A problem gambler recovers
Pub Date: 1/1/2003
Cause or effect?
Is compulsive gambling a "chicken or egg" proposition? Is out-of-control gambling the problem, or is it a symptom?
For Karen, a Billings, Mont. native and resident, compulsive gambling was a response to childhood "issues" that led to lifelong depression which, at times, became unbearable.
After her parents divorced when she was 12 years of age, a nearly catastrophic symptom of her depression manifested itself: the "introverted" teen attempted suicide. Thankfully, she failed.
Years later, her own 14-year marriage ended in divorce'; the weight of caring for two sons one of whom required constant care because of psychological problems added crushing loads to her burdens'; a lack of financial and emotional support for her two boys and herself compounded the struggle. The depression came on with a vengeance.
Gambling addiction often exists simultaneous to other addictions and psychological problems
Her misery demanded relief and escape. She found it not in alcohol, which her own medical conditions precluded, or drugs, which her personal belief system forbade. Instead, she immersed herself in the isolation and escape afforded through total focus on the cycles, images and computations of a video poker machine.
It's now been 12 years since Karen used gambling as a means of dodging life's seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Though she still attends Gamblers Anonymous meetings regularly and relies to a lesser extent on anti-depressant medication, her confidence in herself and her ability to control her compulsions allows her today to talk publicly about her encounter with pathological gambling.
And she is speaking out in order for others to understand there is the chance, no matter how remote, that they, too, could be consumed by out-of-control gambling, but more importantly, that for everyone afflicted, there is real hope that a full recovery can be effected.
It's a 'problem' if it creates problems
"When I went gambling, my problems would disappear," Karen recalls. "But as soon as you finished or ran out of money, reality hits 10 times as hard as when you went in. Your problems are still there but now you're broke, too.
"I started doing anything to get money, like a drug addict," she remembers. "I borrowed heavily and pawned anything I could." Because of a long struggle with medical bills related to her oldest son's condition, Karen said her credit was already ruined, so writing bad checks and maxing credit cards wasn't an option.
Her compulsion dragged her so low she even took "stole," she says her kids' money to buy food because she had spent her own gambling. "I gambled every penny I could get my hands on," and though that may have only amounted to $10 or $50, it was the bottom of the barrel, nevertheless, she says.
"It doesn't matter how much you spend. The amount is not important," she contends. "What matters is how much damage you do" to yourself and others depending upon you.
Karen compares her ongoing depression and subsequent descent into addiction like putting a lobster in a kettle of water "If you turn the temperature up slowly, the lobster doesn't notice the increase in heat."
Co-morbidity
And, Karen concedes, had she not developed a gambling compulsion, her need to "self-medicate" might have pushed her down the road to other irrational, pathological behavior such as compulsive shopping or, more specifically, over-eating disorders which she has, in fact, struggled with but also has learned to control.
Karen adds that her "real competitive" almost obsessively so nature lent itself to a compulsive personality profile even though, she says, a competitive spirit is often admired as a valuable personality trait in our society.
But gambling was the easy choice for her, Karen says, because it is a "socially acceptable" and a relatively unstigmatised activity for women and especially single, unaccompanied women.
Recognizing the problem is key to recovery
The first significant development in the long road back to relative "normalcy" came when Karen was working with her son's counselor. That counselor, Karen says, spotted signs of depression in Karen.
"I had been depressed for so long that it had become my normal state," she says, so it was hard for her to realize other states happiness, contentment were possible. Counseling and therapy as well as medications revealed to Karen that "there was another side to life."
But by now, the gambling addiction was deeply embedded and progress made in getting the depression under control wasn't enough to stop compulsive gambling.
Shortly after Christmas in 1989, Karen was facing an eviction and could not bring herself, one more time, to try to talk family members out of enough money to make the rent. The ultimate escape suicide again occurred to Karen as the answer.
She had researched what constituted lethal doses of prescription drugs and had stashed a sufficient quantity. However, thinking of her impending action's effect on her eight-year-old son who was with her at the time, she attempted to find some way to get him out of the house so she could commit her deadly deed alone.
As fate often intervenes, it did so that day. No one could take her child so Karen instead cut the lethal dose in half and spent the weekend in a stuporous, semi-comatose state.
But when the drugs wore off, she understood she was in deep, deep trouble and sought out her therapist. The therapist told Karen she needed to acknowledge her gambling addiction and take measures to begin a recovery. When Karen avoided that necessity, the therapist arranged an "intervention" where Karen was confronted with the facts regarding her addictive behavior.
"That's the irony of gambling addiction treatment," Karen says. "The effect of a gambling addiction is that you have no money. To get professional help, you have to have money" a Catch 22.
Her options, she was told, were a 30-day in-patient treatment program at a private institution or 90 days at state-funded Warm Springs hospital.
Getting help
With luck, dedicated counselors and "creative" use of a social agency's funds, Karen was able to get admitted to Rocky Mountain Treatment Center in Great Falls for a 30-day treatment regimen.
Since it took three weeks in the program for Karen to even own up to her gambling addiction, the treatment course ultimately stretched to 45 days. She was also being treated for her depression and her medications were reduced and adjusted.
"I still struggle with depression," Karen says, "but now I know how to recognize it and deal with it. And I'm also learning to deal with a lot of (root cause) issues I had from growing up. You have to recognize these problems before you can deal with them. You also have to deal with them when they come up not later. They don't go away."
Treatment, continuing therapy and medication, plus regular attendance at Gamblers Anonymous meetings, has helped turn around her formerly desperate life.
"I suppose if gambling machines were outlawed, I would have found some other way to gamble," she says.
As a successful craft show promoter today, Karen says even though she has come a long way in straightening out her life, she will carry guilt forever guilt over her behavior and its effects on her children, their young lives scarred by doing without many necessities including the sometimes absent love of a doting mother.
More could be done
Karen is an advocate of expanded treatment opportunities and says she thinks the gaming businesses and public ought to foot the bill.
Karen said she thinks gaming business financial backing for the treatment programs conducted by the Montana Council on Problem Gambling is a step in the right direction. Gaming businesses also finance a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week telephone hotline with live counselors (1-888-900-9979).
And, she says, more public education regarding the potentially addictive nature of gambling, coupled with an increased legal age for gambling from 18 to 21 would also be productive measures.
"18-years-old is too young," she says of the state's legal gambling age, while voicing the hope that public awareness programs especially television campaigns could be launched to educate the coming generation.
She applauds the development of gaming business-sponsored television commercials, billboards and other advertising directing problem gamblers to help.
Finally, Karen believes insurance companies need to recognize gambling addiction as they have for chemical addictions for what it is: a destructive yet treatable disease. Treatment needs to be more available, she says flatly.
"It's an equal-opportunity illness," she says.
Source: Special Reports II, published and distributed to 180,000 households state-wide, winter 2002 by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.