Gambling as a Sickness
The downfall of Alex Ivanovitch began when he placed 20 gold coins on "pass" at the roulette table and doubled his money. Excited by that stroke of good fortune, he tried again and won again — and tried yet another time and won again. In fact, he parlayed his 20 coins into 160 pieces of gold in less than five minutes. In so little time and with so little effort, he raked in a cool 800 percent return on his initial investment.
Chilled with Terror
"I was as though in delirium," Alex describes the experience, "and I moved the whole heap of gold to 'red.' All that time I was playing, I felt chilled with terror, and a shudder made my arms and legs tremble. I realized with horror what losing would mean for me now. My whole life was at stake."
But Alex did not lose — at least, not then. His luck was astonishing. He felt as if some benevolent force guided his hand in the bets he placed each time the wheel was turned. In less than half an hour he heard, as if in a trance, the croupier telling him he had reached the
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30,000 florin limit allowed at any one table.
Quickly, he transferred his operation to another. There, his streak of luck continued. Soon he had pocketed the maximum allowed at the second wheel, and had moved his newly gained fortune to a different type of game where the limit on winnings was less restricting.
Intense Craving for Risk
"I was experiencing an overwhelming enjoyment in scooping up and taking away the banknotes which grew up in a heap before me," Alex reflects. "It seemed as though fate was urging me on. I am convinced that vanity was half responsible for it; I wanted to impress the spectators by taking mad risks. And — oh, the strange sensation! I remember distinctly that, quite apart from the promptings of vanity, I was pressured by an intense craving for risk.
"Perhaps passing through so many sensations, my soul was not satisfied, but only irritated by them, and craved still more sensations — and stronger and stronger ones till utterly exhausted."
Alex's total winnings for the evening: 100,000 florins. He was, at that moment, a very wealthy man!
"You are bold — very bold," two solemn observers said to him at the door as he marched triumphantly from the casino floor. "But be sure to go away tomorrow as soon as possible, or else you will lose it all — you will lose it all."
The next day, Ivanovitch did in fact leave the city — and that only because of previous plans that could not be changed. In due time, though, the lure of the games brought him to the casino again, lusting after more
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excitement and greater riches. Whereupon the solemn prophecy heard at the door became a grim and depressing reality. He did indeed lose it all.
The Loss Spurs Him On
But somehow that loss served only to quicken his pulse, narrow his vision and enlarge his enthusiasm for the chase. He was determined to recover from the temporary setback and become once again the wealthy, self-assured and much envied man the casino had made him on his first visit.
From that point on, the life of Alex Ivanovitch was never the same. With even the smallest amount of cash in his pockets, he returned to the gaming rooms, eager to experience those sensations of risk, of power, of despair, of triumph and of desperate anticipation.
"I am living, of course, in continual anxiety," the now compulsive gambler testified. "I play for the tiniest stakes, and I keep waiting for something, calculating, standing for whole days at the gambling table, and watching for the play. I even dream of playing. But I feel that in all this I have, as it were, grown stiff and wooden, as though I had sunk into a muddy swamp.
"Can I fail to understand that I am a lost man? But — can I not rise again? Yes, I have only for once in my life to be prudent and patient. I have only for once to show will power, and in one hour I can transform my destiny. The greatest thing is will power!"
"Tomorrow It Will All Be Over"
It seemed as simple as that. But for Alex Ivanovitch
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that simple solution of will power never materialized. And thus his painful dilemma remains unresolved at the close of Fyodor Dostoevsky's depressing book titled, The Gambler. The story ends with Alex's despairing sigh, "Tomorrow — tomorrow it will be all over!"1
Dostoevsky's tragic novel is assumed to be an autobiographical account of his own personal slavery to the gaming tables, written more than a century ago. The celebrated Russian author of The Brothers Karamazov was himself a compulsive gambler — one of the most notorious of his day. The gifted novelist wrote great books partly because he needed royalties to cover his losses in the casinos of Europe. The fictitious Alex doubtless testifies to the sensations Dostoevsky himself experienced in those terrifying moments when he discovered he was no longer in control of his own will — and thus of his destiny. He was never quite sure after that discovery whether or not life was worth the effort.
