Valiant Living Podcast
Welcome to the Valiant Living Podcast where we educate, encourage, and empower you towards a life of peace and freedom.
Valiant Living has been restoring lives and families since 2017 by providing multiple levels of care for men and their families. Fully accredited by The Joint Commission, Valiant Living has earned a national reputation as a premier treatment program, offering IOP, PHP, and recovery housing programs for men ages 26 and older. Founder and CEO MIchael Dinneen is a nationally recognized therapeutic expert, speaker, and thought leader in the behavioral health field.
On this podcast you’ll hear from the Valiant team as well as stories of alumni who are living in recovery. If you or someone you love is struggling to overcome addiction or trauma, please call us at (720)-756-7941 or email admissions@valiantliving.com We’d love to have a conversation with you!
Valiant Living Podcast
Gambling Addiction: Understanding its complexities with Chris Anderson
Seasoned marriage and family therapist Chris Anderson joins us for a compelling discussion on the multifaceted world of addiction and recovery. Chris, a pioneer in telehealth therapy specializing in process addiction and gambling, shares his journey from the bustling streets of Chicago back to his Texas roots. Discover how his early shift to virtual therapy has allowed him to reach and support individuals across the nation, offering a unique perspective on the benefits and challenges of this mode of counseling in a post-pandemic world.
Together with Chris, we unravel the intricate labyrinth of gambling addiction, where the lure of winning perpetuates a dangerous cycle unlike any other substance addiction. With personal anecdotes and professional insights, we explore the often-hidden nature of gambling's impact—not just on the individual but on their entire family. Uncover the devastating paradox gamblers face, believing that their next win might solve all their problems, and learn about the essential role of acknowledging and naming these struggles to commence true healing.
Gambling addiction also poses unique challenges to family dynamics, often leaving loved ones blindsided by financial catastrophes. We recount harrowing stories that highlight the severe repercussions of this hidden addiction and the emotional turmoil it inflicts on relationships. Chris and I emphasize the critical importance of community support networks like 12-step programs in navigating this treacherous path. As we spotlight the power of facing these issues head-on, we remind listeners that the heart of recovery lies in overcoming the very challenges that threaten to consume us.
Well, really honored today to have on the Valiant Living Podcast. Chris Anderson, and I'll let you kind of do your own introduction, but we were saying before we started recording just really grateful because you've done a lot of amazing work with some friends of mine. Um, whenever someone you know gives of their their time and their talent, their wisdom, their experience to help you know other brothers on their on their recur recovery journey, it's always really really special. So a great gift to have you on today, brother. Oh, thank you, appreciate the opportunity. And now, where are you? Where are you hailing from now? Are you out in Texas? Where are you hailing from now?
Speaker 2:Are you out in Texas? Well, yeah, I was born and raised in Houston and went to school at UT in Austin and spent kind of jumping way ahead. I spent 28 years in the Chicago area, from 1987 until 2015. I can't believe that, but before I woke up one morning in 2014 and thought, you know, it's time to move back home, and so I put a plan and I don't know how, didn't know how I was going to do that or how I was going to work, but put a plan in motion to do that and my life has just been incredible.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was in Chicago, but but moving back home, it's. It's been part of a huge, um, one of the many circles you know, great, great circles, uh, in in my life and so, uh, yeah, so I, I, uh, my wife and I have a place in Austin and uh and um, you know, there was hers and then, and then we have a place out in the country about 60 miles east of Austin, between Austin and Houston. So that's actually where I am right now. I spend most of my time out here in the country.
Speaker 1:Well, I can see the cowboy hat in the back and you're out on a ranch somewhere.
Speaker 2:I am yeah. The people that we bought it from used to raise Arabian horses. Oh cool, it's all decked out for that. And we do have horses, which is the good news. The better news is they're not ours. They belong to our neighbors. It's kind of like you want to have a friend who has a boat.
Speaker 1:I was thinking that. I was thinking that, exactly, my brother has horses and that's exactly how I like it.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of work, man. Oh yeah, Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's good and you do a lot of telehealth stuff, so you can kind of do your work from anywhere these days, huh.
Speaker 2:Well, you know what? That's just about. All that I do. It's rare Every now and then, because the people that I get to work with are scattered all over the country, and so I mean that's interesting. You mention that because when I, I mean I had a big practice built up.
Speaker 2:I mean, I haven't really introduced myself yet, but, kind of following our question thread, I had a practice and a reputation in Chicago, and when I moved in 2015, I thought, well, what are we going to do? You know, because at that time, you know, as a therapist, you know, people would sit in traffic for an hour and sit in the office for an hour and spend an hour driving back home, and everything was face to face, right, right. And so when I moved back home here in 2015, you know, there were some of the guys up there. I had a group going. They said, well, you know, man, we'd like to continue. And other people said, we'd like, you know, we want to stay in touch. I said, well, you know, I don't, I don't like talking on the phone, but we can give it a shot.
Speaker 2:So I was, and I don't even know if the word telehealth was even in place back then, but I was working by phone and video way before COVID hit Gotcha Okay, and so when COVID hit, I know for a lot of people a lot of clinicians in the field and people in treatment programs I mean it was huge. For me, it wasn't even a blip on the radar. What it did do, though, was it opened everybody up to the wonderful possibilities of being connected, being phone or video, and there's, you know, there's you know, some aspects of it that are better, and some aspects that you miss out on some things. So, but yeah, but doing, you know, phone work with people has been a great gift, because it enables me to leverage what I do in a way that I wasn't able to before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, a lot of my buddies that you've worked with just at Valiant have come from all over, so it's an it's enabled them to be able to work with you from the.
Speaker 2:United States, which is awesome, right, exactly, and that you know, I mean that, that, I mean that that continues. I mean, you know, guys, I mean literally scattered all over, all over the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now you you are very specifically deal with process addiction, very specific in gambling. Can you tell a little bit about your story, who you are? Cause I'm really curious about we. I mean, I got so many questions here.
Speaker 2:This could be maybe a three-part series, I don't know, we'll see. Well, it may be. Let me see if I can do the Cliff Notes version of this, which I'm not known for. So I've been a marriage and family therapist since 1979. Sometimes I mess up my decades now, since 1979. Okay, and I just I can't believe. I mean, I'm 72 years old and I'm thinking, good Lord, my grandfather was 72 years old. Well, I happen to be a grandfather with six or 10 kids now. So grandkids now. So, but but so so I, you know, I don't.
