Thought for the Week

Timothy D. Stein, MFT, CSAT

June 5, 2017

Playing Craps

Gambling is not something I recommend for your recovery.  The basic definition of gambling is that you have a chance to win and a chance to lose.  Craps, as a number of people have explained to me, is the only game in which the “house” does not have an advantage; you have a 50/50 chance of winning or losing.  For gambling, those odds may be good but they suck for sobriety.  If every time an addict was triggered or in a challenging situation they had a 50% chance of relapse, nothing significant would ever change in their life.  We need to significantly improve the odds by using others in our program to guide us.  When we don’t reach out to others in our support system, we are playing craps with our sobriety.

When have I gambled with my sobriety?  How often has that gamble worked in my favor?  How many times is too many when it comes to losing that bet (losing sobriety)?  What gifts await me as I more consistently pick up the phone and ask my community to guide me?