Clement McQuaid, who assembled the exhaustive study of games and gamers titled Gamblers Digest, takes issue with the old cliche that "all gamblers die broke." It is more accurate to say, he insists, that they live broke — that their personal agony is the necessity of going on living in financial ruin and relentless shame, existing from one scam or fraud or broken promise to the next.2
They All Die Broke
"Our extensive research has shown that compulsive, psychotic gamblers go broke well before the end of their lives unless something is done to stop them," McQuaid notes. He documents case after case establishing what
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appears to be a universal truth: unskilled, uninformed, desperate, bet-for-the-fun-of-it or gamble-to-make-a-fast-buck rollers almost without exception prove to be losers. And that pattern usually becomes evident quite early in their careers.
The personal tragedy stalking the compulsive gambler can be just as ruinous and painful as that associated with compulsive drinking or other addictions. Money lost at the gaming table or to the neighborhood bookie means hard work gone to waste, loved ones penalized, careers ruined, hopes and dreams crushed and financial security sacrificed forever. Promising lives — even entire families — have suffered devastating and irretrievable loss on the roll of the dice, the turn of the wheel, the numbers on a card or the chance outcome of a sporting event.
$35 Billion in Insurance Fraud Losses
Dr. Henry Lesieur, a professor of sociology at St. John's University in New York City, has completed a study of the relationships between compulsive gambling and crime, and his findings are sobering. Lesieur concludes that the nation's millions — authorities differ on how many — of pathological gamblers may be responsible for more than $35 billion in insurance fraud losses spread over their lifetimes. The insurance money they claim on bogus losses is used to pay off gambling debts. Interpreted conservatively, that figure suggests an insurance fraud extortion of at least $1 billion each year, attributable directly to the recouping of gambling losses. That is a formidable penalty to be inflicted upon the public through the frantic efforts of compulsive gamblers
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to get back into the action again.3
Other surveys also have sought to determine what percentage of gamblers resort to illegal means in order to recoup those losses. It is questionable how precise the following figures are when applied to the total spectrum of addicted gamblers, but they do suggest a frightening relationship between gambling losses and white collar crime:
Sixty-six percent of identified compulsive gamblers interviewed in several surveys admitted to embezzling company money.
Forty-three percent said they had resorted to writing worthless checks to make the payoff.
Thirty-two percent admitted they had filed false auto accident claims to collect insurance.
Seventeen percent described various means of tax fraud they had attempted.
Fifteen percent acknowledged faking a business or home burglary to collect insurance.
Eleven percent said they had been involved in arson in order to acquire money.4
Treat Them or Punish Them?
Through the years, society has been hard pressed to
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determine how it should regard or treat compulsive gamblers. Are these people afflicted with a treatable illness that deserves sympathy and clinical help, or are they merely moral weaklings to be censured and disciplined? Only in relatively recent years have psychologists progressed toward a clearer understanding of what compels people to do things which, in their more thoughtful moments, they determine — however futilely — not to do again.
Compulsion of one kind or another probably is a weakness afflicting every member of the human race. Compulsion is a functional flaw in our fallen nature. Doubtless all of us experience from time to time that strong, irresistible, yet often subconscious desire to do or say or indulge in something admittedly not in our best interest — even if it is something no more ominous than being a chocoholic.
Compulsions come in assorted sizes and shapes, and with various degrees of significance and threat. We encounter compulsion probably most routinely and dramatically in the area of narcotics and alcohol, but humans experience addiction in many other ways worthy of concern. We might experience some serious soul-searching before denying occasional struggles in the area of lying, stealing, cheating, talking too much, extra-marital sex, overeating, gossiping, twitching, nail biting or, perhaps, something as innocuous as giggling when there is nothing really funny to cause our amusement.