Speaker 2:It's hard for me to have a frame of reference about you know, uh, how, how long it's been. So, um, uh, I went to graduate school, uh, to a really great program in San Antonio, texas, and um had some really wonderful internships and experiences. And um moved, moved from San Antonio to Abilene, texas and some people listening may know where that is, but Abilene is just kind of out in the middle of West Texas and wanted to move back to Austin and settle and and and raise the family. And uh, um, I took a detour, uh, through the securities industry, which is a really strange shift, but part of it. I'll tell you that I had some real financial anxieties because as a therapist or any business, if you're working by the hour which I was there's only so many hours in the day and only so much money you can make per hour. And I'm thinking, man, how am I going to support a family on this? How am I going to do this? So I had the opportunity to go step sideways actually a lot further sideways in the securities industry, which means I became a retail stockbroker, which is absolutely the last place that I needed to be.
Speaker 2:However, as is often the case in life, a lot of these twists and turns and screw ups end up being defining that fork in the road that really defines most of our life. So, anyway, I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know a stock from a bond, but I learned. So, anyway, I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know a stock from a bond, but I learned and also got into experimenting with trading options just to try and figure out what is this like. And oh, by the way, in my family I was known as a tightwad. I come from a Scots-Irish Presbyterian background and I've got a great grandfather's ledgers where for years he used to record a half penny for a piece of candy or something, and I was known in my family I liked hanging on to my money. So what I experienced was what a lot of people who cross that line into addiction.
Speaker 2:My very first options trade was I risked several hundred dollars and bought some Southwest Airlines call options. Now, what that simply means is it's just a leveraged way of being in the market, and some people listening know more about that. But anyway, what I experienced over, I don't remember, was a week or two weeks that that $200 was then worth $400. So the dollar amount didn't you know that that was nice, it wasn't life-changing.
Speaker 2:What was radical, absolutely radical, was that I had experienced, uh, that 200 doubling in a matter of days, a hundred percent rate of return within a matter of days. And I and I don't know that I really understood it at the time but but in, but in, in, uh, uh, you know, thinking back on that, what I did with that. I said, well, good, wow, if, if I. And I said, if I did that, well, I didn't do anything. But if I did that, if 200, if it was 2000, it would be 4,000. If it was 20,000, it would be 40,000. And wait, if you take a dollar and you double it 21 times or 20 times, whatever it is, you got over a million dollars and I felt like I had discovered the keys to the mystery of the universe.
Speaker 2:And I believe that on the alcohol side there are some of us and I haven't had a drink since 1985. And you know there are many people you know on the alcohol side, I'd say I believe I crossed over into the addiction with my first drink. You know that's not true for everybody, but I'm convinced today that I crossed the line into the addiction with that very first. We didn't call it a wager, we call it speculative investing. Right, it sounds way better. Oh yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:In fact that's a good thing, it's going on all the time, sure, but so the rate of return was extraordinary, and I have a whole terminology around that. Like my brain's reward system at that point got hijacked. I got juiced, just being in my head imagining the incredible amounts of money that I was going to make from this newfound get rich scheme. Well, not only did I not have any idea what I was doing, but also I didn't, you know, I didn't realize that when you're buying options, you know that's like I don't have the edge, you know, and and uh, uh. So eventually I started losing and I started chasing. Chasing, which means now I'm placing the next trade I was going to say bet, but the next trade in order to win back the money that I lost. Right, and I had zero frame of reference for gambling. Right, because I didn't gamble. I wouldn't even play penny ante poker with the guys on the bus to the basketball game Because I didn't want to lose my money. But boy, you put me on a computer screen with numbers, and obviously this was way before iPhones. And so I was chasing.
Speaker 2:And anyway it progressed to the point where I started borrowing money. I played credit card roulette. It means I take out a credit card and use that money and put it in the markets and I would lose it. And then I would go get another credit card to use the money for that to make the payments on the first credit card. And it began and it spiraled. And, what's interesting, back in those days and this was in the early 1980s, obviously it was. You know, you can go online on the internet and move money you literally had to go to a bank, present the physical credit card and they would write you a bank draft and something inside of me said something's not right here, because I remember I would go to different banks up and down Congress Avenue in Austin because I was afraid somebody would see me and catch me doing what I was doing, even though there was absolutely zero, nothing illegal about it. But there was something inside of me saying this isn't right. Well, anyway, I ended up in the best day of my life, and the worst day of my life was when I went broke in the markets in September of 1986, a year before Black Monday, and I remember feeling relief, a strange sense of relief, because at that point I felt like I'd been on a runaway freight train and the bridge was out ahead and I had also, uh, realized that, um, what I was doing wasn't working.
Speaker 2:But I was responsible for taking care of my family and I didn't know what I was going to do, right and and. And. So I remember when I went broke I think thank God is over, Cause I, I couldn't stop, I just I couldn't stop. And uh, not only that, but it was my job, right, so I couldn't stop. And not only that, but it was my job, so I couldn't stop. And I went home and told my wife, well then reality hit and I really came crashing down and ended up in bankruptcy court with the bankruptcy trustee talking about trying to take the China crystal and silver we've been given for our wedding, and the amount of shame that I felt was extraordinary. And then I remember going to a I was, by the way, here's an aside.
Speaker 2:What I learned was that one of the best places to hide from an addiction is in a 12-step program, and I love 12-step programs, don't get me wrong. They've saved my life. But I go sit in an AA meeting and I can selectively that's a key word selectively hear people say you can do anything you want to in life except take a drink. So the gambler in me was saying hallelujah, or I can go sit in a gamblers anonymous meeting. I hear somebody say and I've heard it thousands of times you can do anything in your life except except place a wager. So the overeater, the sex addict, the alcoholic, the drug, and he says hallelujah. You know, we have this unique ability to compartmentalize as addicts. Right, and we can use. We can use truth in the service of a bigger lie. That's, that's what I mean when I when I talk about best place to hide from an addiction is in a 12-step program.
Speaker 2:Well, I was talking to somebody and I was starting to have some urges to get back into the market and I didn't want to do that. But guy who's my sponsor at the time said well, you know you need to go home and talk to your wife about it. So I did and I told her and I really didn't want to. But um, uh, she freaked out, filed for divorce, kicked me out of the house and I went spiraling down into a suicidal depression and ended up being locked up in the suicide ward of austin state hospital most frightened. I was talking to actually I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, you know, who had assumed we were talking about this yesterday and I mentioned him. You know that was the most frightened I had been, you know, through the whole thing, and you know he said the same thing being locked up in a psychiatric hospital, and I thought I was going to lose the last bit of sanity that I had. And, by the way, I was surrounded by some really very smart, brilliant people you know psychologists, psychiatrists getting the best help I could get.
