Wednesday, October 29, 1987
Compulsive Gambling Can’t Be Cured, But It Can Be Controlled
He’s the guy with a pocketful of cash and no money for rent. She’s the woman who works two jobs and never has a new dress. They’re already in debt, but they have to borrow another ten or twenty dollars, just until tomorrow.
Their lives revolve around money — the money they had yesterday or might have tomorrow — but as soon as they have some, they get rid of it.
They’re compulsive gamblers. They bet only to bet some more. They’re fishermen so in love with — or possessed by — their sport that whatever they catch becomes bait for the next cast.
Win or lose, they’re losers.
“I thought I was gambling to win,” says Sy S., a self-confessed former gambling addict who is now an evangelical member of the Gamblers Anonymous that meets weekly in Canarsie. “But I guess I was gambling to lose, because I never spent the money [that I won]. I gambled it.”
And even after 22 years of being “clean,” the 74-year-old retiree still considers himself hooked. Like alcoholism, compulsive gambling is something you never regain your immunity to, he says.
Withholding his last name in deference to his organization’s rules, Sy spoke Monday night before the 69th Precinct Community Council, describing the gripping obsession of gambling and the escape route offered by Gamblers Anonymous. He told how he was finally able to buck his “disease’ through the fellowship of others who are trying to throw off their own addictions to self-destructive gambling.
There are a lot of compulsive gamblers, he said. Only a few try to quit. Of those, only a few are successful.
The main criteria, he said, is a deep desire to change.
“You have to be ready to straighten out your life,” he said. “It’s not only that you’ve got to stop gambling. You’ve got to change your character.”
Trapped in a Dream World
In his talk and in a separate interview Tuesday, Sy tried to describe the mentality of a compulsive gambler and the forces that make Gamblers Anonymous successful.
But at times he had to admit he still. has no answer, even though he was an active gambler for 35 years and has been a constant member of Gamblers Anonymous since 1965.
For example, he isn’t sure why he himself was a gambler.
It started out with small wagers between him and other boys over punch-ball matches. At the age of 17 he placed a $2 horse-racing bet with a bookmaker — and won. “It’s bad when you win your first bet,” he said.
In those days, betting was fun, a way to make some quick cash, something to brag about. “I didn’t get into any trouble until I was given credit from the bookmaker,” said Cy. “Until then, I just gambled whatever I had.”
And for the next 35 years — as he married, raised two children, held down one or more jobs — gambling made his life increasingly miserable.
He was always betting, and always borrowing money to cover his losses (the borrowing drove his father out of business). Household needs were slighted. He stole from his job. In 1963 he had a big win that could have cleared all his debts, but instead he gambled away that money, too. A $100 loan he took out in 1938 did not get paid off until the mid 1960s, after he started going to Gamblers Anonymous.
He had started his marriage with one dollar in his pocket, because he spent his honeymoon gambling on ball games. When he finally made his reluctant commitment to the Gamblers Anonymous program, his financial status was worse, not better.
“Twenty five years later and I had only $17 — and loads of debts,” he said.
Yet in all those years, gambling was not the fun it had been when he placed those first small bets as a teenager. Every morning began with Sy reading the sports line in the daily newspaper, then trying to contact his bookie in order to lay down a bet. Until that moment he would be tense and anxious.
Only after his bet was placed could he feel “peace of mind. It’s like a drug addict craving for that shot.”
If he won, the winnings would go into the next day’s betting. If he lost, he would shrug it off. “We live in a dream world,” he explained. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Another day to scrap for betting money and wait for the results and wait for another tomorrow.
A ludicrous cycle, he acknowledge, and one he doesn’t fully understand. The compulsion for him was so strong that on the day of his father’s funeral he had to take time to place some football bets.
Unable to Quit
For a long time he wanted to get out of the gambling world, but couldn’t. He envied his friends who had houses and nice cars. “I was working twice as hard and had nothing to show for it but debts,” he said.
At the same time, he made excuses for himself. “I thought I was a normal person,” Sy said. “I never thought of myself as a compulsive gambler. I was proud of myself I didn’t drink, I didn’t chase after women. Gambling was just my pleasure.”
But looking back, he sees the self-destructiveness and irrationality of it — the state of mine that causes people to bet on which raindrop will reach the bottom of a wall first, to play poker using the license plate numbers of passing cars.
He told stories of men who gambled away fortunes. A man who lost $20 million in Las Vegas obviously wasn’t in it because he needed revenue, Sy said.