A Uniquely Devastating Kind of Grief
Compulsive gamblers, however, inflict upon family members, friends and business associates a uniquely
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devastating brand of frustration and grief. They are likely to risk their reputations, their family's comfort and security, their life savings, their future, their jobs, their freedom or their personal safety on the turn of a card, the roll of the dice or the speed of an animal at the racetrack or the kennel club. In "The Celebrated Jumping Frog," Mark Twain described the local gambling enthusiast this way: "If there was two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first."5
For people like that, gambling is no longer recreation — often not even a source of personal enjoyment. It is a loathsome pathological obsession. It is a cruel and relentless master. Compulsive gamblers suffer from an identifiable dysfunction of the mental processes.
Probably there is no cure — at least not apart from something almost metaphysical that provides the victim with a consuming desire to be well again. A genuine spiritual rebirth might provide the solution, but only if it is followed by a determined process of learning and maturing. Whatever the therapy, the only gambling addict who can hope for deliverance from this bondage is one who faces squarely the implications of his sickness and takes the drastic steps necessary to bring it under control.
The urge to gamble on something — preoccupation with wagering either to win or to lose — expands in the awareness of its victim until it becomes a substitute for reality. The interests of family, health, friendships, business and financial stability are overshadowed by the irrational compulsion to bet on something. What matters most is what gamblers think of as "the action." As one compulsive gambler put it, "The next best thing to
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gambling and winning probably is gambling and losing."
Once He Was Considered Stupid and Irresponsible
Dr. Robert Custer, medical advisor to the National Council on Compulsive Gambling and designer of the Veteran's Administration's in-patient treatment programs for addicted gamblers, points out that threats of punishment and rejection were the tools society once attempted to use to control the person whose weakness is gambling. His addictive behavior was considered stupid and irresponsible, and he was treated accordingly. His calamitous loss of money, the waste of his time, talent and energies, the hardships and heartaches he brings to dependent family members, would seem reason enough for the compulsive gambler to renounce his weakness and mend his way. As thousands of victims now know, it seldom turns out that way.6
In 1924, Der. Ernst Simmel declared gambling to be an effort to gain "narcissistic supplies," such as food, love, comfort and attention — things the gambler feels have been denied him. The Austrian psychologist classified the adult compulsive gambler as one who has regressed to childhood. Further, he diagnosed the gambling mania as rising out of man's ingrained desire to avoid work.7
A Fantasy World in Which They Feel Important
Today that attitude is seen as an unfair judgment
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and an unwarranted oversimplication. The prevailing view among psychologists now is that compulsive gamblers are striving to create for themselves an acceptable form of reality — a fantasy world in which they can feel important, challenged, power-wielding, influential and respected, no matter how painful or costly the process of achieving it. As the habit worsens, these pathological inner drives become even more urgent than the welfare of their dependents or the basic components of their personal financial stability.
The Veterans Administration provides a psychological profile indicating the compulsive gambler is neither stupid nor naive. Neither is he necessarily criminal. The typical addict, in fact, has superior intelligence and is vigorously competitive. He is a hard worker with a high energy level. Usually he has done well in school, likes challenges, thrives on excitement, seldom relaxes and finds boredom difficult to tolerate. Curiously, he may also display an almost stoic acceptance of the fact that the odds are against him. Unfortunately, that perception will not deter him from placing his bet and hoping for a favorable outcome anyway.
Tracing the Problem to Early Adolescence
The compulsive gambler probably can trace his wagering habits back to early adolescence — or beyond. He may have done his first serious gambling when he was still in his teens. Five years or more may have passed before he realized he had a problem, but even then he was not likely to admit it to anyone but himself.
He probably has his favorite type of gambling and sticks with it, win or lose. Compulsive gamblers are
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divided fairly evenly in their preference between casinos, horse races, card games and sports betting through bookies. But dog races, jai-alai, numbers games — even church bingo parties — also have their loyal devotees.
The Three Phases of Addiction
Identifying the compulsive gambler seldom is a cut-and-dried judgment, but Dr. Custer has found three phases in the development of a confirmed "gambleholic." It may be worth the effort to check the details of these phases against your own experiences, or against those of someone for whom you feel a responsibility or a concern.
In the winning phase of his journey toward addiction, the gambler usually experiences a stimulating "score," or an unusual run of good luck. He is pleased with this new-found source of easy money, and this encourages him to bet again. He seeks out the experts and learns the strategies. He probably develops a useful knowledge of gambling odds and risks. This qualifies him — especially in his own eyes — as an accomplished and successful gambler.
At this point, things may still be comfortably under control, and he is well able to quit while he is ahead. The lure of the game is difficult to resist, however, and the dangers of continuing are not readily apparent. The gambler is reluctant to terminate an activity he has found enjoyable and perhaps even profitable. Therefore he must continue — at least until this particular streak of luck has spent itself.
Because he is not really naive, the knowledgeable gambler understands there is no such thing as "luck" or
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"a lucky person." He knows the odds, given enough time, must return always to balance. But a big win establishes in his mind the fact that the kill can happen, and that therefore it just might happen again. And the sure way not to cash in on it is to be out of action when it falls.
The "Big Win" Gets Him Started
Winning suggests to the uninitiated person a wonderful and heretofore undiscovered solution to whatever financial problems may be plaguing him. The testimonies of many compulsive gamblers confirm that the addictive "big win" can be large enough to approximate the individual's legitimate annual income at the time. That much money is enough to make a favorable and lasting impression, and certainly it is enough to cloud any logical thought about those immutable laws of average.
Ironically, that "big win" may herald the end of the winning phase and the beginning of the losing phase. Now the net or the noose is being tightened, whichever metaphor seems more appropriate. It is, of course, the law of averages that is closing the gap between the wins and the losses. But that bit of rationality usually eludes the compulsive gambler, along with the obvious fact that house and track splits substantially increase the odds against him.
The indomitable winner — the dauntless, unconquerable master of his fate at the gaming table — finds his reasoning powers paralyzed by the unfavorable turn of the tide, and by the tension generated through the higher stakes now demanded. His losses soar. Funds
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available from former winnings are exhausted. He begins to dip into savings, to liquidate investments or to borrow informally from cronies who are more prosperous — but not more rational — than he is.
Frenzy Is the Cardinal Sin
Soon even greater losses must be recouped, and that means larger bets — perhaps against greater odds. A pattern of frenzy emerges that blurs the logic and diminishes whatever gambling skills may have been acquired. Wise and nonaddicted gamblers avoid that frenzy like smallpox. Indeed, they consider that lapse of rationality — the frenzy — the cardinal sin of their profession and the sure mark of the pathological player.
As the process of addiction continues, the search for money becomes ever more frantic, because it is ever more urgent that the action continue and that the losses be recovered. Insurance policies may be cashed in, stocks sold, mortgage payments skipped, bonds liquidated, collateral loans sought. But while this availability of cash through liquidated assets or legal loans seems at the moment a boon to the anxious gambler, it is in fact another seed of his destruction.
Liquidation becomes to him the equivalent of a gambling win. It is bailout money easily and quickly available, with only routine effort involved in getting it. When he negotiates a loan, interest rates and repayment schedules seem of no great concern. He reasons that enormous gambling wins, soon and certain to come, will take care of these minor details and compensate him generously for the temporary setback.
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Less Expertise and Greater Risks
Though he has, in fact, gained some useful skills at the games, under the weight of his increasing anxiety and frustration, the compulsive gambler is now becoming less expert. Further, he is taking greater risks and betting more in an effort to recoup those losses. Inner conflict for him has become a worrisome and sleepless way of life. He must bend the truth more often now, because it is important that loved ones, business associates and friends not be aware that his life is becoming unmanageable.
We have, then, a less skilled gambler, with needs growing ever greater and more urgent, risking more by betting more, with frustration mounting and with less help available, because those who might come to his rescue are kept in ignorance of his struggle. The web of deceit he continuously weaves around his frenzied activities hides the urgency of his worsening dilemma. The compulsive gambler in this losing phase becomes a veritable genius at manufacturing excuses for his often bizarre behavior. He glibly explains to his wife or to his business associates where he has been or what he was doing at the time he was expected to be somewhere else. His family is robbed of the time it is entitled to expect from him. His productivity at work diminishes because of lost time and increased preoccupation with his frustration and his financial difficulties.
Relationships deteriorate. Once the compulsive gambler's lies are exposed — and that exposure comes sooner or later — his wife, his children, his friends and his business associates experience a sense of betrayal which adds bitterness to their complaints. Their
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demands for a change become more angry and more insistent.
A Defensive Bitterness
The gambler responds to those demands with a defensive bitterness of his own. From his blurred point of view, this bitterness is justified because people he believes owe him trust are not providing it. People he feels should recognize his ability to handle his own affairs and make his own decisions are suggesting he is incompetent to control his finances or establish his priorities. This he sees as a final emasculation he must not tolerate.
Through all of this — or so it seems to the gambler — the solution to his problems is less complicated than others realize. Moreover, it is always imminent. The big win is the solution — even if, for the moment, that solution lies just beyond his reach. Payments on loans, stacks of unpaid bills and multiplying unmet personal obligations are seen as merely temporary inconveniences because that winning streak lies just around the next bend. When it happens, he will make everything right again — and with money to spare. Thus bigger bets seem the best assurance of large wins. The gambler is, in fact, constructing his own prison, bar by bar.
The Desperation Phase Begins
It may be difficult to determine exactly when the losing phase is over and the desperation phase begins, but Dr. Custer finds that final phase a phenomenon almost
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certain to take place. Pressure from creditors increases, further threatening the gambler's protective cloak of anonymity. When bills or dunning letters arrive in the mail, they must be intercepted and hidden from others in his family or place of employment. Elaborate explanations must be concocted to justify the "unreasonable" demands made by these creditors. By this time, the gambler's job probably is in jeopardy. His family may be suffering genuine deprivation of basic needs, and his alienation from loved ones may have become a tragic reality, shaking the very foundations of his family life.
With legal borrowing resources exhausted, the risk of loan-shark funding must be taken, and this at back-breaking interest rates. In due time, the day of reckoning comes. The embattled gambler must produce large sums of money to satisfy the credit demands of his shylocks. Failing that, he runs the risk of disgrace, blackmail, injury or death at the hands of those shadowy financiers who eventually grow weary of his empty promises to pay.
On top of all that, he may now be threatened by employment termination, divorce, the rebellion of his disillusioned children — or by all three. His world has begun to disintegrate, and he may begin to recognize his own desperation.
A Guarded Acknowledgment of Failure
A partial confession often is seen as a possible remedy at this point. So he manages a guarded acknowledgment of his failure — made to a carefully selected audience of those who, for whatever reasons, may feel responsible for the unfortunate man. "It was a crummy
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thing I did, and I've sure learned my lesson," he is likely to plead. "I just want you to know how sorry I am and how bad I feel about it." This may be said or written to parents, spouse, children, in-laws or more distant affluent relatives. With a special show of chagrin and self-condemnation, he makes the acknowledgment usually to those he feels may bail him out.
And frequently, someone does. Some generous sympathetic soul provides money to rescue the errant relative or friend from his uncomfortable predicament. This is done, of course, on the basis of his solemn, often tearful pledge that he will indulge no more his despicable weakness.
The bailout may, in fact, serve only to reactivate the compulsive mechanism inside the outwardly penitent man. The flaw in his bailout is that it does not require the compulsive gambler to assume responsibility for his own destructive behavior. His unwillingness to accept that responsibility is the very seed of his character weakness.
A Familiar Scenario
The scenario is not unlike what occurs when an alcoholic is bailed out of jail after his most recent arrest for driving while intoxicated. Shedding tears of repentance, he is escorted home for a hot shower and a good meal. Family members rally dutifully and loyally around to hear his solemn promise. He will banish demon rum forever from his life.
Too late, they discover he has hidden a pint of Jack Daniels under the kitchen sink!
The gambler's bailout can become, in fact, the
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equivalent of another big win. Irrational as it may sound, the bailout serves only to reinforce the pattern of compulsion that is his undoing. He suffers further erosion of any genuine concern for himself or for those affected by his addiction. Those who provided the bailout, in the end, see no evidence of sincerity and no return on their investment. No restitution is made. Soon the benefactors are watching a repeat performance of all that destroyed both the man and his relationships the first time around. All doubt now should be banished. He is hooked. The man is a sick compulsive gambler.8
Where the Action Is
Central to the obsessive world of the compulsive gambler is something known as "the action." Practiced rationalizer that he is, the gambler tells himself it is essential that he be never far from where that action is. There he will capture the big win which shortly must bring an end to his agony.
In reality, it is the action that draws him into the vortex and keeps him spinning helplessly there — win or lose. Dostoevsky described that sensation as commitment to "the game for the game's sake."
Ernst Hoffman wrote a short story a century ago in which the lure of the action is described in these words: "To many, the game in itself presents an indescribably mysterious joy, quite without any reference to winning . . . our spirits stretch their wings to reach that darksome realm, that mysterious laboratory where the Power in question works, and there see it working."
The sensation of action can be provided by a unique environment created either for the game or by the game,
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depending on what form of wagering the gambler has chosen. The racetrack has its own electrified ambience, supported by the murmur of tension-packed spectators and by the strident voice of the track announcer as the horses round the bend. Excitement at the racetrack is increased by rumors and by deliberately false reports which provide momentum for the surge to the betting windows.
An Ambience for the Gambler
In the casino, the theme is timelessness. There are no clocks. There is the eternal bath of fluorescent lighting — the uninterrupted sensation of motion and excitement. Roulette wheels click, wheels of fortune grind, slot machines whir and crap tables provide periodic uproar as enthusiastic bettors throw their seven or make their point.
At the jai-alai fronton (arena), the atmosphere for pari-mutuel betting is strangely akin to that of the ancient Roman Colosseum. In this furious game of Basque origin — seldom found in this country outside of Florida — speed, danger and the cracking and banging of a murderously hard pelota (ball) tingle the smoke-filled arena with excitement. The ambience of the game is an ironic contrast with the "holy day" meaning of the Basque word, jai-alai or "merry festival."
For many compulsive gamblers, the action "high" can also be experienced far from the scene of the actual contest. Some addicts can create the necessary environment quite alone, slouched in bed or squeezed into a telephone booth in animated conversation with their bookie.
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An Inner Loneliness and Isolation
Yet the outward confidence of the compulsive gambler often masks an inner loneliness, isolation, insecurity and desolation that slowly destroys him. He cannot handle intimacy, so he conceals his inner thoughts, hopes and fears from those who could become his deliverers. This hastens the breakdown in his personal relationships. Nothing of his secret feelings can be allowed to surface that might belie the "cool" image he wears like a costume or a mask in a play. In time, he may become unable to experience or display any legitimate emotion about anything — not even when he wins.
The confirmed compulsive gambler is trapped in a vicious cycle of anxiety, denial, survival through occasional wins, deepening indebtedness, pressure from creditors, deteriorating relationships, hidden longing for self-respect and reassurance, and a tightening ring of tension that surrounds most waking moments. From what probably began as an innocent recreational pastime, his gambling adventures have evolved into something now assuming tyrannical control of his life.
There Is No Cure
Monsignor Joseph A. Dunne, executive director of the National Council on Compulsive Gambling, says there is no cure. But he offers assurance that the disease can be arrested — or perhaps "placed in remission" is a more appropriate term. Monsignor Dunne testifies that an occasional compulsive gambler does indeed escape the clutches of the addiction through his own effort and determination. Some have succeeded in making it back
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to the happiness, fulfillment and purpose of a life free from betting. However, the percentage of those who make a clean getaway through their own inner resources is discouragingly low.9
Curiously, little has been said or done by evangelical Christians to address the problem of compulsive gambling. As far as this writer can determine, no organized effort reaches out for the betting addict that could be considered the equivalent of the rescue mission's ministry to the wino and the drifter.