Speaker 2:But what happens is and this is a critical piece for me and why I do what I do is when you're seeking help and you're seeing good people and nobody can help, you really give a name to what's going on. That process that you're involved, that is about healing and health and wholeness and hope, actually becomes a process of despair. If I'm getting this great help and I'm getting worse, then there's something fundamentally wrong with me. Yeah, uh, so so there's that that whole theme of of the necessity and the power of giving a name to what is, and so that that's jumping ahead. But that's that's a theme of not only my life but the work that I do with people. Right, our foundation is give a name to what is, and and don't we really kind of do that.
Speaker 2:You know, in stages, when we do a first step in the program, we admitted we were powerless. You know, we're just. We don't work the first step, we just affirm. In fact we don't work step one, two and three even though we use that language, those are steps of affirmation. It's like we wake up, that veil of delusion and denial come crashing down. We see things, we see the what is, we see things for how they are and we say, oh my God, I can't stop, I'm powerless and my life is a complete disaster. Our lives have become unmanageable.
Speaker 2:So that's part of why I ended up in the psychiatric hospital. I was going to kill myself by driving out into the desert in West Texas, running out of gas and dying of thirst for three days. That's how much I hated myself. And I can talk about that today, 37 years later, and sometimes I talk about it. I have a lot of feelings and other times I don't, you know, and I think most people in recovery have that kind of depends on the situation. So I have, you know, I have some residual feelings about that, even to you know now, as we're talking about the level of despair.
Speaker 2:So nobody could help me give a name to what was going on with me until I talked my way out of the psychiatric hospital, went to Houston, went to my first GA meeting. There were no Gamma's Anonymous meetings in Austin at the time and I'd been going to two AA meetings a day, so very grounded and, by the way, had been a day, so you know, very grounded and and, by the way, had been through multiple treatment. I spent six weeks or eight weeks at the Meadows in Wickenburg, arizona, in 1986. Pia Melody was still in the nurse's station when I was there. I'd been to Terry Kellogg's compost, I'd done all kinds of stuff and but again I had this, this you know we talk about gambling as the hidden addiction. People didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't have a name for it, I just knew my whole world was crashing down.
Speaker 2:And so in that GA meeting and I was at that place and you know, some addicts know and you know some addicts know what we're talking about one day at a time, especially if you're really suicidal no-transcript. You know I don't, I don't want to die, I don't want to kill myself, but I don't see another way out. But if I have a reason to stay alive until tomorrow and that may have been a meeting. And I remember they said there's a conference in Dallas this week this was on a Tuesday night, there's a conference in Dallas. And I thought, okay, I'm going and I can stay alive until the conference starts on Friday. I mean that's literally where I was. What my mental that was a mess.
Speaker 2:And I got there and found the hotel and was sitting on the floor. I mean I was. I was a guy came along and met me and introduced himself. He said he said my name's Arnie Wexler and uh, you know, arnie's been a good friend for years and years. And uh, he said what's going on? I told him. He said, well, I think there's somebody who can help you. So he literally helped pick me up off the floor, walk me in the room and he said chris, I want you to meet dr robert, dr bob custer. Well, bob was kind of bob custer was kind of equivalent of Dr Bob on the AA side. I mean this is the guy who started the very first gambling treatment program, almost single-handedly got gambling addiction included in the DSM three in 1980.
Speaker 2:And so I'm standing here face to face with the guy Never, never heard of him, never met him, and remember so. I'm a practicing professional, a mental health professional. I've lost my marriage, I've lost heard of him, never met him, and remember so I'm a practicing professional, a mental health professional. I've lost my marriage, I've lost my family. I want to kill myself. I was a financial professional who was broke, so I wasn't feeling too good about myself. Nothing was lined up for me, except it was all lined up. And I remember Bob, and I'll never, ever forget this in my life. He looked at me in the eye and he said you're really hurting, aren't you? Now all I can tell you is that there was something in the look in his eye and the sound of his voice that I thought this guy can help me, and at that point I moved from a place of despair to a place of hope. At that point I moved from a place of despair to a place of hope. I had nothing, and the reason I'm saying this and some of your questions were part of how does aspects of my experience inform how I am with others?
Speaker 2:These, to me, are critical instances that are part of the foundation the naming of what is. I know you know. The naming of what it is, you know. Just you know, I know you don't want to look at it, you don't want to see it. You got your old fantasy world. You got your own denial. But here's what it is. Do you think that's?
Speaker 1:prevalent in process addictions Because, you know, with the substance stuff, it's like well, I'm clearly, you know, ingesting, I'm drinking, I'm chewing blood, I'm becoming sex addiction, because I'll tell you for me. I thank you first of all for sharing your story. I mean, I'm just, that's so powerful, and I wrote down that line you just said of you're really hurting, aren't you? That gave me chills, because there's so much love, empathy, attunement. I mean, when I had my intervention, my therapist, the first thing he said to me was how long have you been in pain? Yeah, I had suppressed pain for so long. I didn't even know I was in pain. The question was I was like what? And so, similarly, I didn't know I was an addict until I found myself in Denver in a rehab, right, I mean, I didn't know, you didn't have a name.
Speaker 2:You didn't have a name for that stuff.
Speaker 1:I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know. Intimacy disorder I don't know about any of this stuff. Right? This is how I survived the world Like this. So do you think that's more prevalent in process type addictions and gambling, or no?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, addictions and gambling, or no? Well, yeah, what we haven't talked about is is the addictive process of gambling? Okay, and let me so. Let me tell you and this is another key piece in in gamblers anonymous meeting, you know, in aa we read the big book. Uh, in in ga meetings there's something called the combo book, which is a little 17 page pamphlet, and what I read on that tuesday night was was the page that the heading is what is the dream world of the compulsive? And I had no idea and I read that.
Speaker 1:I read that two or three paragraphs and uh, that line again, just in case, because I feel like what, what it what?
Speaker 2:is the dream world of the compulsive gambler. Okay, and I read that. You know, I just passed the book around and you know just happened. I mean, I don't believe in accidents, but I also don't believe in a God who's got everything mapped out and orchestrated. And by God you better figure out whether you're supposed to take a right turn or a left turn.
Speaker 1:You miss it, you're screwed. Yeah, I don't believe that either.
