For years Denise helped others through their drug and alcohol addictions. But she didn't recognize until it was almost too late that her own passion for gambling was just as destructive
I AM AN ADDICT. Others may get their rush from drugs and alcohol, but my high comes from gambling. It has been more than two years since I placed a bet, but my addiction is still there, waiting for me to let it take control of my life again.
I had been out of control for years. And I almost let gambling get the best of me. Dogged by perpetual money problems, profound embarrassment and the loss of my job, one morning just before dawn I swallowed pills by the handful and drank a gallon of windshield-wiper fluid laced with Pepsi.
I woke up in the stark, sterile environs of a hospital intensive-care unit. I had been in a coma for three days and was on kidney dialysis and receiving intravenous medications to remove the poison from my liver. The doctors called my survival a miracle. Denise, 1; Gambling, 0. I'd won that round on a humble; to play again would mean betting my life.
Gambling was once my friend. I grew up in Detroit, immersed in it. Wagering was as natural for our family as church Was for some. My older sister, Diane, and I learned to count from a deck of cards: 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king. My mother occasionally played the lottery, pokino and cards with other relatives. But Daddy was the real gambler in the house. As long as I can remember, he played the street lottery and the horses. If Diane or I dreamed of a dog, Daddy would look up dogs in his tattered Lucky Star or Red Devil dream books and bet on the corresponding numbers.
Starting at a Nickel a Hand
Weekend card parties were a staple in our family, kicked off by a Friday-night fish or chicken fry. Aunts, uncles, cousins and friends would crowd into my uncle's huge brick house not too far from mine on the city's east side. The grown-ups had their games, and we kids had ours. We'd play tonk and pity-pat for a nickel or dime a hand. It was the happiest time of my life--every weekend was like a family reunion.
When I was 14, everything changed. My mother died of complications from a routine surgery for stomach ulcers. Diane had finished high school and moved out. Within two years, my father remarried and we moved in with my stepmother in Flint, about an hour's drive north of Detroit. Losing my mother, my sister and the rest of my family made me angry and rebellious. I missed the way our lives had been.
School was my anchor, and I did well there. I graduated from high school and returned to Detroit. I first attended Wayne County Community College, and then went to Wayne State University, where I majored in psychology. I had always wanted to work with people with addictions. You see, Daddy struggled with alcoholism. Since I was 16, I'd gone to 12-Step support programs and received help for depression and being the child of an alcoholic, so I knew the value of good counseling.
Back in Detroit, I moved in with an aunt, my mother's younger sister. Soon gambling became routine again. I joined in the one-to-five-dollar-a-hand poker games with my family, sometimes playing for two to three days straight. Blood didn't keep us from fighting. We never got physical, but our disagreements were loud, heated and frequent. I also played bingo at the VFW halls or in the basements of Catholic churches around the city.
I had received a scholarship for college, and, despite my late nights and long weekends, my classes remained a priority. To keep my grades up, I devised a little system: I wrote my notes on index cards and studied while I played bingo. I got my bachelor's degree in 1982, one of the first in my family to graduate from college. Eight months later I entered graduate school and earned my master's degree in social work in 16 months. I was 25 years old.
I took a job as a psychiatric social worker in a major hospital, working with people with addictions. I gradually became an expert in all but my own. Since I had never abused drugs or alcohol, I never made a connection between my passion for games of chance and an unhealthy way of life. I should have seen my vulnerabilities: addiction in the family, sometimes feeling depressed. But gambling was entertainment, I reasoned.
Twice a Week, Every Weekend
There were the family poker games, trips to Atlantic City about once a month and the weekly three-hour drive to the Soaring Eagle, a casino and resort on a Native American reservation in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. I played at least twice during the week and every weekend. I began tapping into bill money for bingo, poker and blackjack.
Gambling was very common among my friends, so I was never secretive about how much I played, only how much I lost. For Diane and most of my relatives, it was a pastime, but it became my life. When would I play? Where? Where would I get the money? What about the money to cover the money I had just lost?
I won big and lost big. Three years out of college and I was still living with my aunt. Despite earning about $30,000 a year, I couldn't scrape together the money to move out on my own. It didn't occur to me that my hobby was to blame. I just had "financial problems" and needed to manage my money better.
When I finally saved enough to rent my own apartment (thanks to a few wins poker and bingo), I appeared to be living the life. I was approaching 30; I had a good education, an impressive job and a nice apartment. I had new furniture--paid for with cash. I dressed well and traveled often. But my compulsion grew worse. Every payday, I tried separating the money for bills and household expenses from the money for bingo, usually $100 to $200. It rarely worked.
