ACT FIVE
You Gotta Have Feelings
(The psychologist admits a client
named Albert to the room and waives him over to the couch. Albert makes
himself comfortable while the psychologist gets his writing materials
and takes his place in the easy chair.)
ALBERT: Golly, you must have just finished a group session. That was quite a gang leaving your office when I came in.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Oh, her. She’s just a gal with a temporary multiple
personality problem. Only one of her was real. She’ll find
herself eventually.
ALBERT: I feel the same way; I’ll find myself, too.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Where do you feel that?
ALBERT: In my head, of course.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Sir, brain cells don’t feel things, it’s a medical fact.
ALBERT: So, I think it. Is that better?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Why do you say you feel when you mean you think? It
doesn’t sound logical. Here, I’ll poke your arm with this
pen. Did you think that sensation?
ALBERT: I felt it, and now I feel I’d like poking you back.
PSYCHOLOGIST: You’re not bleeding, get a grip. You mean you think it would be satisfying to poke me back.
ALBERT: I think that if I poked you I’d feel great.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Is everything you do controlled by your feelings. Do you always act out of emotion or do whatever feels good.
ALBERT: That’s how men are. Besides, doesn’t everybody.
I PSYCHOLOGIST: I’ll ignore your lack of logic but, no, everybody
isn’t controlled by feelings. Unfortunately, it gets even worse.
Many people avoid doing anything that might feel bad because they think
they can’t stand feeling down.
ALBERT: When I gambled I felt good.
PSYCHOLOGIST: How do you feel most of the time when you’re not gambling?
ALBERT: It gets better, but I still miss being able to escape into the machines.
PSYCHOLOGIST: You told me your gambling was about winning money.
ALBERT: Winning is a high, but the money goes right back into the machines.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, what’s gambling about. Is it some kind of altered state of mind?
ALBERT: I can see that now. It was about trying to feel good, or at
least forget my troubles for a while, or about feeling like a big shot.
It was never about money.
PSYCHOLOGIST: It’s not dishonest or evil to try to feel good. Gambling makes some people feel important.
ALBERT: Some ways are more expensive than others, I guess.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, what were you chasing all the time you were gambling?
ALBERT: Bliss.
PSYCHOLOGIST: And when you lose; what’s that like.
ALBERT: It’s horrible to lose everything and have to go home to
face the music. It was bad enough to drive me in here to see you.
PSYCHOLOGIST: The ultimate sacrifice, eh. So, you’re willing to
pay any price and go to any lengths to avoid going back to gambling.
ALBERT: Any price. Why would I go back?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Now that you’ve learned that you can think instead
of just stew in your emotions, you figure it out. Does everybody just
do whatever feels good?
ALBERT: You mean thinking isn’t enough; I have to reason, too.
PSYCHOLOGIST: I asked you a question. Well, fact is, most people spend
a lot of time doing things they don’t particularly want to do;
like going to see a psychologist, or getting hernia surgery, or going
to work every day. How do you think psychologists feel about their
patients?
ALBERT: Got you there, Doc. It doesn’t matter how they feel they
just do it because it’s their job and because they know it might
help people down the road. It’s your profession.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Too dumb to feel the pain, you say.
ALBERT: You’re sneaky dumb.
PSYCHOLOGIST: You once told me you wanted to be a professional gambler.
ALBERT: I was. I really was for a while.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, you just gambled, like it or not, because it was your
job and because it somehow helped people. You kept good records and
paid taxes faithfully and took courses to keep your skills up and . . .
ALBERT: There you go off in your own dreamland. I mean that I had a
system for playing the slots and poker machines. A professional has a
system and sticks to it.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, you lost because you failed to follow your system,
but if you’d followed your system you’d be living in a
mansion now and be driving a Rolls Royce.
ALBERT: Of course.
PSYCHOLOGIST: How many professional gamblers do you know?
ALBERT: None, but they’re out there.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Don’t you need data, numbers, and solid information before you reach such a conclusion.
ALBERT: No. It’s the dream of all gamblers to be a professional gambler.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Having dreams isn’t quite the same as being able to
reason. Dreams can be fun, but they’re not facts. Do casinos make
money?
ALBERT: Yes, but they have the real advantage.
PSYCHOLOGIST: What’s that?
ALBERT: (Beginning to cry.) They’re cold, impersonal. They
don’t have feelings for people. For them it’s just a damn
business.
PSYCHOLOGIST: (Handing Albert a box of tissues.) Take a tissue and stop spotting up my carpet. I hate it when they cry.
ALBERT: Sorry. Put it on my bill.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Do casinos have dreams.
ALBERT: No. They sell dreams.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Do casinos collect information and use data to increase their business.
ALBERT: Of course.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Do casinos get so depressed they start throwing money away.
ALBERT: That’s silly. It never happens.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Do casinos keep good records, pay their employees and pay taxes like professionals.
ALBERT: They didn’t used to do those things, but now they learned
they can make lots of money legally. Why cheat when people stand in
line to give you their money.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Do the casinos have a system. They must if they’re professionals, according to what you said.
ALBERT: Their system is to do whatever it takes to get people to
gamble. They’ll use food or alcohol or free rooms or extra credit
to encourage gambling. Isn’t that illegal?
PSYCHOLOGIST: You know it isn’t. The gambling industry does
whatever it takes to show a profit. So, are you willing to do whatever
it takes to stay clean from gambling?
ALBERT: Within reason.
PSYCHOLOGIST: ‘Whatever it takes’ doesn’t sound like it’s supposed to have any limits.
