EASTER EGGS AND JELLY BEANS

I started gambling with my Easter eggs and jelly beans when I was a little girl. I didn’t start out to become a compulsive gambler but I certainly did cross that invisible line. I tried to quit so many times by myself but for one reason or another the cycle started again. It seemed that the harder I tried to quit, the worse my binges became. Last Saturday (March 4th) I went out gambling and spent more money than ever and was in bad shape. I hated myself so much. I couldn't believe what a loser I was.

I called GA and they told me about this web site. It made me feel that life could be tolerable and the articles were really good. I also, for the first time, told my sister about my problem. She was so nice to me. I told her that I was going to a GA meeting and she was so supportive. I was so used to beating myself up that I honestly felt she would do the same.

My first meeting was Monday (March 5). I can't tell you how much that meeting helped me. The people there were so kind. It gave me so much hope. They talked about surrendering. I had always thought that surrendering was a sign of weakness and defeat. Gambling had completely kicked my butt. So I have surrendered and the funny thing is that I feel like I've won. Crazy huh! Every time I think about going to the casino I wave my big white flag up high and the urge goes away and I feel like a Winner. I'm just glad that it’s working.

Tomorrow night is my second meeting and I'm looking forward to seeing the kind, funny people that saw me at one of my all-time lows. I know that if I continue to go to the meetings and not gamble that my life will be so much better. It has meant everything to me.

Debbie

CHAT ROOM:    If anyone is interested in entering the chat room to share some therapy or talk to other female gamblers, please check

out the room when you have time and make arrangements with anyone in there to meet on a certain day at a definite time.  It seems like

we're having a problem coordinating times for chats.  You can list a time, that's good for you, on the 'guestbook remarks' and we'll join you.

    

Gripped by Gambling  will be the title of my book.  The book has survived the editing and is on it's way to being published and should be available for sale in two or three months.  This is not a book written by a counselor or a psychiatrist nor does it contain statistics.  Here are a couple of paragraphs from the first chapter:

"Please," I whispered to the officer, "not in front of my grandson." Shaking his head, he leaned toward me with handcuffs dangling from his outstretched arm. Moments earlier he had told me, "I just want you to go downtown with me to answer a few questions." And now he was handcuffing me and mumbling something about police procedure. He pulled the handcuffs back when he noticed five-year-old Tyler standing a few feet away. Tyler clutched a little red truck in one hand and the hem of his mom’s skirt in the other. My family stood frozen and stared at the six police cars backing out of the driveway. I felt the officer’s hand on my arm as he escorted me to the only remaining car. With each rapid breath, my heart felt like it was going to explode. Ducking into the back seat, I looked up at him and held out my wrists. CLICK. CLICK. The cuffs were securely in place and Tyler hadn’t seen.

I watched the officer walk across the driveway where my daughters stood, their arms wrapped around each other. Whatever he was saying to them didn’t seem to help. Juannie and Kathy just nodded while Tyler looked up at his mom, seeking reassurance. I slipped lower in the back seat and struggled to catch my breath. Hyperventilation! I needed to control it. Control one small thing in a world that was spinning off its axis.  

          Marilyn Lancelot, AZ   

                             

Escape Vs. Action Gamblers – A Non-Issue

 

I want to make a proposal that sounds revolutionary, as I review the conventional wisdom I was taught as a gambling counselor. I was taught that there are two types of gamblers: action gamblers, seeking thrills and adrenaline rushes, composed mostly of men; and escape gamblers, who want to "zone out" and not have to cope with the real world, mostly women.

After learning this, I advocated my theory in the therapy groups I led, giving my clients the list of the differing personality characteristics and asking each to choose a category that fit them. However, very soon I got an uncomfortable feeling within myself and a reaction from my clients, stating that they sometimes gambled on the tables, sometimes on the machines.

The different types of gambling gave them different effects, but they were having troubles with both types of gambling. Or, women identified themselves as action gamblers and men as escape gamblers. I filed this information away in what I call my "cauldron", which is a melting pot of interesting ideas and puzzling facts and went on giving my clients the data I had been taught.

Several weeks later (well, probably several years – this is a process, after all!), the group and I were talking about feelings. The official party line that I gave them was that gambling and other addictions were a way of avoiding feelings. We made a list of the feelings that their gambling helped them avoid. We listed anger, sadness and grief, deprivation, happiness, injustice, being overwhelmed, shame, guilt, frustration, boredom and many others.

Boredom!! Suddenly I put two and two together and got 4! Those gamblers, male and female, that were seeking an escape from boredom were probably most likely to be called "action gamblers". And that was hardly any different than avoiding other emotions, conventionally labeled "escape gamblers"! Although they were interacting with others around them, action gamblers too were in a "zone", in which NO emotions existed.

Therefore, if gambling, in whatever form, elicited the same effect (no emotions), then I could treat all kinds of gamblers in my program, as long as the emphasis was on feeling ALL emotions, whether labeled "good" or "bad".

I routinely give my clients a list of feelings, so that they can work on increasing their vocabulary and using the words in group. Being a touch obsessive myself, I went through the dictionary and wrote down all the emotion words – over 700 of them! I quickly noticed something. While there were approximately 400-450 negative words, there were only about 300 positive ones!

How odd, I thought, that we label more feelings we don’t like than ones we do! And, how odd that addicts don’t like ANY of them! My emphasis in treatment, therefore, has shifted to learning how to accept and savor every emotion, without judging it as good or bad. Who knows, sometime I may have to retype my 700-word list of emotions!