More Pressure, More Responsibility
In 1990 the renters moved out of my childhood home and I decided to move in. My sister was married with her own house, and my father had moved to Texas. He had no intention of returning to Detroit, so after a few years he asked me to put the house in my name. It was paid for, so I didn't mind taking over the deed. He was happy that I would live there and make some much-needed repairs, and I was happy to own a house with no mortgage: That left more money for me to play with.
But the repairs seemed endless. I had used part of a $4,500 jackpot for a new roof, but found out later that the contractor had done a poor job. Eventually, I took out a mortgage to repair the house. I was so worried that I'd gamble the money away that I had the bank pay the contractors directly. It was one of the smartest decisions I made.
Meanwhile, at work, pressures increased. Hospital layoffs and cutbacks nearly doubled my workload. By this time, I was primarily a casino gambler. I rarely played the more recreational bingo and poker, and so I saw my friends and family less and less. Whenever they called, I promised to get together, but I never did.
But I still managed to spend time with my one true friend, gambling, who was always waiting patiently for me to pull together some money to blow. The more debts I had, the more I tried to score big to pay some bills. Whenever I won, it was just enough to keep me going back.
A Casino Closer to Home
In 1993 they announced that a casino was coming to Windsor, Ontario, just 15 minutes across the Detroit River. It was the biggest thing to hit the Detroit area in a while, and the media hype had everyone talking. I was certainly excited. Soon I would be able to get to a casino in minutes compared with the hours it took to get to Atlantic City or Mount Pleasant. I played the scenario over and over in my head: how I would bet, what games I would play and, of course, how much I would win.
When opening night came on May 17, 1994, I arrived at the Casino Windsor with several hundred dollars in my pocket, only to find the line of eager gamblers snaking around the block. The wait was three to four hours, and people stood patiently in the rain and cold. What was it worth to get in without a wait? Valet parking was Can$50 (U.S.$40). I happily paid it and made my way in.
I was captivated by the crowds, bells, lights. There were roulette wheels, slot machines and blackjack tables but, as is typical in casinos, no clocks or windows to betray how long you stay. In Canada giving away free alcohol is illegal, but the soft drinks, juice and coffee are free--as long as you keep gambling. And I did. The card parties eventually broke up and the bingo halls closed, but the casino was open 24-7. It became my regular haunt.
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They opened a riverboat annex of the main casino, and my world narrowed even further. The next years were a blur of casinos and poker games. The faces became familiar, all with the look of desperation that comes from playing too long and losing too much. I gambled every day of the week, but on Fridays I'd get so excited about the upcoming weekend that I found it hard to concentrate at work. I could play the whole weekend away. After work, I changed into my "casino" clothes, usually brightly colored silky shirts, sequined outfits and jumpsuits with lots of gold and diamond jewelry. For a change, I'd drive the three hours to the Indian reservation and stay until late Sunday night, taking naps in my car.
A Cry for Help
Looking back, I knew my "friend," gambling, was doing me in, but I wasn't ready to face it. When I wasn't playing, I'd often sit alone in the dark wondering how those joyous days of family and fun had become one woman's sad saga of mounting debt. The shock of having to sell one of my two cars, a Chrysler LeBaron Coupe, to pay my bills helped me begin to realize that I had a problem. I had been so proud of that car; it was completely paid for, yet I sold it for about $4,000 and lost all the money in one week. After that, I attended my first 12-Step meeting for compulsive gamblers. That was the winter of 1994. In the spring of 1995, I filed for personal bankruptcy, Chapter 13.
Over the years I had guided countless people to 12-Step programs and helped them recover from drug and alcohol abuse. But seeking help for my own addiction was different. I didn't know what to expect. At my first support group meeting, the room was filled with White men. Other sisters might think, What can I possibly have in common with them? But I knew I could finally talk to somebody who would understand what I was experiencing and feeling. Regardless of color and gender, we were all struggling with the same problem.
That night I got a sponsor--a fellow recovering addict who helps a new member refrain from addictive behavior--and began attending meetings, at least three a week. The support and the program helped me avoid the casinos. My family was in my corner, too, but they didn't understand my addiction. Everybody gambled. I had just gone overboard, they thought.
I began to give work the kind of attention I'd given to casinos. But soon I became too busy to attend 12-Step meetings. After a few months, I convinced myself that I could gamble with control. I would take only a certain amount of money. Gamble only on certain days. Play only one hand of blackjack and walk away. Of course, none of that worked. Three months after my first 12-Step meeting, gambling and I were hanging tough.
