Part II: Recovery And Redemption

Chapter Twelve

Gamblers Anonymous: Risk or Reward?

(As usual, the individuals and events in this chapter are fictional; they are composites drawn from a wide range of experiences. Members of Gamblers Anonymous insist: “What’s said in this room stays in this room.” So, in describing the people and events here, the essential accuracy of points made was maintained, but details, names, places, and so forth have been changed to prevent the identification of any particular individual, group, or family.)

It was a dark and stormy night …

Well, damn it, it was.

The rain was coming down heavily, the temperature was just around freezing, and my car was slipping all over the road. Only a compulsive gambler, intent on gambling or on trying not to, would come out on such a night. Since I didn’t have a gambling problem myself, I would much rather have been warm and snug at home watching television. This was another no credit, no pay mission, neither sanctioned nor required by my employer.

But the Tuesday night Gamblers Anonymous group had earned my deep gratitude, so when they asked me to attend their meeting from time to time, I couldn’t refuse. In service to our hospital patients in the gambling program, these volunteers had put thousands of miles on their cars, driving back and forth with up to six men to a car. They often made the trek in worse weather than this, and never seemed to fail in their enthusiasm; nor did they ever doubt the urgency of their mission. Our hospitalized patients from all over the country got their first Gamblers Anonymous experience in the GA rooms of Cleveland, Ohio, and many of them carried the message of hope back to their own home towns.

At that time, there were huge sections of the country with no GA meetings at all. For example, there was none between Los Angeles and New Orleans. We sent quite a few men back to their homes with only a Gamblers Anonymous book and some pamphlets, hoping they would be able to start a GA meeting.

Our Tuesday night group had good doughnuts, and the coffee wasn’t bad! Once in a while, the spirit of fellowship became almost euphoric. Occasionally, I even learned something, or gained new insight as I listened to the stories. Yet it would be dishonest not to admit being bored most of the time during their long-winded speeches. Finally, however, I came to understand that it doesn’t matter what my judgments or feelings may be, the gamblers were doing for themselves what they had to do. I’m not so sure that what I offered was all that much better. Once we mental health professionals completed our work, Gamblers Anonymous became the only long-term support available to recovering pathological gamblers.

As I concentrated on the road, random thoughts of past meetings wandered through my head. Overeaters Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, Recovery, Inc., Narcotics Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous—hundreds of hours in of meetings in many of different cities. But my work took me to some of the best classrooms any psychologist can ever find. Self-help groups don’t give degrees, and no one ever graduates. But, like the typical classroom, hard work and boredom are frequent. Members don’t go because they’re looking for fun and games; they go because their lives depend on it.

“But, Dr. Taber, I hate Gamblers Anonymous. You’ve got no right to force me to go there. Why can’t you just do your psychology thing? I’ve got more faith in you than in those losers in GA.”

My standard answer to this frequent patient complaint was simple. “Nobody asked you to like it. We just ask you to go because these are the only people who will care anything about you after you leave here. And if you don’t like it, speak up and try to make it better. Just go. Learn what you can. Offer what you can.”

It dawned on me as I negotiated my way through a slippery intersection that only parts of certain meetings had become boring. Other parts offered real-life, fascinating, and dramatic scenes that no grand opera or Hollywood movie could ever match.

Many times I told myself, “I’ve heard it all! No more!” And then the next story of a wasted life or a victorious recovery would move me, teach me, or perplex me in a way that made me grateful for the chance to come back and learn anew.

Finally, at the church, I parked and picked my way around to the back door. A bare bulb above the entrance illuminated a sphere of falling rain and snow, and offered a hint of possible life within. Someone had sprinkled salt on the steps leading down to the basement entrance, a hopeful sign.

I pushed my way past the heavy steel door into the church basement and immediately smelled damp Bibles. Every church cellar in the world must smell like that. The basement of the Methodist-Episcopal Church in Atlantic City where I attended Sunday school at six or seven years old had smelled like damp Bibles. Fifty years later the dank odor was still oppressive, but comfortably familiar.

As I rounded a corner in the painted, cinder block walls, I found Ed making coffee. The meeting was scheduled to have started five minutes ago, but Ed and I were the only ones there so far. Most other self-help groups start their meetings right on time, and finish when they say they will. At the time, GA operated a little differently because, according to them, they were still finding their way and didn’t want to insult or lose anyone. Insisting on a rigid starting and ending time might discourage some members, or so they feared. Gradually experience would teach us that an orderly meeting with predictable duration was an even better attraction for many.

