All human actions have one or more of these seven causes; chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, and desire.

Aristotle   Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

     MY JOURNEY (This is the first part of a two-part article)

July 23, 2002, that fateful day, will always be imprinted in my memory and I don’t wish to relive that day, but I cannot and must not forget it—the day I almost succeeded in ending my life.

I left my therapist’s office feeling exhausted, bleak, hopeless, despair and nothing to live for. I consciously remembered driving on automatic pilot. My mind was so confused and there were a million voices talking on top of each other in my head. I felt so lost and shivering in my down jacket in the heat of summer. I glanced at the odometer which read 100 miles. I thought if I could just let go of the wheel, it would be over. No one will even miss and I would finally put an end to my miserable existence. Five days before I had stopped gambling because I ran out of money, had no self worth, burnt all my bridges and ashamed to face anyone.

I couldn’t bear the thought of being smashed to bits, blood everywhere, broken bones which seemed too hideously ugly a way to die. I slowed down and kept driving to the end of the 10 freeway in search of my next quest for death. I parked and walked down 3rd street promenade with tears blinding my eyes. Should I just walk to the end of Santa Monica pier and hurl myself off? Then I realized I did not know how to drown myself since I was a champion swimmer. Disgusted and hated what I had done to my life and my inability to change it, I prayed so hard, and begged God to help me end my horrible life.

I sensed hundreds of people around me, surrounding me, crawling at me, wanting a piece of me and I swung my arms out desperately trying to escape. A bald headed person in a bright orange robe kept waving something in my face and I screamed at him to leave me alone. He wouldn’t and I shoved him so harshly he fell but he kept following me. I finally grabbed the paper from him to get rid of him. I was completely hysterical, sobbing but kept strutting along to the pier with no idea what I was going to do. Maybe the bottle of sleeping pills my psychiatrist prescribed earlier would be the answer to my dilemma.

I turned back and the piece of paper I stuck into my pocket fell out. I reached down to pick it up and saw that it was a pamphlet. In bold print it read, DO YOU HAVE A GAMBLING PROBLEM? There is help. There was an 800 number listed. I stopped dead in my stride and looked straight up into the sky yelling, what do you want from me? Why don’t you just let me die? Is this what you want me to do? People started walking in big circles around me thinking I must be absolutely crazy or a lunatic.

I drove home, still shaking like a leaf and made that phone call. I have absolutely no idea what to say or do. The sweetest, kindness voice of Marcie got me to my first Gamblers Anonymous meeting. That same fateful day, my new life began.

I started gambling before I knew how to walk. I remembered there was always some form of gambling growing up. I came from Malaysia,, where gambling was a lifestyle. We gambled at funerals and weddings. Mahjong is not illegal but any form of card games are, but that did not stop anyone from gambling. I was taught to deal poker games when I was 12 years old in underground casinos and secret venues run by mobsters. I knew about bookies, poker games, mahjong, 3 cards games, blackjack, racehorses and numerous Chinese games; they played it and I knew it. Drinking, gambling, womanizing was a constant pastime for men of all ages. Women who indulged themselves in these behaviors were considered brazen and not respected. Women were supposed to be seen not heard. I escaped into the underground gambling syndication away from my abusive alcoholic father with a sociopath personality.

I learned at an early age to survive on my own and all the dysfunctions of addictive/compulsive behaviors. It was an ultimate high and adrenaline rush that I thrived on to stay in action, wheeling, dealing, manipulating, stealing, lying, and cheating. I was trained and recruited into syndicated gambling to manipulate and cheat to win. I sacrificed my dignity, sold myself to live in the lifestyle I was accustomed to so I would be able to continue gambling. I don’t have any real friends or rather I avoided family and would not allowed anyone to get close. I am the oldest of 7 children and I supported my siblings and sick mother after my father threw her out and remarried. My teenage years were spent in casinos, bars, nightclubs, cabaret and sleazy motel rooms. My days were nights and nights were days but I did not have anything else to compare my life to.

Rina L., Santa Monica, CA  (Be sure to read the second half of Rina's story in the August issue.)
 

 
    what Recovery Looks Like...

My decent into hell began on Halloween night in 1994. It had been a very tough year for me. My best friend, a beautiful woman in her 30's was murdered at her home in Topeka, Kansas in June (the case remains unsolved to this day). Only months before, my baby nephew who was 22 months old lost his young life and I was the victim of a sexual assault earlier in the year. When a date took me to Harrah’s that evening, it was my first visit to the casinos as they had only been around a year or two at that time. My date gave me $100 to play craps with and I won $700 that evening and was treated like a celebrity. I didn’t realize it was a game of chance . . . I thought I was good at it. It was one of the first times in months that I was distracted from my grief. The next day, it was so wonderful to have something that I considered positive at the time to talk about. Within a few months, I was gambling several times a week losing greater and greater amounts of money. Being single, no children and working in a one person office, it was not difficult to hide my gambling.

