What Everyone Should Know About Gambling Addiction Wreckage

Two people very close to me have destroyed their lives with gambling addiction. My aunt and a close personal friend are both gambling addicts. Their addictions have affected the lives of many others besides their own lives. They have been self-destructive in ways that I never would have imagined before the inception of the casinos near my hometown in the early 1990's. Because the addiction is something that we didn't recognize as a chemical one, none of us ever feared it much until we saw it for ourselves. Gambling addiction is as destructive as a crack addiction, and we have learned that it is also a chemical one.

Tunica, Mississippi is the third largest gaming destination in the US. The casinos of Tunica, Mississippi are less than an hour away from the city of Memphis, Tennessee. Being that Memphis is my hometown, I have seen the development of the gaming industry here take off. The area is constantly buzzing with casino information and ads. This industry is more than an industry to my friends and family: it is a source of great pain and temptation.

My aunt *Sheryl began gambling as an escape from her unhappy marriage and her difficult children. She would go and gamble a little money. Over time, she began talking about the fun at the casinos more and more. While she was taking care of my ailing grandfather, no one was questioning her use of his pension and social security checks. We all assumed that she was using it to care for him. She and her husband had decent incomes, and none of us imagined that she was going to the casinos and blowing thousands of dollars at a time. Her sons were constantly getting arrested, it was clear that she and her husband were not getting along, and she was watching her father's progression of dementia. If she wanted to go play slots at the casinos, we never questioned that. Who wouldn't need a break from all of that? We had no idea.

After my grandfather died, we started to find out just how bad things really were. All of his savings, and the home that he owned had been going to support my aunt's trips to the gambling establishments in Tunica - all except the basic needs he had to have covered for his at home nursing care.

After the money from my grandfather stopped coming in following his death in 2000, she started using the mortgage money that her husband trusted her to use to pay. The money from the rental property, her paychecks, and even money that my cousins gave her to pay the utility bill or mortgage after she had gambled away the money her husband gave her for these things. It was unreal.

This went on for several years until my uncle stopped giving her money for any of the bills and left her. Her homes were foreclosed on and she lost everything at the slot machines. The woman who once owned a number of investment properties and her own home became homeless. She and her youngest son, who did not get in trouble with the legal system, were forced to move in with my parents. This did not stop her gambling addiction.

She lived with my parents and paid for nothing - not even food. She used all of the money she made from working to go to the casinos. Her son was enrolled that year in a private Catholic school for boys in his junior year of high school. At the end of that year, she grew resentful of my parents telling her to stop sneaking off to the casinos and moved to an apartment. However, paying rent was more of a burden than her gambling addiction could support. She eventually was evicted and had to move into rental property owned by another aunt. My cousin was not able to finish high school because his tuition was not paid in full and his transcript was not released for him to transfer to a public school. I believe that there could have been something to change that if my aunt and my cousin had been willing to go into a public forum to rectify the situation, but neither wanted to suffer the humiliation of admitting what the problem was. The Christian Brothers were then able to punish my cousin for his mother's destructive behavior. I suppose they took the idea of the sins of the father falling on the son a bit too literally. To this day, she still slips and doesn't pay rent. However, she seems to have gotten better, and she actually had money for Christmas presents for her sons this year.

My friend, Charles, is a genius with computers. He is a single man in his late twenties who brings in an average of seventy thousand or more dollars a year. He spends all of his money at the casinos. He has been evicted from swanky downtown Memphis apartments twice in the last year as well as one in Nashville. He regularly has to borrow five dollars for gas or something to eat. He has been fired from three jobs in the last year or so because he stays at the casinos drinking and gambling until he doesn't have a way home. He can't keep a steady schedule. He tried moving to Nashville where he would be at a distance from the casinos in Tunica, but that didn't help. He just drove back to Tunica. All moving did was create a longer to commute to his self-destruction. Occasionally, he flees to Birmingham where his mother and grandmother live to try to squash his disease. It is always only a temporary solution.

The frustration we feel in dealing with the gambling of my aunt or my friend is hard to stop. It seems so easy to say it is a stupid problem. It is a stupid thing to do - giving away all of your money to the point of homelessness. These are smart people. My aunt has two college degrees and Charles can do things with computer science that are amazing. How can they be so foolish? Unfortunately, it is not as simple as it looks. They are addicted to the chemicals released through the rush of gaming.

There are two types of gambling addicts. One is the escape gambler. This gambler is trying to avoid painful life experiences through the risk of gambling. The other is the active gambler who is addicted to the rush. Both experience a chemical response that is very similar to any drug addict's chemical responses to the drug of choice. I have seen the change in physical terms. At the casinos with both my aunt and Charles, they get into a place where they don't seem able to hear what is going on around them. My aunt rocks herself back and forth in her seat as if she is in a trance. Charles doesn't rock back and forth, but he cannot be dragged from the tables. He is not responsive to his environment unless the communication is coming from a blackjack dealer. I can say, you are almost out of money, we need to stop. None of this works. They will both write bad checks to the casinos in order to keep playing. They know they will go to jail for this kind of behavior if someone doesn't cover the checks. This does not change the way they behave. After they leave the casinos with nothing, they are filled with shame and self-loathing and promises to themselves not to return to the little resort town in Mississippi. The cycle begins again. We will see if my aunt is able to maintain her abstinence, and we will hope for Charles to find a way into recovery.

If someone in your family is suffering with a gambling addiction, I have no doubt that you and the rest of your family is suffering as well. Here are some warning signs that you or your loved one is a gambling addict. These are ten criteria defined by the American Psychological Association.

Preoccupation with gambling - they constantly relive gambling experiences from the past, thinking of ways to get more money to gamble, and handicapping or planning the next gambling experience.

Tolerance level increases and they need to spend more and more money to get the same high from the last gambling bout.

Withdrawal is seen when they are irritable or listless because they are not gambling.

Escape is found in the gambling experience. The person is trying to avoid feelings of anxiety, shame, depression, helplessness, or guilt through gambling.

Chasing is when the person is using the gambling to try to recover the losses already endured to make up for the loss.

Lying - this is done to cover the depth of the gambling problem from family, friends, and therapists.

Illegal acts are committed such as fraud, theft, embezzling, or forgery to gamble.

Risking significant relationships - the gambling addict will jeopardize family, career, or educational opportunities to gamble.

Bailout - the gambler has to rely on others to get them out of devastating financial circumstances created by gambling.

Loss of control - the gambler has made repeated attempts to stop or control the gambling without success.

According to the APA, if you have five of these problems, you are a pathological gambler; three of these make you a problem gambler; one or two indicate an at-risk gambler. The organization, Gamblers Anonymous, might be able to help you or your loved one deal with this crippling disease. I won't pretend that your recovery process or talking your loved one into changing will be easy. However, if you try, you might succeed.

*Names of individuals have been changed.