Below comment was on previous post and I'll try a response.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------You see, gambling isn't your problem and it never will be or has been.
I get thoroughly pissed by amateur psychologists trying their hand at introspection and giving Gambling a bad name. gambling has ruined nobody at all ever. That is the truth of the matter.

But you, YOU know differently, don't you?

Well, actually you might be surprised to learn that you don't.
You gambled and chose to use that vehicle on which to blame your failings as a human being.

If your gambling had brought monetary wealth, you would still have those same failings. 

You're not pathetic because you lost a fortune by continually gambling. Its because you blame gambling for the mental collapse which drove you to seek resolution by gambling.

Counselling gamblers to stop gambling is generally a counter productive intervention and usually does more harm to their mental restructuring.

Hey. but who am I?
Some anonymous commentator on a blog!

Gamble or don't. You probably have a choice. If you were my daughter I would make you gamble because using it as an excuse will never set you free.

But... never stop trying to understand how. Not why, but how you were able to gamble in the beginning.


End of Comment
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I have stated in previous posts that I'm uncomfortable with the concept of gambling as an addiction. I am still not convinced, in fact I agree with the comment above. I did chose to gamble, and have no doubt that if I had been successful I would never have stopped. I am a failed gambler.

I still have a choice and may start to gamble again in the morning. I do not blame gambling for my failings as a human being, I'm aware where the responsibility for those failings lay. Stopping gambling has not cured those failings, but it has coincided with me arresting the behaviour associated with them, and I'm enjoying that.

I do not hate gambling or gamblers, in fact I admire those that have the mental make up to be successful in such a competitive field. If it appears that I'm on an anti gambling crusade then that's misleading of me, I'm not, and never will be. I have also stated that I don't believe that gambling was the cause of any collapse I had, it was the vehicle that I chose to enable my collapse.The more I think about the above comment the more I realise how right the commentator is, my behaviour and failings as a human being cannot be blamed on gambling, I chose the path I trod. If going to GA meetings allows me address my failings, and assists me in addressing them, then I'll continue to do so. As you said, it's a choice.I just got fed up of the type of person I am, and I've decided to change.

I don't understand the last line of your comment, but that's just another example of one of my failings.

Thanks for the comment.