“You experience an urge (as I have been all week while writing this chapter), then you step back, both metaphorically and literally, and say to yourself, “I’m having an urge that makes me want to go gamble.” Then you pause. Then you again step away a few more paces and say to yourself, “Now I’m noticing that I’m having a thought that creates an urge and makes me want to go gamble.”
Quote by Kurt Dahl
“The more you can separate yourself from your addiction, the better you will be able to apply the many ideas in this book. CBT, mindfulness, DBT, acceptance, self-compassion. All these techniques require a degree of separation between you and your addiction. Work on that separation. It is important.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“There are a lot of tools out there that can make it possible for you to limit your ability to have cash. You can get a credit card that doesn't work in casinos, you can have a close friend handle your bank accounts, you can hire a trusted payee, you can buy a timed safe, and you can voluntarily exclude yourself from all the nearby casinos. If you have the strength and commitment, it is theoretically possible to make it so you can never have cash in your pocket. Theoretically possible, yes, but unlikely. We addicted gamblers, when we are in heat, seem always to be able to find a way to acquire cash. We will use pawn shops, steal, embezzle, and borrow (while lying) from friends. Please understand what financial controls can and can't do. They can help you to resist or postpone a trip to the casino, "Damn...my husband's wallet has only thirty-five dollars in it, not enough...". They can limit the amount of damage you incur when you do go to the casino, "Sorry sir, this credit card will not work here." But, if financial controls are your only plan, or the primary plan that you have for treating your addiction, not only will this probably not work, you might be setting yourself or your loved one up for even more serious trouble. If the addict feels the need to gamble strongly enough, and if the addict does not have any other tools to fight that powerful urge except a temporary lack of cash, guess what they will do? My guess is, they will "get cash" by whatever means they can.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“You should never rely on financial controls alone to stop you from gambling. Think of them as a secondary tool, like getting good exercise or meditation. They can help by putting up barriers that can cause you to pause, and then be able to work on your “urge warfare” skills, or they can simply give you more time and separation from your urge. But in the end, they are unlikely to stop an addicted gambler with an overwhelming urge to gamble and with no skills to fight that urge. The addiction will find a way.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“When the magnitude of these losses by the addict is discovered, the spouse, or partner, or parent, or whoever else is vulnerable to losing their own money because of the addicted loved one, needs to take actions immediately. The NCPG website has an excellent section on all the precautions a loved one needs to take to segregate and protect their assets from the gambler. If you are in that “significant other” category, do not be shy about doing this. Do not feel guilty about imposing financial controls and protection for yourself and family, you are doing the addict a favor, and maybe even saving their life.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“As we addicted gamblers plunge into our addiction, and as we see and know how much financial damage we are doing to our family and friends, our despair, shame, and guilt multiply. All too often this leads to suicidal thoughts and actions. Therefore, the sooner you can keep family assets safe from the gambler, the less likely you will have to deal with the horrifying aftermath of their death.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“I'd never said no to him, not once. We went where he wanted when he wanted, ate what he wanted, touched or didn't touch as much as he wanted. And honestly, I think I said it just to fuck with him: "Oh, I'm not having an abortion."
He turned green almost instantaneously; it was extremely gratifying.
"What are you, Catholic?" he asked in a much nastier voice than he usually spoke to me in.
"No, but it's my choice," I said.”
Source: Margo's Got Money Troubles
“If you are the significant other, there is one more thing you should do - check carefully to see if the addict has taken out, or recently increased, a life insurance policy. If they have, then you know what that means. They are considering (or planning) a suicide. You must figure out an appropriate way to intervene. I can’t help you with that - just get help from a therapist, loved one, priest, and do whatever you can (quickly) in a thoughtful way that won’t make things worse.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Often when the problem gambler decides to gamble, they will plan to do it “responsibly”. They will get a set amount of cash and intend to leave when that amount is lost. I have used exactly this plan approximately a million times—basically every time I’ve gone to the casino. The problem with that plan is that after I’ve lost my allotted amount, I don’t want to quit gambling. By that I mean I desperately want to keep playing. I will walk around the casino looking for cash on the floor (you would be surprised how many times I find bills down there), I’ll collect two cent tickets until I have enough to get a dollar bill. I’ll go out to the car and scrounge for change on the floor or in the ash tray. That’s how desperate the addicted gambler gets when they are physically in the casino, staring at the machines, and unable to play because they are out of money.
If I do have any credit cards in my wallet that have available cash advance amounts, I will take that card to the cage and get whatever the maximum allowable cash advance. Often that amount is a thousand or more dollars. This scenario is played out by every addicted slot machine player that I have ever known, over and over again. If I went to the casino with $300 in my pocket, knowing that was all I could afford, by getting an advance I could easily walk out having lost $2,300. It is precisely that unanticipated failure of my plan, that now unmanageable loss, the confusion, shame, and despair of my weakness, that leads to the sudden and unexpected impulse to commit suicide. This is why restricting cash advances from your credit card is so important.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Credit card advances at the casino are perhaps the biggest indicator that you have a serious gambling addiction. They are the last resort to get cash after you have spent the money you brought with you, then maxed out your debit card at the ATM, then cashed checks and emptied your checking account.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“This is the part that you non-addicts cannot relate to: After the money is gone, the addict is overwhelmingly desperate to keep gambling. The brain juices are flowing. You are in the casino, you have made the drive, you have broken all the barriers you have put up to protect yourself, you have already been gambling for hours, and now you are staring at the machine you were just playing. And you are certain that your machine is about to pay off, big time. But most of all, you just want to keep playing. You must keep playing! And the only thing you need is more money.
So, you tip your chair forward to keep others from stealing your machine, and you hustle over to the device that authorizes a credit card advance. You figure out how much cash you might be able to get, and you go up to the cage where the casino guy hands over the last bit of money that you have access to.
Then, after several more hours of messing-up-your-brain button-pushing, you stand up, broke, despairing, angry, disoriented, and you stumble out to your car. This is the moment when the impulse to commit suicide washes over you. This is the moment I’ve asked you all to prepare for. The cash advance is all too often the tipping point.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.