GSS 014: Michelle Joins the Podcast to Share Her Story

Full Episode Transcript

This is episode 14 of the Gambling Still Sucks podcast. In this episode, Michelle joins the show to share her story, and we talk about a lot of other topics, including women and gambling, as well as the effect of a new casino that is close by.

Hey there, everyone. This is Jamie. I am a compulsive gambler. The last time I gambled was July 15th of 2010. I am excited, especially after all the feedback we had on Rob’s episode, to quickly get another interview up. And so today I am joined by Michelle.

Hey, Michelle.

Michelle: Hello.

Jamie: How are you?

Michelle: I’m doing well. I’m glad that you were willing and able to come on the show and share a little bit about your story. So looking forward to hearing your story.

Jamie: I’m looking forward to sharing. So I guess the same thing with Rob. I’d like to just start off. If you could, take a chance and kind of introduce yourself, kind of give a little bit about your personal background, just kind of paint the picture of who you are so people can kind of have an idea in their mind.

Michelle: Sure, sure. So it just happens to be happenstance that I am somehow right down the street from both you and Rob. You know, I know that your podcast has a lot further reach than just Northeastern Ohio, but just random happenstance. And another thing that we have in common, I’m actually a former poker player myself, and I reached the same level that you and Rob had both reached. I think we share that as well as quite a bit of online playing as well.

Poker was, I would say, 90% of it for me and some blackjack as well. But when it came to blackjack, there was zero, I mean, it was full speed ahead from day one, and we can get into it a little more, but I’ll just say that my degenerate blackjack behavior is what really pushed me to what I, at the time, thought was more regulated, less degenerate poker playing. I thought poker would be the cure. I thought poker would be the cure to my blackjack playing. So, that’s more or less a little bit about my background and how it kind of progressed for me.

Jamie: Yeah. And for everyone out there, Michelle and I have actually never met. And we do live, what, about 30, 40 minutes away at the most?

Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we have, well, no, there’s probably a very unlikely chance that we’ve even run into each other just because my poker playing, the majority of it, happened in the last five years. Well, you are clearly no longer involved in the game. So, yeah, that’s actually true.

Jamie: Yeah. And that’s, I mean, Rob and I joke, we would go to some of the same places. And so, I know we’ve probably been to at least in the same building. But yeah, that’s the Cleveland poker scene has changed rapidly in the last seven years. And now that we have casinos here and it’s no longer the charity poker, which was where I frequented.

But it’s just kind of interesting. You always, and I know I always felt so alone and like different and like there’s nobody else out there. And all of a sudden, in the last, I don’t know, month and a half, two months when I’ve kind of gotten this started and jumped on Twitter. I mean, just on Twitter yourself. And then there’s another gentleman that, I mean, is like right in the backyard, and we’re going to meet up and have lunch. And it’s kind of cool. But I don’t know. I think that’s kind of the cool thing about social media and the Internet is it provides that connection.

Michelle: It’s amazing. It’s amazing. And him and I have, I know who you’re talking about, and him and I have also kind of like bonded over this. And it’s just, it’s so helpful. It’s so helpful that there are people like yourself advocating for those that don’t know where to go or who to reach out to. You’re letting people know that they’re not alone and that there are places they can go and things that they can do. And it’s as easy as basically a mouse click away.

And I think what’s helpful and people need to really understand how to take advantage of some of these services and tools, social media or the Internet allows the people that still want to be anonymous to have their anonymity. People that still have a difficult time picking themselves up and walking into a physical meeting have the option to do it behind a screen, whether that’s good or not in their long-term recovery. It’s not for me to judge, but I think it just makes things more accessible for people with less effort.

I hate to say it like that, but that’s kind of what it is.

Jamie: No, absolutely. It’s a baby step, right? And that’s for sure. One of the big things with the podcast was, okay, most people, myself included, nobody wants to go to GA. Like that’s not, you don’t wake up one day and say, you know what? I’m really excited because I’m going to go to my first GA meeting. It’s completely the opposite. And so my whole thought was, okay, I listened to a ton of podcasts and it’s a way to start to get people comfortable. Like you say, that connection. And even going back to like when I, when I first started with the Twitter handle, like it was, I didn’t have my location on, and it was like you said, that ability to stay anonymous to whatever degree you want.

