Sharing Gambling Addiction and Recovery Experiences Can Be A Powerful Way to Help Others And Those New to Recovery. Even At Holiday Time…

Hello and Welcome Recovery Friends and New Ones!

A while back I had received an exciting opportunity and invite from a major organization to “share” one of my most important times within a downfall or relapse during my recovery and what I had learned from it being in early recovery. Of course, looking back, one had always stood out to me and it was from my second failed suicide attempt and I was wasn’t even ACTIVE in addiction. No, not trying to shock anyone about suicide, but currently, one in five people gambling addictively will try suicide once as one can get in a state of feeling financially bankrupt and emotionally hopeless …

Since the Holidays are just around the corner, I will be, for the 6th year, be at home blogging, advocating, checking my email closely, and will BE available by phone for anyone who needs Recovery Support or struggling with gambling beginning the day before Thanksgiving 2018. WHY? 

Because even though I am years in my journey of recovery, I know and remember how difficult the holiday season can be when you have a problem or are addicted to gambling. Not enough money to buy gifts or even buy things to celebrate or decorate the season. I had many years of this and know how it felt.

I Hope that by sharing this article I wrote and sharing, that it finds its way to even just “one person,”  it may help and let them know there is HOPE and much HELP with gambling addiction. You are not alone. I have been through the “battle” and I am here to listen, read your comments, answer any questions, and here to HELP.
~Catherine Lyon

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“My recovery journey started again in 2006. Not from gambling but from being dually diagnosed with addiction and mental health challenges. I woke up in a hospital as the result of a second failed suicide attempt and was back into an addiction and mental health crisis center for another 15-day stay.”

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The problem wasn’t that I gambled again and relapsed; the problem was not taking my psych medications for a few weeks. I thought I didn’t need them; that I could be normal like everyone else around me, but as you read my story, you’ll see that didn’t work out too well. We are hearing more recovering gamblers and other types of addictions where the addict has mental illness as well. That was me! And the “why’s” to writing my memoir titled; Addicted to Dimes, Confessions of a Liar and a Cheat and that is was what my gambling addiction had turned me into, a liar and a cheat …

This time around I had a severe financial crisis happen and since I had not taken mental health meds and already worked through all our savings and retirement money, I panicked and chose to steal from someone. “Old addiction thinking and diseased habits.” What a mess I got into! The person pressed charges. I was arrested, went through the process and was sentenced to many hours of community service, two years of probation and paid restitution that I finally paid off recently. My point?

We must do the work in all areas of your recovery, including your finances. I had not done all the work necessary for a well-rounded rehabilitation. Even though I was not gambling, my financial and now legal troubles told me I still had more work to do. I needed to work with an addiction specialist. After my problems had occurred, I did get help with an expert for a year while I went through the legal mess I created. Why am I sharing this? Our recovery stories and words are powerful tools to help others, and those still suffering the cycle of gambling addiction.

After this second suicide attempt, I also learned that God, my higher power, had bigger plans for me, a purpose for me that involves helping those reaching out for recovery from the cunning illness of compulsive gambling addiction. After I was released from the crisis center in 2006 and started working with the gambling/behavioral specialist and got my mental health under control, I began to see the stigma surrounding those of us who live in recovery with mental illness. Those of us who have a mental illness have a huge hurdle in our path.

Being a dual-diagnosed person who lives in recovery and has mental health challenges can make obtaining recovery a wee bit more work, as I discovered. Many of the negative habits, behaviors and diseased thinking on my part needed correcting. Working with the specialist was eye-opening. He helped me break down the cycle of the addiction, as we also worked with tools and skills for dealing with financial problems that may arise while in recovery. I was given a fantastic relapse prevention workbook as well. Even though I didn’t relapse into gambling, the workbook has helped me develop a plan for any financial or life event that may arise during my journey. You need a plan before life events come.

Another tool that helped was journaling every day. I have always done this, but my specialist showed me how to relieve stress and learn more from my journaling. My journals were a help in writing my current published book. Writing my story and experiences in memoir form was a very healing process for me.

I shared my gambling addiction and alcohol abuse, my past childhood abuse, and sexual trauma and what it is like living with mental illness. They were all direct links to the roots of why I had turned to gamble and became addicted. I also never dreamed I would be a published author, recovery advocate, writer and blogger, but these are just a few of the blessings I have received in my journey thus far.