Speaker 2:But I'm real clear that I was being carried through a lot of this and the reason I mention that is because to me, what it's talking about is the primary process of the addiction. Let me put that on. I'll tell you. I met Bob Custer. He said you need to be in treatment and I thought, oh, okay. He said you need to be in treatment and I thought, oh, okay, and he said go talk to Gene secretary. And Gene said, yeah, you know, get us $5,000. And I said, gene, why don't you ask me for 5 million? I got nothing Right, but I called a friend in Houston who was a doctor actually not a doctor and they had lost a son to addiction and they'd gotten all kinds of help. He knew me, knew my in-laws, was a great guy, and I said, ralph, I'm in trouble. He said, yeah, I know. He said, but I think I found somebody who can help me. And almost before I got those words out of my mouth he said I want to talk to him. And so all I know is that my friend talked to whoever and they made it possible for me to go into a private psychiatric treatment program in Ellicott City, maryland, and I spent 30 days there and I was watching people get kicked out right and left and I'm moving my way through this.
Speaker 2:And after that this was in March of 1987, ended up in Chicago and reconnected with my ex-wife and my little kids. And the problem there is, we didn't have anybody who understood gambling addiction. Bob Custer had gotten sick and he had died, and I'd been on some medication that became toxic. One of the old tricyclic antidepressants, imipramine, Didn't know that. So what I say is I've had a few psychiatrists save my life and I've also been malpracticed on my son too.
Speaker 2:But I landed in the hotbed of gambling expansion and people in GA. The reason I started doing this is people in GA said well, we, you know what you do professionally and you're a gambler, can you help us? And I said man, you know, I'm still trying to figure out which way is up and which way is down. I'm happy to talk to you. So my whole practice of creating a was not something that I that I sat down and developed a business plan. I sat down and developed a business plan. It happened as a result of my struggle and my desire to do whatever I could to find some degree of healing and recovery from this addiction that had taken everything from me but my life, and it just literally just built and I became executive director of Illinois Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling board, member of the National Council on Problem Gambling, set up the National Helpline or chaired that committee. On and on and on and on, and so it just blew wide open from there. In addition, I spent 10 years in domestic relations court in Cook County, had a really angry ex-wife who was funded by some very wealthy people. So I learned how to practice law without a license, learned how the court system worked or didn't work, as the case may be and as a result of my experience there, stumbling through that, I've been retained as an expert witness in close to 60 legal cases in both state and federal court for gamblers who have crossed the line in illegal activity.
Speaker 2:The theme underneath that one of my great teachers is a Franciscan priest named Richard Rohr, and I love what he says.
Speaker 2:He says we get there by getting it wrong, and I have gotten there by getting it wrong, and, and you know, the God that I know has taken what I have screwed up and put it back together in a whole different way, and so, you know, I find myself. Uh, every time, you know, you've been talking about our mutual friends. Every time I get to talk to one of these guys, I have some gratitude, yeah, and I can say look, here's what I know. What I know is you can make it, and the reason I know you can make it is because I'm here to tell you you can make it. What I don't know is what all the twists and turns and challenges you got. I mean, I know some of them and I can walk you through that. So, anyway, that's that, that's how I stumbled into this. And, and you know, I consider again, you know everybody I get to talk to as a gift, and it's a two-way street.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and you've done amazing work just helping bring shed shed light on this specific addiction and and so, where people aren't having the same, you know, struggle that you're having, they're able to name it. Thanks to a lot of the great work that you're doing, it's becoming a little more commonplace, people understanding you know, I was talking to my buddies that have worked with you and man, the stuff that they're sharing with me, the what, the, the enlightenment, the aha moments, them being able to I mean, I was, we were in a, a retreat together just a few weeks ago and because of the work they've done with you, they're able to really now. I'm not saying their lives are up into the right, but at least they're able to aim now. This is what's going on in me and this is why it's causing me to want to do these things, these behaviors. I'm like I told him I was like that's a win. Right there You're not, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you're correcting yourself and you're realizing. This is why I'm doing it, and I mean even something like this, and we might be getting this later. But one thing I learned in in from my friends who who who's battled gambling addiction I thought it was about the money, getting the money and getting the thing. And my buddy told me, drew, I just I want to get the money so I can place larger bets. It was never for him about, about getting the money and stopping, right, right, and there's things like that that I just I didn't understand. That's why I'm so happy to have you here and help us understand a little bit more, because we've got families that are going to listen to this, not just the addicts themselves, but people or just don't have a frame of reference. So I'm just curious is there, how would you define gambling addiction and what? What is that? How does it separate itself from other substance use disorders?
Speaker 2:Okay, here's my short form answer to this. What separates gambling addiction from every other addiction is the reality that you can place the next bet and win. What that means is it's the only here's the flowery language. What that means is it's the only here's the flowery language, right? What that means is it's the only addiction whereby you can engage in the addiction and solve problems created by the addiction, which is another way of saying I lost. I lost my last bet. The way to solve that problem is not to quit. No at all, because if I quit, I lock in those losses.
Speaker 2:Now, this is the mind of the gambler. So the way to solve this is to get some more money together, place the next bet and win, and what I told you in my story is I experienced a big win right off the bat. That's common. So it's not about the money and it is about the money. It's it's not either, or it's a both, and it damn sure is about the money. If it wasn't about the money and it is about the money, it's not either, or it's a both, and it damn sure is about the money. If it wasn't about the money, then go play a simulated game on your computer. Okay, right, so that takes us into what separates. It is the fact that you can win, which is why there's so few GA meetings, because people walk into a GA meeting and hear we're here to stop gambling, not control it, and in my mind I think we'll. I got to watch my language here. But if, if, how am I going to? How am I going to solve my financial problems if I can't place the next bet?
Speaker 1:Right, that's my way out.
Speaker 2:That's my way. You know, what got me in is also the way out. Now I have a brother who died of his heroin addiction in 2000, 2001. So I'm also on the family side of addict. You know of losing that. And you know some alcohol issues in my family. With my dad I got a brother who's in recovery for many years from his alcohol issues. So you know, I have the experience of this from both sides. But what, what happens is that that, um, I can, I can in fact. So one of the one of the things I say to people I said if anybody tells you I this is usually part of the first conversation with somebody. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 2:You ever placed a bet and won. Well, of course, right. If all you did was lose, you wouldn't keep doing it. That's what hooks you, right. So that's why we say it's not the losing, that's the problem, it's the winning. I mean, it's got to be right when you listen to it. No, actually it's both ends. Yeah, but in terms of getting hooked, why? Because when I win, what I tell myself is this is easy. You know, I didn't do any of you bet in sports. This is easy. All I did was just sit on my couch and you know, eat some popcorn or potato chips or whatever and watch other people play. And you know I bet a hundred dollars and now I got $200. And at my job, if I'm working for 25 bucks an hour, that's four hours of work and I didn't do anything and I've made the equivalent of four hours of work. So the money is critical in terms of how we measure. But here's the most critical piece, to state the obvious you can't get drunk if you don't drink.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And we'd say that you can't get high unless you do the line of cocaine. But that's not exactly true, because what we know is that with cocaine addicts they get a buzz in anticipation of OK. So here's, here's, here's the other answer to that question of what separates is a gambling addiction and sex addiction and, I would argue, relationship addiction. The pro take place not in reality but in the fantasy world, the, the, the dopamine hit. Let me see if I can make this simple. The dopamine hit does not come, uh, afterwards, it comes from the anticipation of all I have. So let me say it another way.
