Viva Las Vegas, BPD and Lack of Impulse Control

[Pretty Woman]

Recently I found out my ex is celebrating her 2yr anniversary... .in Vegas.

When I met my ex she was 40k in debt from a gambling addiction. When I thought we might get married I almost gave her a chunk of my savings to bail her out, because I know how ashamed she felt and what a huge financial weight it was on her.

So glad I had enough sense to refrain from that action as she dumped me a month later. Giving her that money would be like gambling myself.

Throughout our relationship she'd say she would like to go to Vegas someday and thought she could handle it years later. I dissuaded her. I'm not a gambler and when I have gambled I'm not good at it  so I'd rather go do something with my money than lose it in a machine or at a table. I like Vegas but if I was told I could never go again it really wouldn't be a loss for me.

My ex told me when she was at her worst she would give other people in the casino $100 bills because she felt sorry for them. Again, she has empathy... as long as she wasn't the reason for their pain. Here she's handing out $100 bills to strangers and I'm a manipulative a-hole.
Her words.

When her gambling was the worst she had just lost her job and her girlfriend at the time. I don't know much about addiction,  gambling in particular but I can't see this being a good thing. Is it possible the chaos she was going through at the time, that time in her life triggered her gambling addiction or is this something that likely won't go away?

It doesn't matter to me at this point about her specifically.  We are not together and what she does isn't my concern. My question is purely regarding addictions. They say an alcoholic is always an alcoholic. My father drank all the time when we were kids and was in AA. We were actually in a bad car accident because he was intoxicated. Now at 70, he will occasionally have a cocktail when we are out. He doesn't need the drink like he did when he was married to my BPD mom. Up until last year my younger half sister had no idea he was a recovering alcoholic because it wasn't mentioned and he would drink socially with my stepmom.

I'm wondering if my mom was a trigger for the addiction or did he even have one?
Was it the situation and not an actual addiction? Was it the situation he was in that triggered excessive binging or did he really have a drinking problem.

If you can recover from mental/emotional illness problems through hard work can the same be said for alcoholism and other addictions?

Let me say all his brothers are alcoholics that have lost their licenses. Both my cousins are alcoholics who lost their licenses. Alcoholism runs in the family, there is clearly an issue, yet is there a bigger issue at play? Do they have mental/emotional issues that trigger the drinking (like lack of impulse control)? I'm just curious in general. Hearing she was going on vacation to a place with all these triggers, a lot of lights, bells, stimuli... .smart move? It made me think of these other things in my life and addiction in general.

[FantasticMsDox]

Hi Pretty Woman  -- I throughly enjoy your well thought out and reflective posts. 

"Was it the situation or an addiction?" That's a really good question.

 I grew up in an alcoholic household, and my mom would drink and do cocaine fairly often (as a kid I went to many AA and NA meetings with my mom). But, she was also in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship. In fact, most of her relationships were absusive. But from the time I was about 5-19 she was in a relationship with a horrible scumbag man, and the drinking and drug doing, and chaos was frequent.

However, when the relationship ended for good, and we got used to peace and stability again, her drinking and drug use stopped, seemingly (in hindsight) overnight. As an adult -- looking back, it's almost as if the motivation or reason behind the drinking changed.


 My mom barely drinks any more, unless it's a holiday/family gathering. And even now, when I watch her consume alcohol, I no longer feel the fear or anxiety I felt when watching her drink and transform like when I was a child.

So I think in this particular case it was the situation. It's hard to practice healthy living and coping methods when you're in a tornado of crazy.

[happendtome]

Some people are more prone to addictions i guess, but i think it has something to do about self control, stress etc. I have also noticed that people who get easily bored, always want to try new things, see new places can become addicted. Its important to have balance in your life and that means also that you must be able enjoy days when you are not doing rollercoaster rides. It may be, Pretty Woman, that your ex was and is always on the run? So, she is looking action and excitement

[Pretty Woman]

My ex was always looking for excitement, stimuli so I can see how the gambling began for her. Like most BPD's when bored they seem to try to get that Rush elsewhere, anywhere they can get that immediate gratification.

I am not tooting my own horn when I say I lead a more exciting life than my replacement but I do. My friends aren't crazy drinkers but we do fun stuff like rent tiki boats for the day, go on local trips together, take fun art classes... .last week we made soap and went for drinks and dinner after.

My replacement is a self proclaimed couch potato. She is younger than me by a few years but her ex is a woman in her late 60's. They hang out with the ex and all her friends, women a lot older than us. It seems like she's always dated older women (her current gf) All their friends are severely overweight and their social life is food related. It just seems the opposite of how my ex was with me but it could have been mirroring. She loved to bike ride and go out on boats. She was fairly active. Now she isn't. I know towards the end of our union she was very depressed over her weight. Now she's about 50lbs heavier.

[happendtome]

My ex was always rushing, it was like if she doesnt do this and this and if she gets old then... .then like she would regret that she didnt do those things. I think that when you are old it doesnt matter anyway what you did or didnt. If people are only after "doing something" then they will burn their balance eventually. They are running from life and it may become addictive itself. I think my ex was/is afraid that she was/is missing out something if shes not everywhere and doing everything.
And i guess thats why it so easy for them to change partners too. They are always looking if the next one is better, so they dont want to miss that opportunity if someone smiles to them. They want to find out. So they leave us. They dont take time for analyze.

[roberto516]

Alot of this has to do with their inability to handle stressors and lack of self control. I would argue anytime one of us has been discarded it has been an impulse of the moment disguised as a fact they had to do.

And going from one thing to the next is them trying to find their true "self". They don't have an inner self so they look for it outside of themselves. We were all at one time our BPD's "self". It's sad. But once the idealization phase happened she became my "self".

Ill take solace that I'm aware of this can can work on it.