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By writing my book and sharing it with the world, I hope to shatter the stigma around gambling addiction, recovery, and mental and emotional health. I want to be a voice for those who are child sex abuse survivors. Through my book and my recovery blog, I have chosen not to be anonymous. I want others to know how devastating compulsive gambling addiction is and how quickly one can become addicted.

It truly is a real disease and illness. I want others to be informed and educated, and I raise awareness of the effects it has on families’ lives and the impact in our communities.  The expansion of casinos and state lotteries is making gambling more and more accessible today and is now touching our youth.

Currently, 2.9% of our population are problem gamblers. Again, 1 in every 5 will attempt suicide from this addiction. And now, gambling addiction IS the 3 addiction claiming lives by suicide. This has to change! Hopefully, through my recovery advocacy, my book, and my blogging, I can help change this. I have learned many lessons, so the best advice I can give? When starting recovery learn about the addiction.

Work with a specialist or recovery coach to learn the “cycle” and then learn the tools and skills to interrupt it. Work a reliable recovery that encompasses inner reflection and finances. There are many ways to recover including in or outpatient treatment and 12-step meetings. Anything and everything you can find? Do it. Only one option may not be enough for success in long-term recovery. I happen to learn this the hard way.

Now that I have reached eleven plus years in recovery from gambling addiction and alcohol abuse, I know it is my job, my duty, to be of recovery service to others. Life today is good! My husband and I learned that we could weather any storm together as he stayed with me through all of this. I’m proud that my book has done so well and has opened doors for me to share what I have learned on many platforms and in publications.

And I share as much as I can with others who still suffer. As I write my next book, it will be about how to make the first year in recovery and beyond as it seems readers have been asking me to do. With a high percentage of people relapsing after rehab or treatment, I wanted to share how to attain the first year of recovery. It IS WHY I continue my recovery as an online journal in blog format here on Recovery Starts Here!
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All I can do is urge others who have a gambling problem is never give up. Sharing our experiences and our recovery story with others is just as important as the ‘professional or clinical’ side of this disease and how to recover. Sharing our story is a powerful tool for others to listen and learn from and break the power of stigma.

My last tip is to do something for your recovery each day. It will help keep you in recovery, and you won’t ever become complacent.

Besides, this is about reclaiming your life from gambling addiction!

 

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About The Advocate:

Catherine Townsend-Lyon is the best-selling author of her shocking debut Memoir; “Addicted to Dimes, Confessions of a Liar and a Cheat. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Walmart Online. Born in New Jersey, lived in So. Oregon over 25 years, she and her husband reside in Glendale, Arizona. Catherine is well known in many addiction and recovery online communities for her voice of realism, raw, and honesty about her battles with gambling addiction and now 11+yrs in recovery, living with mental illness, and her past childhood trauma and abuse.

She is finishing her third book and currently co-writing a memoir with former NFL pro of the Denver Broncos, Vance Johnson. She is a former ‘In Recovery Magazine Columnist of The Authors’ Café, and ow writes a column called “Quit to Win” for the recovery newspaper “Keys to Recovery.”  Catherine advocates and sponsors many today. Her articles have been published in “Time and Nautilus online, In Recovery Magazine, Facing Addiction, and Keys to Recovery, as well as media from Columbia University.”

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Guest Article By PsychCentral That Hits Home For Me…

Helping Others Can Heal the Brain.
By World of Psychology & By
Kirsten Levin Belzer, LCSW, CHT

The greatest show in Las Vegas history must be the recent outpouring of the best of humanity. The courage shown by professional rescuers and regular citizens reaching out to help, and even risking their lives to do so, leaves many of us wondering what would we do and what can we do to help others.

Making a positive difference in someone’s life doesn’t take a life-threatening effort. Simple kindnesses can go a long way for someone struggling. I was lucky enough to receive such help this summer.

I blew out my ankle. Really blew it out. As I enjoyed a walk with my husband, on slightly uneven pavement my foot slid off the side of my two-inch platform sandal. Three bones broke and the ankle dislocated.

A 30-something couple immediately rushed to help as I sat crying and cursing on the ground, ankle deformed. The woman shielded me with her bike from any traffic in the alley close to where I crumpled. Her husband ran to get ice. My husband ran to get the car several blocks away.

This caring couple stayed with me while he was gone. I asked the woman if she was in the medical field, as she seemed so calm talking with me in my panicked state. She was not. The iceman cometh and brought immediate relief. They reassuringly talked with me about the time a car hit him and noted how he was OK now.

