GSS 009: Gambling Within Your Means—Why It Doesn’t Work for Compulsive Gamblers

Full Episode Transcript

This is episode 9 of the Gambling Still Sucks podcast. In this episode, we’ll discuss gambling within your means and why it just doesn’t work for compulsive gamblers.

Hey there and welcome to the Gambling Still Sucks podcast. My name is Jamie. I am a compulsive gambler, and I’m also the host of this show. The last time I gambled was July 15th of 2010.

If you choose to gamble this weekend, remember to gamble within your means. Don’t gamble more than you planned. We’ve all heard some version of that line—”gamble within your means” or “don’t gamble money you don’t have”—in a gambling advertisement, from a gambling prevention group, or even just in our own heads, right? Because that’s the story we tell ourselves.

“Hey, this time when you go, just stop. If you get up this amount, stop. Or if you get down this much, just don’t gamble. Don’t gamble any more than you bring.” We’ve had all these stories told to us, running through our heads throughout our gambling experiences, and yet we still end up doing the same thing over and over again.

So I wanted to use this episode to talk about and dissect the campaigns themselves and also the stories that we have in our heads and why I think they keep us trapped.

I know personally, this thought process of “next time will be different” is probably the one thought that really kept me gambling the most. I would constantly look back at my history and only see those wins. I would say, “Jamie, just stop when you’re there. Stop when you’re ahead.” Or I would see my losses and think, “Well, if you just lose the $200 that you take, you won’t have a big problem because you’re not going to empty your bank account.”

I continuously tried to force the issue to make that my reality—to make it that I would gamble within my means or that I would stop at whatever money I brought. But along the way, I stopped looking at reality and history.

I think history is the best predictor of the future, and we can all see that in our lives. When I really started looking back—and I didn’t do this when I was gambling, it was only in recovery—I saw the reality. The reality was, yes, I did have some wins, but they always ended up with that big loss. The story I kept trying to force, that “next time would be different,” was really the only thing that kept me going. Every other thing in my history said, “No, you’re just going to repeat this same pattern again.”

Now, I want to share a passage from the GA Combo book that I think does a great job summarizing this and explaining it:

*”Most of us have been unwilling to admit that we were real problem gamblers. No one likes to think they are different from their fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our gambling careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could gamble like other people. The idea that somehow, someday, we will control our gambling is the great obsession of every compulsive gambler. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of prison, insanity, or death.”*

I think that’s one of the more powerful pieces from the GA literature because it really speaks to me and summarizes the error in my thinking—the thought process that kept me in the cycle of gambling. I wanted to use this episode to really dissect this and go through it line by line, sharing my thoughts and opinions on it and how it impacts me, and hopefully how it can help you.

The first line: “Most of us have been unwilling.” Unwilling to admit we were real problem gamblers. There’s a lot to unpack here. First of all, nobody wants to be different. Nobody wants to be different from their friends or family. We all have a sense, as humans, to connect. We don’t want some part of us to cause us to be disconnected or pushed away from a group.

That’s probably why I didn’t tell people about my gambling problem—I didn’t want to be pushed away. I didn’t want them to look at me and say, “Oh, you’re different. You’re a screw-up.” That fear of being isolated is one of those things that kept me from being honest. We want to be like other people. This desire, or the unwillingness to admit we had a problem, is a big part of it.

The second half of it is that the moment we admit we have a problem, we have to start looking for a different way out. My entire time gambling, I thought gambling would be the solution to my problem. Gambling got me into the problem, but I thought it was the only way to get out of it.

I had that thought, and you’ve probably had it too, which was, “I’ll just gamble until I have that win, and I’ll do it right this time. I won’t have the losses like before. Once I get out of debt, I’ll quit for good.” I thought once I got to a place where I was out of debt, I wouldn’t need to gamble anymore.

