Browse 287 quotes about Gambler.
“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.
“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.
“It is possible to turn over all your finances to a third party who will receive your paycheck, pay your bills and then give you a small allowance for spending money each week. This person or company is called a 'representative payee.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Us addicted gamblers are experts at lying and deception. If faced with a choice of going gambling when we really want to or lying to a friend - we will lie.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“In some ways, the decision to voluntarily exclude yourself from all the casinos in your area is a litmus test as to how committed you are to your recovery. By doing this you can be proud of yourself and encouraged that you can stop gambling. It is a very positive step. Do it. You are worth it!”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“If the compulsive gambler desperately wants to keep gambling, and they are cut off from their own funds, they may resort to more drastic means. The options then become pawn shops, stealing, embezzlement, even bank robbery (I've been in treatment (or meetings) with two bank robbers).”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“There is a chicken and egg problem with gamblers and depression; do they gamble because they are depressed, or are they depressed because they gamble?”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“It is essential that the loved ones involved with compulsive gamblers understand and believe that nothing they do or say will cause the gamblers to gamble, or make the gamblers stop gambling. They can encourage the gamblers to stop gambling with appropriate words and actions, but they cannot make the gamblers stop. Only the gamblers can do that.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“When the gamblers lie, tell the gamblers you don't believe the lie. Avoid the argument by stopping the conversation. Do this by leaving the room, hanging up the phone, taking a drive, or making a phone call to a Gam-Anon friend. When the gamblers ask for money, say NO, no matter what the gamblers say will happen if they don't get the money. Don't pay the gamblers' debts. Protect your finances, family finances, and/or business finances from the gamblers so they no longer have access. Stop keeping the gambling a secret from those you are trying to protect. Separate love and trust. Acknowledge that the feelings of fear and guilt will not go away immediately. Don't show the fear. Hide the guilt. Act as if your fear and guilt do not exist. They are a source of manipulation and control for the gamblers. Speak the truth: 'You are a compulsive gambler. I love you, but I will not give you any money. I will not gamble with you or listen to your gambling experiences. I will not lie for you. I will not make excuses for you. I will not argue with you to convince you to stop gambling. That is your decision. The solutions to your problems are at Gamblers Anonymous.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“In the event that our abstaining gamblers relapse, in spite of whatever excuses they give for doing so, the truth is that their return to gambling has nothing to do with us.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“I have detached with love from my mom and dad who are in their 80's now. I do not participate in discussions of their financial situation. I let them work out their own issues and have discovered that I can have a loving relationship with them that doesn't involve gambling activity and behavior.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“My wife stopped gambling, but money is a trigger for her. As soon as we get a tax refund or any extra money, I can see the excitement in her eyes. It is as if she had a "big win.” She never wants to do anything practical or useful with the money.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“This book is focused on preventing the despairing gambler from committing suicide.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The twelve-step program has no benefit to a dead person. In order to recover, the addict must stay alive.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Slot-machine addicts don’t commit suicide because they have lost all their money, or feel guilt, or shame, or feel weak or are tired of lying. They commit suicide when they finally conclude that they will never be able to quit gambling, that no amount of will power or treatment will ever help them to stop. They commit suicide when they finally decide that all hope is gone.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“It is possible for all slot machine addicts to stop playing. There is no one path to that outcome. Everyone is different. The paths are long and hard and full of failure. But if you keep trying, you can get there. Something will eventually work. Know that, stay alive, and don't give up.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Please don't kill yourself today (you can always do it tomorrow).”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Compulsive gambling is curable; thousands have done it. By curable, I mean that the compulsive slot machine player no longer plays slots. This doesn't mean that they don't have a desire to, just that they don't act on that desire. That is the goal after all - to not waste time and money sitting on that stupid stool endlessly pushing that stupid button.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“First you must understand and accept that there is always hope that you can stop gambling. Then read about all the choices and try as many as you want. If GA doesn’t work, try mindfulness. If it doesn’t work try DBT. Combine them - do GA, financial controls and mindfulness. Try them all. Just keep trying. If you do, you will find the right path. You will succeed.