Lynn Stilley is a licensed MFT, licensed alcohol and drug counselor and a certified gambling counselor, certified as a Nevada state gambling

counselor since certification began in January of 2005. 

 GAMBLING MADE ME A LIAR AND A THIEF

This is a response from Susan D. to Jamie’s letter which appeared in the October 2006 issue of the WHW Newsletter.

Dear Jamie,

Hello....I'm Susan D, one of the women on the Women Helping Women Email Support Network. This is a network of wonderful ladies, all of whom have the same addiction that you have. Some of us only have days of clean time while others have years. We do, however, all have the same common goal - recovery from gambling addiction. I hope that you reach out to the others on this network (and me, as well) for some support. I do not believe that there is any such thing as too much support. Some of us send "group emails' (this does require that you set up a group in your address book-if you don't know how to do that, look for someone else that has "yahoo" in their email address and ask them as each provider is a little bit different) and some of us send out "individual" emails (I try to do both).

I sure remember feeling as hopeless and desperate as you do right now. That was over 6 years ago and by the Grace of God, without gambling, my life is now much better. I won't try to pretend that it was easy...it was not. I saw an outpatient therapist and also joined GA. (both of which really did save my life). I know that there are meetings in Milwaukee on both Wednesday and Friday evenings. (I checked the GA website - www.gamblersanonymous.org and there are several meetings in Wisconsin but I'm not geographically familiar with Wisconsin so I don't know which others are in your area of the State).

Have you told your husband about this? If he doesn't know, he cannot be supportive of you. Besides, you are less likely to get any type of help if he is unaware of the problem. You do have an addiction, that if left untreated, can kill you (you've already mentioned feeling suicidal). You're a young mother and those 3 precious kids really need you. By the time I was 28 (your age now) I was a single parent with an 8 year old and well on my way to a destructive life and as I remained as sick as the secrets I kept, life continued on a downward spiral.

I was one of those people that "lost everything". My last bet was 10/5/99 and I entered GA on 2/8/00. My husband died on 10/19/99 (heart attack not related to my gambling), my house was foreclosed on a few months later, my vehicle was repossessed and I was arrested for embezzlement and contemplating suicide. At the time, it seemed like it was the right thing to do. Today, gratefully, I didn't follow through with that thought. At that time, I would have traded my life with just about anyone. Today, I wouldn't trade my life with anyone (except for maybe whoever Jack Nicholson is sleeping with....only joking, I think)

My gambling made me a liar and a thief...I learned to manipulate and maneuver every move I made. I became secretive and unfeeling (although I could cover this really well) and generally numb to the rest of the world.

 

Hope to hear back from you soon.

Love & Hugzzz

Susan D., SC 

                   I FELT REALLY SPECIAL

Hi~~~~~~~ My daughter sent me this home page of Women Helping Women and I was very angry at first. I felt it was my   life and I could do what I wanted to do with it. I even told her to clean her own house before she tries to clean mine. I went to Atlantic City for 5 days this past week and lost 10,000. I just took a loan out on my house and it’s not the first time I borrowed on my home and spent it. I grew up with a compulsive gambler, my dad. I was never like him, nor did I want to be. I am 58 years old and now I feel I have a big problem. I felt depressed in the past year, However I have been depressed before so I paid no attention to it. I was going to Atlantic City almost every weekend where I was treated like a very special person. I did not feel anything nor think about anything. I loved it. I thought about gambling everyday and wished for the weekend to come quickly because I was always packed and ready to go. Each time I visited the casinos it got better. My host at the casino gave me everything, from nice rooms to butlers, and cabanas and everyone knew my name. I really felt special, like I was the princess I always wanted to be. This was such a different world for me and I wanted it. I hated to leave the casino and come home and when I did, I slept for a few days. I always paid my bills on time and have great credit but now I’m behind in all my bills and don’t care about the credit, or losing my house. I’m getting ready to sell because I will lose it soon if I continue this behavior. I realize this has become a problem for me. I have this void in my life that I cannot really explain. I just know my bills are sitting here and I just don’t care. I’m thinking how I can make the money back that I’ve lost. I met a girl last summer and she had the same problem. She was selling her house to pay her 80,000 dollars worth of debt. I made friends with her for a partner in Atlantic city and helped her pack and move into an apartment. She made some money on the house and now is spending all she has left. I need help. I cannot find enough meetings in my area for this problem. They are all far away and not many of them. I do not know what to do to stop this behavior. I say I am not going any more but I still go. Please help.

I sent a couple of e-mails to Peggy and this was her last response.

Hi, thanks for sharing all that nice stuff. I do appreciate it. I am at my bottom and have been crying all morning for the damage I have done to myself. I have called for help. I’ve been a member of AA for 24 years but stopped going to meetings a year ago. I have a lot of excuses to why I would not go to those meetings anymore, but that is what they truly are, excuses and no good reasons. I am going to meet with someone tonight at my home group of AA, because there are very few GA meetings here. How sad is that? However it is all about the 12 steps which came from AA to begin with. I am an addict in every way shape and form. I Live in New Jersey. Please keep in touch with me. I am making my first step by going to this meeting tonight, for there are a lot of people there who have a gambling problem, and have recovery. I am waiting for someone who has been in GA for many years to call me. Thanks for sharing your story. I know this is how it works. You may do whatever you would like with my story, for if it will help one person, it would be worth it. If not, it will have helped me...

God Bless,

Peggy, New Jersey

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