 

Another young stranger warmly put his hand on my back, asking if there was anything he could do. I thanked him but declined. His smile and thoughtfulness remain etched in my mind, even though he may have thought he did nothing of importance. But as a psychotherapist, I know neuroscience tells us that looking into someone’s eyes in an attuned way or a gentle touch from a safe person actually helps regulate and calm the nervous system.

My husband arrived and he and the Iceman helped me up from the concrete to hop to the car. In the ER doctors expertly popped my ankle back into place. A subsequent surgery left me cocooning at home for seven weeks unable to bear weight on the foot.

I cannot thank those strangers enough for their concern. I don’t know how I could have made it alone sitting on the curb, ankle protruding waiting for my husband to fetch the car. I also don’t know what I would have done had I not had my loving husband to care for me in the moment and ensuing months of recovery.

When we have a traumatic event, something positive in that experience, such as the demonstrated concern of another human being, aids healing. The positive helps eclipse the negative. When I think back to that scary, life-changing fall, I also think of the kindness shown and feel gratitude. How many of us walk around shielded, not reaching out to others due to whatever fears or hesitancies hold us back?

Yet our brains are wired for connection. Having someone help us at a time of distress with as little as a kind word or caring facial expression, helps our brains heal from trauma. Our brains seek safety and we neurologically change for the better in its presence. When I watched Las Vegas video, I knew that although the helpers couldn’t cure the trauma, they were definitely aiding the healing.

The ultimate calming presence, Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers fame said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” How important this lesson is as we watch the aftermath of mass shootings, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and hate rallies. I know the helpers in these scenes are providing greatly needed brain healing mental health services, whether they know it or not.

In these days of daily distressing news, we can ask ourselves how can we each set an intention to help others every day even in small ways. Such acts of kindness toward others have been clinically shown to improve one’s own level of happiness and I believe help our whole world.

What better time than now for such intentions?

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Our Gambling Guest Article is by Freelance Writer, John Rosengren for AARP. . . .

The Casino Trap | Why Slots are ‘Electronic Crack’  ~ by John Rosengren, AARP Bulletin, October 2016

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“As the gambling industry booms, aggressive marketing targets older patrons”

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Beauford Burton had enjoyed the occasional poker game in his youth, but in his 60s the slots hooked him. He and his wife, Sharon, started making the 2 1/2-hour drive every Friday from their home in Kings Mountain, N.C., to Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort, where they won occasionally but lost more frequently. In one year, he lost about $50,000, nearly the equivalent of his annual salary as a manager in a textile company.

They often stayed longer than they’d intended—many times the casino would offer them a free hotel room Saturday night. Burton can’t remember ever paying for a room. He had access to an exclusive bar with free drinks and food, preferred seating in the restaurants and suite upgrades in the hotel. Harrah’s once flew the couple to its casino in Laughlin, Nev., and covered all their expenses—except, of course, what they gambled.

In the end, Burton knew that all of the freebies weren’t really free and that he had paid for them tenfold with his losses. “I have always known you don’t get something for nothing, but I fell for it,” he says. “It’s the good old devil at work.”

Over four years, the slots drained more than $100,000 from Burton’s 401(k). But he kept playing. He cashed in a life insurance policy, took out cash advances on his credit card and gambled away Social Security checks meant to pay utility bills. Finally, in 2008, the gambling habit took his home.

By then, he was playing in a panic, betting up to $15 to $20 a spin, chasing his losses and pursuing the one illusory jackpot that he hoped would save him. “As you start to lose, you think, This is a luck thing, my luck is going to change,” says Burton, now 73. “But the more you go, the more you lose. It ends up in desperation. I can see how people get so deep that it causes them to take their own lives because it gets really, really bad.”

The Rise of Casinos

Of the 101 million visitors to America’s casinos in 2014 (the last year for which information was available), nearly half were age 50 or older, according to data from the gambling industry. In 2014, American casinos reported over $66 billion in gambling revenue, and much of that profit came from these older gamblers.

A 2011 study published in the Journal of Gambling Studies revealed that many older adults viewed the casino as a place where they can socialize and escape from loneliness or grief.