I could write pages about the years that followed . . . the shame, the lies, the sleepless nights, exhaustion and of course, the overwhelming financial ramifications. I knew within months that I had a problem but I continued. After months of craps being my game, I started playing the slots which made it easier to isolate. I had periods of abstinence, yet each time something painful or disappointing occurred, I was back out there, each time the dollar amounts grew. In 2001 my 35-year-old brother who lived in Tulsa, OK, was killed in a car accident while on business in Mississippi. I was there when they took him off of life support. My grief and anger were so severe that as soon as my plane landed in Kansas City, I drove directly to the casino. In the months that followed, I lost another $20,000 to $30,000 and developed a sleeping disorder where I was unable to sleep but a few hours here and there.

On Christmas Day 2001, depressed, exhausted and wishing my life would end, I drove to the casino and completed the paperwork that would ban me for life from all Missouri Casinos. It was my Christmas gift to me. I didn’t know it at the time but the truth was that I didn’t want to stop gambling, I just wanted all of the terrible ramifications of gambling to stop. I also got on the internet and searched for anything I could find on gambling and recovery. That is where my journey to recovery began. I found WHW (Women Helping Women) and became active on the network. I began attending GA meetings but because gambling was new to our area, the program was new and there were only one or two members with any clean time. I found the meetings would trigger my gambling urges and I recognized this wasn’t what a healthy Gamblers Anonymous program looked like so I began looking for other alternatives. I purchased a used AA Big Book for a few dollars and began reading it cover to cover. I had seen three therapists that didn't work for me but I kept looking and eventually was blessed to find someone who had 30 years in AA and together we worked the12 steps. She was so beneficial to my recovery and gave me new, healthy ways to experience life.

In the early years, since I was banned from the Missouri casinos, I would drive two hours to the casinos in Kansas. I relapsed often but I stayed active in WHW, saw my therapist once a week and continued working the steps. I began to focus on my progress and not perfection and realized that I’d relapsed a lot less in 2004 than 2003 and less in 2003 than 2002 and so on. The first year without a relapse was 2006. Over the course of ten years, I lost more than $400,000.

While working the steps, I took many inventories so at the end of 2004, I sat down and with a sheet of paper and made a list of positive things I had accomplished since starting my recovery. I had banned myself from the casinos, canceled credit cards, closed out all bank accounts, started therapy and started attending church. I was getting some bills paid and sleeping better.

Next, I made a list, which was three notebook pages long of amends and my “to do” list. The list-included amends to me and my well-being . . . I had blown off yearly dentist, doctor and all those things we women need to do, like making annual appointments. My car was falling apart, I owed and owed and owed some more, I hadn't replaced my mattress in almost 20 years. I had jewelry that needed small repairs, friends who needed contacted, insurance that had lapsed, tax returns to prepare and pay, a lost passport, birth certificate . . . the list went on and on and on.

I started with the things on the list that I could tackle, small things that cost very little to accomplish such as downloading the forms and sending for my birth certificate. I also did things that cost nothing such as; volunteering, sending a note to a friend, or sewing on a missing button. As I grew stronger and my finances improved, I tackled bigger things on the list. At the end of 2005, I hadn’t smoked for over a year so I checked off quit smoking and a few other items. At the end of 2006, I was so delighted when I pulled out my list how many things I could check off. One of the big things I accomplished that year was settling the last of my credit card debt.
 

Terri Mc,  Kansas City

(This is the first part of a two-part article.  Check the August issue of WHW and find out how Terri is doing today)

 

          YouTube Video

                              

 

 . . . blow my head off . . .

 

Marilyn – Today, I called the GA hotline. The urge to put a gun in my mouth to blow my head off and/or jump off the Bay Bridge has become a daily obsession and visualization of every detail of my demise, believing I cannot get out of this encased cement of desperation, loneliness and self-contempt. I also searched relentlessly on the Internet trying to find links to something like, " confessions of a female compulsive gambler" and stumbled across your website.

I am 52 years old and have had a serious gambling addiction now for the last 5 years. I remember telling a younger friend of mine in 2003, "Remember, if you gamble, it must be done confidently and with money that you can afford to lose. It is now 7 years later. I lost my house in Las Vegas, my 401k assets, my jewelry, car, and anything of value is in local pawn shops. Everything I make in wages, goes to paying the debt to 500 fast cash, interest to the pawn shops, outstanding debt to my 83 year old mother, who has loved me unconditionally and bailed me out so many times, to make rent, utility and cell phone payments.

I make over $100k a year and today, I searched desperately for enough money to buy my 12 year old cat a tin of food. I have nothing in my refrigerator to eat. No one calls me and I am trying to remember what my life was like before this addiction began to spiral into such a deep abyss. Marilyn, I hate myself and what has become of me. My façade at work has masked this behavior so incredibly well. No one knows how I have compartmentalized my life and that I struggle, often daily, of where to get the next $1.50 for my bus fare to make it to work and that I count the days until my next check to take it to the pai gow table.