Speaker 2:Every one of us knows exactly what it's like to sit here right now, remember something that happened yesterday or in the past and have feelings about it today. Well, that's kind of a dis, you know, if we look at it as kind of a dissociation, it's not happening, it's done, it's ha, but I'm having feelings about it. We all know what it's like to think about something happening tomorrow or you know. So we're all wired that way, right. What happens and where this becomes an addictive process is is when I, I pack up and move, lock, stock and barrel from an address in reality, reality and the here and the now to an address out in the future. Yes, and so I'm sitting here in the future, in the, in the present and and in my head and I'm thinking, oh crap, I just lost $500 or I'm 5,000, or whatever it happens to be. That doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:Well, with substance, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a substance to change how I feel you know to mask to numb to with gambling. I feel you know to mask to numb to with gambling. All I got to do is jump up into my mind instantaneously and think okay, I know, I got this. I just got this credit card application. I'll fill that out, I'll send it in, I'll get the, whatever the credit limit I'll use, that I'll win and I will, uh, uh, you know, solve the problem of the money that I just lost. And I can have that thought in the blink of an eye. And as soon as I have that thought of the solution, I feel internally as if it's real. Now think of the implications of that. I mean. So what happens is is is the gamblers and treatment programs. They may look, act, walk and talk like they're, you know, fully engaged and participate and get it. But I guarantee you there's a whole world going on. So here's maybe it helped if I tell you reality.
Speaker 1:there's another whole alternate. It is an alter, it is completely an alternate reality.
Speaker 2:There's another whole alternate. It is completely an alternate and it's called I mean that you know, if anybody listening wants to read specifically the most concise write-up about this, it's called what is the Dream World of the Compulsive Gambler. It's on page 11 in the Gambler's Anonymous Combo book. So that was the passage that I read and that is the foundation of the work that I do with gamblers. It's so.
Speaker 2:You know I'm wave, hopping over some stuff, so slow me down if you're great, but but what is is that? What I say to guys mostly guys I work with some women too is that what's necessary is that you become willing and practice thinking about your thinking. Thinking about your thinking, which is another way of saying be conscious, wake up. Because, well, gambling is only one of three diagnoses in the whole DSM, of which lying is a central feature, and the one we lie to the most is ourself. We call it self-deception. Here's how this plays out If I tell myself, let's say let me take a scenario I'm down, I'm down. See, there's all this language. No, I've lost $25,000. But see that it has a different feeling to say I lost $25,000 than to say I'm down 25 K.
Speaker 1:Well, the implication is I'm going to be back up again, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so see, we have all these ways, linguistically, of reframing reality, so I don't have to feel right, right and it's all done up in our head. It's not done. Come from ingesting, biden, sniffing, snorting, chewing, shooting, drinking anything.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:All I do is jump up on my head and I tell myself a story and I alter my brain chemistry from the story that I tell myself. That is the single most. And the guys, the people who are in recovery from this addiction, are ones and I think you actually mentioned this earlier the ones that say, yeah, I'm conscious of my thinking.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Not fully. I'm conscious and I'm becoming conscious, that's right. I'm conscious of my thinking because the reason that's necessary is because if I tell myself, all right, I can place the next bet and win, that is an absolutely true statement. You know, if a therapist if I'm in seeing a therapist for my gambling run I said don't you know, you're just going to lose, I'm thinking you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Right, you can't help me. You don't know what I'm talking. You don't know what you're talking about, because the fact is I have won, and I have won a lot.
Speaker 2:So we talk about that from the beginning. All right, tell me what you want. And and, by the way, can you place the next bet and can you win? Uh, well, yeah, always yeah. But then I'm no, no, no, wait. See, as addicts, we never want to stay where we are, and so so I say wait a second, my was. Can you place the next bet and win? Well, yeah, okay. So if you tell yourself that, what do you think you're going to do? Well, I don't know. Well, yeah, you do. What are you going to do if you tell yourself you're going to place the next bet and win? It's a lock that you're going to place the next bet. Place of the next bet, yeah, yep, which, if you've done, how many times have you done that? Oh, you know over and over and over again. All right, so what we're doing is we're just getting inside each other's heads so it's acknowledging the possibility, like I.
Speaker 1:What I'm hearing you say is you're bringing to light, you know, and man, I, I relate to a lot of this stuff, of stuff I've learned in valiant of like, acknowledging and honoring the truth of the situation. What's that Like for me? In anxiety, it's. It does me no good to pretend like I don't have anxiety or I'm at a whatever, like I have to say I feel fear right now. Right, you know, and I have to give, I have to kind of name it, give it, like you know, and that's what you say. With the addiction side of the game, you have to acknowledge I could win. That's part of me, you know, understanding the addiction.
Speaker 2:That's right, and and, and, and. It's that, and it's that possibility that I can win. It keeps me going Right, absolutely, it keeps me going. Now, what happens, though, is and, and you know kind of jumping ahead here, but what we want to do and this is one of the great themes is people in recovery finish the story. So let me finish that story. Yeah, I can win, and then I can take those winnings and I can win more, because I've done it in the past.
Speaker 2:You know, you hear stories constantly. A guy told me yesterday yeah, I was down 22,000, and I went on a run and then was only down 21,000, which means that I'm a big winner. Well, actually, no, you're not, because you still lost $1,000. But that's not how I feel. What I'm telling myself is I won $21,000, but I'm kind of conveniently minimizing the fact that before that, I'd lost 22,000. This is all part of the mind games that we play, and so my job, my primary job as a therapist, is to help you slow down enough to help you tell yourself the whole story. So the whole story is if I win, because my fantasy is I'm going to win a bunch of money and live on easy street. You know that's about as far as it goes. Okay, well, have you won? Yeah, what'd you do? Oh, I placed some more bets. Well, why'd you do that? Well, because I wanted more, well, more, what, well, more money. So that, what? So that I could get more money. You know that gets Right, I could get more money you know that gets right.
