Ben’s adult son came in with a packet of cigarettes. It seemed a bit lazy for some trying to salvage self-respect after years of compulsive gambling. Not so.
“”I don’t allow myself access to money,” Ben says. “”My son goes to get the cigarettes.
“”No two ways about it. If I have money I will go to the club. I don’t want it. I don’t want control over it. I don’t carry a credit card, or a keycard. If I need milk or bread something during the day, my wife gives me exactly enough for it, and then never much.
“”I’ve got the love of my family. I’m buggered if I know why. But I’ve got to work to get their trust back. That’s my ambition now, and to get a job.
Ben has been out of work for 12 months now. There is no car. The house in Queanbeyan is rented and they live hand-to-mouth on his wife’s income.
The crisis came about four weeks ago.
His wife had been paid and he offered to go and pay the rent and some other bills. He took $500 from the joint account.
“”I only had to walk across the road from the bank, but I walked to the club. I thought, “If I just spend $20 on the machines to pay a few more bills.’
“”The lot was gone, but $15. So I had a few drinks. I don’t normally drink much. “How do you lie your way out of this one,’ I thought. “Or do I jump off the bridge or pack up and leave.’
“”I’m too much of a coward to hurt myself, so I did the next cowardly thing. I rang home and said to my wife I had put them through. It was all I, I, I. The compulsive gambler is only concerned with himself.
“”Anyway she talked and found out where I was and rang my son who was at the gym at the club. He found me and brought me home. My wife rang Lifeline who gave us the Gamblers’ Anonymous number.
“”I’d been there before about 10 years ago and thought they were all hypocrites with no will power. I didn’t need them then. I wasn’t ready for them.”
It seems gamblers have to hit rock bottom emotionally and financially before seeking help, though it needn’t be. Ben fits the classic pattern: early big wins, loses, attempts to regain the losses and fantasy. Thirty years ago he was in a country town where the club was the main entertainment. The wins were not very big, but big enough for a young lad. Here was an easy way to make a quid.
A man of Ben’s age, in work for 30 years (he started at 15) should have a house and car paid for, some good furniture and perhaps a nest egg. Sold up he should be worth, say, $250,000. That is the amount Ben estimates he has gambled away.
“”I have virtually ruined my life,” he said.
But money is not everything. Ben has a loving family.
“”If she had left with the kids at anytime in the past 24 years, I wouldn’t blame her, after what I’ve done to her,” Ben says. “”The lies, the lies
He recovers.
“”How I lost my wallet. Then the pay clerk wasn’t there. I was a good con man to get money from people. You believe the lies yourself.”
Fantasy is the compulsive gambler’s worst enemy. It is the enemy within. It is the fantasy of winning huge, endless sums of money. It is also the fantasy world that can make up the lies, the conning and cheating to get the money to gamble.
It is a recognised psychiatric disorder _ DSM-III (Third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association).
The gambling itself is not the disorder, just the symptom of it. The disorder is the delusions and compulsive pursuit of them.
The only recovery is through recognition you have a problem. What has to be recognised? The gambler never learns from defeat and never stops when winning, rather winning increases the urge to go on. The game precludes all other interests.
Ben says the casino means nothing to him. He has no axe to grind against casinos. (But more on this anon.)
“”I did it,” he said. “”It just got hold of me. It is a sickness, like alcoholics; one drink is never enough
“”It was the thrill of having a win. Of seeing the horse win or the credit meter on the poker machine ticking away.”
(See Fyodor’s story below/at left/right).
Dr Clive Allcock, who runs an in-patient program at Cumberland Hospital, says that between half and one per cent of the population are pathological gamblers and the number is related to the number of outlets.
There are a huge number of outlets in the ACT, and the casino is just another. The growth in poker machine playing has been dramatic. Admittedly, a lot of this is recycled money. Canberrans are putting more than $510 million a year through the pokies; that’s more than seven times the total rates bill. Canberrans spend about $100 million on the TAB.
Ben has put more than his share through, but with the help of Gamblers’ Anonymous intends not to put any more through.
“”I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me; that’s not why I am doing this. I want to warn others to get help before they hit the bottom, before they damage themselves and their families,” Ben said.
The Gambling Crisis and Counselling Service has been set up since the casino opened. Its number is 2963411. Or Lifeline can help on 2571111.
