This is episode 52 of the After Gambling Podcast, and in this episode, I want to talk about self-exclusion and barriers.
Hey there, and welcome to the After Gambling Podcast. My name is Jamie. I’m a compulsive gambler, and I’m also the host of this show. The last time I gambled was July 15th of 2010.
Today, I wanted to devote an entire episode to talking about barriers, specifically self-exclusion, and it’s one of those things that I think it’s an awesome step to take, obviously. Anything that is a barrier that prevents you from gambling, and self-exclusion is one of the best ones because you go to the casino, or if it’s on an app, you go on and you self-exclude. You say, do not let me come back here and gamble again. That’s an awesome way to make sure that you don’t gamble again, right?
Well, I think it is, and I think it’s an important piece of so many people’s recovery. What I want to use this episode to talk about, though, is that it’s just a piece of the puzzle. Too often, I see a lot of people that it’s one of the first steps they take, which is awesome, and it’s really cool that in that moment, they block themselves, but I want to point out that it’s only one piece of the puzzle, and my concern is that gambling is expanding. So, while gambling is expanding, I want to talk about how gambling is expanding.
While you ban these three casinos, I will say that I know I did it personally. I have self-excluded on certain online sites, but then when the urge hit, I would find a new one, and so with the growing opportunity of places to gamble, it’s only going to get larger and larger in the future. There are going to be more and more operators, more and more sites, more and more casinos, just more places to gamble.
And it’s going to become physically impossible or nearly impossible to self-exclude from all of them unless there is a kind of governmental, at the federal level, exclusion policy, where you can sign up and you can be excluded from all of those places. But even then, you have the black market operators, and they’re not going to follow that, and so you’re always going to be able to find a place if you really want to.
And that’s kind of my thought on self-exclusion, is it’s one of those good steps, it’s a barrier, and it’s a barrier that you’re putting up in these places that you are typically going to gamble. It removes some of the convenience factor of it, right? But I just don’t want it to be viewed as the do this and everything else will kind of work its way out, because there’s always going to be an opportunity to gamble somewhere else.
And we are crafty as gamblers, and we will find those other operators or black market, or we’ll start doing things that we wouldn’t have ever thought we would do in order to place a bet. So self-exclusion is a wonderful thing. This is not something that is kind of, I’m not suggesting that you don’t self-exclude. I think self-exclusion is awesome. It’s an awesome step if you’ve already done it. If you haven’t done it, I think it’s a good step to take as well, because it will make it so that you cannot gamble there.
But like I said, it’s only one piece of the puzzle, because there’s always going to be some other opportunity. And that’s where all the other barriers, yeah. Barriers and kind of key steps of recovery, whether it’s going to GA, working with a therapist, sharing your story, giving up complete control of your finances. I mean, that’s talk about barriers. The best one to have when you’re gambling is a barrier between you and your money.
If you have to go through your spouse or a friend or a family member in order to access your money, that’s a hell of a lot better of a barrier than just excluding at one casino or all the casinos around you. So use the self-exclusion tools, but just don’t use them exclusively. Make sure you’re adding other components to your recovery plan so that you have kind of more barriers, because say one of them fails, then you have a backup plan in place that, all right, now we have to get through this.
I mean, with my current situation, there are so many different things that kind of have to match up in order to allow me the time, the money and the opportunity to gamble. So that’s because I’ve put up these barriers. I’ve put up these barriers and I’m very transparent. So that’s really helped me, but I haven’t relied on just one of those things. And I think that’s been one of the keys to my success over nearly eight and a half years.
So continue to self-exclude, but continue to do the other things as well. Add as many barriers as possible. The more barriers, the better. And yeah, I think that’s going to be a good thing. And you’ll start to see how that works, because in that moment of weakness where you start searching other places, if you have like a product like Gamban installed or something that blocks all the sites, or if you don’t have access to your money or whatever the other barriers might be, they’re just going to kind of have that backup in place to ensure that you do not gamble.
Remember, the podcast is for educational and informational purposes. Please seek out the help of a professional. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a therapist. Please seek out the help of a professional when dealing with a gambling problem. It’s a serious disease, a serious addiction, and you deserve to have the best treatment possible.
Music for the podcast is Something Elated by Broke for Free and is licensed under the Creative Commons license. My name is Jamie. I’m a compulsive gambler, and I will see you in the next episode.