Speaker 2:Right and what it really is. Over time it may start out being about money, but you know, any addiction has the there's the underlying aspects of it, but then any addiction and takes on a life of its own, separate and apart from and also connected to whatever those underlying triggers are, and there's, I mean, or you know, life experiences, you know what gives rise. What I say is that you know the gambling industry, which has changed their name to the gaming industry which is now. It's the entertainment industry. And oh, by the way, the state lotteries used to be called the numbers racket before they legalized it. So see, we change these names, which changes the impact and the bigger picture.
Speaker 2:Gambling, which used to be under the heading of crime, vice, sin, illegal, amoral, now has become seen as the salvation of the state's economy. And there's a huge poker game going on between the states. I mean, texas doesn't have legalized gambling except in a few areas. And now we got to have legalized, we got to have casinos, because Texas money is going across the border into Oklahoma, new Mexico and Louisiana, which is exactly the same thing when I was Illinois. Oh, illinois, we're losing money over to, you know, iowa and Indiana and Michigan. So we got to. It's just a giant poker game. It's a giant shell game.
Speaker 2:Anyway enough of that, enough of that roof. But point is, is that the dopamine comes from telling myself I can win. It's that complicated and it is that simple, yeah. Now what happens, though, is if I tell my and oh, by the way, the termination of the bet marks the end of that fantasy. Okay, it's like orgasm. There's all the anticipation, the buildup and people don't study about the physiology and after orgasm, there's a whole different physical and emotional state that kicks in. There's the buildup, and then there's the drop-off. So it's almost the same with gambling, which is kind of why a number of the gamblers I work with were also sex addicts. Even though that's not an official diagnosis, it's still real.
Speaker 2:Maybe 20, 30% of my caseload were guys with sex addiction, because the strategies that that I came up with with the help of a lot of working, with a lot of guys talking through just kind of how we're talking now to try and understand this yeah, worked exactly the same with sex addiction. That takes place all in fan. It's all about the chase. Yeah, it's all about the fantasy. Pornorn it's what's the next video. So point it. We're not living in the present moment. Yeah, we're living in anticipation of what's going to happen next and in that that's the hijacking of the brain's reward system, if you will, because the dopamine comes from the anticipation of what's happening next. Wow, that's really good. And so, if we know that, if we name that process and I have done over 300, 350 professional trainings and I was talking to somebody, a good friend of mine, richard Rosenthal, who's a co-author of the DSM-IV Diagnostic Criterion I said, richard, I just did a calculation. I said I've been working with gamblers for at least the last 37 years and I figure, if I just figure simply 20 hours a week times 50 weeks, that's a thousand hours a year, and that doesn't count other stuff going on, that's a thousand times 30. I said, richard, that's 37,000 hours, good Lord. So anyway, what I'm telling you comes out of trying to understand, constantly understand. What is this stuff about, what's going on in our heads, how does this manifest? And I had a lot of people who helped really give me some clarity, not knowing it, but in giving a name to that.
Speaker 2:But I want to underline this the primary process of the addiction is the escape into a fantasy world. There's one specific reference to that in the newest edition, the big book of AA. It's in the big book of AH and one of the stories and I could find it but where he said I had to stop living in this fantasy world and get grounded in reality. That's a summation. So what happens is, if you imagine, this addiction is about the escape from reality into the fantasy world. And I feel the fantasy world by telling myself the story that I can place the next bet and win and that's going to solve some or all of my life problems.
Speaker 2:And internally I have that flood of dopamine. I have a flood of well-being and everything is right with the world, even though Rome is burning, don't worry, the fire trucks are on their way, they're right around the corner. Even though Rome is burning, don't worry, the fire trucks are on their way, they're right around the corner. So it doesn't matter. You see, if I live in now. Isn't that interesting? Cause I just thought about this. In the program we talk about living into the solution as opposed to the problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, here's the other thing about gambling. It's the great life metaphor and it's a few degrees off from the truth. It looks, acts, walks and talks, but it is a universe apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep yeah, but what you're talking about, what's so interesting to me is I. I relate to so much of what you're saying, even though I don't know that I've ever gambled one. I I mean, I'm sure I have, but it's not my particular pathway. But what I love about the work you do, the work that's done at Valiant, is when you go layers below the thing. Now, gambling definitely has some things that you've helped us understand is different, but when it comes to shame cycle or and the future feels like the safest place for me, like if I feel fear, if I can just get into the future and I can, you know, go buy a domain name for a new business, I mean that just feels like, oh my gosh, this is going to be the one that's going to really hit and that's like you know and everything you're saying. I'm just like, wow, I relate so much to the fantasy world of let me escape the moment, which is scary, right, live in a safer place.
Speaker 2:That is a fiction, you know yeah, well, what's interesting what you just said is a couple things. One is you mentioned anxiety earlier. So so in the mind of the gambler, if I'm, if I'm sitting here and I'm imagining, actually out of the text, it says all the good things in life that are just all the good, wonderful things in life that are just around the corner after the big win is finally made. Just around the corner means in the future. So it doesn't matter what's happened in the past. It doesn't matter because tomorrow is going to fix it. You know the ship comes in tomorrow, and when I tell myself that, then all is right in the world, right. Which is why you can't tell whether a gambler is under the influence or not, like he could with. You know, you know somebody's drunk. You know, unless you're impaired yourself. You know you don't care what they say about how much they've had to drink. You smell it on their breath. You know they can't walk straight, whatever. But gamblers you can't tell. That's which is why we call it the hidden addiction. All right, now here's the interesting thing. I'm getting the feel good because I'm telling myself a wonderful story. What about the flip side of that, of that same coin where I'm living into the disaster in the future that hasn't yet occurred. That's an anxiety disorder, exactly the same process. It's like the guy who said there's been a great many crises in my life, many of which never even occurred. I don't know that. I don't know whether that was mark twain or but so, people, it's the same process with anxiety. It's where you live and, well, I'm living out into the disaster that hasn't yet occurred and paralyzed by fear in the present about something that hasn't even happened. It's not real, it doesn't exist. But our body doesn't know the difference, which, again, is why it is so critical for us to think about our thinking. Wait, what's the story you're telling yourself in your head? All right, so the intervention.