It’s never been easier for them to get to one. Long gone are the days when the twin casino meccas of Las Vegas and Atlantic City, N.J., represented the sole options for American gamblers. Regional casinos have proliferated dramatically since 1988 when the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act legalized casino development on Indian lands. That sparked a loosening of state prohibitions on gambling and a nationwide casino building boom. Today, 1,400 casinos are spread across 40 states. Regional casinos are especially attractive to those who prefer to drive themselves and do not want to have to spend the night. States with large populations of adults over 65, including Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts and West Virginia, have all expanded casino gambling in recent years.

Addictions Experts Alarmed

Older adults are an especially desirable demographic for the gaming industry because they fill the floors during off-peak hours, and casinos market to them aggressively, offering discounts on breakfast and lunch, free drinks and guarantees to “instantly win up to $1,000 Free Slot Play!” They stage free daytime entertainment such as polka dancing, magic shows and live “Golden Oldies” shows. The “third of the month club” provides complimentary shuttles from senior centers and retirement housing complexes on the day they receive their Social Security checks. Some casinos stock their bathrooms with adult diapers and disposal receptacles for diabetics’ needles. They provide wheelchairs, walkers, and more handicapped parking spots than a hospital. One Nevada casino operated an on-site pharmacy—since closed—where accumulated play credits could cover the standard $25 copay on medications.

The gambling boom—and the aggressive tactics the industry uses to lure older patrons—has alarmed addiction experts. Even casino patrons with no history of problem gambling can develop addictive behavior as they age. According to a 2005 study by David Oslin, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia, 1 in 11 adults over age 65 bet more than they could afford to lose in the previous year. The study suggests that more than 4 million older Americans could have a gambling problem. “That’s a higher rate than we have for most diseases,” he says.

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Notable High Rollers

Earlier this year, the Hollywood Reporter devoted a cover story to one such pathological gambler—Emmy-winning television producer and writer David Milch, 71. Despite earning millions from the shows he helped create, including NYPD Blue and the critically acclaimed HBO series Deadwood, Milch ran up enormous debts betting on horse racing (also the topic of his short-lived HBO series Luck). According to a lawsuit filed by Milch’s wife against the couple’s business managers, between 2000 and 2011 his gambling losses reached $25 million, and he’s now $17 million in debt.

For other high-rolling notables with well-documented gambling habits, such as NBA great Charles Barkley and actor Ben Affleck, sports betting and poker are the typical culprits. But the majority of everyday problem gamblers are camped out at the slot machines, which have evolved from the traditional one-armed bandits into highly sophisticated “electronic gaming machines” powered by proprietary computer chips. Slots are the biggest revenue producer for the industry and the most popular attraction for older gamblers: 3 out of 4 adults age 65 and older identify slots and video poker as their preferred form of gambling, according to a Harrah’s survey.

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‘Electronic Crack’

“Slots are also the most addictive form of casino gambling, with the machines designed to maximize your “time on device” until you’re out of money. A 2001 study by psychiatrist Hans Breiter, then of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, confirmed that the machine’s nickname—”electronic crack”—is an apt one. Using MRI scanners, he found that in subjects playing slots, the brain’s neural circuits fired in a way that was similar to those using cocaine.”

Several factors make gamblers particularly susceptible to addiction behavior as they age. Loneliness, social isolation and the loss of a spouse can encourage older people to seek relief in casinos. “For someone older who has been sick in the hospital or who is bored or lonely, that can have a big impact on them,” says clinical Gero psychologist Dennis McNeilly of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

More serious age-related cognitive decline plays a role, too. A 2012 study found that changes in the anatomy and chemistry of brains in dementia patients 65 and up, particularly in the frontal region—which controls executive functioning—”may render older adults particularly vulnerable to the stimulation provided by the slot machine.” Dementia afflicts about 14 percent of the U.S. population over 70 years old, and an estimated half of those (nearly 2 million people) are undiagnosed.

“With both the reward system and impulse controls impaired, that creates the perfect storm for someone to develop problems with gambling,” says Michael Hornberger, a neuroscientist at the University of East Anglia in England. Cognitive issues can cause sufferers to lose their sense of money’s value, and those with dementia often repeat a singular behavior such as pushing the button on a slot machine over and over. “They just keep playing as long as the casino lets them,” Hornberger says.
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Foes of casino gambling say that the industry actively targets vulnerable older patrons. For every 20 older patrons who walk through their doors, says Les Bernal national director of the advocacy organization and watchdog Stop Predatory Gambling , the casinos want to “find a couple of them that they can take for all they’re worth.”