Obviously, now I know that was never going to happen. I was never going to stop when I was ahead, and gambling was never going to be the answer. But at the time, it seemed like the only alternative. I didn’t see how work was going to be enough. It seemed like it would take too long, and I lacked patience, so I started looking for shortcuts instead of doing what was right.

This desire to be like others is why I think there’s a problem with anti-gambling campaigns. The “gamble within your means” message says, “This is how normal people do it.” But if you’re like me and can’t gamble like that, then you start to feel isolated. You feel like there’s something wrong with you. I think that’s why a lot of these campaigns aren’t effective. I’m sure the message works for some people, but for most gamblers, it just doesn’t connect.

The line from the book continues:
*”No one likes to think they are different from their fellows.”* We already talked about this. We don’t want to be different. Naturally, we try to force it—to gamble like other people—even though our history says that’s not how we do it.

And on that topic, let’s challenge what normal people do and how normal people gamble. Think about this: how many times did you tell someone, “I lost five grand”? How many times did you go on Facebook or call your buddies and say, “Hey, I just played roulette and lost 200 bucks”? The reality is nobody does that. Nobody talks about their losses.

We have this idea of how other people gamble, but we don’t really know because they only tell us the good side. We hear the stories when they win, but not about the losses. Casinos wouldn’t still exist if people only won money. This creates a false picture of what normal gambling is. If everyone told us the full story about gambling, I don’t think anyone would do it. The games are set up so that the house has the advantage.

This idea that some people do it a certain way is a fantasy. If everyone was 100% transparent about their gambling experiences, maybe we could believe it. I know there are people who can go and lose $20 and be content. But I think the longer we gamble, the more likely we are to have a transformational experience, like a big win, that changes how we view gambling. We start to see it as a way to win quick money because we did it once and believe we can do it again.

Getting back to the point, we don’t know how everyone else gambles because they’re only telling us the wins. That’s a filter to put on when you hear others talk or see gambling ads saying, “Just gamble like normal people.” There are people who can do that, but there are also a lot who aren’t honest.

And because gambling is an invisible illness, it’s something we can’t see the full ramifications of unless we have access to all their bank accounts, credit cards, and their complete history of every dollar gambled. So we don’t know what reality is.

The sooner we start realizing and accepting the fact that we don’t know what everybody else’s experience is, the sooner we can accept that we don’t know what normal is or what normal looks like. And I think that actually, what we consider “normal” is probably very much the minority rather than the majority.

Getting back to the literature, the next line says:
“Therefore, it is not surprising that our gambling careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could gamble like other people.”

Sure, we’re going to just keep trying. Like I said, I kept trying to force it, saying, “Okay, next time will be different. I’ll just stop.” And we continuously try. These are vain attempts to prove we can gamble like other people or even prove that we can gamble differently from how we’ve done it the last 50 times, which all resulted in losses. There’s probably some competitiveness or just a desire to get it right. And so we continue to try and force the square peg into the round hole.

The literature goes on:
“The idea that somehow, someday we will control our gambling is the great obsession of every compulsive gambler.”

As I mentioned earlier, this was 100% me. I was obsessed with figuring out how to use gambling to get out of my problem, and then I was going to quit it for good. But to get out of it, it was going to require me to have control. And in the beginning, I had that control for a short time—maybe a few months. But then for years, the control just disappeared. It wasn’t there anymore.

But I still had that desire and belief that I could do it differently, so I obsessed over it. I kept trying and kept trying. That is the great obsession of every compulsive gambler. I think that’s why so many of us have to hit extreme lows—because we keep trying, we’re relentless, and we want to get out so desperately. We’re miserable, and we don’t see any other path.

The last few lines of the passage are:
“The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of prison, insanity, or death.”

At first, when I joined the program, this seemed a little sensationalized. But the more you get into it, the more you realize—yeah, prison, insanity, or death. You’re either going to steal, it’s going to mess with your mental health, or it could lead to death. We know about the rate of suicide among problem gamblers. If you have any suicidal thoughts, please, as I’ve mentioned before, share them with someone. Find somebody to confide in. I’ve been in those situations, and sharing helps.

