Self-exclusion

I’m writing this article from my work. As I thought about signing the self-exclusion paper, I have to be honest and say that I’m not quite sure I am the person to talk to about this. I think my experience with self-exclusion would come across rather confusing to try to explain my behavior in one sitting.  I self-excluded after admitting my problem when I had a couple weeks into the program. A GA sister suggested I self-exclude and she went with me when I filled out the paperwork. I chose the exclusion for a perior of ten years. I was very confused at the time and numb is the only word to describe my mentality. Six months later I did go back out to gamble. I admitted I had a problem but had not accepted the fact, so the self-exclusion didn’t mean anything to me.

So with that being said, my last bet was made in 2005 and it was a jackpot win. I don’t share this in meetings as I don’t want to trigger someone but that is the truth. So there I was, banned from the casino and sitting at a machine waiting for someone to catch me. It was then I knew I shouldn’t be there. I had a feeling I will never forget and I think it was my moment of acceptance. Looking back on it I can see that going to meetings for six months had planted a seed inside of me even though I had no recovery at that time.

When the attendant approached me to give me my pay-off, I told him I did not have my driver’s license nor my SS number. I said I would need to go out to my car and get it. He gave me a slip of paper and asked me my name. I lied and gave them my daughter’s name. He took a Polaroid picture of me when I began to get up from the chair. Did they know I was banned at that time? I quite honestly don’t know. When I left that day, I actually turned around for a moment and said good-bye to gambling. The kicker to this story is that I took that slip of paper and did give it to my daughter thinking maybe she could collect. I do not know why I didn’t think of the consequences for her. She went back and lo and behold the next thing she knew, she was sitting in a back room with two Phoenix Police officers waiting to arrest her for fraud! The kid had never ever been in any kind of trouble in her life. The only thing she knew to do was to cry. What ended up happening however, was they banned her from the casino for life and let her leave without an arrest as she explained the woman in the picture was her mother and that I was self-excluded so that’s why I had lied. With that being said… the commitment to self-exclude early on was not coming from my heart and didn’t stop this compulsive gambler one bit. BUT.. .Finally accepting the fact that I was a compulsive gambler, and going to meetings, attending group therapy in ACT, working on the steps with my sponsor and in a group, is what has worked for me. That is what I am committed to.

I do think of self-exclusion as a tool but we have many other tools that work for us as well. At this point, if I would ever get an urge, I know to take a moment and play the whole tape back and because of my last experience, the self-exclusion is a part of my tape. I’m committed not to go in gambling establishments because of page 17 of our combo book and not because I self-excluded. In fact, my youngest daughter was married in Las Vegas two years ago, I did not attend. I have to stay true to who I am and who I am is a compulsive gambler. I wanted to be a part of my daughter’s life in the future, so chose to miss the special day.

This is just my opinion and mine only and like I said, maybe a bit confusing for someone that doesn’t understand the depths of this illness. I can explain it to you because I know you understand. Thank you Marilyn for all that you do!!

Amy B., Arizona
 

  

 

Bingo!

 

 

A fun and easy night out. Right? It can be. But Bingo can also become addictive, and a compulsive Bingo player can seriously impact her/his life with negative consequences.

Today, the game of Bingo is offered in casinos and online, and the number of players has increased. Initially, the game can be traced back to a lottery game called, “Il Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia” played in Italy in c. 1530. In the eighteenth century, the game matured and in France the reading out of numbers began. So how did a game intended to raise money for church events start to affect people’s lives? Bingo can become compulsive.

Many years ago I sat in the Church Hall on Bingo nights, at the senior citizen’s club, or at the VFW Hall, believing it was an innocent form of entertainment. I felt the same excitement and adrenalin rush that I felt years later, when I sat in front of the slot machines in casinos. You see, symptoms of slot machine addiction or Bingo addiction are the same … and start the moment that you feel that rush or get the high. I can remember the ladies on each side of me with more than fifteen cards spread out on the table and their hand holding the dauber, flying across the cards as they listened to the called numbers. The table in front of some of the loyal players would be covered with photos of their family, lucky statues or pendants, and an occasional rabbit’s foot. It was a serious game.
 