Michelle: Right. Absolutely. I think, I don’t know. There are two different types of people that get involved in 12-step programs. There are the people that throw themselves fully into the program completely in every way of the word. They are completely immersed. And what’s more important for them are the 12 steps and their own recovery. And then eventually helping others that their anonymity almost plays no role. Like people just know who some of these people are. And then there are the types of people that are a little apprehensive and they don’t want to give away too much about themselves and they’re concerned about their reputations in the community once they expose their issues.

And this kind of allows for whatever your level or your needs are. You can be who you want to be and how you want to. You can more or less create your own path to recovery, which should be hopefully inviting to those that had reservations at any point.

Jamie: Absolutely. So I guess let’s go back and we’ve kind of talked about how we don’t know each other. And like, this is one of the awesome things about the internet and the connecting. And like you say, I mean, it’s cool to see downloads in the UK and Australia and all around the world and kind of the issue is so universal.

So I guess, first, let’s just go back. What are some of your early thoughts or memories on gambling? How did you get into it? What was the progression?

Michelle: So my grandparents actually were huge card players, and I have seven cousins and every Friday night we’d sleep at my grandparents’ house and maybe every other weekend they’d have their friends over while all the kids were there, and they would play Maj or bridge or poker. They chose different games every single week. And really early on, like seven or eight years old, I was extremely close with my grandpa. I would look over his shoulder and play with him for hours on end. I would be his eyes and ears, and I caught on so quickly. It was something that just appealed to me. I don’t know. I can’t explain how or why, but it just was what it was.

And then I played a little bit on and off in high school. I had, I was always one of the guys. I had a pretty solid group of male friends and I just hung out with them on the weekends and they would run games, casual games. And if it was, if they were for money, they were for pennies. It was nothing ever sizable and nothing that I remembered. And trust me, if there was money involved, I probably would remember.

Then I went to school. I went to college on the East coast and I went to grad school on the East coast. So I spent a lot of time, I was in Boston for undergrad and then I was in New York City for grad school. I spent a lot of time in Atlantic City, and it wasn’t habitual, but just to get out of New York City for a couple hours on a Saturday, I would maybe go once a month and play whatever. I didn’t play poker in the casino at that point, but as a diversion, I would play blackjack, very little slots.

Looking back, I can see some of those day trips where my judgment was, let’s just say questionable. Not in my actions, but just in remembering how I felt. The compulsivity was starting to move in a little bit. Nothing really happened other than I graduated school and moved back to Ohio, and there weren’t any casinos here. I wasn’t really playing any active poker games at that point.

Then right around the time that all the moneymaker stuff happened and online poker blew up was when I was starting my professional career, and I had just gotten married right around the same time. This was like in the early 2000s. I would come home from work and turn on the computer for like a half hour or an hour and load $50 onto an account. I don’t know what even inspired me to download any of those poker skins at the time and to play, but somehow somebody was talking about it one day at work and I went home and just began playing. I’m trying to think back now if there was really any impetus to it, I guess there really was not.

But just as much as my mode of relaxation, I would walk through the door, and the computer was in the office right by the front door. I would go in there for a half an hour, decompress. And because I was in a new marriage, I was still feeling my way around the relationship quite a bit. This was my sanctuary and my place to just go let off steam and then spend the night with my spouse. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. At that point, I certainly wasn’t playing the game that I eventually was playing. It was much more of a diversion.

My significant other really was into poker, but he had no idea what he was doing and wanted to learn. He was, I think, more into watching it than participating in it. He started having his male friends over like maybe once a month and we would run a regular game. That was really my first go at live poker, playing seriously. I don’t know if it was a combination of studying and skill or just dumb luck, but I had amazing success. I would literally wipe out his friends almost every single time that we had a game.

This went on for about a year, and my playing with the guys live and my playing online fed into each other. The more that I did one, the more I wanted to do the other. For whatever reason, our game, our live game, dissolved after about a year. After about 18 months or so, my online playing fizzled out a little bit too. I was still focused on work, extremely focused on work. We also had started a family, and I didn’t have that urge to keep playing. I wanted other things in my life.

When I stopped playing, maybe like 2005 or so, I didn’t start again until the casino in Cleveland, which I think this was 2012. Tell me if I’m wrong, maybe 11, until the casino opened again.

Jamie: Sounds about right.

Michelle: So yeah, I had a couple trips to Vegas, nothing worth really discussing, and maybe a couple local casino trips by local, I mean, in a three-state area in between then. That was really it. I still stayed interested. I would read poker news and whatnot, and I knew what was going on within the community, but I certainly was not any sort of diehard the way that I eventually ended up being.