From Social Gambler To Addict

Beauford Burton’s experience at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino is typical of such relationships. In addition to sending birthday cards and weekly mailings with ticket deals to shows and vouchers for free play, the casino assigned a VIP host who called Burton at home to invite him back for various specials. Casino hosts often lavish personal attention on high-rolling older charges, asking about their health, reminding them to take their medicine and eating meals with them.

“The whole premise of a host is to extract as much money from that player as possible,” says ex-host John-Talmage Mathis, who worked as VIP marketing director at the Boomtown Casino in Bossier City, La. “For older people, the host becomes their friend, giving them some attention they may be missing from their family, children or friends.”

Casinos award hosts bonuses based on how much the gambler loses. “The losses of your player,” Mathis says, “are your success.”

As the industry seeks to expand, more women are being enticed into casinos, and more are experiencing problems, according to a study published in the journal Psychiatry.

Many slot machines are now designed specifically for women players, who, like longtime slots addict Melynda Litchfield, sometimes feel bonded with their machines. Litchfield, 56, worked 27 years at a Chicago-area hospital, climbing from staff nurse to administrator with a salary of $100,000.

Yet she couldn’t afford a prom dress for her daughter because she lost so much playing slots at the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin, Ill., 10 minutes from their home. For Litchfield, the atmosphere was as addicting as the machines themselves. The staff treated her warmly and called her by name. “They gave me so much personal attention and TLC that you get a false impression these people—who are milking away all of your money—actually care about you,” she says.

The casino also served as an escape, to a place where she did not have to tend to the needs of anyone else. “I didn’t want to talk to anyone,” says Litchfield, who quit gambling in 2012 and is now a national victims advocate for Stop Predatory Gambling. “I just wanted to get lost in my machine.”

Push Toward The Slots

Amy Ziettlow, a Lutheran minister and affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values, visited casinos in Louisiana, Iowa, and New York for her investigative report, “Seniors in Casino Land.”
“The whole aim of trying to cater to the needs of the least among us simply to take their money is abusive,” she says. “Owners push them toward the slots.”

Industry advocates such as Chris Moyer, director of public affairs for the American Gaming Association, tell another story. “If seniors are enjoying the entertainment product we provide, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to enjoy that in a responsible manner,” he says. He points out that casinos do provide education materials on addiction, displaying pamphlets that urge patrons with gambling problems to call a toll-free help number. The casinos also encourage problem gamblers to put their names on self-exclusion lists. “The casino gaming industry takes extraordinary measures to spot those who need help and connect them to treatment,” Moyer says.

As his addiction deepened, Beauford Burton found one of those pamphlets and called the 800 number. As he recalls, the person who answered his call just told him he should stop gambling if he couldn’t afford it. “There was no meat to it,” he says. “Once your intent is not to come back to them, I think they want to be clear of you.”

After declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Burton finally managed to quit with the support of his wife and his faith. He and Sharon now live in a two-bedroom apartment in Kings Mountain, where he has become an outspoken critic of a proposal to build a casino in his community. He regrets his gambling problems but takes responsibility for his behavior. “I can’t put total blame on those people because I was the one ignorant about it,” Burton says. “But the casinos do try to make things as exciting for you as they can.”

( John Rosengren is a freelance journalist who lives in Minneapolis.) 

 

Welcome Recovery Guest Author, Aleksandre McMenamin.

How the U.S. and the E.U. Tackle Addiction and Other Challenges Differently.

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When people refer to the “West,” they are actually referring to two enormous entities that make up the most powerful alliance on the geopolitical scale: the United States, and the European Union. As with any world power, there comes a wide assortment of different issues that must be dealt with by the leadership in each of these countries. While there are certainly plenty of similarities between the two factions (after all, many of America’s ancestors came from European countries), there are certainly distinct differences in the way that they choose to tackle each issue that they face. Modern life brings with it plenty of problems to face. Here’s some of the different ways that the United States and the European Union are facing these challenges differently…

Addiction:

“Addiction is a mental disease, and one of the absolute biggest epidemics facing the entire planet. “

Millions upon millions of people suffer from addiction around the world, in rich and poor countries alike. The United States and the European Union are no different. However, addiction is affecting these two superpowers in different ways, and each of them has a different approach to solving this growing problem. In the United States, the fastest growing demographic affected by addiction happens to be seniors, who number an astonishing 35 million in the United States. Roughly 1 in 5 of those seniors currently suffers from substance abuse. To deal with this problem, the United States has, at least since the 1980’s, attempted to squash drug use by criminalizing it. For more information about drug addiction in seniors, check out this informative blog post. On the other hand, many European countries have begun to adopt policies of decriminalization, and have instead moved to more experimental methods of treatment. For example, Norway is attempting to deal with its rising heroin problem by using diamorphine, a medical version of heroin, to try to phase users off of the more toxic substances, and then on a path towards abstinence.