“”People going to GA, they should know there is no such thing as a miracle cure,” Ben says. “”You’ll get support, non-financial support. They are warm and caring people, because they have been through it before.”
“”Warm” and “”caring” as words do not sit easily on the lips of a 45-year former fork-lift driver. Ben has the bruised gentleness of those who have gone through traumatic suffering. There is no bitterness or anger, just the acceptance which is the first part of recovery.
Overcoming a gambling addiction has a more difficult side than over-coming an addiction to nicotine, alcohol or other drugs. You can shun the wherewithal to the latter without cutting yourself off from ordinary social intercourse. Someone without cigarettes, booze or dope can fit in. But to survive in a capitalist society without access to money, is another proposition.
A compulsive gambler cannot be trusted with money, certainly not amounts more than, say, $20. Thus family members have to do all financial transactions. But money is power and position, perhaps more so in families where it is short. So Ben not only had to admit his gambling compulsion, but surrender control of his money and power if he is to have any hope.
Jim Connolly, a gambling addiction financial counsellor, tells how it is important to get the compulsive gambler at a time of remorse and restructure his financial affairs to make it much harder for him to get money later, because relapses are common. Joint accounts are a disaster.
Electronic transfers are a twin-edged sword. They can be used to get wages paid into a partner’s account. They can be used for direct transfers from wages to pay debts so the gambler cannot get the money. But the automatic tellers make money more accessible. There are two ATMs just below the stairs at the entrance to the casino. TABs seem to place themselves near banks with ATMs like leopards near antelope. Ben tells of his first GA meeting.
“”The big part of GA is the admission. The guilty feeling. The stomach in a knot. You don’t want to get caught. But eventually you will get caught. The relief at the first admission is tremendous. The second step is confessing to you wife and family. The relief is unbelievable.
“”We can have a laugh now. But don’t think you’re not going to do it again.”
Garry is a telephone counsellor for GA. He says compulsive gambling is hidden. Employers are amazed when they discover their diligent, hard-working employee has stolen or committed fraud to service gambling. He knows clerymen who have never come across one.
Garry bemoans that people are so much more aware of alcoholism and drug abuse, but so little is known about compulsive gambling. Worse, those in trouble do not know there is help.
“”There is no need to hit rock bottom first,” he says. “”Most get marital problems and a quarter get in trouble with the law. We want to prevent that.”
But they go hand in hand. A dysfuntional relationship at home, causes the need to ease the pain.
Why not drugs or alcohol instead?
Garry explains: “”You have to like alcohol. Drugs are illegal; it warns people off. There is no stigma to gambling, no health effect, and naively, the gambler thinks, no big cost. Gambling is the excitement for people with dull and boring lives.”
GA’s theory is that the gambling can never be cured, only controlled. It runs counter to some pyschiatric theory which suggests treatment, such as aversion therapy with mild electric shocks and suggestion treatment, can lead to a cure.
What about the casino? First, it is nonsense to say the compulsive gambler will do it anyway. A lot of people wouldn’t be seen dead in the TAB. Many find poker machines too boring or look down their noses at them socially. Some people who have never gambled seriously in their lives will go to the casino with a group socially and their compulsion will manifest itself _ a compulsion that would otherwise not get an outlet. These are people who would not otherwise go to a TAB or a club.
Accept for the moment, the US psychiatric research that half to one per cent of the population have the compulsive-gambling tendency, and that perhaps a fifth will fall to the compulsion within a couple of visits to the casino. Take the projected visiting figures of the casino. Take the huge example of the huge poker-machine turnover in the ACT. The result is perhaps 100 wrecked lives a year directly because of the casino.
GA’s experience within the first week suggests that is probable.
Obviously, there is another side. The casino will bring more income than rates to a hard-pressed government. Jobs. Tourism.
The civil liberties argument, which appeals to me, suggests people should run their own lives and there is an inevitable by acceptable risk that they might run them badly. The logical extension of that is to permit any number of casinos, but without tax. But no government would tolerate that.
We have a single, controlled casino in Canberra only so a government can noiselessly milch people who are otherwise too selfish or too afflicted with the hip-pocket-nerve syndrome to tolerate it being done through the rates or tax system.
In the ACT, gambling revenue far exceeds rates revenue already. Instead of taxing property, income and transactions, the government has found a way to tax stupidity and a compulsive psychiatric disorder.
The former is mere hypocrisy; the latter is an organised crime.