A Greater Awareness of the Syndrome
The National Foundation for Study and Treatment of Pathological Gambling, located in Washington, DC, points out that while more than 4,000 treatment programs are available to our nation's estimated 9 million to 10 million alcoholics, we provide only 16 treatment programs for perhaps 4 million compulsive gamblers. The foundation hopes to correct this imbalance by creating a greater awareness of the pathological gambling syndrome. Its goal is the establishing of a national — and ultimately an international — network of residential and out-patient treatment and research facilities that will address the needs of gambling addicts.
The foundation has been instrumental in the creation of compulsive gambling treatment programs in New York, Maryland and Connecticut, and its staff members have trained participants in those remedial programs to share their healing with others. Dr. Robert L. Custer, in addition to his work with the Veterans Administration and the National Council, is president of the foundation.
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Taylor Manor, in Ellicott City, Maryland, offers an intensive private treatment for compulsive gamblers with a program created by the National Foundation for the Study and Treatment of Pathological Gambling. The cost is high — somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 per person, with no guarantee of permanent reversal — but, then, as the wife of one of its clients asked, "How can we put a price tag on things like happiness and purpose in the life of a family?"
The Peer Support of Gamblers Anonymous
Gamblers Anonymous (GA) offers what appears to be the most readily available approach to the gambling problem, offered at no cost to anyone who will acknowledge his sickness and commit himself or herself to the healing process. GA has a significantly high success ratio with its low-key, peer-support formula, patterned after the highly successful Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program. Given its relative youth and lack of publicity, GA's performance is impressive and encouraging.
GA does not profess to be a "Christian solution" — not any more than AA claims any specific religious commitment. This dedicated organization has been instrumental, however, in bringing multitudes back from the brink of the dark and forbidding abyss that lies before the pathological gambler. Elementary as it may seem, the deliverance of these men and women came through the 12 simple steps that constitute the program of healing developed and administered by Gamblers Anonymous.
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Points to Ponder
1. In the case of Dostoevsky's gambler, Alex Ivanovitch, do you think he developed a perception of reality that is different from our own? In your own real world, exactly what place does money hold? In what way does money relate — or not relate — to God?
2. Why do you think Dostoevsky introduced into the story the two mysterious strangers at the door of the casino who assured Ivanovitch that, if he returned the next day, he would "lose it all"? As a notorious compulsive gambler himself, had the author experienced regret that he did not accept that advice — perhaps from himself?
3. One of Ivanovitch's classical lines is "I have only for once to show will power, and in one hour I can transform my destiny. The greatest thing is will power!" Don't we all suffer now and then from some form of compulsion — perhaps something no more reprehensible than eating too much? What was the occasion when you last bemoaned your own lack of will power?
4. What is your view of people who cannot control their urge to gamble? Are they afflicted with an illness that needs treatment, or are they moral weaklings who need to be set straight? Do you think it is possible for a genuine Christian to be addicted to gambling — or to anything else, for that matter?
5. If most compulsive gamblers can trace their addiction back to early adolescence, what sort of stand do
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you think Christian families should take regarding their children and gambling? Can we justify a double standard in this regard — that is, believers forbidding children to gamble because they are "too young," while they, the parents, indulge in card games for money, the purchase of state lottery tickets or occasional trips to gambling casinos.
Notes
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler, trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1981).
2. Clement McQuaid, Gambler's Digest (Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1971), inside front cover.
3. H.R. Lesieur, The Chase: Career of the Compulsive Gambler (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1977), p. 73.
4. National Council on Compulsive Gambling, March 1985.
5. Mark Twain, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog," quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 554.
6. Robert L. Custer, M.D., "An Overview of Compulsive Gambling" (Unpublished manuscript, 1979).
7. Ernst Simmel, "On Psychoanalysis of the Gambler," Int. Z. Psychoanal 6:397 (1924). Quoted in a footnote in Greenberg, "Psychology of Gambling" (Unpublished paper provided to the author by the National Council on Compulsive Gambling).
8. Sharing Recovery Through Gamblers Anonymous (Los Angeles: Gamblers Anonymous Publishing Co., 1984), pp. 105-8.
9. Telephone conversation between Monsignor Joseph A. Dunne and the author. Quoted with permission.
Chapter Fifteen || Table of Contents