"Know the Line" .....

The lastest campaign in Singapore to fight against problem gambling is on ..... you could see this TV commerical on the TV till end of the end 2009 and again during next year Chinese New Year period ... attached below is the link where the director of the ad, Eric Khoo spoke abt his new release which took him 3mths to film this 30sec advertisment .....

http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/local/38584.html


How do you feel after seeing glimse of the ad ......

I felt lousy honestly ..... My youngest is the same age as the girl in the ad .....

Yesterday was the launch of the campaign .... I was wondering the whole night, especially after I did a presentation on problem gambling to a group of students at an institution ...

1) why continue to shame the addict when recovery is already so painful ...

2) why never educate the general public that gambling addiction is an "illness" that can be arrested ...

3) why never highlight on the positive aspect of recovery .... the "light" down the tunnel ...

4) why not educate the public on "what is recovery" ???

5) does it really serve education purpose or traumatise the problem gamblers and the family..

6) for those already in recovery or family in recovery, how wld they feel .....


Perhaps this is the culture of Singapore...... .... I am just puzzled .... I shook my head in disbief when I saw the ad .... I felt so much pain, so much shame, suddenly I felt my head so painful ....

I have no doubt that education on knowing the line is important..... raising awareness is important .... but what's next ?? didn't we raise enough awareness of the last 3years on problem gambling ......

Do a survey again .... how many agree that this is indeed an illness, a chronic disease that need to be treated and can be arrested ... many wld say this is a moral weakness, spiritual weakness or plain "no good" ... or simply problem gamblers are greedy !!!

So what if the problem gamblers know the line .... ?? So what's now if we cross the line .... ?? how much do people know what happen once we stopped gambling ...... how much do people know about us like the hull of the ships with a huge hole and multiple small holes that need to be fixed ... ??

how much do people know what kind of help we need ... just simply call the hotline , go for counseloring and that's it ....

Why not highlight the positive of recovery .... why not tell people more about recovery .. why not show people that there's light at the end of the tunnel ... why why why ... why want to continue to use shame and fear tactics .....

I have no answer ..... I just have to trust God that everything is plan according to HIS purpose ... perhaps it served the purpose of the big picture ... achieving the KPI, stakeholders objectives....

I just have to write it down, process it, grief about it , and let it go .....

Life on life's term

Life won't turn rosy just bcos you stop gambling ..... I was told this when I first step into the room of recovery support group mtg .....

"Our destructive gambling addiction is just like a huge hole on the hull of the ship below the waterline. There are also many small holes around the hull of the ships which are like our character defects ..... "

Stop gambling is just the beginning, patching up the huge hole on the hull of the ship. If you don't deal with the multiple many small holes on the hull, the ship will still sink before it reach harbour safely....

On the way back to the harbour, we still got to face the various sea conditions which is never smooth sailing ..... with the damages done to the ship, the journey back is indeed gona be even more painful and challenging .... this is life on life's term ....

BUT no matter how we want to escape, we eventually have to stand on our own feet and face life on its own terms, so why not from the start of recovery? .... However, you need not go through this on your own anymore .... It's true but still sucks .... But I kept telling myself that I just have to learn to begin somewhere ... just one day at a time and deal with one thing at a time.

To be fair, looking back ..... “life on life’s terms” that I am now experiencing is quite a bit less stressful and painful than what I had to deal with each day in the beginning. Recovery, and life itself, certainly contain equal parts of pain and joy. For sure, I am definitely smiling more, feeling more serene and less explosive these days.

Thank God ......