Undisciplined is the word that characterized some GA meetings, at least in my mind. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous, on the other hand, have to be encouraged to say anything; they are often full of self-hatred, depression, and sadness. When alcoholics aren’t drinking they seem to conform well to organization, and I’ve never been to an AA meeting that ran overtime. Anyone in great distress is told to meet with a sponsor or senior member after the meeting.

Overeaters Anonymous, by contrast, often seems to be one unending torrent of words; they’re disciplined and well organized, but each meeting is packed with stories, chatter, and tips about the program and how it works.

Members of Narcotics Anonymous use a lot of street slang; they tell dramatic stories of death and destruction. There always seems to be an undertone of rebellion in the NA rooms.

Ed had a fantastic leer on his large, heavy-lipped face, a leer he must have thought was a friendly smile. He was, in fact, a very friendly man. We chatted until the cars arrived with our hospital patients, who immediately rearranged the metal folding tables into a large square.

While participants seem to like sitting with a table or desk between them and the rest of the world, I think it’s a poor idea in a therapeutic situation to use anything but a circle of chairs. Symbolically, not hiding behind a desk shows openness and honesty. But this wasn’t my group therapy room, and my vote didn’t count. In fact, when the meeting opened, I would be identified as a visitor, an observer with no gambling problem. The group would be polled to see if there were objections to having an outsider present. It was usually agreed, without discussion, to allow me to remain.

Green-painted cinder blocks, the smell of damp bibles and a large picture of Jesus on the wall spoke of an American image that one can find in most any town in any state of our Union. Being agnostic, this scene made me somewhat uncomfortable. But with a few mental gymnastics, I could let go and accept what others considered to be normal and good. Nobody said I had to decorate my living room this way. Anyway, the church made the room available at no charge, so let’s be grateful.

My professional colleagues who thought of GA and AA as religious organizations sometimes challenged me. They could see no therapeutic value in such meetings, and most were uncomfortable with the idea of using God and a Higher Power in any program of recovery from a disorder such as alcoholism. Once in a while a colleague would accept my challenge to attend a meeting, just to see first-hand what it was like. When they did, they were always emotionally moved and subsequently more tolerant of the role of self-help in long-term recovery.

Ernie finally arrived. He was the designated chairperson for the evening. No one was in a hurry to get going, or worried about starting late. “Let’s give the boys a chance to get here,” said Ernie, and left to go across the street to buy his smokes. Meanwhile, Ed unpacked the doughnuts that Al carried in and then set up the coffee service. Down the hall, several women I did not know very well were setting up for a Gam-Anon meeting.

By now, the clanking of Al’s galoshes was as much a part of my picture of GA as the smell of damp Bibles and fresh doughnuts.

At 7:45 p.m., Ernie settled his 300 pounds onto one of the folding chairs, rapped a gavel, and called for order. Ernie was bald and favored large black cigars, which he clutched tightly in his ring-studded fingers. Trained in the close observation of human behavior, I couldn’t help noticing that Ernie ate four doughnuts that evening, smoked three cigars, and drank five cups of coffee. I also knew he was seeing a psychiatrist about his insomnia and fits of depression.

My early days of training in experimental psychology have left me with a lifetime habit of literally counting events that others considered irrelevant and of no concern to anybody but themselves. If they discovered my habit, they would become annoyed with what they saw as an invasion of their privacy. Once, when my wife put out a cigarette, I told her that she had taken 57 puffs on it. I had long ago quit smoking and was encouraging her to do the same. It was all she could do to keep from hitting me, so mostly I keep my statistics to myself. But I felt sure that Ernie’s sleep and weight problems were related to his diet, his coffee, and his tobacco.

As usual, the meeting began with a reading of certain sections from the Gamblers Anonymous Combo book, which outlined the basic tenets of the Gamblers Anonymous Recovery Program, concepts that GA had adopted from AA when GA was founded in 1957. The members then went around the table with each man reading a paragraph. They finished with a reading of the famous Twenty Questions that diagnose a compulsive gambler.