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“A little past 4 on a January morning in 2005, I dragged myself out of a casino north of Seattle after twelve straight hours on a slot machine, pushing the play button as fast as I could until I had lost all my money. I got into my truck and sat in the parking lot for several minutes. I finally decided that I would take the one path that absolutely guaranteed I would never gamble again. I unclipped my seatbelt, pulled out onto the I–5 freeway, and pushed the accelerator of my ten-year-old F-150 to the floor. To my surprise within a minute or two I was doing 110 mph. My goal was to find a solid concrete bridge abutment and plow into it head-on.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Had I been successful in smashing into an abutment and killing myself, my death would not have been listed as a suicide, and certainly not as a gambling related suicide. I did have several beers that night so it likely would have gone down as drunk driving.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“If suicide in general is significantly underreported, documenting a suicide as gambling-related is orders of magnitude more difficult. As you well know, gambling addicts are very secretive. Even if a gambler had written a suicide note, and even if gambling was the real cause of their suicide, they probably would not say so.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Gambling suicides are also frequently impulsive. My attempt to find a concrete wall to splatter myself on is, unfortunately, quite common for compulsive gamblers. I've had many conversations with other gamblers who tell the same story — looking for something to smack into on the way home from the bad beat at the casino.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The therapeutic community has established that those with a gambling problem are impulsive. They are deficient in impulse control compared to the general public. In fact, in the 1980's, the DSM (2) identified compulsive gambling for the first time as a mental disorder and placed it in the category of Impulse-Control disorders. It wasn't until the latest version of the DSM (DSM-5 that came out in 2013) that compulsive gambling was moved to the addiction section.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Another trait that gamblers possess is optimism. All gambling episodes begin with the positive belief that this time they just might win. Optimists generally don't prepare themselves to consider suicide. On the day that I walked into the casino on that day that led to my high-speed search for a concrete wall, I was happy, excited, looking forward to playing the slots.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“As I walked into the casino committing suicide was the very last thing on my mind. Yet twelve hours later it was the only thing on my mind.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Can someone actually prepare for such an unexpected, unanticipated, overwhelmingly emotional experience such as the decision to commit suicide? The answer is yes, of course.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The essential idea of this book is that the problem gambler must anticipate, even expect that in the course of their quest to stop gambling they will at some point face that horrible decision. That at some point they will seriously consider killing themselves.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The first step in that preparation is to simply accept the fact that they might relapse. This is not intended to plan for or give an excuse to relapse. It is instead an acceptance of the fact that before they will be free of their gambling problem for good, the odds are that they will relapse.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Studies have shown a very high level of relapse for problem gamblers, some as high as an 80% chance of relapse following their first attempt to stop. Relapse is a completely expected event for the compulsive gambler.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The benefits of talking and thinking about a potential suicide far outweigh the misconceived concept that “suggestion” will lead to a dangerous outcome. Suicidal thoughts need to be discussed. They need to be brought into the light and understood.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“I’ve seen eight different therapists in the course of my quest to stop gambling, and even these professionals never brought up the topic of suicide. They never asked if I was thinking about it.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The overwhelming obstacle you will face after walking out of the casino, broke and despairing, is that your brain isn’t working properly. Your brain is under the influence of a tidal wave of its own chemicals created by your gambling episode. Think of what you have just done to the three pounds of grey matter between your ears. You’ve spent 4, or 8, or 12 hours (or more) sitting, still, frantically pushing a button thousands of times, and watching a screen of complex symbols and sounds flash into your senses every few seconds – for hour upon hour upon hour. The CIA could not come up with a better form of brain-altering torture – yet you do it willingly!”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The process of coming down from a heroin or alcohol high takes several hours or even days, and the glide path is fairly steady and uniform. In stark contrast, the switch from being actively engaged in slot machine addiction to the moment the money runs out, and your emotions instantly switch from hopeful to failure and despair, occurs in a split-second. It is a cliff with a ten-thousand foot drop.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Slot machine addicts’ brains are tuned to hope for, and even expect, that they will get the big reward (a big win) right down to their very last spin. Studies have indicated that the anticipation of a reward activates the dopamine cycle even more than an actual reward.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“One second the gambler is active in their addiction – the dopamine is flowing – and the next second the money is all gone and they can no longer anticipate a big reward.