But it doesn’t have to end in any of those three: prison, insanity, or death. There is a different way. We just have to start to realize the full picture and scope of gambling. We have to stop accepting the story that there’s one group of people who gamble “normally” and another group who don’t. We know we don’t gamble normally. But as long as that narrative exists—that there’s some ideal person out there who can gamble responsibly—many of us will keep striving for something that’s just not our reality.

They say 95% of people gamble normally. Well, show me 100,000 people and give me their full gambling experience, and then I’ll start to draw conclusions. But until we see all the data—all of their bank statements and behaviors—I’m going to question that. Personally, I know how easily I could have been perceived by others as being in that 95%. Nobody would think I’m in the 5%. I could hide it. And if I could hide it, who else is hiding it?

That’s why I challenge those numbers. Until I see full records, I’m not going to believe 5%. I think the number of problem gamblers is much, much higher.

So, as we wrap up this episode, I want to say to my fellow compulsive gamblers: question these numbers. Don’t accept what’s told as reality. If we keep striving for something that’s not attainable for us, we’ll always end up feeling disappointed and isolated. The more we question these numbers and start to realize, “Hey, if I can hide it, so can so many others,” the more we might understand that the story we’re told about what’s normal isn’t really true.

And finally, for those who create campaigns—if you work for an ad agency or a state agency focused on gambling prevention—I’m not trying to attack you. I don’t think you have malicious intent. You probably just don’t know what it’s like inside our heads or how some messages come across. Hopefully, this episode gives you some insight and helps you reduce the stigma.

A lot of these campaigns that say, “Be in the 95%” or “Gamble normally” can be dangerous because they place the person you’re trying to reach in a position where they feel even more isolated. For the person who gambles responsibly, you don’t need to tell them to gamble responsibly. It’s just how they are—it’s in their DNA. It’s like you don’t need to tell a frog to be a frog. Focus on messages that connect with problem gamblers, giving them hope and inspiration by sharing other people’s personal stories. Those are the most effective.

This is what this podcast is all about: helping other people. I look forward to hearing from you. Let me know what you think, and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Now, before you go, I’d like to go over a few very important things.

First of all, I think it’s important to remember that problem gambling is a treatable disorder. There’s no scientific evidence or study suggesting that this is a terminal condition and that we are forced to deal with the negative side effects for the rest of our lives. While it may feel like something you’ll struggle with forever, science doesn’t back that up. Recovery is real—we just need to seek treatment.

This brings me to point number two, which is that help is available. Many states in the United States offer free counseling and therapy for not only gamblers but also their family members. These programs are available, and the best way to start finding more information is to call the hotline number: 1-800-522-4700. Again, that’s 1-800-522-4700, run by the National Council on Problem Gambling. This hotline covers all 50 states, and they will have information to help guide you to seek help in your area.

These hotlines aren’t just available in the United States; they’re available around the world. Simply open up a web browser, type in “gambling help” or “gambling hotline,” and you’ll find the information for your local area.

In addition to the hotlines, there are numerous places where you can find gambling support and information online. If you go to gamblingstillsucks.com/help, I’ll list some of these resources and continue adding more as I find new ones, whether they’re chat groups, online forums, or just great information.

So again, that was gamblingstillsucks.com/help.

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide legal or medical advice. I’m not a doctor, therapist, or attorney—just a guy who had a gambling problem. While we’ll discuss a lot of topics and I’ll provide insight into what’s worked for me, please seek out the help of a professional. Go visit a lawyer, a doctor, or a therapist to help you deal with your gambling problem. The information we discuss is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as professional legal or medical advice. Any reliance on the information appearing on this podcast is at your own risk.

The music for this podcast is Something Elated by Broke For Free and licensed under the Creative Commons.