Daily Prompt: Moment of Clarity
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“Tell us about a time you’d been trying to solve a knotty problem — maybe it was an interpersonal problem, a life problem, a big ol’ problem — and you had a moment of clarity when the solution appeared to you, as though you were struck by lightning.”
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“As I sat inside a cold jail cell with red swollen eyes, I thought to myself, “What the Hell am I doing here”? I sat for 5 hours waiting to be processed after the police had come to my home to arrest me. I sat waiting for my humiliating mug shoot, fingers printed, asked questions, and put back in that cement prison for another 3 hours. All the while thinking again about what I’d done, why I was here, and all for my cunning gambling addiction.”

You see, it started many years ago, gambling and I. It started as a casual past time, for a little fun and stress release. Just me and the girls now and then. But one day it all changed, and my past hurts, pains, and anger from all my childhood traumas came knocking on my door, AGAIN. Since gambling addiction is a slow, progressive, and cunning disease, before I even knew what was happening to me I became addicted to it! I learned it was easier to run, hide, and escape all those “ugly pains” from my past childhood with many hours of gambling. I had no idea how to process them in a “Healthy” way. So I began to love gambling more than “Life” itself.
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Now you would think this would be the time when a huge lightening bolt would have come out of the sky and hit me with enough force to make me have an AWE HAW” moment! But no, my life got worse before that moment ever happened while sitting there in that cold jail cell. I had been arrested for “Theft” because of my addiction, and to be “Accountable,” & take “Ownership” of my misdeeds & all for loving to gamble, this can happen when the money runs OUT! You learn more creative ways to find and get money to gamble with. When you become addicted, your mind and thinking gets invaded by the addiction as your thinking becomes distorted. This is “Just” insight, not making excuses. I had sold, pawned, traded, anything good in my life, and had  worked hard for, all to be able to “escape past hurts” and hang out with my new friend, Addicted  Compulsive Gambling.
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Even as I went through the court process, and having a lawyer to  help me, this was not the time I had that bolt of lighting hit me,…. Yet! I was dealing with a “Huge Big Ole Problem.”……..
It wasn’t until a week or so before my sentencing date in court for my crimes, that I had another  friend come knocking on my door. It was evil & my addiction telling me that it would be better for me to just “disappear” from this earth then to go on in life. That “Suicide” was the answer to all my problems, present and past pains. I agreed, and a week or so before I was to be sentenced, I took all my “Bipolar Medications” all at once, as I wanted to just go to sleep and never ever wake up again! YES, that answer was really looking appealing to me.
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Today, I am still very aware “GOD” had a very different plan and path for me! As I lay in my hospital bed, my stomach hurting from being pumped, and feeling disoriented, that was when “FINALLY” the “Bolt of Lighting” hit me. I don’t know if I dreamed it or not, but while sleeping I think I heard these little whispers in my ear or head saying, “I still had too much to do here on this planet”! That is when I had some “clarity “of what my purpose was here on this earth. Not to be an addicted, sick, or hurtful person,…….No, I was destined for greater things in my life. No Lie, as soon as I got home I got on my knees and asked “God” into my life that day. Many in recovery call him their “Higher Power,” but I call him my “GOD”! He answered all my prayers by taking all my Triggers and Urges to gamble away, so I could have at least a “chance” of long-term recovery.

God did answer all those prayers, and MORE! I’m a true “Miracle” of Gods today, as I sit and type a part of my “Life Story” with all of you. It sometimes take walking through all the fear and personal pain, hurts, your past, and a little trauma to get you to a point that you will See, acknowledge  & accept that defining moment in your life. When that “Light-Bulb” goes off over your head, or when that Lighting Bolt hits you! And learning in Recovery that, “That my Past doesn’t de-fine the woman I AM Today!
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I truly believe I was to go through all I have as part of my own life Journey. VERY soon I celebrate my 7 year “Recovery Birthday” on Jan 29th, 2014 ~ From Addicted Compulsive Gambling. Today my life is full & happy! And I have been able to put all my “Demons” to rest with all the hard work in recovery, and always remembering in “A Power Greater Then Myself” in my recovery and in life to keep “Complacent & Relapse” at bay. One on my favorite “Life Tag Lines Is,”……
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“I live life in Recovery, but through it I found my “Passion Of Writing”!
I also believe each one of us has a “Life” story to tell,  and this is a little of mine…….
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**SUICIDE is never an answer from any type of addiction!…. please call the “National Suicide Hotline”** at:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Phone Number
1-800-273-8255 or live chat: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
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*May God Bless You All*
Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon