DROP THE GUN. DROP THE PILLS. PICK UP THE PHONE! Over the past 10 days I have literally connected directly with four people suffering from gambling addiction who were at the brink of suicide. Thank the Lord they are all still with us and reaching out for RECOVERY! This disease that hijacks our brains and eradicates our souls also can be arrested with treatment and mutual aid groups, spiritual counsel, a friend who cares…there ARE “No wrong doors” …just enter one and RECOVER. Life is precious and the pain passes. Those in recovery from addiction are LIVING PROOF…RECOVERY is a reality for many and it can be for those who consider the ultimate choice.
SUCIDE PREVENTION HELPLINE is 800-273-8255.
GAMBLING ADDICTION HELPLINE is 800-522-4700.

n recognition of National Mental Health Month, Boulder City Hospital’s Mental Health: Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) staff will participate in a one-hour introductory course to understanding and recognizing Problem Gambling.

Lanie’s Hope Founder and Advocate for the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, Bea Aikens will present a one hour presentation, providing a basic explanation of what happens when gambling becomes an addiction and review screening methods and
resources available to identify and treat problem gamblers and their families.

Innovator and Trail Blazer in the field of Problem Gambling, Executive Director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, Carol O’Hare, sets the tone for this year’s conference with the Opening Keynote,
Problem Gambling in Nevada: Then, Now and in the Future

Conference Featured Presentations Include:

• Addiction and Recovery from an Atheists Perspective
• Youth Gambling Awareness in the Classroom
• Internet Use Disorder
• Understanding the Female Trajectory into Problem Gambling
• Changing the Game:Supportings Young People in Recovery

Known for innovation, this renowned conference concludes with the unique presentation Experiential Yoga and the 12 Steps.

Don’t Miss Out on Early Bird Registration Rates!  Register on line at   nevadacouncil.org

The Nevada Council on Problem Gambling presents one of the most informative and impactful conferences on problem gambling in the U.S. With the myriad changes impacting legalized gambling; from Internet gambling, to wagering on social media, to the anticipated release of the DSM 5, the gambling landscape is indeed changing rapidly. Counselors, clinicians, public policy makers, employers and anyone impacted by problem gambling should plan to attend this premier annual event!

Participants will have the opportunity to earn up to 12 CEUs during the conference (PLUS an additional 5 CEUs at the pre conference workshops on April 24th) while gaining a better understanding of gambling and addiction in this constantly changing world.

Lanie’s Hope is proud to support the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling.

Butler, PA continues to blaze new trails in Problem Gambling Education in Western Pennsylvania.

Friday, March 15 2013 12:30-3:30
Monarch Place, Red Chimney Hall
100 Brugh Avenue Butler, PA 16001

This Town Hall Meeting is open to the public. Clergy, Social Workers, Counselors, Attorneys, Financial Advisors and Family Support Services will find this information especially valuable, as Pennsylvanians struggle with a rise in gambling addiction.

Pennsylvania has the second highest gambling revenue in the Nation; second only to Nevada. While many people can gamble recreationally, those impacted by  Problem Gambling face severe consequence. Compulsive Gambling is a serious public health issue.

Topics covered will include an overview of Butler County’s Problem Gambling Initiative, Assessment of Local and National data on compulsive gambling, an Educational Program on the Signs and Symptoms of Gambling Addiction and access to Available Resources for those impacted by problem gambling.

Lanie’s Hope Founder Bea Aikens will conclude the presentation with a personal story of Recovery and her mission to Advocate for Social Change in Problem Gambling.

Gambling isn’t often thought of as a health issue, that perception needs to change.

takepart.com/article/2012/09/16/why-gambling-can-be-more-destructive-addiction-drugs-or-alcohol-0 

My first bet was made at age 12. Since I am now 57, I will skip early years of gambling and get to what occurred in my life that got me to the wonderful place in my life called recovery.

I always lived on the edge craving excitement. Whether it was living like an outlaw and seeing if I could get away with it or betting on a 40 to 1 long shot, I enjoyed, and later found out I needed, the rush. The reason I needed it was I had an uncontrollable and an incurable disease. It is called compulsive gambling.

Like most compulsive gamblers, I won… at first. But over the years when it got to the point that there was not enough to win, my life became completely unmanageable. Becoming a great liar and rationalizer I hid my problem from my wife. I would also try to hide from my higher power, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.  I surely couldn’t hide from him!

After several years of trying to manage my gambling with no success, it got to the point that, when I had spent and used all avenues to get my last dollar, I was actually relieved! That meant I could finally go home.

I remember the last time I made a wager at a casino. I had just cashed my sixth check at the casino for $500.00 – that was the casino’s limit for me. I lost it in a matter of minutes. Dog-tired I was really glad it was over. Looking back I can see that to do that was not only sick but also insane. Had I lost my mind? I thought so.

Larger than the money issue was the shame. I had depended on lying to get me through life. It became second nature. I would lie to bankers, loan companies, friends, relatives, co-workers and anyone else I did not want to know about my addiction. The funny thing is, I hate it when someone to lies to me! I also made crazy rationalizations to myself and to GOD. Things like, “I haven’t been gambling in three or four weeks” or “I am not going to try and win money. I just want to get back what I had lost.” You can see how out of control of my life was.

Within a few days of my last trip to the casino, my son informed me that my wife was planning an intervention later in the day. When the time of the intervention had come and gone, I asked my wife about it. There was no intervention, but we did have a three-hour talk. With me trying to defend my actions with deceit and word manipulation, my wife asked when I was going to quit. I told her when I could pay off the debt I had due to gambling. It was about $78,000.00. I told her I could retire early and settle for less retirement but a larger sum of instant money that would pay my debt off. What a terrible life decision!  She then asked what guarantee would she have that I would not gamble again. It was then that I finally became honest. I told her the only way she could know for sure was to call our marriage quits after more than 25 years. Her response floored me. She said separation was not an option. If I went down the tubes then she was going with me!

By this time my opinion of myself was rock bottom. Still being honest I told her then to make a call to someone or something that could help. She called a residential gambling addiction rehab center. Ten days later I reluctantly entered rehab. One of my better moves. In the next 6 weeks I learned about my illness. At first, I had a hard time thinking of my gambling as a “disease.” When I entered rehab I had decided to give it a strong effort, but to call it a disease was just blaming my gambling on something else. Copping out. After being in rehab a while and going to many G.A. meetings I began to understand and accept the truth. COMPULSIVE GAMBLING IS A DISEASE! I truly believe if I would not have bought into the disease concept I would not be in recovery.

That brings me where I am today. I told Bea over the phone that my worst day in recovery is better than my best day gambling. Not only have I learned to live life without gambling through. I have also learned how to manage other areas of my life in a better and happier way. I have a right to be happy. In closing I want to give all glory to my highest power, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST who made this story of success possible. I will also continue to do the things G.A. has taught me, like going to meetings and reaching out to other compulsive gamblers. Back to the title of this story. A PLAIN NORMAL LIFE. WHAT A RUSH!

Sincerely,

Emmitt

Ted Hartwell – Advocate for Social Change in Problem Gambling

As has been the case for many others I have spoken with, my own gambling story begins at a young age (10). Family vacations with my father would involve trips to the Ruidoso Downs race track, where I was given $20 for the day to bet on horses. Later, he would teach me how to play poker, and by the time I was a teenager I was playing occasionally, and later regularly, with a group of his colleagues. By the time I was in college, I became involved in a high-stakes pot-limit game, and won enough money over time to move out of the house and get my own apartment while I was in school. There were two men in that game that I (and others) won money from fairly consistently, and looking back I now realize that it was not just because (as I thought) they were “bad” player, but because they were compulsive (pathological) gamblers who would stay in the game until the last card on almost every hand.

When I finished my graduate degree in 1991, I received a job offer from the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas to supervise archaeological work out at the infamous Yucca Mountain Project. I was thrilled to get a job in archaeology, and was excited about the prospects of moving to Las Vegas. For many years after moving to Las Vegas I continued to play live poker. While I never considered myself a professional player, I did well enough to win a little money over the long run, and saw it as an entertaining pastime. I didn’t understand the appeal of the video poker machines…it seemed like a complete waste of time to play a machine, where you had no control over the outcome. Occasionally, I would put $20 into a machine, but never won anything substantial until I hit my first royal flush for $1,000 in the mid-1990s. It was a few years later that I hit a 2nd one, and then very soon after, a third. “Aha! This is why people play the machines!” I thought. Gradually, I played less and less live poker and more and more video poker until soon I was playing video poker almost exclusively. It didn’t seem to matter that intellectually I knew I was never going to beat a computer chip. On the rare occasions I still played live poker, I would take any winnings I had and put them into the machines.In order to keep the fact that I was gambling hidden from my wife, I would almost always gamble during work hours, or during the weekend when I would say I was doing something else. I took out multiple credit cards in my name, unbeknownst to her, and ran up tens of thousands of dollars of debt. I would have the statements mailed directly to my office, so she wouldn’t have the chance of finding them in the mail at home. I would leave work early and gamble until the last 5 minutes before my daughter’s day care closed. On a couple occasions, at the last minute I hit a jackpot that required me to wait until I got paid off by a floor person, and I would have to call the day care and pretend to have a flat tire or be stuck in traffic or some other lie as to why I would be late picking up my daughter. most of the time that I was not gambling was spent managing the lies I had told my wife and/or co-workers as to my whereabouts, and thinking of new ways to find money and time to gamble.

Recognizing that I had a problem, I attended my first 12-Step meeting in 2005, but left that meeting feeling grateful that I wasn’t like the other people in that room, many of whom had lost much more money than I, or had lost their families, or had spent time in prison, or had attempted suicide. “I’ve heard how bad it can get,” I thought….”That will be enough to keep me from gambling again.” For several months I was abstinent, and I took this as “proof” I could control my gambling. When I went back to gambling, for a brief period I was able to control my wagers, and then it was off to the races again. Over the next two years, I repeated the cycle of hiding gambling debt from my family twice more, and when my wife discovered I had been gambling yet again in the summer of 2007, I thought I was going to lose my family. I participated in a 6-week Intensive Outpatient Program through through the Problem Gambling Center, during which I came to understand the importance of regular attendance at 12-Step meetings in maintaining my abstinence and in achieving the process of recovery from this chronic and progressive illness.

Early in my recovery, I embraced the idea of community volunteerism as a way to replace the time I had normally spent gambling with a positive activity. Community service was also a way in which I could begin to make amends to those nameless, faceless (to me) individuals that I had undoubtedly impacted through an unkind word or action while practicing my addiction. Today, service to my community includes promoting awareness of the disease of problem gambling: the reality of its existence, the seriousness of its impact not only on the sufferer but on everyone in that individual’s sphere of influence, and the availability of treatment.I try to accomplish this mainly by sharing aspects of my own story, and information I have gleaned during my own treatment, through review of the literature, and attendance at professional meetings. My hope is that my willingness to share my story will help in some small way to de-stigmatize this illness, and allow others who have been affected by problem gambling to feel that they can talk about the issue as well.

I am so grateful for the life I have now, and I owe it in large part to those who have been involved in my treatment and recovery, including all those who have been present at every 12-Step meeting that I have attended. The disease of pathological gambling is real, it is chronic, and it is progressive. The good news is that help is readily available, and that recovery is also chronic and progressive…today is a good day!