“For a compulsive gambler, there’s never enough money,” Sy observed.
“People still think gambling is not a problem, that it’s not compulsive, that you can stop anytime you want,” Sy said. Even his family was unable to understand the power gambling held over him.
“The only people who understood my problem were the men in that room that night,” he said of his first Gamblers Anonymous meeting.
And he knows that stopping is harder than most non-gamblers believe.
“My wife’s tears couldn’t stop me” he said. “My father’s beatings couldn’t stop me.”
For him, the only was out was Gamblers Anonymous.
An Escape Route
In the group, he found encouragement and hope.
An important aspect of the organization, he explained, is that it brings a gambler into contact with others who have gained the upper hand over their compulsion. Cy’s thought was, “If they can do it, why can’t I?”
A member told him in one of his first meetings, “If I told you that you could never gamble again, you’d probably never come back. Just try not to gamble one day at a time. Any moron can stop for one day.”
Said Cy: “The next day was the toughest day of my life.”
But for the first time in his gambling life, Sy stuck with his better judgement. He stopped gambling. He stared paying off his debts. He took a new job in the laundry trade and eventually was made president of his union local.
Today he is out of debt, owns a condo in Florida and travels twice a year to see his daughter in California.
“When I was gambling, I couldn’t even afford to go to Philadelphia,” he said. And in those days, the idea of retirement seemed impossible. “I thought I was going to have to work until the day I died.”
Getting Responsible
For most who come to Gamblers Anonymous, escape from gambling is a gradual process. They are encouraged to attend meetings weekly, and members stay in touch throughout the week to lend encouragement.
Inevitably, some backslide. And some only come to one or two meetings in hopes of getting some quick “bailout” cash from sympathetic strangers.
“But if we can keep them three or four months, we’ve got a good shot,” said Cy.
Although the organization does not take a stand against gambling in general, members are advised to stop completely. “The first bet is the one to avoid, even though it may be as little as matching for a cup of coffee,” says the group’s manual.
Gambling for a compulsive gambler is defined as “any betting or wagering, for self or others, whether for money or not, no matter how slight or insignificant, where the outcome is uncertain or depends upon chance or ‘skill’.”
After years of debate within Gamblers Anonymous circles, the stock market is now officially classified as gambling, too. That Wall Street is a type of casino is amply proved by the recent avalanche of stock market fortunes, according to Cy.
Members of Gamblers Anonymous usually meet weekly to share their tribulations and offer one another encouragement. For the spouses and family of gamblers, there is Gam-Anon, which usually meets at the same time as the regular group.
New members are urged to draw up a list of all their debts and then form a plan for paying them off — a facet of the program that Sy considers very important in a gambler’s recovery. Facing up to financial obligations forces a gambler to be responsible, he said. Declaration of bankruptcy is never recommended.
For an inveterate gambler, a “bailout” from gambling debts just clears the slate for a new round of borrowing and over-extended betting.
Help Close at Hand
In Canarsie, meetings are held each Friday night in the lower level of the 69th Precinct stationhouse, from 8:30 to 11 p.m. For individuals who wish to attend a meeting outside their community, there are nine other Gamblers Anonymous groups in Brooklyn.
In addition to the weekly local meeting, there is a regional meeting once a month at the synagogue at Kennedy International Airport.
Although most of those attending the Canarsie group are men, membership is open to anyone who feels he or she has a gambling problem, said Cy, nothing that he has known Gamblers Anonymous members from all walks of life — lawyers, policemen, rabbis, taxi drivers, truck drivers, dentists.
Presently there are about 15 regular members in the Canarsie group. Of those, most have been “clean” for at least two years, and four have been off gambling for more than 20 years.
Cy admitted that after 22 years, meetings “occasionally can get boring,” but said he keeps attending in order to be available for someone else suffering the dame daily addiction he once had.
And staying active in he group is important even after getting “clean,” he noted. “Under the right set of circumstances, any of us could go back,” he said.
Cy said his own success story can be duplicated by other gamblers willing to word hard at changing.
“Most gamblers, once they’re out of gambling, become very successful,” he added. Even during their gambling years, they are usually “hard workerss. There’s very little unemployment among gamblers.”
People wishing more information about the group can call its 24-hour number, (212) 689-7500.
CAPTION
A Loser Who Finally Won — Sy S., a member of Gamblers Anonymous, scans a newspaper sports sheet like the ones that used to rule his life. He hasn’t gambled for 22 years, but still considers himself vulnerable to gambling’s allure.