In the past twenty years I have learned that many Bingo players become addicted and need treatment, counseling, or Gamblers Anonymous meetings. One night at our GA meeting a lady told me she was addicted to Bingo and I thought, “How can you get in trouble playing Bingo?” While she shared her story she told the group, “Well I get $620 each month from the State and I spend $490 at the Bingo Hall.” That left her $130 to live on for the month.
 

It does not matter what game we become addicted to, if we show symptoms of gambling addiction, we have a problem. In fact, a Bingo player goes through the same phases as the card player, slot player, sports bettor, etc. in the cycle of compulsive gambling addiction . The phases are the winning phase, the losing phase, and the desperation phase. When a player starts to notice the consequences of gaming, they can start to feel depressed and begin to isolate, lie, and blame others for their problem. Some other symptoms of Bingo addiction include:
Bingo starts to disrupt lives – Arguments with family about time spent playing the game, lying about money lost, missing birthdays or other family functions, and even interfering with their jobs. Some Bingo players have left their small children at home or in cars outside the Bingo parlors while they played the game.

Escape – Bingo addicts play to relieve the stress of something gone wrong in their lives, real or imaginary issues.
Preoccupation – People who are addicted to Bingo obessessively think about playing the game when they are not sitting at the Bingo table, and making plans for their next visit.
Tolerance – A Bingo player who has developed into a compulsive Bingo gambler needs to play more often or add more cards, to reach the same initial high or buzz that they got when they started playing.
Withdrawal – When the addicted Bingo player makes an attempt to stop playing, they experience symptoms of restlessness, insomnia, and irritability. They discover that they cannot stop.
 

Today, Bingo has evolved into popular online games where a player only needs a credit card, and can sit in their pajamas in front of their computers and play all day. There are more than 2,000 online gambling websites and more being added. One online bingo industry stated it had 80% female audience. Dr. Bowden-Jones, head of the National Problem Gambling Clinic based in Shoho in London, stated that some women play up to ten hours a day online.

The positive news for an addicted Bingo players is that there is help. Help for compulsive gambling can be found via support groups such as Gamblers Anonymous, through self help programs, in counseling psychotherapy, or even in outpatient or inpatient treatment centers specializing in gambling problems. In treatment for compulsive gambling you can learn about your behavior and download wisdom from those who have been successful before you.

 

Marilyn L., Arizona
 

 
She Bets Her Life     

 

(From chapter on relapse in She Bets Her Life: a true story of gambling addiction)

Barb showed up for the next meeting. “She looked like a whipped pup,” Helen told me. “She said she knew what had happened. She’d called one of her credit card companies to try to set up smaller payments. The representative told her that wouldn’t be possible because her income was so small. Then she went to her bank to see if she could get a loan to help out with the payments. They told her that with her “unfortunate” history, she couldn’t get a loan—even with her golden credit record with them. You know she’s paid back almost all the money she took from the church. That didn’t count for anything with her bank.

“So she said she just thought, F–it, I’m sick of being good; took the 50 bucks she had in her purse; and went to the casino. She lost a bundle. But she said she drove home and all she could think was, I still owe all that money to the credit cards, and now I’ve got 56 bucks in my savings and 300 till the end of the month—and I feel awful. And, I know it’s going to take forever for my brain to get back to normal.”
“Barb’s not the only one,” I said. “I got mad at somebody, looked out my motel window and saw a casino sign, and that was it.”
Helen snapped back. “What the hell were you doing in a motel near a casino?”
I was so surprised by her anger that I couldn’t speak. “Are you there?” she asked.
“I am.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Helen said, “it just seemed to me that you were fooling yourself.”
“I’m not mad at you,” I said. “It never occurred to me to think about why, of all the towns on the way to Bellingham, I decided to stay in the one with a casino. I think I’d planned the whole thing from the minute I started getting mad at my friend. No, I know I did.”
“Well good,” Helen said firmly. “What I’ve gone through has got to help somebody. I’m glad it’s you.”
I thanked her and hung up.