Internet infrastructure:

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Business in the modern world revolves around the internet. In order for online companies to thrive, however, a society must be able to support a large amount of internet users. This is what makes internet infrastructure so important. Sadly, the United States is currently leaving a lot to be desired in this category, at least for how rich the nation is. In terms of percentage of the population that has access to the internet, along with internet speeds, the United States is falling a handful of percentage points short of most countries in the European Union, as only around 84% of the country has access to the internet.

However, this is largely due to the fact that the infrastructure required to bring internet access to everyone is incredibly expensive in the United States. America is full of open land and rural communities, far more so than most countries in Europe. This puts the country at a distinct disadvantage. However, there are things being done to actively bring higher internet speeds to the United States. For example, Google has started an infrastructure product called Google Fiber that can hook communities up with an astounded 1 GB down bandwidth. For more information about Google fiber, check out this informative blog post here.

Borders:

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One of the biggest hot topics on the planet right now deals with the topic of borders and immigration. In both the United States and the European Union, we frequently hear lots of fear from both ordinary people and presidential candidates about people crossing borders, or refugees entering these countries. The European Union is fairly unique, as far as borders go. One of the principles that the Union was founded on was that people from any country that was a member could travel freely through the rest. This principle is rooted in an evolution from the borders and walls that caused some of the most horrific atrocities in European history.

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany and perhaps the figurehead of the European Union, actually grew up on the eastern side of the Berlin Wall, and spent her childhood looking across borders that she could not cross. These values cause a certain moral conflict throughout Europe, where the panic that has been spurred by the influx of Middle Eastern refugees this year is directly at odds with one of the most important bedrocks of the entire Union. This is quite similar to the situation in the United States, which is a country created by immigration and has been called a “melting pot” throughout its existence, yet many communities struggle with the influx of both refugees from the Middle East and Africa, as well as the immigration over its southern border with Mexico.

Inflation:

Inflation is one of the hallmarks of modern economics. Most economic policy, especially as far as international economics goes, deals with handling inflation and the inherent value of a currency. Lately, we have seen countries in the European Union struggle with the fallout of the global recession, which caused high amounts of inflation in countries like Spain, Italy, or Greece, thus putting them in a debt crisis. Luckily, with the help of Angela Merkel’s leadership, the European Union was able to traverse this economic catastrophe in all countries, except Greece, which is still an ongoing situation. Traditionally, the currency of the European Union, the euro, has been a lot stronger than the dollar. However, lately the value of the dollar has been increasing, giving the currency a renewed value against the euro. This isn’t necessarily a good thing for the United States, however, for American businesses. Strangely, European goods don’t become cheaper as the dollar strengthens. This is due to an economic phenomenon that can only happen because many manufacturers in Europe produce luxury goods, which offers them the unique situation of being able to rise their prices as American buying power increases. . . .

For more information about this phenomenon, check out this post here.

By My Guest Author, Aleksandre McMenamin

 

 

 

 

“Keeping Gambling Addiction & Mental Health In The Headlines By Raising Awareness”

Hello and Welcome Recovery Friends,

 

Since my last post a few days ago, I found an interesting article about treating gambling disorder. It was shared on my good friends web site over at NCPGambling.org and written and posted in the MinnPost http://www.minnpost.com in there Mental Health & Addiction section. It’s one that has some good information about treating gambling addiction.

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So here is the article, and I hope all who visit will learn a little something they may not have known about gambling addiction. It’s hard enough to shatter stigma around it, so we need to inform and educate so maybe those who haven’t been touched by it, can understand and have a little more empathy for those who are afflicted by this destructive disease. It was NOT by choice to wake up one day and say, “I think I’ll blow my life apart by becoming an addicted gambler and alcohol abuser. Sometimes, there is something deeper underneath going on…
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To treat gambling disorder, you must dig a little deeper..