By now, it was 8:30 p.m. and time for an announced, five-minute coffee break that lasted fifteen.

The individual speeches, which the group called therapy, began with a caution to use clean language and not to dwell on old gambling stories. To me, that sounded more like a dream than something that would be enforced by the chairperson.

Ernie also asked that each member try to confine his remarks to 15 minutes. That, I thought, was one more hint that would be generally ignored.

Silently, I multiplied 15 by the 20 men sitting around the square of tables. It was going to be a long evening if they all decided to speak. When it was all over, they would call on me to say a few words. As usual, I would mumble a few congratulatory remarks and try to avoid a protracted discussion. We offered occasional open seminars at the hospital, at which I felt free to make speeches of my own.

Once, at a national conclave of Gamblers Anonymous, I had raised some objections to the length of some meetings. I was later handed the following note:

My own home group has a seven or 10 minute tap, and the chairman always has a timer. The length of the allowed time is determined by the number attending. We also have a rule that no therapy can begin after 11 in the evening for our group, which begins at eight. This means some attendees may be left out, but they’ll be called on first at the next meeting. It’s always a long meeting, anyway, and I still need it desperately.

An outsider, a psychologist, should never, ever voice any hint of criticism or negative judgment in a meeting like this. That would be a sure sign that he really doesn’t understand the compulsive gambler. Back at the hospital, Chuck, a wonderful man experienced both in AA and GA, had become our staff counselor. Chuck would drill our patients week after week on the philosophy and meaning of the Twelve Steps of recovery. In the hospital, we held any discussion of gambling itself to a minimum, and talked instead about other critical life issues and about life after gambling. Gambling stories were GA business. How to live in the world was our business.

Finally, the meeting got started in earnest, but, just as the first speaker was launching into his therapy, the door opened and a pale, frightened-looking young man in a dirty overcoat stuck his head in.

“Is this Gamblers Anonymous?” he asked in a timid voice.

“Sure is,” said Ernie. “Come on in. What’s your name?”

“John Zimblotski,” said the young fellow.

“No last names!” shouted three or four of the men from around the tables.

“Sorry,” mumbled a confused John.

All eyes fixed on John, and now the room was as tense as a racetrack just before post-time. Here was action, new talent, a new story! Here was a gambler who was still suffering and desperate.

“What’s your story?” asked Ernie, forgetting that someone else had already taken the floor. Nobody objected.

John launched into a disjointed tale of trouble with a bookie that was looking for him and threatening to cause trouble with his mother. He needed $500 right away. He had lost his job, his wife was on the rampage, and the rent was due. The main problem seemed to be that John’s father, a wealthy oil broker, was out of the country and couldn’t be contacted for the usual bailout. His mother wouldn’t give him a dime.

As John’s story poured out, several of the men at the table exchanged knowing glances while others rolled their eyes in deep compassion. Finally, they stopped John, and began to ply him with the Twenty Questions.

John Z. mumbled an embarrassed “Yes,” to question after question.

“You need a sponsor, kid,” said one member. “I’ll get with you after the meeting for coffee.”

Said another, “You gotta have a pressure group meeting (a financial analysis), and get your wife and family in here to develop a budget and a payback system.”

The sincere advice continued.

“Just kick back and listen, friend. Take it easy and you’ll get the hang of how it works.”

“Try us for 90 days and if you’re not satisfied we’ll give you back your misery.”

“You gotta quit lying and come clean with everybody.”

“You sound depressed. Maybe you should talk to the doctor here after the meeting,” voiced another member, who had probably walked in the same shoes at one time.

Staring down at his lap, John could only mumble, “What about my bookie?”

“Forget that son-of-a-bitch for now. You’ll pay him eventually, but he’s at the bottom of the list, kid,” said Ernie. “Lots of guys come in here thinking we’re a loan company, like we was all sitting around with green eye-shades acting like accountants. Your debts are your best friend right now, John. Don’t be in any hurry to get the pressure off. We’ll help you if you stick around, but not with money. The program will help you change your attitudes and your thinking so you wouldn’t fall back into gambling. But you have to do the work.”

To me it looked like they were losing John, because he was not making eye contact, and was fidgeting around as if he wanted to run. He was getting too much advice all at once, but I knew how desperately the men in the room wanted to convince him to get involved. Finally, I thought, they did the right thing and got back to the therapy that had been in progress when John walked in. The first speaker resumed his tale, but seemed to cut it short.

