January 6. Rob Lohman. One day, Rob came face to face with an enemy—and took it down. From there, he launched Lifted From The Rut, a resource for people who were looking for help with recovery, and the podcast Beyond The Bars Radio, where he hosts discussions about addiction, incarceration, and recovery.
Don’t gamble with your life. Deal with destructive habits before they deal you out.
Rob made a killing—the most money he had ever made in one night. He had started his gambling spree with $200 and ended with $12,000. As he put the money into a Vegas hotel safe, he told his buddy, “Don’t let me get this out.”
But two days later, Rob rented limousines to drive him and his buddies to the casinos. And he lost every penny. He stumbled back to his hotel room broke, drunk, and miserable. He stared out his fifteenth-floor window and imagined the glass shattering. Rob grabbed a chair. He would throw it through the window. Then he would follow.
Rob launched the chair. But it bounced off the glass, rebounded, and bashed him in the head. Rob landed on the floor.
After that night, Rob got help to stop drinking. And he stayed sober for 18 years, but Rob never dealt with his gambling addiction.
He married. He had children. And his family suffered. Because when Rob wasn’t gambling—and racking up credit-card debt to pay for it—he took other financial risks. He went through bankruptcy. And it made Rob believe that—as a husband and a father—he had failed.
One night, Rob watched a movie about a man who couldn’t “live up.” Afterward, Rob couldn’t sleep. Self-hatred raged. It kept escalating.
Then he snapped.
Frustrated with clutter from a remodeling project, Rob threw cardboard boxes onto his patio and set them on fire. The flames soon burst out-of-control. And a gas tank exploded.
Rob and his family escaped out the front.
At first, Rob didn’t tell anyone he had started the fire. But as he prayed, he realized he would have to lie for the rest of his life or come clean. He turned the consequences over to God and confessed.
Convicted of arson, Rob spent 18 months in a low-security prison. While there, he learned to let God be his foundation. He started to believe he wasn’t a failure. He was a beloved, forgiven, valuable son of God.
Eventually, Rob was released and reunited with his wife. But healing their marriage wasn’t easy. When they fought, Rob hit the casinos to numb the pain. He spent hundreds of dollars on scratch cards. If he stopped for coffee at a convenience store, he bought cards—sometimes huge stacks of them. If he was home, he obsessed about buying scratch cards. He snapped at his kids, said he had to return a video to Redbox, and left to buy cards.
Rob never fully understood his addictive lifestyle until he started work in the addiction-recovery field. There he heard about process addiction—addiction related to repeated behavior, not substance abuse. The rush of gambling—whether he won or lost—released dopamine in his brain and made him feel better for a while. But his mind was never quiet. His obsession with gambling exhausted him, hurt his family, and damaged every part of his life.
Then he learned—again—about his identity as a child of God.
“Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s marvelous love that he has lavished on us! He has called us and made us his very own beloved children. The reason the world doesn’t recognize who we are is that they didn’t recognize him. Beloved, we are God’s children right now; however, it is not yet apparent what we will become. But we do know that when it is finally made visible, we will be just like him, for we will see him as he truly is” (1 John 3:1–2 TPT).
When Rob hung onto his identity as God’s beloved son, he was able to ask God for help and work to conquer his addiction. He attended Celebrate Recovery, marriage counseling, and Financial Peace University. He set up accountability partners. To avoid the temptation to purchase scratch cards, Rob bought his coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts.
Rob’s new, quiet mind no longer obsesses about gambling. He’s gone from “hating the image in the mirror” to “loving the God-given potential within.” Now, Rob coaches others to get out of damaging behavior patterns and “regain the hope that they too were created for a greater purpose.”
“[God] lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand” (Psalm 40:2 NIV).
Is there a destructive habit you need to deal with? Don’t gamble with your life. Deal with destructive habits before they deal you out.
Based on an interview with Rob Lohman, 2019.
Would You Like to Learn More About This Man?
You can hear Rob’s podcast: https://www.mentalhealthnewsradionetwork.com/our-shows/beyond-the-bars/.
Self discipline starts from within. And it’s largely about doing for others what they need. Helping where you can. And making it a point to listen and care.
~ Rob Lohman