 By Sarah T. Williams | 07/24/14
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MikeSchiks had almost 30 years’ experience as an addiction treatment professional under his belt when, eight years ago, he joined Project Turnabout Addiction Recovery Center in Granite Falls, Minnesota, as executive director and CEO.A seasoned colleague told the enthusiastic newbie to “just shut up for a while, because you don’t know anything about gambling.”Schiks was not offended. “Teach me,” he said.

Project Turnabout had already been serving “compulsive gamblers” since 1992 — in a separate, 20-bed unit on the now 100-bed (and growing) campus. It’s one of just a few treatment centers in the country that offers specialized, long-term residential/inpatient care for gambling disorder, and the only one of its kind in Minnesota.

Schiks was in a good place to learn. And so he learned — about dopamine and its relationship to gambling disorder, about the unique characteristics and needs of those who are in treatment for gambling, and especially about the blind spots in his own perceptions. “Everybody likes to think they don’t carry judgments,” he said. “But I learned a little bit about the desperation of this population.”
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Schiks is not the only one with a learning curve. It was just last year, in the American Psychiatric Association’s updated DSM 5, that “pathological gambling” was renamed “gambling disorder” and placed in the same category as substance-use and addictive disorders. Previously, it had been identified as an “impulse control disorder.”

The change followed a growing body of neuroscientific evidence that showed that gambling works on the brain’s reward system in much the same way as do drugs or alcohol.

There are some terrible ironies embedded in the findings: It’s not the reward (money) that generates euphoria in “problem gamblers” so much as the unpredictability of the reward. “Near misses” and even losses are more motivating than big wins. Earlier studies had presaged these findings, showing increased rates of “compulsive gambling” among those who were being treated for Parkinson’s disease with dopamine agonists.

Gambling disorder is not nearly as prevalent as substance use disorders (1 to 5 percent compared with 10 percent of the general population, respectively), but the impact on individuals and families is just as devastating. Simply put: “The crisis that brings gamblers to treatment is that they’re broke,” Schiks said during an interview at Project Turnabout. “A lot of them come in here with suitcases that are made out of paper bags.”

Schiks recalls the 24-year-old homeless man who lost everything but his computer and continued to gamble from his un-winterized cardboard box by hijacking browsers. As well, he recalls the children who learned that their elderly parents’ home was in foreclosure. And the tuition-paying parents who discovered that their child never went to college at all. Though the DSM 5 brings gambling disorder in line with substance-use disorders, labor and disability laws, insurance industry practices and treatment protocols have yet to catch up. Schiks, meanwhile, says he’s proud to be part of an organization that recognizes the need for specialized treatment (despite the fact that those who need it cannot pay). And proud to be in a state that has resources in place for “problem gambling.”

As he continues on his path toward greater understanding, here are some of the things Schiks said he’s learned along the way:

1. That stigma around gambling disorder cuts especially deep.

All addictions carry stigma, Schiks said. But most people “have an easier time buying [the idea] that someone can ingest an outside substance, and that can become an illness, an ‘allergy.’ What I learned over and over again, anecdotally and otherwise, is that these folks [who gamble] just beat themselves up. They use the stigma against themselves.”

As a result, the National Council on Problem Gambling reports that, compared with other types of addiction, rates of suicide are twice as high among those with gambling disorder. Predictably enough, this is disputed by the American Gaming Association.

2. That those with gambling disorder need to be treated separately.

On the relative rarity of treatment centers that offer specialized gambling programs, Schiks says: “Sure, you can mix gamblers in with the alcohol and drug addicts. Of course, it would probably be only a week before the gamblers would have them doing their laundry for them. Because these folks are strategists.

“A common question is: ‘Is he/she out of action yet?’

“What do I mean by that? They come in, and it’s going, going, going, going. And all of a sudden, they go whoosh. And then they’re scared. And then they find out there’s somebody else like them. Because they don’t know that there’s anybody else like them.

“Addiction thrives on secrets.”

3. That casinos are not to blame.

Don’t forget slots, bingo, lottery tickets, scratch-offs, pull-tabs, the office pool, card games and the Internet. And don’t forget that Minnesota’s casinos are major contributors to Project Turnabout (by way of direct contributions and unclaimed lottery prizes).

“Unclaimed lottery prize money makes us able to do what we do,” said Schiks, who said that no one in treatment for gambling disorder at Project Turnabout pays more than $900 out-of-pocket.