 I hope other GA meetings elsewhere will not take my comments as critical to them personally. Many, many GA rooms have developed better organization and discipline, and their meetings last only an hour or two. New members are not singled out for special attention, but are instead encouraged to watch and learn and talk with a sponsor privately. In many groups emphasis is on spiritual recovery, not just on abstaining from gambling and on gambling problems. Some groups have become non-smoking. Foul language has diminished as more and more females are attending. I am happy to think that increasing interest and support by professional mental health workers have helped in this transition toward a more disciplined style.

These Twelve Step groups are classic examples of the ancient theme of death and redemption. The old story unfolds repeatedly: Self-indulgent behavior leads almost to death, to a life of failure on the outskirts of society. Suddenly, for the lucky one, the misery becomes too great, and a spark is ignited. Redemption! The profligate sees the light, accepts a higher purpose in life if not a higher power, and embarks on an effort to make amends and do the right things. New members need to learn how others have fallen, just as they have. This identification is critical. Then, and only then, can they believe the examples of others just like themselves. They need to see examples of how others have overcome the obsession for gambling and gone on to build new lives with newly found peace and serenity. Redemption is what we need to hear about. Redemption is what hopeless people come for, what they need to hear the most about, and what keeps them in recovery. Seeing is believing.

The next speaker, Julius, a man from our hospital program, had not yet told his whole story in GA. Ernie had asked Julius to take time for that tonight. I settled back for a long and perhaps tedious repetition of a story I thought I knew, but was soon caught up in Julius’ tale. I had either missed a lot in taking his history in the hospital, or he was coming up with a lot more detail here.

Julius worked all day on an automotive assembly line, one of the most boring jobs in the world. He accepted it with cheerful optimism not because he liked it or aspired to management, but because his father had done it before him. Julius had seen his father raise a family, enjoy a good life, and earn a secure retirement working in the same plant.

Julius was a stocky young man in good health and with an easy, informal charm. He had a young and devoted bride. They’d had one son already in their short marriage, and everything was in place for a prosperous life, including a small home and a new car. It looked like the path for the realization of the American dream for the blue-collar worker.

Julius enjoyed hunting, fishing, and family trips. During football season, he “went a little crazy;” it was his habit to plan weekends around major football games. Eventually, his wife Marge accepted the role of weekend football widow. True, Julius drank a few cans of beer and overate a bit during his long weekends in front of the TV, but he was never drunk and he never put more than a few dollars in the football pool at work. These relaxing weekends were just another part of the good life, a kind of entitlement claimed by so many American workers who spend 40 hours or more every week on mindless, routine jobs.

When Julius was finally forced into treatment for a gambling problem by a now angry and alienated wife, it was not because of the sports betting that I had first assumed to be the problem. Many sports-minded gamblers learn to bet hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on certain games while cleverly concealing the extent of their wagers from the family. My evaluation had assured me that Julius was not an alcoholic, and his story during the GA meeting offered no evidence of an alcohol problem. He himself had asked to be put on a weight-reduction diet, and during his time with us, he found time to jog every day. The extra weight he carried soon melted away.

Although Julius talked about most things easily, he seemed to be having trouble bringing up an important part of his life. When he began to talk about his card playing, he slowed down and seemed almost unable to fill in the details. But the real story emerged: he was a poker junkie. Over the years, union efforts had assured the auto plant workers the right to do pretty much as they pleased in the locker-shower areas of the plant, and what many of them pleased to do was play poker. Some held their action down to a recreational level with a 25 cent to 50 cent ante. Other workers, of course, escalated the game whenever they could; these were the boys who always wanted to play more often, for a longer time after work, and for much larger amounts.

Julius, for several years, had been among the men who were intensely devoted to this kind of recreation. As it turned out, he wasn’t really putting in all the overtime he kept telling his wife about. He spent the extra hours playing cards. Finally, even the union steward had to ask Julius’ group to curtail the action, due to complaints from supervisors, fellow employees, and angry wives. So the boys did the logical thing for problem gamblers: They simply moved the game out of the plant and into a cheap motel room. They unknowingly joined another great American tradition, the underground poker club.