But this time my addiction was worse. I can't count the nights I got out of bed at 2:00 A.M. and drove to Windsor, convinced that I could hit it big and pay all my bills. My experience as a psychiatric social worker tells me this: The life of the compulsive gambler is a paradox. "Being in action" (gambling) is what ultimately brings financial and personal bankruptcy. But gambling also makes you forget about the piles of unpaid bills and other troubles in your life.
The more I gambled, the better the casinos treated me. My frequent visits, long hours and big losses earned me VIP status. It was just enough to make me feel important and keep me coming back. But I knew I was becoming depressed. I couldn't focus at work, and I was in and out of support-group meetings. In between, I'd be playing again. I knew I was in trouble, so I sought a sympathetic ear. I told my department director, a psychiatrist and addictions counselor, about my problem.
A Lesser Addict
Even among professionals, compulsive gamblers are considered lesser addicts than substance abusers, primarily because there is no obvious physical damage from gambling. Had I been a drug addict or alcoholic, my situation would have been handled differently. But instead of referring me to the hospital's Employee Assistance Program, the director gave me a prescription for antidepressants and counseled me himself. The medication helped, but our work relationship ensured that the counseling failed. Treating anyone with whom you have a conflicting relationship is poor therapy and unethical. The "treatment" didn't last long. I stopped seeing him in early 1997.
Almost two years had passed since I had started the 12-Step recovery program for compulsive gamblers, and I was gambling more than ever. But now all the glamour was gone. Many nights I would play for hours on end, sleeping in my car for an hour, then heading back for more. I'd often play my last dollar, and wouldn't have the $2.50 for the toll home. Then I'd scour the floors for loose change or borrow from other regulars who knew me. I was pawning my stuff: computers, cameras, VCRs, jewelry, anything that would move easily.
One morning after a big win, I waited with $8,000 in my pocket for the pawnshop to open, frantic to buy back my things and pay the bills before I lost it all. Then I started all over again.
The cycle continued until one Monday morning, when I was broke. Again. I needed cash, so I pawned my $2,700 laptop. The transaction took a while longer than I had expected, and I returned late from lunch. My supervisor confronted me and said that we would have a meeting on Friday. My work was suffering severely. My supervisor had already reprimanded me for lateness and unscheduled absences. Coworkers complained that I was short-tempered and moody. One of them suggested that I was on drugs. I saw what was coming. The threat of another reprimand was the proverbial last straw. "I don't need this," I told myself as I slammed my office door and wrote my two weeks' notice. That was Monday, April 14, 1997.
As I had done so many nights after work, I headed straight for Windsor. I don't recall when I arrived, what games I played or when I left. I do recall getting home having lost all the money from pawning my computer.
I'd never felt more alone. I rarely saw my family, and I had lost track of friends and acquaintances. I had dated occasionally, but my friend, gambling, interested me more. My bills were months behind. The mortgage company was threatening foreclosure on my childhood home. I had walked out on my first professional job, where I had worked for 12 years. I had lost tens of thousands of dollars and was about $80,000 in debt. My family had been so proud of me and my accomplishments, and I had let them all down. I no longer wanted to live.
I ransacked the house looking for prescription drugs, then swallowed everything I could find--antidepressants, cold tablets, weight-loss pills, more than a hundred of them. But they weren't working. So I grabbed a gallon of windshield-wiper fluid, mixed it with Pepsi and started drinking. The next thing I recall was waking up in the hospital that Friday.
My coworkers saved my life. Although I had given my notice on Monday, I was still expected at work the next day. When I didn't show up or call, they called the police. I was found lying on the stairs in my house, in a coma and near death. I was hospitalized for two weeks and in intensive care for eight days. God indeed watched over me--none of the damage was permanent.
After I left the hospital, Diane, my sister, went with me to cash my paycheck to make sure that I wouldn't play it away. In spite of everything I had been through, I stood there with the cash in my hand, and while my sister played the lottery, I was thinking about the casino. That night I went to my first 12-Step meeting in months, and I've continued to go every week.
Although the urges to gamble are less frequent now, I still get them. I know I can't be around my family when they're gambling, which is still just about every weekend.
My survival has renewed my reliance on my higher power, God. So now when I get the urge to gamble, I turn to prayer and to the fellowship of the 12-Step program. The hardest part about recovering is digging out from under the financial ruin. Sometimes I feel I'll never get out, but then I remember that God didn't save my life for me to give up.
Counseling Other Gamblers
The latest buzz in Detroit is over the three new casinos opening downtown. But while folks talk about all the excitement, I dread it--not as much for myself as for others. Few realize how insidious gambling can be. Diane has always said, "Once they touch that [slot machine] handle, they'll be hooked."
