tears this time.
Margaret 05:41
What was that? What did that look like and sound like?
Terra Carbert 05:45
Yeah, so, um, it was definitely like a moment, you know, a big exhale, like a moment of empathy, like, oh, gosh, like, I, I had no idea you were going through this, and I’m so sorry to hear that. I love you. Have you told anyone else? And I had not. He was the first person I called. No, but I have to tell our sister. And he goes, well, you know, she’s a planner, right? So, what’s the plan? You need a plan. What are you going to do?
And I had, as I mentioned, the history of you know, having a lot of friends and people that I dated who had addictions, and several of whom did find recovery, found recovery through 12 step. And I said, well, I don’t know. I mean, what everybody else did and they had addiction, made 90 meetings in 90 days. Can I do that? Like I guess I’ll go to a meeting every day. And I came up with a plan. He asked me to call him back, and since you know, to find him, I think if I’m remembering this correctly, it was you know, to define the meetings you’re going to go to. And I planned a meeting a day for the next five days. There was no you know, no, no anger, no like, how dare you no question of like, did you deceive me? Like he didn’t ask me to explain it. I think that probably made a huge difference. There was no like, how long has it been going on? How long have you been hiding this thing? It was truly like, I’m so sorry to hear that. How can I help? What’s the plan? And that was the discussion, and not one of finger pointing and blaming and saying, how dare you, or I can’t believe you did this to us.
Margaret 07:28
So, acceptance in the moment present for you didn’t know, but didn’t get into their own feelings about not knowing or being lied to or hid from, and then just sort of stepped in with you and said, how can I help?
Terra Carbert: Yeah.
Margaret: You mentioned in your story of getting there, that in 16 you stopped. Was that a conscious choice? Did you stop for a reason?
Terra Carbert 07:53
2016 is that that’s the last day? That was your last day, July 30, 2016.
Margaret 08:00
Okay, I misunderstand. So, you never really tried to stop before that or stopped?
Terra Carbert 08:05
I had so I did stop in my 20s. Um, so there was this moment. So, at the time in my 20s, the gambling was definitely done with a friend and also with some candy that some people might call snow. So, there was an intersection of things, and the person I gambled with was going more and more regularly, and a person who I was dating at the time. I was also in college at the time, and I also had a toddler, and that person was somebody who really believed in me, but also partied with me. And had the bravery, though themselves a drug dealer and an addict, to say to me, what the What the hell are you doing? This is not you. This is not who you’re supposed to be. You’re the girl who’s going to finish college and make her dreams come true. And I was buying the cocaine from him. So, there was something about that too. I think it was like, wow, like you actually benefit from me doing this, and you’re telling me to knock this shit off. So, what does that say? And at the point, I think, like, I had, yeah, then he was like, you’re throwing all the way. You’re, you know, the money, you’re making it work. Like, what are you doing? And it was just that, I think, because I hadn’t crossed the addiction line, at least to the point that I couldn’t like that, I was like, that was enough. I was like, okay, I just need to stop hanging out with so and so stuff. And then just kind of altered my circle a little bit and dug into work, and dug into school, and dug into momming and leaned on that, you know, and I’m always had a good work ethic. I’ve always been a good mom. It’s not like there’s these, you know, two sides to me that I think when, when you wake up, the determined and. The and the excited and passionate about life and loving the world side of me, I contribute a lot, and I’m capable of a lot. And so, the addiction got quieted down, but it was still there. It was never treated. It was never addressed, and so and I was never taught good coping skills. So more bad stuff. You know, when the next time something bad happened in life, like the addiction would just kind of bubble up and ultimately, just couldn’t cope.
10:30
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Margaret 10:35
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11:37
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Can you relate to what you’re hearing? Never miss a show by hitting the subscribe button. Now back to the show.
Margaret 11:49
So it’s interesting, because what I hear you saying is not to use terms, but their terms families are around too. Yeah? A dry drunk experience?