As Julius spoke, it occurred to me that wives who insist on having a hand in the family bookkeeping and know exactly how much the husband earns every week are in the position to be alerted to any unexplained drain on income much sooner than wives who leave everything up to hubby. Marge was not assertive enough to demand a look at Julius’ pay stubs. She meekly trusted her charming husband; on those rare occasions when the obvious contrasts in how she lived in comparison to her neighbors prompted her to inquire why he always had so little money, he told her of special union assessments, unexpected bills, money he had to send to his sick mother, and other plausible extra expenses. Of course there were no special assessments, and his mother suffered nothing worse that a case of neglect by her son. His bills should have been well within his ability to pay.

The table stakes at Julius’ poker games were now pretty high. To make matters worse, Julius was really not a very good poker player, he was just too nice and, in his own way, too trusting. On top of all this, the group now had to rake the pot in order to pay expenses. They had to cover room rent, pay tips, and buy food and beer. The man whose turn it was to manage the game could pocket any money left from the rake after expenses. Some, like Julius, elected to leave these management chores to others, thinking the leftover profit was insignificant. It was not.

Given his level of skill and the constant rake that diminished the odds in his favor, Julius had no realistic chance of winning over the long haul. But this didn’t really matter because, whether he knew it or not, he was gambling for excitement, not for money. Gradually he fell behind financially and began to chase his mounting losses. The more desperate he became, the more he needed the emotional lift gambling gave him.

Although Julius’ wife Marge was the image of the protected and dependent homemaker, she was no fool. By comparing notes with other plant wives in casual conversations at the market and after church, she realized that Julius was deceiving her. There had been no forced overtime at the plant for months. Where had Julius been, and what had he been doing all these hours?

For a time she felt there must be another woman, but she could never bring herself to mention these doubts to Julius. She tortured herself with questions but felt silly when she thought about confronting him. Panic struck Marge, however, when she accidentally discovered the name of a motel and a phone number in some papers Julius left on the kitchen table one day. Marge was convinced, at least for a few days, that her marriage was doomed.

Julius, under pressure from his wife’s questioning, turned out to be no better as a liar than a poker player. He admitted not only to the poker playing but, swept up in the relief offered by confession, he admitted that he owed $2,000 to the plant’s local loan shark.

To her credit, Marge checked with some of her husband’s card playing buddies and confirmed his gambling. Relieved that her fears of adultery were groundless, she decided to do all she could to help Julius.

Julius was the kind of compulsive gambler who often does well in treatment. He was basically a good man with genuine feelings for family and a well-developed sense of right and wrong. But he still felt lying was necessary; he had not fully surrendered his need to control.

Unfortunately, Julius did not give up all his old ways in attempting to make peace at home. He would not tell Marge he was under threat of suspension from work because he was suspected of stealing and selling tools from the plant, and he also failed to mention several angry loan companies, which had helped him replace lost paychecks.

Marge’s anger and distrust mounted as she gradually learned more about Julius’ gambling life, a part of him that really had developed only over the last few years. Pathological gamblers seldom become totally open and honest all at once. In fact, they sometimes hold back all they can. This is often fatal to a marriage. In the beginning, they do the thing most likely to ruin any remaining trust others may want to place in them; they dole out the truth little piece by little piece always trying to protect their image and keep control over something. But, as usually happens when the spouse stumbles upon some undisclosed lie or problem, fury is reborn with each new discovery. After a while, the spouse is convinced the whole truth will never be known, and that real trust will be forever impossible.

A curious but not uncommon thing began to happen to Marge: She began to show signs of serious mental illness herself. Julius gave up his poker games, but now life became ever more miserable. When he sat down to watch a game on TV, Marge accused him, wrongly, of having secretly bet on the game. When he went to the refrigerator for a beer, she screamed that he was an alcoholic, which he was not. She began to live in the past, constantly bringing up old hurts and lies. She began to blame every bad turn of events on Julius’ gambling. Once, when the car battery went dead during cold weather, she screamed that some day she wanted to live a normal life like other people. Sometimes she found herself crying for no good reason when she was alone. Finally, she decided that Julius and their child would be better off if she were dead.

