Amid the figures of compulsive gambling, two tell their stories

Saturday, Feb. 12, 2000 | 10:02 a.m.

After it overwhelmed her, Sally tried suicide. Jim thought of the same. No way out, it seemed.

Sally and Jim are compulsive gamblers, unsatisfied with being ahead of the game and quitting with a profit, unable to stop long after the house is impossibly far ahead.

They are compulsive gamblers. Now residents of the state's in-treatment center for problem wagerers near Shreveport, the Center for Recovery, they are trying to shake the demon.

Last year, the National Opinion Research Center said over 20 million American adults either are in some stage of having a gambling problem or at risk of developing one. In addition, the center said 1.1 million teenagers already are pathological gamblers.

During the 1990s, as more and more legalized gambling became available, bankruptcy rates skyrocketed. But economists say they have been unable to correlate the two statistically.

But for Sally and Jim, correlation of statistics is beside the point. They are too busy dealing with the reality of financial ruin.

Sally filed for bankruptcy. Jim would - if he could find the money to pay for an attorney.

Sally is a 47-year-old attorney from southern Louisiana, single and a partial supporter of her two elderly parents. She made a good living, but is an admitted "shopaholic" who got a head start on running up credit cards in department stores - long before she was introduced to the casinos in the New Orleans area.

"I just got tired of shopping," she said. "I bought everything I wanted."

Then, the riverboat casinos began arriving around New Orleans in 1993 and 1994. Sally made occasional trips with mother and grandmother to play slots and with friends to try their luck at blackjack.

But the card table had a lure that Sally could not resist. She began junkets on her own because "I didn't want anyone to tell me when to leave and how long to play."

Sally didn't have a lot of disposable income to take to the casino - at least in cash. So, she started getting cash advances on four credit cards - a debt that would eventually rise to $40,000.

Sometimes Sally won at blackjack. But she couldn't resist trying the $5 slot machines on the way out.

"I had money in my pocket and I would give it back," she said. "Most of the time, I gave it up while I was there."

The tables with the $25-per-hand minimums were Sally's hangout - that is, until the end of 1997 when her credit cards were at the limit. Seeking help from a credit counseling service, she was told she was about $400 per month short of being able to work out a repayment plan. After that, she filed for bankruptcy, an event that kept her out of the casinos for six months.

"After six months, I started going back and I started slowly. I thought I could control it," she said. "I cut up my credit cards, my ATM card and cashed a check at the bank. When I lost that, I would leave. That lasted most of 1999."

But before seeking help at CORE, Sally had to endure more misery. She cashed her paycheck and regularly lost part of it at the casinos. Sally said she turned potentially suicidal in November and was hospitalized until she entered CORE in late December.

Now, it's a matter of starting over. Sally says she's working hard at recovery, which will extend beyond her stay at the center with Gamblers Anonymous meetings and sessions with a private therapist.

Overly complicated? Not for Sally. It's not a simple compulsion. Asked why she just didn't quit playing, she said: "I couldn't."

Jim didn't particularly like the casino. That didn't keep him from spending too much of his income as a telemarketer in Louisiana, leaving behind bad checks and winding up dead broke from gambling.

He doesn't argue with wagering critics who call video poker "the crack cocaine of gambling." He's apt to call his favorite gambling device "a crack machine" - like the ones he constantly frequented in bars and truck stops.

Why?

"Loneliness," he said. "It's like a big giant hole inside of me. I was gambling to mask that pain. I would not and could not stop."

For the 51-year-old Jim, gambling has been a way of life since age 12, starting with playing the old payoff pinball machines and pitching coins. He's also fought alcoholism and drug addiction. Finally, seven years ago, he got sober - about the time video poker appeared on the scene.

"I would pay my bills, rent, food and maybe buy some cigarettes. After that, it was wide open" for video poker, Jim said.

His favorite bet was $1.50 per hand and he loved the fast action - to the point that his debts eventually rose above $60,000 - all for a game with a maximum payoff of $500. He called his actions "a dry drunk," a term for a non-drinking alcoholic who is doing everything but drinking.

After moving and while waiting for a job, Jim quit playing for a while. He returned to Alcoholics Anonymous.

"After the meetings, we'd go out to eat and invariably I would find a poker machine," he said. "At that time I would win and leave."

Not for long, though.

"Right before Christmas, I had about $150 on me. That's all the money I had in the world. I still hadn't bought Christmas presents," Jim said.

Shoving $10 into a machine, he hit the maximum payout of $500 and cashed the ticket. After another $40, he hit a $300 payout.

Plenty for Christmas gift-buying. But Jim proceeded to keep playing and lose it all - including his original $150.

Jim went into the treatment center in early January.

"The tough part is getting my brainwave on the right pattern and accepting my addiction," he said.

Afterwards, Jim says he wants to get back on his feet financially and pay off his bad checks. He needs to file for bankruptcy to do that - but right now doesn't even have the money to hire a lawyer to do it for him.

Reece Middleton, director of CORE, which is financed by the state Office for Addictive Disorders through a tax on casinos, looks over a maximum of 20 patients at a time at the residential center. Each stays for at least 30 days, undergoing group and individual therapy and confronting what gambling has done to them. By the time they leave, they are members of Gamblers Anonymous and have a plan to repay their debts.

Since its opening last summer, about 150 people have checked in for treatment of gambling disorders.

"Of that amount, between 50 and 60 percent have either filed for bankruptcy or were in the process when they were here," Middleton said. "That says some of our people have had a problem with gambling for a long time."

And if national estimates are correct, there are currently 270,000 Louisiana residents who either have a gambling problem or the potential for developing one, he said.

"There are a lot of them out there," Middleton said.

The Center of Recovery can be reached at 318-424-HELP. The Louisiana Problem Gamblers Hotline is toll-free at 877-770-STOP. It is open 24 hours per day.

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