Terra Carbert 11:59
Totally. Yeah, I abstained.
Margaret 11:59
You abstained from the your drug of no choice, and got busy with things people see as productive,
Terra Carbert: Yeah. And yet it was still dormantly laying there, waiting in wait. And when a sad event happened, a crisis happened, it was your natural response to go to what you knew worked.
Terra Carbert 12:20
Sure, and let’s get real, real for a moment. I was probably addicted to work. I was probably addicted to school, and I was absolutely people pleasing.
Margaret 12:32
In my words
Terra Carbert: So, it just changed lanes.
Margaret: Exactly so cross addiction is when you put down the one that you’re primarily using, and you don’t have recovery. One of the other, like whack a mole, one of the others will pop up. And so, I hear you there loud and clear, and respect your honesty in that. And also, you know, I think it’s really probably good to put at this point that when we’re living in it, we don’t have the ability to see it as you do when you’re in recovery, reflecting back on it.
Terra Carbert 13:00
Because we sound so clear right now about this right in the middle of it, I had no idea. Not without the tools I have today. Now I have the tools, and I can see I know my warning sign right. Because of recovery, because of the wisdom from other people in recovery, because of therapy, because of coaching, I can now, God willing, I can now continue to use the tools instead of the erroneous coping mechanism I had created, yeah,
Margaret 13:37
Yeah or your disease had created.
Terra Carbert 13:39
My disease had created. Thank you. Yes, I didn’t really create it.
Margaret 13:42
No. And I think that’s how nuanced it can feel to the outsider and even within our own heart and mind, the disease is what’s always let off free.
Terra Carbert 13:53
Yeah, I just did it, didn’t I?
Margaret 13:56
No I think I do it too.
13:57
Terra Carbert: yeah,
Margaret 13:58
thinking that. And I think it’s so hard even to realize how at times that’s tough for us as recovering people with an illness. It’s very tough for families to do that too. Even more so because it seems so normal, not normal again, I can’t stand that word, but it seems so logical, better word. Seems so logical that if you are able to put it down, you’d never pick it back up, because you could see all the good. And that doesn’t explain what the thoughts are underneath.
Terra Carbert 14:24
No, no, and even that early recovery experience for me, and I think a lot of people, I know that early in recovery, we can get kind of sucked into the distract yourself thing like and people will shift very quickly, to over exercising, over churching, over meetinging. Meetinging? Is that a word? If there is such a thing as going to too many meetings? I don’t necessarily think there is. But you know that that suddenly we’ve now got this other thing to pour ourselves into, and we’re still not yet emotionally well enough to see that we’re just diverting all the pain we haven’t processed, all the emotions we haven’t experienced to another outlet. And I did that early in the gambling addiction recovery. I got into a, against all everybody else with better advice, you know, because I knew everything. I got into a relationship rather early in my recovery, and that turned into two. It was a codependent relationship, for sure. And I hadn’t used marijuana in like 10 years, and I started using marijuana recreationally again, until I decided, like, wait, no, this isn’t exactly the life I want to be living, and I don’t want to be going out on the weekends every weekend and I get out. So yeah.
Margaret 15:49
Terra, that leads to a question that I often hear families ask, and I’m curious how it plays out in your journey. Even in the treatment world, in the addiction, you put your drug of no choice down you get but if you pick up another mood altering substance, it leads you more likely to vulnerably go back to what you use to begin with. Even though yours were substances, it was gambling. Did you ever find that when you recreationally used marijuana after you were in recovery with gambling, that the thought became more prevalent? Oh yeah,
Terra Carbert 16:27
Oh yeah, even the people breathing like and the See, that’s another invisible addiction to say, codependency. You’re kind of addicted to what you get from other people in terms of validation or what have you. And I don’t know if everyone who listens might be familiar with that phrasing, but that part of like, kind of making sure that he was always happy, walking on the eggshells, to ensure that he didn’t react a certain way, you know me, taking on the accountability for that person’s emotions. It became kind of an obsession a little bit. And that’s another, you know, that’s another, another addiction. I’m not sure if I’m actually answering your question, because I got off on a little tangent.