It was as if Marge had let her love turn to hate. Julius, once the light of her life, was now a cross to be born, a dangerous threat to her security. And yet she felt a terrible sense of guilt about how she was behaving. Nothing Julius could say gave her any peace, because now she had learned to expect only lies. Underneath all her anger, Marge felt like a complete failure herself. What, she asked herself, had she done wrong to make Julius do all this? Hadn’t she always fixed his favorite foods? When did she ever deny him when he felt romantic? Had she been wrong, perhaps, in having the baby? Was it all too much responsibility for Julius? What has she done wrong?

Marge felt betrayed. Although she felt responsible for much of what had happened, she knew she could not face the unending responsibility of controlling Julius’ behavior for the rest of her life. Her security was gone, and she felt that she had only herself to blame.

She nearly succeeded when she tried to end her life by washing down a handful of tranquilizers with some of Julius’ beer. At the local hospital, they pumped her out and advised Julius to seek psychiatric help for his neurotic wife. She was drowsy but not unconscious when she overheard the doctor telling this to Julius; her heart sank when Julius did not defend her or explain about his gambling to the doctor.

Later, one of the nurses stopped by to chat with Marge. The nurse told about her own alcoholic husband and about how much going to a group called Al-Anon had helped her understand exactly which responsibilities lie with the alcoholic and which lie with the spouse.

“I know there’s a similar group for people with a gambler in their lives,” said the nurse. “Would you like me to try to find one for you? I don’t want to undermine what your doctor is telling you, but you’re not neurotic or crazy. You need to know more about living with an addiction in the family.”

Somehow, although she had to drive over 100 miles round-trip, Marge eventually found her way into a Gam-Anon meeting. Almost at once hope began to come back into her life. She was among people, at last, who had been down the same path in life. With the support of her Gam-Anon friends—they called themselves sisters—she gave Julius an ultimatum: Get professional help and go to Gamblers Anonymous or we are through!

Although Julius had made progress after he quit his poker games, he had only just begun to work on his personality. He had stopped the gambling, but he was still too emotionally immature to be a real husband.

He finally gave up and came to our program, after not gambling for many months. As often happens, Julius showed positive growth from the first day. The group therapy combined with the GA meetings did their work. His strong personality offered a foundation for a good recovery from the addiction. With Marge now fully involved in her own treatment, things went very well.

They say that a marriage is mature when the couple grows up together, and this growing up is usually caused by shared pain. Sometimes suffering seems the only way.

People getting over a gambling problem sometimes forget that so-called normal people also have hard times. Babies get sick, bills get too high, the car breaks down, and all this may have nothing to do with gambling. But the human tendency is to look for something on which to blame misfortune, something on which to focus depression or anger.

It is also very human to expect, unrealistically, that just stopping gambling should solve all of life’s problems. It does not.

As Julius was finishing his story, I felt that he and Marge were at the beginning of a mature marriage, one with its share of problems and good times. Each certainly had a better grasp of their own personal responsibilities, of what one can reasonably do or not do to control situations. They would do what they could for each other, and what they must for themselves. A mature marriage, they would learn, is one in which one partner learns to love the other as much for their weaknesses as for their strengths

Instead of sitting down when he was done speaking, however, Julius did something unexpected. He picked up the GA Combo book and stared down at it. Then he began to read the Twelve Steps of recovery, adding a thought or two after each

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over gambling—that our lives had become unmanageable.

“Who, me? Powerless? I thought I was a slave to work, to family. Gambling was my ticket to freedom. But I never really decided to gamble. That was the part of my life that controlled me.”

Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to a normal way of thinking and living.

“Marge was the first higher power in my life after my Dad. She’s the one I care enough about to keep working the program. I don’t know anything about God or Divine Providence. If you don’t care about the people you love, if you don’t let them influence your life in good ways, then what good is God anyway?”

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of this power of our own understanding.

“Now Marge, my higher power, has lots of company; you guys, Gamblers Anonymous, The Twelve Steps, gamblers who still suffer. Anywhere I go I find a higher purpose and then a higher power.”

Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves.

“I’m writing a life history while I’m in the hospital, and Dr. T. is squeezing me to get it done. When it’s done, I’ll work on the moral changes and the financial inventory with Marge and my sponsor. Gambling was too damn lonely, and recovery is so full of wonderful friends.”