Speaker 2:If I know that the primary process is the escape from reality and the fantasy, then the intervention is is step one, two and three. Step one I, I, I recognize, I acknowledge I'm conscious of the fact that I live in a fantasy world. Step two I'm willing to interrupt that. And step three I take steps to interrupt that. Okay, so that's the healing journey from this addiction that takes place all in the mind. I have to be conscious, right, I have to acknowledge that I do that, and then I've got to be willing to interrupt that and I'll tell some guys.
Speaker 2:You know you may not be ready. You may say you know what. I know I'm doing that, but it feels too good to trip out in this sex fantasy. Or it feels too good to trip out into this fantasy of making a bunch of money trading crypto and not ever having to work again. That feels too good and I don't want to go over it. Okay, that's your choice. Yeah, it's just your life, but yeah, it's your life. Yeah, you're not ready. It's just your life, but yeah, it's your life. You don't have to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what happens then is if I tell myself the rest of the story like, yes, I place the next bet and I win, I'm going to want to win more. And then, when I start losing, I'm going to want to place the next bet to win the money back, and then I'm going to lose more and I'm going to start borrowing money. Then I'm across the line and steal money. If it goes to that, then I'm going to lose more. Then I'm going to start borrowing money, then I'm going to cross the line and steal money. If it goes to that, then I'm going to feel like shit. Okay, so see, if I in my head, if I finish the story, the probability of me placing that bet is dramatically diminished.
Speaker 2:So when you talk about relapse prevention, you know, the old adage that we all relapse before we relapse, Right, Right. So so, with relapses, are you conscious of the story you're telling yourself in your head? And that's again, that's I mean. There's a lot of other pieces of it, but I keep going back. That's the primary, and a lot of times we stay kind of more at the surface of, well, I did this and I did that, and you know well, okay, go to another meeting. What's important to me is and that's good, Meetings are great because it helps us become conscious.
Speaker 2:But one of the changes in the 12 steps for GA, it says, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to a normal way of thinking and living, as opposed to sanity. Now, I don't know that normal is a good word, maybe healthy, but the key word there is thinking yeah, and so again. And when I'm you know, when I'm talking to other treatment providers, it's like, okay, understand that this person's under the influence they're actively using when they're sitting on the couch, because, guess what, they're also in their mind creating the image of the person in recovery and feeling as if that's true Hadn't done a bit of work, Right, but after two or three days, all they got to do is come into the treatment program, look around, survey the situation, get the lay of the land, learn what the rules are, learn what the lingo is. The language is. Guess what Gamblers are also cons too. Yeah yeah, we're liars, cheats, cons and thieves.
Speaker 1:Let me, let's go here for just a second Cause you've got a really great, a better understanding. I know that was still a flyover. I mean, okay, there's a deeper, well, you could go there. But I want to pivot towards towards families, specifically the impact that gambling addiction has on family over, maybe over different types of addiction. Is it the same?
Speaker 2:No, no, not at all. You know again, there's, there's a part of. There's an addiction is an addiction is okay, is it the same? Yeah, no, no, not at all. You know again, there's, there's a part of there's an addiction, is an addiction is addiction, but the way it manifests. Very seldom have I encountered the, the spouse or family member of an alcoholic who didn't know that they were drinking or using. I mean, sometimes with some drugs you can keep it hidden for a while and if they're minimized. And then we talked about the family members being in denial. Well, denial is an unconscious defense mechanism. Well, there's a radical difference between being in denial of that which you know but you don't want to admit to yourself for whatever reason, and not know it Right, I got a call in the late 90s from Jim Webb of the Associated Press.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it's from Martha Shirk of the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Actually, you can read about this If people go to my website, christopherwandersoncom. There's a link to a Chicago long Chicago Reader article that has some really interesting stories in there. But anyway, so Martha Shirk calls me and introduces herself.
Speaker 2:I was doing a lot of interviews and she said Chris, I want to talk to you about the Collinsville, and it chokes me about the Collinsville Illinois woman, uh, who was found dead in the parking lot of Walmart or Kmart. She'd blown her head off with a 45. Yeah, and I said man, I said I hadn't heard about that one. I said I know about none of the other suicides, so tell me about that. She said, well, you know she was gambling. Her husband was, I think, a factory, where I may have some of the facts wrong. It was a factory worker and the sheriff came to evict them from the house and her husband didn't have a clue because she handled all the finances, did not have a clue and she went and killed herself. So it would be rare, you know, if somebody was drinking to the degree that this woman was gambling, right, it would have been obvious, nothing hidden, and so what that means is the implications that are significant.
Speaker 2:So so what happens and I work with a lot of couples and is the guy steps in, you know, assuming it's the guy who's the camera steps into recovery and is relieved. It's like okay, I've, you know the secret, you know, I've, I've, you know. Everybody knows. Well, not everybody knows everything because you're still sandbagging a few pieces of information. But, but I'm relieved because I'm no longer hiding, I'm no longer living this lie and what happens is is that the trauma that that the gambler's been living with all those years knowing and struggling with it and doing battle with themselves? All of a sudden, the wife you know assuming it's it's a marriage gets hit with. Wait you, what? We're what? What? What do you mean? You haven't been making the house payments, right. What do you mean? The house is getting foreclosed on what? And? And that's what cost me my marriage.
Speaker 2:My wife didn't know yeah and I think, I think it was it and I'm going to get choked up with this is absolutely devastating, sure, because then you begin to wonder well, why didn't I see that? What's wrong with me? Why didn't I see that?
Speaker 1:Right, you just get blindsided.
Speaker 2:You get absolutely blindsided. Yeah, so to me that's categorically different.
Speaker 1:And it has an impact on their life too. I mean, if it's it's there. I mean not that, not that the other addictions don't, but a lot of times those that's something you're doing to yourself and in fact, but like a lot of times that's their money too, or that's their well, am I right?
Speaker 2:depending on what state you live in. Like texas, it's a community property state. So guess what? He's been poking holes in this ship and it's been taken on water and and it's not gonna get bailed out. You go down with the ship and and so his debts are your debts, his liabilities are your liabilities. Now, if it gets in divorce court, you know? But? But yeah, because in most marriages that we're talking about, marriage, you're, you're, your spouse, is your business partner. And I tell people this I said look, you know, your marriage is a legal, business, financial partnership. And if you don't know that, now, if you end up in divorce court, you will learn that the court could care less about who loved who, who did what. It's simply the division of property. So you go down with a ship and so you know spouses home at work, taking care of whatever, and, uh, all of a sudden discovers that they're bankrupt and the house is going to be foreclosed on yeah, and you got to sit in front of a.