I hate gambling out of desperation. I gamble now to try to make money to pay all of what I owe and each time I increase my jail time because of course, I lose all the money and am back to square one in a desperate scramble to find money to pay what is of necessity to live day by day.  I am one of four children and have 3 brothers who I see perhaps once a year and outside of this have very little contact with them and/or my many nieces and nephews. I grew up as a first generation Filipina in the 60’s living in Montana and with that comes a ton of baggage.

In 1984, I left Montana alone for the Bay Area and remember clearly an excerpt from Alice Walker’s book, “In Search of My Mother’s Garden.” Alice speak s about her life in the deep South and how painful the memories were to her and that healing would not be possible until she was able to embrace that identity living in the deep South. I have yet to embrace my identity which I do know has fueled this self-destructive time bomb ticking within me. I also live in fear for my mother’s mortality, knowing that her death will exacerbate my untimely demise as well because I will be bereft of any kindness and forgiveness of one who accepts me. As I sit here at the kitchen table, I find my self sobbing for the first time in several years. Underneath my tough exterior and gambling persona is a small little frightened girl.

It gives me great comfort that you would reincarnate from ashes, to be 61 and placed in prison from embezzling…. Presently, I cannot continue this email because I am overwhelmed with loss and grief and yes, share my email to other members.

Perhaps my email to you will begin my recovery and if not recovery, documentation of why Carmen killed herself for those who would be stunned outside of my very, very small circle of friends.

Carmen  in California

 

CO-OCCURRING DISORDERS~~

Joanna Franklin, MS NCGC II Trimeridian Inc.

Co-occurring disorders is a term used to mean "more than one problem at the same time." This, for pathological gamblers usually means a depression, anxiety, or substance abuse disorder. Post traumatic stress, attention deficit disorders, personality disorders, and others could occur in addition to a gambling or addiction disorder.

Co-occurring disorders could have their roots in early childhood, such as attention disorders. Or may have young adult or adult onset and be the result of physical illness or trauma, emotional trauma, substance abuse or dependence, medication reactions, menopause, pre-menstrual, post-partum- you name it - they can come at anytime.

Someone with a bipolar disorder may also have a gambling disorder and a substance dependence problem. Someone who has a major depression may also have a substance abuse disorder, an attention disorder, and a gambling problem. These would all be co-occurring disorders. Assessment by a mental health professional is very important to be sure that we are treating all co-occurring disorders. It is said if we are not treating them all, we are not effectively treating any. This a very important part of treatment to be sure no undiagnosed or untreated disorder remains and threatens or endangers the recovery from the identified disorder. I cannot count how many of my gambling clients had been in treatment for a substance abuse problem but their gambling disorder went undiagnosed and as the gambling got worse the client returned to substance abuse to cope with the stress and desperation.

Problem and pathological gambling seems to come in many forms. The more we learn about it the more we see. It is unfair to the complicated human being to simply say "yes you have it" or "no you don't."

Picture some rulers of 12 inches each. On the first one we will say inches 1, 2 and 3 represent early onset of a gambling problem around 10-14 years old. Inches 10, 11 and 12 represent late onset at 40, 50 or 60+, with everything in between. The next ruler represents mild gambling disorder to severe. So inches 1,2 and 3 represent problem gamblers or GA 20 Questions score of 4, 5, and 6. Inches 10, 11 and 12 represent GA 20 Question scores of 18, 19 or 20. Again, with everything in between. We can have a ruler of family history of gambling or mental health and addiction problems, co-occurring disorders, frequency of gambling, amount gambled or amount of debts etc. The list goes on and on.

In fact, part of a good assessment is a counselor who can paint a picture of the client using the accurate terms and descriptions to be able to screen for the many factors that seem to influence the client. We really don't know why some folks start early and others later, why some are severe while others stay mild. Some have a clearly progressive gambling disorder and others do not. Truth is...we just don't know.

But  - we know more today than ever before and we are continuing to learn. More scientists are studying gamblers and more and more research is helping us understand how this disorder seems to work and how we can be more helpful to those in need of care. The search goes on to better understand and the effort continues to reach out the all important helping hand no matter when the gambling started and no matter what else one may need to recover. Our job is to get you what you need as best we can.

 

Gripped by Gambling     http://www.grippedbygambling.com

Because I had so much fun~~~and pain, while writing Gripped by Gambling, I am writing a sequel and hope to have it published by March 2010 or before. If anyone would be interested in writing an article for the book, please send it to me.  Or if you have written an article for Women Helping Women and would agree to allow me to publish it in the new book, please send me permission to do so.  The second book will be filled with news about many addictions and how we can recover.                       YouTube Video

 

Check out the link, Suggested Reading, for a new book coming out in August,

Taking Back Your Life--Women and Problem Gambling

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