Step 5: Admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

“Well, you all have heard it now. I’ve lied, I’ve taken stuff from the company, I’ve neglected my family, and I’ve cheated my creditors. Worst of all was what I did to Marge and to myself. I let gambling cheat us out of some great years together.”

Step 6: Were entirely ready to have these defects of character removed.

“If anybody ever said there was something wrong with my character, in the old days I would have smacked ‘em. Problems were always somebody else’s fault. Now I’m learning that, on my own, I can’t fix what’s wrong with me. All I can do is follow these steps and this program. I can see the changes starting, but I can’t claim credit for doing anything more than following directions.”

Step 7: Humbly asked God (of our understanding) to remove our shortcomings.

“I had a lot of trouble with this one because I’ve never been religious. That’s Marge’s department. But I do understand one thing: I’m not God. I don’t know who or what is, but I do know that I’m just a mortal, mistake-making average guy. What’s important for me to learn is to behave as if there is a god, as if I am not a law unto myself, as if I understand morality, as if I am accountable for everything I do. It doesn’t matter exactly how or what you believe as long as you believe in some power other than yourself, and behave as a good person.”

Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

“I was surprised. It’s not a long list. In my life, I’ve done more good than harm, more right than wrong. The list of people I’ve helped and influenced in good directions is longer than the list of those I’ve harmed. Doing Step 8 actually made me feel pretty good about myself.”

Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

“I’m not going to spend the rest of my life feeling bad about the money I wasted or the way I neglected my family. I’ve paid my creditors. I’ve made my apologies. One fellow said he would never forgive me, but that’s his right. At least I got up the courage to ask for forgiveness. You fix what was wrong, you stop cheating, lying and stealing, and then you let go and go on.”

Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

“I do this every time I come to a GA room. This is where I can confess and get some guidance, and I need to do that even if I never gamble again. I’ll never be as sensitive and considerate as I could be, but I’ve learned to say I’m sorry, and mean it. It matters now what people think of me. Before, I never cared.”

Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

“I have my own quiet time every day now. It sounds silly, but I just relax and clear my mind and listen. I just listen for answers. I don’t pray and ask for stuff. Heck, I don’t even know what the questions are. I don’t even know what I need. But there is wisdom out there or in here, and I listen. That little quiet time for meditation is more important now than food, work, or anything else I do every day.”

Step 12: Having made an effort to practice these principles in all our affairs, we tried to carry this message to other compulsive gamblers.

“This step is so important, and so misunderstood, I think. I learned right away that no matter how important it is to me, most people don’t want to hear how I quit gambling and turned my life around. People in GA do, but not out there on the street or at work. Step 12 just says to carry the message, not to shove it on others or assume that everyone else needs to hear it. And it says to carry it to other compulsive gamblers. So I just carry the message in my head, because I’m the one who needs to hear it over and over again. And once in a great while I can pass it on to other gamblers who still suffer. Maybe something I say in these rooms will help others. I hope so. Thanks, guys, for listening tonight.”

Most of the rest of the people there either gave short speeches or chose not to speak at all. But enough of them did talk long enough so that it was well past midnight when the meeting broke up. One old fellow I had listened to at other meetings took almost half an hour to give the same speech he always gave. He had quit going to racetracks 15 years before, but I don’t think he had any understanding of what the Gamblers Anonymous program had been trying to teach him ever since. As he droned on about his gambling days his eyes glazed over. He got down to describing specific horses and specific bets he had made on specific races. Finally, it was clear that he wasn’t with us anymore. He had traveled back in time, to some racetrack in the past, and was watching races held years ago, smelling the manure and hearing the crowd’s cheers. There, before our eyes, was a mental gambler with no comprehension of what it means to abstain from the excitement of the chase.

The men all excused this old-timer, saying that he had earned their respect by his attendance and abstinence. No one would confront him with his obvious lack of growth and his complete lack of interest in really working the Gamblers Anonymous Twelve Steps of recovery. And no one would attempt to limit the time he took up in meetings with his old gambling war stories. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps he was getting all that he was capable of from the program. Perhaps his failures could help others grow in tolerance, understanding, and patience.

What a difficult mix of repugnant and compelling features GA represented! And what a challenging assignment for me—a non-gambler and a psychologist—to be supportive and encouraging while longing for important changes that might improve the attraction and success of the program.