At that point they must get off the chair, step away from the machine, adjust their eyes to a larger field of vision, and then walk out the door in a trance, often into a dark and cold night.
The intensity and severity of that instantaneous transition from hopeful to hopelessness is so dramatic and dangerous that it has led to thousands of impulsive suicides.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Right now, while you are reading this, your brain is functioning normally. But when you walk out of that casino your brain is seriously screwed up. Your willpower is weakened, your risk-taking tendencies are increased, and your decision-making system is not functioning in a way that can protect you from harm. As you walk out of that casino your brain is trying to kill you (or at least not able to prevent you from killing yourself). This is why, last year alone, thousands of people, who were okay 8 or 12 hours earlier as they walked into the casino, are now dead.
This is why you must prepare now, while your brain is working properly. You can do things right now to prepare for that life or death moment. The primary goal of your preparation is for you to be able to walk out of the casino, get into your car, drive away, and totally ignore what just happened. Ignore the emotions, ignore the losses, ignore the despair, ignore the hopelessness – just drive on home as if nothing had happened.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The gamblers also rely on the absolute trust of the non-gamblers. If there is ever a question about money or time, the gamblers' loved ones readily accept the explanations. They don't check the bank accounts, the bills and the computer, speak to the gamblers' business partners about finances, or research the gamblers' explanations.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“When the gamblers finally run out of money and credit, or crack under the strain of maintaining a "normal life" while living the life of a compulsive gambler, the gamblers "hit bottom" and reveal the life of lies to the shock of the non-gamblers. The gamblers will promise that this will never happen again, plead for one more chance, and ask for financial help to get out from under the debt.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“Although we are powerless over the gamblers, we can have power over ourselves.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“Even if the gambler attends Gamblers Anonymous meetings, the motivation might just be to appease us.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“When my husband and I went to the racetrack he handed me his $5.00 ticket “for luck." When he lost, he cursed and yelled. I told him that if he can't lose $5.00 like a grown-up, he shouldn't gamble. The thought that he had bought more tickets never entered my mind. I knew we didn't lie to each other. When he told me I couldn't go to the supermarket the next day because he had a bad business day on Saturday, it never occurred to me that this had anything to do with the evening at the racetrack. It didn't make sense until I came to Gam-Anon.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“Compulsive gamblers are fantastic liars because they can be relentless and extremely convincing. If caught in a lie, they will try to convince the non-gamblers that they must be mistaken and will argue so strenuously and for so long, that sometimes the non-gamblers just give up out of exhaustion. The gamblers are so convincing, that even though the evidence at hand would convince a jury, gambling will be denied. Even when the non-gamblers know the gamblers are lying because the facts prove that the gamblers spent the money, or bought the lottery tickets, or spent the day at a casino or on a gambling website, the gamblers' denials are unshakable. Non-gamblers walk away from the gamblers knowing that what they know is the truth, knowing that the money is gone, the time is gone, and nothing they can say or do will replace it. Whether the gamblers are believed or not, the gamblers win because the money has already been spent on gambling, and nothing the non-gamblers can say or do will change that. Wearing down the resolve of the non-gamblers is the desired result of this game.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“For the gamblers' family and friends, the world of compulsive gamblers is an unfamiliar and frightening place to contemplate, and the gamblers use that fear, becoming most convincing when they need money. Gamblers create lies about what could be plausible financial hardships in order to borrow money from unsuspecting concerned friends, relatives and business acquaintances. The gamblers may also plead for money to avoid jail, avoid being assaulted, not lose a job, or not lose a home or a car, even when none of these things are going to happen.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition
“Non-gamblers will take out loans, empty bank accounts, and even mortgage property for the gamblers out of fear and love.”
Source: GAMES COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS and WE PLAY Second Edition