4. That treatment has many dimensions.

Is Project Turnabout’s treatment model based on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics or Gamblers Anonymous? Schiks will not give a simple answer. Instead, he references the work of James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente, psychologists who posit stages of change: “pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, relapse.”

Schiks won’t say, “We have a Twelve Step model.” He will say, “We have a change model” — one that considers physical, cognitive, psychosocial, spiritual, emotional and many other “dimensions” of addiction and recovery. “This is a rough map — a path through the woods, not a brick sidewalk,” he said.  “People have choice, and they have to find their way. And they will. And they do.”

Here, in his own words, is Schiks’ “rough map,” based on his interpretation of the Twelve Steps of AA and GA:

Step One: An admission that I am in over my head. Personalizing that. Understanding that. I don’t care what kind of illness you have. …

You’re not even going to go to the doctor for a sore throat unless you are willing to admit that you have a sore throat. You have to admit that! And the doctor will come out and do an assessment, an evaluation, and give you information about it. And in a society that’s continually buzzing about how this [gambling] is normal, and how you’re going to have fun, it’s tricky.

Step Two: Hope. There’s hope. You’re not all alone with this. There are other people who have been here and they’re finding another life, they’re finding another pathway.

Step Three: Make a decision and commitment to this process. Of what? Of fellowship, of support, of recognizing that there’s a different way. But keep going back to the fact that the solution is that you can’t gamble anymore. You just can’t gamble. That’s part of the problem and the solution.

Step Four: Learning about yourself. What do you have to work with? Dump your baggage, identify your baggage, stop beating yourself up with your baggage. Face your baggage, but also own some of the positives of being a human being.

If you want to make any addict (gambler or alcoholic) cry … you look them in the eye and say, ‘When you put your head down on the pillow — I know it sounds schmaltzy, corny, whatever — I want you to think of four words that we know and that you need to know. And those four words are, “I am worth it.”

Pretty soon the tears are coming down their cheeks, because they don’t know that. How much of that is the addiction and how much of that is the culture? Hell, I don’t know. You need to learn that in the Fourth Step.

Step Five: You’ve got to have a reality test. You’ve got talk to somebody about this stuff so that somebody can say, you’re a little bit out balance. It’s yours; don’t get me wrong. But let’s put it in perspective. You’re not the worst of the worst; you’re not the best of the best.

Steps Six and Seven: Coping skills. We lose that with addiction. What do you do when the urge comes back? What do you do when the resentment comes — “I don’t have any money …”  You go talk to someone. You use this higher power communication — whatever that is, it’s none of our business. How do you cope? You become entirely ready to talk about whatever’s bothering you, and you go out and talk about it. They may not have an answer, but it helps.

Steps Eight and Nine: You make a list of the people you harmed. But who do you put on the top of the list? Yourself. … My God, the courage and the strength. I never met a weak addict. They suck it up and put on a happy face and pretend for years sometimes.

Step Ten: Daily taking a look at how am I doing? Doing pretty good today, not so good last night.

Step Eleven: Talking and listening, getting close to whatever your support system is. You have to talk, you have to listen. You have to pray, you have to meditate. You have to walk and take it in. You have to be tapped in.

Step Twelve: The most beautiful of all. Hey, guess what? You can help others.

Step Fourteen: Find your laughter. Keep your laughter.

5. Last but not least: That “we’re all in this together.”

Sober for 38 years from an alcohol, cocaine and methedrine addiction, Schiks knows something of the battle. His most recent experience in the field of recovery, he said, has heightened his awareness of “people’s worth and value.”

“We could have abandoned this group … because the census isn’t good enough,” he said of those in treatment for gambling. “And the board [of directors] said these are desperate people, they need something. And I was right there with them.”

As for his own continued recovery, he says:

“I get up in the morning and I sit down in a chair and I look outside and I say, ‘OK, please keep me sober today.’ And I read a little meditation. Sometimes I remember it, sometimes I don’t. And I keep my eyes open for coincidences, because I have found … so many little things, so many little ties. And I prefer to think that some of those things are meant to be.”
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*Just an awesome Article. Thanks to MinnPost & The National Council on Problem Gambling*!
You can connect with my friends at The National Council on Problem Gambling here: http://www.ncpgambling.org as they have all types of information about Problem Gambling. Or you can call them as well at 1-202-547-9204 or for the gambling help line: 1-800-522-4700*
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God Bless All,
Author Catherine Townsend-Lyon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0984478485