I was startled out of my reverie when Ernie called my name, asking for a few final words or comments. Of course, I had not organized any speech of my own.

“Once again, folks, I want to thank you very much for allowing me to share this fellowship with you. I consider it a privilege. As usual, I’ve learned from you all. And, Julius, I’m glad you opened up so well this evening. Keep it up. Keep coming back.”

In spite of the late hour, I just didn’t feel finished. I decided that it was time to mention something that would soon be common knowledge, in our local circles in any case.

“I want to let you all know that I’ll be leaving Cleveland and the Gambling Treatment Program in a month or two. I’ve decided to take a transfer to the VA Medical Center out in Reno, Nevada. Out there I’ll have the chance to work with a wider assortment of addiction problems, and maybe I can learn some new tricks …”

I realized that I had startled the gamblers out of their own complacency. Murmurs of protest were voiced. People were sitting up and getting ready to fire questions.

“Folks,” I said, “No one knows better than I how much of yourselves you have invested in our hospital program, how you’ve supported and defended it over the years. You’re all part of our treatment family, and I flatter myself to think that I may be a part of your fraternity of recovery. The Gambling Treatment Program will, of course, go on, and you will have a chance to meet my replacement when we have an open house at the hospital soon.

“Please remember, a program like ours does not depend on any one individual. I’m only part of a team. Wonderful people preceded me, and others will follow. Some of you remember when Dr. Robert Custer left to go to work in our central office in Washington. And then, in her turn, after seven years of tireless work with gamblers, Dr. Alida Glen moved to Florida. I was her replacement way back then. A few of you were there when I first turned up at a G.A. open meeting, the one when we said goodbye to Dr. Glen. My years here working with you and the staff have been wonderful and exciting, but it’s time for me to go on to other tasks. But I don’t think it will be long before gamblers find their way into the Reno facility. Once you get used to gamblers, they’re hard to let go of.”

There was muttering and shaking of heads. Then there was handshaking and hugs and slaps on the back. We all joined hands and recited the Serenity Prayer, and then the group slowly drifted out into the dark and the snow.

John Z. did not seek me out after the meeting. That was not surprising. He disappeared quickly and quietly into the snowy night, into what would certainly be a lonely and unhappy future. He hadn’t found a family in GA that night, but he might have heard something, some small word of wisdom, and he might be back eventually.

Could I be heading in the same direction, I wondered?

Until his death, Robert Custer remained closely identified with the treatment of pathological gambling. I was fortunate to be able to confer with him frequently by phone, and to meet with him several times each year at conferences. I know that Alida Glen suffered a personal loss when her work with the gamblers she so loved came to an end. I don’t think she ever again found work that was nearly as rewarding to her personally as her work at the Brecksville Gambling Treatment Program.

People who began working in the field of pathological gambling seldom left it. But I saw the emerging field of addictionology as a way of answering so many general questions about human vulnerability, questions we could never address by looking at only one addiction at a time.

Even as an outsider, as a non-gambler, I had found a family here among the least likely candidates for companionship one could imagine. Life holds many ironies. And now I was walking out on that Gamblers Anonymous family, and on a wonderful group of professionals at the Brecksville Division of the Cleveland Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Alone, walking through the snow, I realized that because of my seven years with gamblers I could arrive at any major city in the United States, at any hour, make a few phone calls, and soon be among friends. And the gambling treatment family was just that: A rather small group of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors scattered thinly around the country; a dedicated, caring family carrying on a curious trade that was little understood or appreciated by the larger group of mental health professionals.

For a moment, I felt panic at the thought of leaving a secure position in a field in which I had become a recognized expert. I had an excellent team. Our program was a research cow from which flowed significant scientific papers. The National Council on Problem Gambling had given me a high award, The Herman Goldman Foundation Award. I was respected, secure, and productive. I was needed. I was in control …

My God, I thought, I sound like a gambler in action with a big win!

I felt an almost overwhelming wave of sadness as I started my cold car, but I beat back those feelings with a saying I had heard so many times in self-help groups of all kinds: “Grow or die, grow or die!”

It was time for new projects and new experiences. There is nothing like being the new kid on the block to keep you on your toes and get you moving in new directions.

It was time to move on. But I was to find that wherever I went, my experiences with gamblers would continue. I was to find that it was not a specialty one could easily walk away from.