According to the The National Council on Problem Gambling, “The Super Bowl is one of the biggest sporting events  of the year for Gamblers. For some betting on the game is a desperate effort to get ahead  or get even.”

ncpgambling.org/files/Press/Super%20Bowl%20XLVII%20Release%202013.pdf

If betting on a game means too much to you or someone you know, hope and help is available anytime. The National Problem Gambling Helpline (1-800-522-4700) is availble 24/7 and you will be directed to help in your area. Calls are free and confidential.

Don’t believe everything you read.  At the very least..read on for ‘the rest of the story.’  Such was the case for me when I read this eye-popping headline in the Las Vegas Review Journal: “Reid Pulls the Plug on Internet Poker.”  Say WHAT??!!

And then I read on…only to learn that Internet Poker’s “plug” was pulled for 2012.  This on December 14th in a year when all eyes, ears and minds should be focused on the proverbial “Fiscal Cliff” vs. yet another gaming initiative.lvrj.com/news/reid-pulls-the-plug-on-internet-poker-for-this-year-183548271.html

Has the plug been “pulled?” No.  The switch has been turned off for a mere few weeks until 2013. Internet gambling, social media gaming, online poker and more are hot issues for 2013.  Also on the calendar for 2013 is the long-anticipated release of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 with a reclassification of Compulsive Gambling from  “Impulse-Control Disorders Not Elsewhere Classified,” (which also includes disorders like kleptomania) to “Addiction and Related Disorders.” This change is anticipated to  essentially recognize Gambling Addiction as a mental health issue and addiction meriting treatment on par with alcoholism and drug addiction vs. an “impulse control disorder.”

The juxtaposition of these two divergent issues; proliferation and ease of access of gambling and recognition of the severity of the mental health impact of Disordered Gambling will no doubt be topics of interest and debate in 2013. One thing is for certain. The plug has not been pulled.

November 12, 2012
I awoke in the hospital and l remembering looking over and seeing my son. I thought I was dead, because I had not seen him in over three months yet we live less than five miles from each other. Earlier that week all my lies had finally caught up with me. I hated myself and no longer wanted to live. I have only one child and had no relationship with him due to my gambling addiction. If I didn’t have him, I though, I have nothing. My gambling addiction was so out of control that I would look in the mirror and not even recognize myself. I was on high blood pressure medications because my blood pressure was so high due to the stress. I was lying, cheating stealing, whatever I could do to get the money to go and gamble and it was all coming to an end. I could not take the pressure of my actions. I had been found out by friends. My shame was so great. I needed an escape and I thought dying was the best solution.

I came home from my counseling appointment that day and decided I couldn’t do this anymore. I had no control over my gambling addiction. I wrote letters to my son and a few friends apologizing for my actions over the past few years. I remember thinking my son deserved a better mother than me. I thought he had a great wife and two beautiful children and he would be all right without me. I had hurt so many people in my life, some that do not even know yet about my addiction. I remember thinking before I closed my eyes on that day, after taking 110 pills that I was scared and I didn’t want to die. I thought it was too late. I had taken all those pills and I was going to die. I didn’t even get to tell my son I loved him, only through a letter. Well as I closed my eyes I felt I was finally going to get some peace, something I had not had in my life in a long time.

I looked over and there was my son, I had died. I had to be heaven since that would be the only way I would ever see him again. I fell back to sleep and woke a day later. When I finally awoke the doctor asked me what day it was and I didn’t know. I could tell I was in a hospital but not which hospital. I knew I had survived. I do not know how, but I did. There is a reason why God let me live. To tell my story.

After coming home from the hospital and resting for a few days. I decided I was going to take recovery seriously this time. I was going to fight this disease with everything I had in me. I was going to reach out to the people out there who could help me, like my GA members, friends who would understand, and my son.

I survived. It has not been an easy road, but it has been well worth it. I am getting better ever day. I have met people I would have never met had I not reached my lowest point. I am grateful to not be gambling. I am grateful to be ALIVE!