Margaret 17:12
No, but I think the little tangents worth going down again with a little more. I agree with you 100% and will tell my families and people hear this on the podcast, that in my world, the families have a drug of no choice too. It’s a walking, talking human being, while we who have a disease have a substance or behavior, that’s our drug of no choice. So, I do agree with your theory on that, and I have been obsessed and preoccupied with people, and got highs from my role in that relationship of feeling needed, valued, attaboy. Didn’t compare to what I got from a high from food before.
Terra Carbert 17:46
True for me, too. I agree with you.
Margaret 17:48
What I would love to hear is how, because families, I think again, need to hear this, how that worked for you, that when you were doing the people pleasing or the marijuana or whatever else you’re doing, it became more slippery, if you like, to consider gambling like that showed up in a you didn’t knew it because you’ve been in recovery. But was it something that became more forefront where it had been more in the back?
Terra Carbert 18:15
Yeah, thoughts of gambling increasing in that time? You mean, yeah, I would say so, or even almost diminishing. So in the our recovery program, it’s, don’t gamble for anything. Don’t go in or near gambling establishments. And gambling is considered anything with a chance to win. And I did catch myself kind of excuse making, or I’m like, oh, I can enter this raffle. I can play this bingo game. It’s free bingo, or it’s just for a purse. I can do this silent auction. And to many of the people in the world, that’s not a risky thing. But for me, any win for money or for not, is risky, because it can create that same elated sensation or high that I would get from gambling, or even the near miss of gambling and not winning. And so, I definitely saw myself trying to blur the lines there. And I would say I also saw myself blurring the lines with Candy Crush.
Margaret 19:23
So, in your recovery, you speak your brother, you think about 90 meetings in 90 days, is that what you did?
Terra Carbert 19:31
No, I did five meetings in five days. Or maybe it was six and six, and on my second day, I found what I would call my home group, like, it literally felt like home. It was also in a time when I was in a weird employment situation. My son had just graduated from high school, and he was going to college, and I was working, yeah, and I ended up just saying, like, I’m willing to commit today to a meeting, a meeting a week, but that meeting, I tell you, solid, solid recovery, and I felt super connected, but there was a lot shifting and changing it to be done in my world. And that one meeting a week worked for me. Had it not worked for me, I would have gone to more, and I was also in therapy at the time too, and I still, to this day, like, if I have that home that’s my “home group.” I don’t know that everyone needs a home group, but I have one, and I’m looking at a geographic move soon, and that’s, it’s a whole part of like, making sure I’m planning to keep my recovery strong, so I’ve got picked out what are the meetings in my new radius that I need to go to? What are some online meetings that I’ll use as a backup, and what’s my commitment to make the hour long track it’s going to be now to go to a meeting, and I’ll promise I would have drove an hour to get to a casino when I was gambling. So.
Margaret 20:56
It’s a great way of framing it, and very, very valuable when excuses are being made for why a person doesn’t need to or it’s too much, or what lengths have we gone to acquire, consume, get the high for families? What links have we gone to make someone well, to try and control and fix them? Are we willing to put the same energy into our own recovery?
Terra Carbert 21:23
That’s the name of my podcast. We were so Ambitious About Our Addiction, there was nothing that could stop us from getting our Fix, whatever it was. How do we get that way about becoming the best version possible.
Margaret 21:40
Great title and a great reason for the title. Join us again next week, when Terra shares more about recovery and the impact on those we love, Terra will discuss the needs and challenges for people suffering with gambling addiction, seeking services. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow this podcast on your podcast platform service, provider, or go to the YouTube channel, the Embrace Family Recovery YouTube channel, and click subscribe that way, you’ll know when the latest episode drops. Thanks for your support.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website
embracefamilyrecovery.com.
This is Margaret swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you!