ALBERT: Well, you said I had to learn to reason.
Now you’re the one who’s being sneaky dumb. So,
‘gaming,’ as they call it, is just good business, then, if
you own the game and don’t gamble yourself.
ALBERT: Well, I could just leave the casinos alone and go to the racetracks or play the lottery.
PSYCHOLOGIST: I should have given you in intelligence test. I prefer
not to treat idiots in my practice, but sometimes it’s hard to
tell without a test or two.
ALBERT: Gambling makes you stupid. I wasn’t born that way.
PSYCHOLOGIST: To paraphrase something you said a bit ago, for
racetracks and casinos it doesn’t matter how they feel, they just
do it because it’s their job and because they know it might help
people down the road.
ALBERT: You are a total nut, Doc. How does gambling help anyone?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Think it through. The majority of people who gamble do it
in a controlled, responsible way; they do it just for a lark.
It’s just a game good for a few minutes of simple recreation.
ALBERT: I hate gambling. Look what it’s done to me.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Think, think, think. Who did what to whom?
ALBERT: I don’t ever want to go back to it, but the temptation .
. . I’ll call it a craving . . it’s so strong.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, to re-visit a question you asked me a while ago, why you might go back to gambling.
ALBERT: If something happened that really got me depressed, that would be dangerous.
PSYCHOLOGIST: If you let yourself get really depressed. Is that what you mean?
ALBERT: Aren’t there times when a person gets so suddenly
overwhelmed with events that he can’t help being depressed.
PSYCHOLOGIST: I suppose so, but should there ever be a time when you are without the tools you need to deal with it.
ALBERT: Tools.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Think. Phone lists, your sponsor’s number, a
meeting list, your therapist’s number, how to call a crisis
center, a list of your close relatives and their numbers, your doctor,
your insurance company, taking medications properly . . .
ALBERT: I remember something a poet once wrote. It was Blaise
Pascal: “The heart has its reasons which reason does not
know"
PSYCHOLOGIST: Very nice. I do believe there is wisdom of the body,
truth that we sometimes feel without knowing where it comes from. But,
when you get a message like that from your gut you should use logic to
examine its value.
(Psychologist rummages in his desk and finds a tattered book.)
ALBERT: Poets are so underpaid compared to psychologists.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Here now, a great psychologist named William James wrote
this: “The emotions are not always subject to reason . . .
but they are always subject to action. When thoughts do not neutralize
an undesirable emotion, action will."
ALBERT: Exactly what I’ve been trying to explain to you. When I
get so low I can’t stand it, I gamble. I can’t think my way
out of depression.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Probably you’re quite right. You may have to act
your way out. Why am I telling you to have a list of tools with you all
the time?
ALBERT: It’s stuff I can do instead of gamble when I’m really down.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Sheesh . . . what a great insight. I think you’re getting the hang of this thinking thing.
ALBERT: I left a lot of money out there and sometimes I think I could
take another shot and win it back. That’s logical, isn’t
it?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Exactly where do they keep the money gamblers like you
lose; is it in a box in the back room with your name on it. Is it just
sitting somewhere waiting for you to win it back?
ALBERT: Now you’re the one who’s not thinking.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, what do the casinos call the money you lose?
ALBERT: Winnings.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Profit. They call it profit, gross profit.
ALBERT: I know that, of course. But, a person has to have hope.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Is hope logical for someone who loves self-destructive behavior.
ALBERT: It’s an emotion, a feeling, but hope makes me feel better.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Logic can make you act better. What does, ‘Win it
back. ’ really mean. Figure it out or I’ll chain you to the
couch until you do.
ALBERT: If you chain me up, that would keep me from gambling. Let’s try it.
PSYCHOLOGIST: No. It’s got something to do with professional
ethics. If I were your policeman or jail keeper, that wouldn’t
work anyway. You can figure out why, I’m sure.
ALBERT: ‘Win it back,’ means hope.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Gambling means the end of everything you value. Why do alcoholics crave another drink the morning after?
ALBERT: ‘Hair of the dog. What bit you can make you better. ’
PSYCHOLOGIST: Exactly. Is that the voice of logic?
ALBERT: No. With alcoholics it’s a physical craving and a need to get rid of the pain of the hang over.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Take that logic back to gambling and what have you got.
ALBERT: The thing the caused all my problems will solve all my problems.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Great. Gambling will solve the problems gambling
created. So, you place your hope in a fantasy like that.
That kind of thinking is why we call pathological gambling a mental
disorder. Now, what really will solve all your problems?
ALBERT: Nothing. We have problems as long as we live. Gambling just makes things a whole lot worse.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Is that truth too horrible to live with.
ALBERT: I’ll have to manage.
PSYCHOLOGIST: So, when you start hoping that gambling will solve your
problems—when hope fills you like a warm broth—what shall
you think.
ALBERT: Hope, for an addict, is a danger sign.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Good. So, which is more in line with a spiritual, gambling-free life: hope or faith?
ALBERT: It depends on what we have hope for or faith in, doesn’t it?
PSYCHOLOGIST: Of course, good thinking. Faith in your recovery program
and faith in your own ability for recovery are essential. But faith is
the more humble, less egotistical emotion. Hope demands. Faith
accepts.
ALBERT: O.K., maybe I can learn to look logically at all my
alternatives when emotions start to push me around. Well, fortunately
for you, you only have to live with my problems for fifty minutes out
of an hour. See you next week.
PSYCHOLOGIST: Hope so.
(A man dressed as a wizard comes on stage and presides over a lighting storm with music accompaniment.)