Speaker 2:you got to sit in front of a bankruptcy court. I mean, I didn't sign up for this. So the impact of that is extraordinary. Which means that, especially in early recovery, the gambler and the spouse are in two very, very different places emotionally, both in turn. I mean the spouse is like just got blindsided and is traumatized, where the gambler is relieved and say, well, why is she still pissed off? I haven't gambled in a month, right?
Speaker 1:I'm good now.
Speaker 2:Well, wait a second. It's a common phenomenon. It's one of those I put my teacher's hat on and say wait a second. I understand you guys are in very, very different places with this. So that's part one. Part two and I actually am doing a workshop on this for the state of Delaware and I think that I don't know first week in December, or something about parents of gamblers.
Speaker 2:Here's an interesting phenomenon that happens with gambling. It's what I call the hostage situation. What happens about parents of gamblers? Here's an interesting phenomenon that happens with gambling. It's what I call the hostage situation. What happens is I'm sitting in my office in Evanston, illinois years ago and I'm sitting there with a kid who's maybe 21, maybe 18, 19, 20, I don't know 20, 21, with his older brother and mom and dad. He's got a gambling problem. This is kind of an intervention. And at one point in the discussion he looks at them and says if you all don't pay my $18,000 credit card bill, I'm going to kill myself. Just came flat out, right out and said that. And as a clinician I'm thinking oh shit, flat out, right out and said that and as a clinician, I'm thinking, oh shit, you know.
Speaker 2:So I'm, I'm. I'm good at thinking. You know, pretty fast, I'm pretty fast on my feet with with my thinking, and I don't want to tell you the long story. But the bottom line is, is I told him look, I'm what's called a mandated reporter. If I think you're serious, I got to call the cops. They'll arrest you, they'll lock you up, they'll keep you for 48 hours. Find out whether you really mean that. If you don't, then you can get out and then you can go kill yourself.
Speaker 2:See, I'm in a poker game with this. I'm in a poker game, and the most extreme form of poker, by the way, is Russian roulette, where you wager your right, right. So I'm playing a poker game. And then but my real challenge is with mom and dad, because they go, my god, if we don't write an eighteen thousand dollar check, our son's going to kill himself. That is a hostage situation. He's saying I got a, I got a gun to my head and if you don't pay the ransom, yeah, I'm going to pull the trigger. Literally, literally.
Speaker 2:And that was one of those great revelatory moments for me where this kid actually unwittingly helped me give a name to a common phenomenon, and that is the abiding fear that parents have. And the biggest problem with young kids is they haven't lost anything. Mom and dad have. So when I get a call from mom and dad has. So when I get a call from mom and dad, first question is okay, how much have you written in checks? And, by the way, little johnny doesn't have a problem, you do, he hadn't lost anything.
Speaker 2:You have. Well, yeah, but but he told us he was being threatened. You know, he was at college and he was being threatened. I said okay, and so you wrote a check because he told you that he was being threatened, right, well, yeah, we don't want to be. That is a hostage situation, and so that's what this whole workshop is going to be about is how you deal with that, but also separating fact from fiction, but also separating fact from fiction. So those are, you know, when we talk about the family. You know how do you recover financially. You know how do you rebuild.
Speaker 2:I mean the challenges are immense and the worst situations that I have experienced. Well, here's the thing with money If you got time and willingness, you can recover. And we say this and nobody believes it Of all the problems, the easiest to deal with is the money. Look, if you don't have it, they can't get it. And even if you have it, they can't get all of it. All right, so let's work on a plan. In fact, gamble Anonymous has something called a pressure relief process. That's been done since the late 1950s. That is strictly about pulling down your financial pants with members of GA and Gammon Look at your finances, developing a repayment plan that does not compromise the well-being of your family. If it's debt, I don't care. If you got to pay it back over 200 years, okay. But the easiest to deal with is the money. But it's used as leverage, it's used as threats. So there's a whole lot. You know there's a whole.
Speaker 2:You know that's a whole sidebar there, but yeah it's. It's devastating for family members.
Speaker 1:Takes a really long time to recover so, chris, this is I mean, this is so helpful, man. I I mean, it's as new, it's new for me, but there's a lot of things that you're saying that is that I relate to, but there's also some very, very significant differences and we'll have to have you back on again if you're willing, because I think I got to question three of 15.
Speaker 1:There's so much more we have to talk about here, but it's been so. It's so rich. I mean, what you're sharing is so great and I know for our families that are listening and even the men that might be coming to our program, families that are listening and even the men that might be coming to our program, it's, it's it's life-changing work that you're doing. I mean really.
Speaker 1:I'm so grateful for what you're doing, but I want to save a little space here at the end to let you recap, or not not recap, but like what? What would you want us to know? Or someone listening right now that might be, it could be a warning sign or, you know, help, kind of guide us through some next steps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Well, that's a. That's an interesting one. What I would say is that whatever's going on with you, there's a way through it. Or I was going to say there's a way out, but the way out is right through the middle of it. And the other thing I'll say and most of us have addicts have this experience until we learn otherwise, I'm the only damn fool in the world doing what I'm doing. Which is one of the beauties of the 12-step fellowship is you learn. You're sitting in a circle with a bunch of other damn fools, only damn fools. So what I would say is that there's a way out and it's not your way. And there's plenty of people out there with gambling who are more than happy for you to work for your money or for you to be gifted money and for you to give it to them. They're lining up to take it and they will thank you.
Speaker 2:You know that the, the wager, has two components. One you either win or lose. There's no in between. It's black or white, all or nothing either, or which is kind of in between it's black or white, all or nothing either, or which is kind of the mind of the addict right, they all are nothing, thinking only. This is what wagering is.
Speaker 2:The other is that that when anybody places a bet, the outcome is outside of our control.
Speaker 2:So every time I place a bet, I, I, I, I place my bet, I back and I wait for something to happen that is outside of my control whether it's a slot machine, a horse race but outside of my control, and it's the outcome of that event that is outside of my control that determines for me whether I'm a winner or loser. So I've handed control of my life over to the outcome of a wager, which means I'm a winner or loser. So I've handed control of my life over to the outcome of a wager, which means I'm a victim Every time you place a bet. Now, you don't feel like a victim if you win, right right, but you do when you lose. So this is about you're not in charge of your life when you place a bet. You're handing that control over to that which is outside of your control. So, man, this life is the one we have. You know, maybe it'd be nice to take charge and responsibility and experiencing the gift of the life that we have for our very breath.