I turned away from the computer and thought about my words to my sponsor: “Shoot, it might have taken four shrink sessions at $125 a pop minimum, and I still might not have gotten it.” I’m a seat-of-the-pants learner—and a hard case—when it comes to knowing what I have to know in order to change my behavior. I was grateful that it had taken only 500 bucks to shed light on part of what had driven me for the last eight to nine years of my gambling history. I was even more grateful that I now knew what to look out for.

Some people in twelve-step recovery refer to relapse as a “slip.” I don’t. Even before I did the research for this book, I had always had hunches that when I gave in to the urge to use—be it contacting an unavailable former lover when I’d promised myself I wouldn’t; grabbing a sixth chocolate chip cookie; pouring myself a third gin and soda when I knew I had to get up at 6:00 AM; suddenly finding myself pulling into the casino ninety minutes from my cabin with 60 bucks in my wallet, 40 in my savings, 100 in checking, and three credit cards I had yet to max out—I’d made not one choice, but a series of choices… believe that when it comes to a relapse in a true addict, postacute withdrawal rules. I think of the words on the GA Victoria website: “Reality is not a comfortable place for recovering addicts of any sort” and “This is the phenomenon that happens when a 20 year veteran of a 12-step program goes back to his/her addiction and leaves everyone scratching their heads in disbelief.”

Robert R. Perkinson’s powerful self-help guide, The Gambling Addiction Patient Workbook, lists thirty-seven warning signs that point to relapse. All of them fit with the discomfort and anaerobia that a recovering gambler in postacute withdrawal can experience. As I read the list, I found myself keeping count: apprehension about well-being—check; denial—check; compulsive attempts to impose abstinence on others—I’d tried to “cure” every one of my using friends; compulsive behavior—ha!; loneliness—90 percent of the time; plans beginning to fail—welcome to the collapse of the publishing world as I had known it; irritations with friends—check and check and check.

Barb and I made it back into not gambling. Many women don’t. In the year I sat with the Scheherazade’s Sisters, I listened to a dozen or so women who hung out with us for a week, weeks, even months, and then disappeared without a message to any of us. Each of us understood. We all knew how insidious this addiction is.

Mary Sojourner, author of She Bets Her Life.
 

21 years of recovery!
 

I just celebrated twenty-one years of recovery from gambling. It has been a one-day-at-a-time journey. During these years, I have met hundreds of men and women. Some have stayed in the program but so many have gone back to their gambling addiction. Several came back after six or seven years of additional gambling and they are doing great today.

Even if my stopping gambling had been the only benefit I gained, I would have been grateful. But instead I have changed my whole life. Living in recovery one day at a time has enabled me to change the character defects in my life. I no longer have to lie, cheat or steal. I don’t have to be better than anyone else. I no longer have to keep score because I am on equal footing with my GA brothers and sisters.

My life today is not a bed of roses but when I stumble across a thorn, I have the resources to work through the issue. I have the Serenity Prayer, a long list of phone numbers to call, meetings every day of the week, and Page 17 in the GA Combo Book. My sponsor told me years ago that the answers to all my questions are in the little Yellow Book.

My family and I are closer today than we ever were. We all understand the principles of a 12-step program and the definition of Spirituality. We gently remind each other to remember, Easy does it, when there are outside pressures. We consult and discuss family issues before they become tragedies and put our trust in our Higher Power.

So many lessons I have learned in my 12-step program. I understand that giving back what has been given to me, increases my recovery ten-fold. Instead of worrying, I make a decision and live A Day at a Time. Gossiping and control issues have been replaced by Live and let live. Most other troubling issues in my life may be solved by the Serenity Prayer. I am forever grateful for my recovery and my program.

Marilyn L., Arizona

 

 

Gripped by Gambling  (The book is now available in the Kindle edition)

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