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I still work as a psychotherapist specializing in addictions, but at other facilities. I am also a trained counselor for gamblers. I speak at health fairs or anywhere people need to hear my story. On the volunteer hot line, I hear the same story again and again: I don't really gamble that much. I'm not hurting anyone. I'm really good at it. One big win and I'll stop. I encourage the callers to seek help, and I tell them that the odds are against them. Many of them will place another bet as soon as they hang up, but I'll be here when they're really ready to quit.
There is only one difference between me and some of the people who call. I have admitted that I am a compulsive gambler. I've learned that gambling is no friend of mine. It may be fun for some people, but for me it can be deadly. I know there is no cure, but there is a reprieve as long as I use the tools of my 12-Step program. God gave me a second chance at life. I don't intend to gamble with that.
RELATED ARTICLE: THE GREAT AMERICAN PASTIME
Although seedy, smoke-filled gaming rooms still exist, gambling has gone respectable. With the exception of Utah, Tennessee and Hawaii, some form of gambling is legal in every state in the country. State and local governments see it as a foolproof way to raise revenue.
Gambling is largely viewed as a harmless, albeit expensive, recreational activity. This explains why it is rapidly becoming the great American pastime. In 1998, Americans lost an estimated $55 billion (including through the lottery)--five times the amount lost in 1980--which is more than they spent on movies, theme parks, recorded music and sporting events combined. About 20 percent of those losses were endured by problem players.
A recent study by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that more than 5 million Americans are pathological or problem gamblers (described as those with gambling behavior that causes disruption in any major area of life: psychological, physical, social or vocational) and another 15 million are at risk. More than 5 percent of the American population develop a gambling problem at some time, twice the rate of cocaine addiction.
Although it is not unique to any economic group, research shows that gambling takes its biggest toll on the poor. And as we know, a greater proportion of Blacks are poor, compared with Whites. Robert Goodman, director of the U.S. Gambling Research Institute, says that people with lower incomes more often see it as an investment than as recreation. In March 1999 Philip J. Cook Duke University public-policy professor and coauthor of Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America (Harvard University Press $19.95), reported that Black people who regularly play the lottery spend nearly $990 annually on tickets--more than four times the $210 average for Whites.
Since 1990 the number of 12-Step Gamblers Anonymous groups nationwide has doubled from about 600 to more than 1,200. This addiction knows no gender color or age boundaries. In years past, 95 percent of compulsive gamblers were men, but now nearly one third are women and increasingly women of color. More older people are gambling, too, to ease boredom and loneliness, or to try to stretch a limited budget, says Pam Fowler executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.
Although recognized as an impulse-control disorder by the American Psychiatric Association nearly two decades ago, gambling addiction is not viewed by health-care professionals and the public with the same urgency as substance abuse. As a result, funding for treatment is a fraction of the amount for other addictive behaviors.
The societal costs of problem gambling are severe: family disruption, neglected or abused children, divorce, impoverishment and mental breakdown; billions of dollars in lost productivity through absenteeism, poor work performance and theft; and other criminal acts to raise money to bet it away.
Compulsive gambling can be treated if it is recognized. Below are 20 questions from Gamblers Anonymous. Answering yes to seven or more indicates a problem.
Are You a Compulsive Gambler?
1. Have you ever lost time from work or school due to gambling?
2. Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?
3. Has gambling had an effect on your reputation?
4. Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?
5. Have you ever gambled to get money with which to pay debts or solve financial difficulties?
6. Has gambling caused a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
7. After losing, do you feel you must return as soon as possible to win back your losses?
8. After a win, do you have a strong urge to return and win more?
9. Do you often gamble until your last dollar is gone?
10. Do you borrow to finance your gambling?
11. Have you ever sold anything to finance gambling?
12. Are you reluctant to use "gambling money" for normal expenditures?
13. Does gambling make you careless about the welfare of your family?
14. Do you ever gamble longer than you had planned?
15. Have you ever gambled to escape worry or trouble?
16. Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance your gambling?
17. Does gambling make it difficult for you to sleep?
18. Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create an urge to gamble?
19. Do you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune after hours of gambling?
20. Have you ever considered suicide as a result of your gambling?
If you know of someone with a gambling addiction, contact the National Council on Problem Gambling, www.ncpgambling.org, (800) 522-4700. Other resources: Gamblers Anonymous International Service Office, P.O. Box 17173, Los Angeles CA 90017, (213) 386-8789, www.gamblers anonymous.org; and Addiction Research Foundation.www.arf.org, (416) 595-6144.
--M.N.
Melba Newsome is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.
"The Denise Phillips shows that gambling is a sickness we must take seriuosly," says writer Melba Newsome about a sister's struggle with compulsive gambling in "Bet Your Bottom Dollar".
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