“Several years ago, I knew a man, a friend of a friend who I would occasionally run into at the casino. He was clearly a heavy-duty compulsive slot machine player – maximum bets, completely focused, playing fast. He was also a family man, hardworking, very organized, a successful businessman. One night after losing a great deal of money, he came home and immediately (and impulsively) blurted out a confession to his wife (who did not know that he had a gambling problem). He confessed that he had lost all their savings and maxed out their credit cards – they were now completely broke. His wife reacted as expected. She was upset in the extreme. She packed her bag and left him to go spend some time with a relative. So then…after she had abruptly left him, at that point he knew he had lost all their money and perhaps lost his wife as well, and that his children and his family would now find out his dirty little secret. He was alone with his darkest thoughts. It was simply too much to bear. When he didn’t show up for work the next day a business associate found him in the garage, in his truck, with a hose from the exhaust stuck in a window. He was dead. It is clear to me that he didn’t kill himself because of that day’s gambling experience – the bad beat, the big losses. After all that had happened to him many, many times before. He killed himself as a result of his completely impulsive decision to confess to his wife!”
Quote by Kurt Dahl
“Figuring out how you can face your gambling problem is a complex issue. There are many choices. Recovery is not something you can will yourself to do in a day or two.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Most literature about suicide proposes the encouraging idea that if you can survive the first five minutes (or the first few hours, or the first twenty-four hours) of that moment when suicide seems like the only solution to your situation, then you probably will not kill yourself (at least for a while).”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Drug and alcohol withdrawal symptoms and treatment are well understood, but very little is discussed about gambling withdrawal. Here is a commonly quoted list of the symptoms of drug and alcohol withdrawal: nervousness or anxiety, insomnia, nausea, body discomfort, mood swings, poor sleep, lethargy, difficulty concentrating. Do these symptoms look familiar to you? After sitting hunched-over, eyes glued to that screen only inches away, pushing that button every three seconds and watching those complex configurations of colorful images flashing rhythmically, hypnotically, continuously, as fast as your mind can process, for hour upon hour upon hour, do you experience any of those symptoms the next day and the next several days? I know I do.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“There are approximately twenty thousand detox facilities for drug and alcohol abusers nationwide. I understand that withdrawal from all forms of chemical dependency is a more dangerous and difficult process than gambling withdrawal and that it often requires medical assistance. But still – twenty thousand to zero? I believe this: The weeks following a major slot machine relapse episode are dangerous for the compulsive gambler. I'm certain that a significant number of suicides have happened to compulsive gamblers who faced this withdrawal period without any help, or without even any awareness of what was happening to them.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The morning, after I wrote the above paragraphs on gambling withdrawal, I was on my walk when, unexpectedly, out of nowhere, Mr. Addiction suddenly wedged his foot in the door of my brain. A minute later he burst through, opened his arms, smiled, and in his best Jack Nicholson voice announced: I'm Back! Let's go! It had been many months since I had gambled and at that moment my defenses were dormant. The guards were asleep. Without even offering a show of resistance, I immediately got in the car and drove south to where my favorite slot machine lived. I played for over eight hours at my usual furious pace until my available money was all gone and my brain was fried. I'm writing about this relapse story now, six days after that episode, having just gone through all of the ugly phases of a serious relapse, immediately after writing about it! Ironic, I guess. Kind of circular. I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm not making this up. Though in retrospect, I've realized that I should have expected Mr. Addiction to show up and test me during this process.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Love isn’t supposed to keep you guessing,
it’s supposed to keep you growing.”
Source: WOMAN! And Twelve Shades of Blades
“Writing this book is an intense experience. I'm writing about an addiction that I suffer from, I'm doing the research, I'm reading about it for hours, writing about it for hours, I should have expected that that extreme daily exposure to my addiction would eventually lead to strong urges to gamble. I should have been prepared! But I wasn't.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“I've been in treatment with people who have robbed banks, who have stolen disability checks from vulnerable relatives, who have embezzled large amounts of money, who have taken valuable items from their parents to pawn. At some point in their recovery, most gambling addicts will finally have to pay the price for their destructive actions.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Once you stop gambling, you can start to feel and think like a normal person (assuming there is such a thing). Your immediate financial situation will improve because you will no longer be stuffing $100 bills into those evil machines.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The recovery process will take time, it will take sacrifices, it will take determination, and it will take very hard work. You can do it. Know that you can rebuild your life – many have.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.