When the casino opened in Cleveland, the gloves came off immediately. It was pretty insane, and it ramped up pretty quickly. So I can get into that a little bit if you’d like.

Jamie: Yeah, let’s get into it in a second. But first, I mean, I think this just highlights, I mean, your story from the start. Like you said, sitting on your grandfather’s lap and kind of that family aspect of it, and then, I mean, you’re in college and it’s just casual, right? It’s the prototypical what the gaming industry says, “Oh, it’s fun, it’s entertainment, it’s relaxation.” I think you said it was a way to decompress.

Michelle: Absolutely. For sure. It was a bonding thing, you know? Not just with family, but with friends. I have always said this and I still stand by it, it brings people together. These types of activities, especially in, you know, I hate to stay focused just on poker, but poker brings together groups of people that would otherwise never be sitting around a table together from all different walks of life, from all different socioeconomic backgrounds, from any demographic. It joins people together more than it pulls people away from each other. So, there are some positive characteristics of it.

Jamie: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we need to have a poker game as the front, but then actually not have a poker game and just make people sit in a room and talk to each other.

Michelle: Right. Well, and now, listen, for what it’s worth, I guess the game of poker is still at least bringing all of us together because somehow we found each other, you know?

Jamie: No, absolutely.

Michelle: Like it or not.

Jamie: Yeah, and I think in your story, I mean, it’s similar to mine, it’s similar to Rob’s, it’s similar to every story I’ve heard over seven and a half years. It’s sort of that progression. We start off and it’s just casual. It’s not much money, it’s infrequent. Then it’s a little more frequent and a little more money, and then it’s a lot more. Like you said, when you came back to Ohio, a big part was we didn’t have casinos. You had to drive to Detroit in Michigan. It was two to three hours to a casino. When you did it, when you decided to play or to do it, it was a commitment.

Michelle: Yeah, you were all in. It’s like, “I’m going. I’m going to do this all the way. I’m not going to drive two and a half hours and just lose a buy-in or lose whatever you started with and then go home.”

Jamie: Right. It’s always at least a day.

Michelle: No, well, no, never.

Jamie: And for everyone out there, a little background—the casino in Cleveland—I like to call it the casino that LeBron brought us because the state of Ohio had gambling on the ballot many, many times. It was always voted down, always voted down. Well, then Dan Gilbert, who founded Quicken Loans and is the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, was trying to bring casinos to Ohio. He owns a couple of the ones that are here.

At the time, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the basketball team, were really, really good, and it’s because of LeBron, who’s from Akron (where I’m from) and played in Cleveland. He’s back here again now. The team was awesome, and there was such a positive sentiment towards the Cavs, and Dan Gilbert came along with that because he was the owner and was the one that was bringing all the success. So, when the ballot came up, all of a sudden, I think it was about 2009, 2010—the Cavs had just been to the finals. It might have been in the ballot in even 2008. The Cavs were in the finals in 2007. Everybody loved Dan Gilbert, and so, “Oh, it’s Dan’s casino; he’ll do well,” all that type of stuff. Now, fast forward 10 years later, we have multiple casinos.

Michelle: Well, and not to interject, but I will interject.

Jamie: No, of course.

Michelle: At that point also—and this was a huge selling point—it was when it first opened; it was a Caesars Entertainment casino. People that had been regular Vegas visitors or Atlantic City visitors, their comps and their points, their total rewards system, was what was here. It was the Horseshoe. Because it was adjoined with that casino group, I don’t know so much that people who were not in the know were aware, but a lot of their comps—they were transferable all around the country. I think having the Caesars name attached to them, or Harrah’s, let’s say, was tremendous, and it turned out for me specifically to be a huge, huge thing.

Jamie: Yeah.

Michelle: My first… I didn’t go right away. I’ll tell you this. The casino opened in May, and I remember people talking about how there were lines out the door to sit down—at least outside of the poker room. The lines to sit down at either 1/3 or the 2/5 tables were deep. The waiting lists were, I don’t know, twelve tables deep. The lines to get in and sign up for a player’s card were insane. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care if it’s Black Friday shopping, going into a casino, or waiting to eat at the best restaurant in the world that’s giving away food. I’m never waiting in a line for anything like that. I’m just too impatient, and nothing is so important that it can’t wait, at least when I’m thinking logically. That’s the case.

But, you know, I waited several months to go. I don’t think I went until October of the same year for the first time. I happened to be going to the comedy club that was right down the street with a couple of friends on a Saturday night. We had an hour and a half to blow, and they said, “Let’s just stop into the casino.” I signed up for a player’s card right away, as soon as we walked in. They entered all the new sign-ups into some raffle—there’s always some sort of crazy promotion—and I didn’t think much about it. Just like with any player’s club thing, whatever promotion—I think, if I remember correctly, if you signed up for a new card, you got entered into a raffle, and you got $20 of free slot play. That was the whole idea. I thought, “Well, if we have an hour and a half to blow, I’ll just play the free slot play, and then we’ll go.”

So, I signed up for the card. I burned through the $20, and we were about to walk out the door, and they pulled the names out for the raffle. Before I could even make it out the door, within the first hour of being there, I ended up winning the raffle. So, my love affair with the local casino, at least, started immediately. There was not even any sort of wooing—it was love at first sight, and we jumped right into the toxic relationship right away.

Jamie: Of course, I mean, who wouldn’t want to recreate?

Michelle: Absolutely. Plus, my mentality was, “Well, now I have this extra $10,000 that the casino basically gave to me. Why use it for anything other than trying to make more money from it?” It wasn’t right away, but eventually, I found my way back there and proceeded to make sure that they got every penny of their money back—put it that way.

Jamie: House money, right?

Michelle: Exactly, exactly. The number one thing that works in the casino’s favor is that we don’t value the money that they give us nearly as much as the money that we give them. We earn it, we fight hard and earn our dollar at work, and we know how hard it is to get it. But then when they give us a dollar, it’s like, “Oh, that’s not worth as much.”

Jamie: Absolutely.

Michelle: That couldn’t be more true, could not be more true. Another thing for me—I was, like I mentioned, pretty smart, or I thought that I was smart, and that I would take that $10,000 and find the best way to make the most money from it. So, I immediately—I didn’t go back to the casino. We did go to the comedy show, but I didn’t end up going back to the casino right away. In fact, it was probably about a week later. I went home and gave it some thought and thought about channeling, funneling some of that money into poker and then maybe playing a little bit of blackjack to try and double, triple, quadruple—whatever my agenda was—that money.

In the process, I found, again, Caesars Total Rewards Program—how to compound points quickly, comps as quickly as possible, and build my status level so any future trips to Las Vegas or wherever else I wanted to go would be basically funded by Caesars. Caesars is great for this. They have all types of marketing gimmicks, like their levels—and I’ve talked about this quite a bit on another podcast that I was on. Their levels are gold, platinum, diamond, and then seven stars. Everybody starts out at gold; it’s worth nothing. Platinum is, I think, either 1,500 or 2,000 points, which on a low level, you can think of it as almost dollar for dollar, but that doesn’t hold true with the higher levels. Diamond, I believe, is maybe 10,000 points, and then seven stars is 150,000.

Caesars’ big push was helping gamblers get to diamond in a day. For whatever reason, that was what I decided that I was going to do—whether it was, you can’t do it playing poker (poker was the least rewarded, most expensive for the casino, least rewarded game), but you could certainly do it with blackjack or slots. I figured if I sat down at a blackjack table and played two to three hands of $200 each for six hours, I’d have it done. I set out to do that, and I did it. I reached diamond in a day, and I thought, “Okay, well, now I have access to the diamond lounge, which is the bar.” Drinks in Ohio cannot be comped, but food can be comped, and drinks can be lowered to like a dollar or something like that. So here I am now with access to this club. I can entertain friends and clients at the casino at any point, and I was treated like royalty.

Once I got a little taste of that, I immediately wanted to be the top level, the next level, and had to figure out the best and quickest way to get myself there. So that’s kind of how my mentality changed over time and how the progression of things unfolded for me.

Jamie: No, that’s really interesting. One interesting fact about me: I’ve never had a rewards card of any kind. Part of it was we didn’t have a casino here, but yeah.

Michelle: I thought about that. I realized that as we were talking about it, you actually probably were never even in the casino here. So that’s a whole other aspect of it.

Jamie: It keeps me in check. For me, I just wanted to be anonymous. My family knew I had played poker and got into trouble, so it was one of those things—like to hide it. I didn’t want to be added to a mailing list. Even the last day I went on the riverboat, they scanned my ID going in, and I almost turned around and left because I didn’t want to give them my ID. I thought, “They’re going to send me mailers, and somebody’s going to see it.”

But I am guilty of the rewards thing, and I mean, I’m a marketer, so I know all the things that the rewards are designed to do. They’re designed to build a habit. They want you to keep coming back. They set it up, and they have the science behind it. I’m guilty of standing—actually sitting in my car—in line. We have a new Starbucks that’s real close to my house, and the line is always wrapped around the building. It’s a pain to get in and out of, but I have a Starbucks rewards card, and they upped me right away to the higher level. I need to maintain my higher level to get my free coffee more frequently.

Right down the road, there’s an awesome, locally-owned coffee shop that I’d like to support. I think my values are more aligned with theirs, but they don’t have the same sophisticated app. So, I sit in line at Starbucks to get my coffee instead of going to the local place. It’s just because Starbucks has that rewards program, and they’re building a habit. They’ll do things like, “Buy a coffee one day, a sandwich the next, and then a frappe,” so they get you to try different things. They slowly shift our habits and belief systems. It’s powerful stuff.

Michelle: Yeah, and we are in a place now where we’re so used to having instant gratification. Now that we know that we can have things in just a moment, as long as they’re marketed well, flashy, easy to use, and accessible, there’s no reason to stop. So, I think it’s important to say no. We’ve become “yes” people. So, I get it, I absolutely, fully, 100% get it.

Another thing worth mentioning in my progression was that as things got deeper and deeper for me, a sense of entitlement and self-righteousness really took over for me.

Jamie: Yeah, I agree.

Michelle: I was, through a series of life events, divorced in 2010. So here I am, single, a female poker player. I’ve always been outspoken, so here I am in this place in life where the other people in the casino were mostly male or maybe couples on weekend nights—either a lot younger or a lot older, just different than me. I felt like I was somebody different, something—I hate to say special—I was different than everybody else.

I was often the only female in the poker room or one of very few females who would be there for 12 hours grinding it out. I was definitely the only female sitting down at blackjack and playing large amounts the way that I did. I eventually got to the Seven Stars level, and I was the second female in Ohio at this casino to reach that level. I was trailblazing for some of the less… prestigious types of things.

There’s a mentality that gambling is a man’s problem, that disordered gambling is mostly something that only men know. I mean, it’s just not true. As long as women and disordered gambling are not discussed, women who are battling disordered gambling are not going to discuss it. There are more men who struggle with it, just by looking at the numbers, but the numbers are 100% skewed.

It’s difficult for me to discuss this because, in any other aspect, I’m almost anti-feminist. Women complain all the time about how they’re not treated the same as men, they’re held back, etc. I feel like as long as women feel that they’re treated differently and complain about it, they will continue to be treated differently.

This is the only area where I feel that women don’t get equal representation, but they should probably be treated just the same as men. We tend to be better at keeping secrets and better at hiding things, and that’s the reason that it stays hidden. So, I think it’s important to mention that as well.

Jamie: Yeah, and that’s another great reason I’m so happy you’re on here because you’re sharing your story, bringing awareness to the fact that it’s not just a guy’s problem.

Michelle: Absolutely, and I hope that other women will either be willing to talk more about their own struggles or at least advocate for changes. Or if nothing else, they won’t feel so alone by hearing somebody else being willing to discuss their experiences.

Jamie: I guess, are they the ads and the prevention campaigns that you feel don’t focus on it, or is it just the studies? What specifically?

Michelle: I think that the studies, at least the ones I’ve looked over (and I’ve looked over quite a few of them), tend to use middle-aged men as their litmus test for almost everything. I don’t think a lot of studies really look into women and gambling. When they do, it’s usually either lottery tickets or slot play.

Some of the worst disordered gambling that I’ve experienced were with female poker players who would end up having a bad session and go blow money at blackjack or other casino games. So, the study groups just aren’t representative of women, and I think there’s just a complete and total unawareness that there needs to be more of a focus on women in this area.

Jamie: Yeah, thinking about it, I’ve never seen anything focused on women and gambling or directly on the role of females in gambling. I think it’s just a lack of thought, concern—I don’t know.

Michelle: I’ll say this, and I’ve heard you talk about it before. You and I and people doing what we’re doing are in the minority, and unfortunately, we have to scream the loudest to have our voices heard. Those of us who’ve been through it, the people going through this situation, we should have the loudest voices.

When lawmakers are considering how to change the way they’re handling problem gambling, or private companies are, or whomever, they should look to us—to talk about our experiences, to tell them what the community needs, to tell them how to go about reform. Unfortunately, the people making decisions about how to handle treatment or legislation are often people who have no experience with any of the things we went through. We scream so loud, and our voices just aren’t heard.

It’s really remarkable. As long as there’s a stigma with the way problem gamblers are viewed, we’ll never really be able to evoke sizable changes. You and I know better—we’re good people who made bad decisions. But the way we’re viewed is that we’re questionable people who made horrible decisions. We’re not given any responsibility to try and reform the way this is handled. It’s super, super unfortunate.

Unless we continue to push for change, to refuse to take “no” for an answer, nothing will ever change.

Jamie: No, absolutely. This is one of those things. My wife and I have this discussion quite often about the internet. Is it good or bad? You can go both ways on it. My argument always is that the internet has allowed us to do this, to have a bigger voice.

It didn’t happen for me on day one. I’m seven and a half years into my recovery before I’m starting this and getting out there, so I understand that everyone has a different timeline and ability to kind of scream the loudest. Hopefully, we’re starting to lead that. Even in the big picture, we have more celebrities and high-profile people talking about different mental health issues. This is something that’s coming to the forefront in our society. We’re way behind the times, but hopefully, you and I, and others who are getting their stories out, will lead that change.

That’s why I encourage anyone who wants to come on—come on! Create your own stuff; it’s easy. Create a blog, a podcast, or anything because the more of us that do it, the more awareness there will be. I know from my own experience that as you meet people and get to know their struggles, when you have that personal connection or understanding from listening to a podcast, all of a sudden, you can appreciate it more. You understand it a little more.

It’s just a lack of people out there and content for those who are creating ads or legislation. They kind of go with the old-school methods and thought processes—the prevailing belief that we’re just bad at managing money or it’s just our personal problem, not actually a disease or disorder.

Michelle: Absolutely. Yeah, 100% agree with that.

Michelle: Another thing—I don’t want to divert too much—but for those that share the same sentiment that we do, for me to feel like I’m accomplishing something, for me to be most productive, I had to really focus beyond the similarities I had with just a couple of people. Like you and I share the poker connection and some other things, but to feel a level of satisfaction with my recovery, I needed to begin helping others. Not even compulsive gamblers, just people like me dealing with addiction issues, who wanted to do something about it and didn’t know where to go or what to do.

I started a project with two friends—one a recovering heroin addict, the other a recovering alcoholic. By opening my mind to the same underlying issue manifesting differently through other addictions, it’s been so helpful in understanding what’s going on with me on another level. I don’t want to tell anybody how they should recover because the last thing I want is someone telling me what I need to do. But I found it beneficial to reach outside my own addiction and try something new.

I’ve been to AA meetings. I’ve been to a couple of heroin anonymous meetings. It’s really interesting if you can just break out of your typical way of thinking. It’s extremely interesting.

Jamie: No, that’s a great life tip. One of my favorite things is to “switch shoes.” I don’t know where I read this, but a long time ago, I try and do this often. It’s about switching shoes with the person—if you were in their situation, what would you think, what would you do, how would you feel? It allows us to have empathy and understand someone else’s point of view, which may be different from ours. It’s an awesome life tip.

Michelle: Absolutely, and it helps us. At least for people like me—like I mentioned earlier, I became so entitled over that period of time. Going to meetings that are completely foreign to me, with people also completely different from me, is humbling. It brings you back to earth; it’s incredibly helpful. It’s eye-opening.

What it also does is… I was never much of a drinker, ever, but I’ve walked into AA meetings, sat through them, and listened to the stories. I’ve thought to myself, “I am so grateful that I only had my problems to deal with.” It makes you grateful when you hear the horrible things others have gone through—grateful for what you have. I can’t recommend enough that once you’re comfortable in your recovery, you branch out and experience things like that.

Michelle: Another thing I’d recommend for people just getting started with recovery or finding it difficult to get to meetings, there’s a website called intherooms.com. There’s a robust group of video meetings, and it’s awesome. You can literally pull it up on your phone or computer and attend a meeting right away. You can try different fellowships, and it’s totally anonymous. You don’t have to say a word, activate a microphone, or even a camera—if you choose to, you can, but you don’t have to. So, if you’re looking for something like that, it does exist.

Jamie: That’s awesome. I appreciate you bringing that up. I’ve seen that before, but I’ve never done it.

Michelle: It’s great.

Jamie: I’ll have to do that and check it out.

Michelle: I have an endless list of tools like that, so if anybody needs resources or a place to go, get a hold of Jamie, and Jamie will get a hold of me. I’m happy to help in any way possible. There are so many resources; you just have to know how to access them. The resources and the people out there trying are genuinely trying, and the things are there—you just have to ask for them.

Jamie: Absolutely.

Jamie: Michelle, let’s wrap up with a couple of things. One, I want to dive into what brought you into recovery. I don’t want to say a “low point,” but for most of us, it is a low point. I know some people go out on a high, but kind of lead us through that a little bit.

Michelle: Okay. It was a combination of several things, but overall, I never had any financial bottoming out. I was a winning poker player. Toward the end, as things really progressed and got out of control, I was actually playing full-time—that was my mode of income for the last two years. I had reached a point where I just didn’t like the person I was becoming.

I was playing online, managing 18 tables at a time, and two days a week, I’d be out playing live at the casino. I had no regular hours, no time to spend with my family. I was in a new relationship that I wanted to work. More than anything, I just got tired. I got tired of everything.

Some of my decision-making was just not wise or good toward the end, and I knew I was out of control. I knew I couldn’t do this halfway anymore because every time I tried to put rules in place for myself, I’d break them. If I said, “I’m only going to play this one tournament,” it would turn into two days of playing, winning or losing sizable amounts of money, and my self-respect and dignity were just shot.

So, I just got tired. I woke up one day, looked at my partner, and said, “It’s time. I don’t know how I’m going to do this or what I need to do, but I have to be done.” And it just so happened that my partner had been in and out of AA for about 15 years. He’d been struggling with his own issues, drinking mostly, and we decided to do it together.

It’s been almost like a friendly competition between us, and it’s very healthy. It was just time.

Jamie: I’m sure that’s extremely helpful, having someone else who understands and who’s going through it too.

Michelle: It is, but it’s also challenging sometimes. You’ve probably experienced this—someone with a substance abuse issue versus someone with a process addiction often deals with the same underlying issues, but it’s harder to understand the descent when it comes to process addictions. You don’t see the physical manifestations the way you do with substance abuse.

And, I think you’ve experienced this too—when you look at someone with a substance abuse issue, there’s a general sympathy that their addiction has taken over. But with a process addiction like gambling, people think we’re making a choice to continue. Whether it’s shopping addiction, food addiction, or gambling addiction, they see it as a choice, whereas with substance abuse, it’s seen as the substances taking control.

But the truth is, none of us are choosing this. No one in addiction is choosing this path.

In my relationship, it’s hard for my partner to understand that when I’ve made poor financial decisions, it stems from my disorder. It’s not just irresponsible thinking. With substance abuse, if someone drinks and then drinks and drives, it’s directly connected. But for us, it’s much more difficult for others to see that direct connection.

Jamie: No, you’re right, and I have experienced that. People do view process addictions differently than substance abuse, and I don’t think it’s right. But we do get a different kind of response from people.

Jamie: One more question for you—you mentioned being a winning poker player, and that’s something a lot of people, especially in the poker space, think about. They say, “I was a winning poker player. If I could just cut out the other things—the sports betting, the tilt play, the blackjack—I could be okay.”

But when you look at your gambling as a whole, do you still see it through that “winning player” lens? Or when you look at the full picture, does it change?

Michelle: You know, I gained a lot of things during the time I was playing—some of my best friendships were formed at the poker table, and I’ll cherish those for the rest of my life. There were definitely good aspects of it.

But I think there’s a saying in the gambling world—“the hardest way to make an easy dollar” or “the easiest way to make a hard dollar”—I think it’s one of those. It’s just that. If you want to feel like you’ve achieved something in life, taking the shortcut isn’t the way to do it.

Gambling allowed me to take a shortcut for a long time. I thought it was an effective way to make money, but in the end, it wasn’t. It’s dangerous in that sense—gambling feeds this false belief that you’re smart or better than others just because you can make quick money at a poker table. It’s a really dangerous mentality to have.

So, to answer your question, it’s hard to say. I think people who use gambling for recreational bonding might find value in it, but I personally don’t know anyone who does it that way. For many people, it becomes more of a spectrum disorder, with varying degrees of compulsive behavior. I’ve never seen a “healthy gambler” who didn’t end up with some level of problem.

At the end of the day, it’s not about how much money I won or lost—it’s about how much life I lost. I gained some amazing friends and valuable lessons, but I can’t replace some of the things that I lost. So, to me, it has to be a net loss, even if it was a financial win.

Jamie: No, that absolutely answers it, and I think you brought up an important point. We need to look at the whole picture, not just one piece. It’s easy to focus on the financial side of it, but there’s so much more.

I find that when I think back, I used to cherry-pick the good parts. “I was a good poker player, and if I could just cut out the losses from blackjack or slots, I’d be fine.” And I see this often in the poker community—people think they can separate the “good gambling” from the “bad gambling.”

I equate it to saying, “I’m winning at my diet because I eat a salad for lunch,” but then going out and having burgers and fries later. You can’t cherry-pick. You need to look at the whole picture.

In an ideal world, sure, I’d sit down and play poker, and I’d leave before I got tired. I’d play in short spells. But the reality is that I’d end up playing for days on end, playing tired, going on tilt, trying to make it back quickly, running up credit card debt.

So, for anyone out there who thinks there’s one area they’re “winning” in, I challenge you to think big picture. What are you missing in life? What family moments are you missing? How much opportunity have you left on the table at work? Just consider the full picture.

Michelle: I agree with that, 100%.

Something that was helpful for me—and this is just my own perspective, I don’t want to tell anyone else what they need to do—but it was uncomfortable at first. In my first GA meeting, I overheard two gentlemen talking about how they go out for drinks after their Monday meeting. I thought, “I’ve never had an issue with drinking, so I don’t need to give that up.”

But when I made the decision to focus on my entire life, not just gambling, I decided to cut out drinking too. It’s never been more important for me to have a glass of wine than it is to avoid it entirely. If I want to change my entire life, I need to approach every part of it sober.

I think just quitting gambling is risky, because it leaves you open to replacing it with another unhealthy habit. If you set out to quit gambling, and also decide not to drink or use drugs, it limits the possibility of adopting other addictive behaviors.

Jamie: No, I like that a lot, and this entire interview has been great. It’s been more of a discussion, and that’s what I want. I hope to have you back more often in the future, Michelle.

Michelle: Absolutely. I’d look forward to that.

Jamie: Michelle, let’s wrap it up. You mentioned earlier that you’re involved in another project. Can you tell us where people can find you and what you’re working on?

Michelle: Sure. I’m involved in a project with two friends who are also in recovery. It’s called dailysober.com. We have a podcast that’s currently on hold, but we hope to continue it in the future. You can check us out at dailysober.com.

If you’d like to get in touch, you can email me at dailysober@outlook.com. We’re also on social media—Facebook, Twitter—just look for Daily Sober.

Jamie: Awesome. I’ll add those links to the show notes. Definitely go check out Daily Sober, and if you’re a woman struggling, please reach out to Michelle. We know that women are underrepresented, and Michelle is here, ready to help.

Michelle: Absolutely. If you need to know what to do next, get ahold of Jamie, get ahold of me. You’re not alone. You are not the only one going through this, and you are definitely not the first.

Jamie: I can’t say it any better, Michelle. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Michelle: Thank you.

Jamie: Alright, everyone. Let us know what you think about this discussion, and we look forward to more episodes in the future.

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

First of all, remember that problem gambling is a treatable disorder. There is no evidence suggesting it’s a terminal condition, so while it may feel like a lifelong struggle, recovery is possible. Science backs that up—recovery is real, but we need to seek treatment.

Secondly, help is available. Many U.S. states offer free counseling and therapy for gamblers and their family members. The best way to find out more is to call the hotline number, 1-800-522-4700, which is run by the National Council on Problem Gambling. This hotline covers all 50 states and provides information to guide you in seeking help in your area.

These hotlines are not just available in the U.S.; they exist worldwide. Just open a browser, search for “gambling help hotline”, and you’ll find the information for your area.

In addition to hotlines, there are many places where you can find support online. You can visit gamblingstillsucks.com/help for a list of resources, including chat groups, forums, and other helpful information.

Finally, please note that this podcast does not provide legal or medical advice. I am not a doctor, therapist, or attorney—just someone who’s gone through a gambling problem. The information shared here is for informational purposes only. Please seek help from a professional like a lawyer, doctor, or therapist for guidance specific to your needs.

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