As you start to accumulate clean time after quitting gambling, certain situations or environments can cause problems. In this episode, I cover the four pitfalls I’ve experienced and that I see others experience as we are recovering from gambling addiction.
This is episode 16 of the Gambling Still Sucks podcast. In this episode, we’ll discuss some of the pitfalls that I’ve seen happen in recovery, both to myself and to others.
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.
Now, before I get into this week’s episode, I wanted to say I hear you loud and clearly. Yes, we are going to have more guests on. I already have a few lined up for the future that I’m really excited about. I’m looking forward to having Rob back on. Rob wants to come on and just kind of do an episode where we discuss different topics, and the same with Michelle. I know both of their episodes were extremely popular, and I would like to do more episodes and plan on recording quite a few in May. So we’ll have a lot of new episodes with other people telling their story in May, June, and on into the future.
This is a really crazy month or two for me for business, and so it’s been a little hard to do interviews. But yes, I know those are great, and I look forward to bringing more of those interviews to you in the future.
So I wanted to do an episode this week on pitfalls I’ve seen or experienced myself in recovery, just as, again, sort of a warning sign—something to give you the heads-up so hopefully you don’t fall into those same pitfalls in your recovery. This is especially important to me right now because I’m starting to see a lot of numbers add up.
I know on the Discord, it started last July, so there are a lot of people on there now with six months plus, or 30 days or 60 days. As I see those numbers, and if you ever want, it’s really cool—go on the Discord and check out the channel called Checking In, I believe, and people put their days there. It’s really cool. I mean, you’ll see people like Andy checking in with his 4,000 days, which is awesome. There are a lot of people that check in there, and it’s just a cool thing each day to see those numbers grow.
Obviously, I want to see those numbers continue to grow and see your number continue to grow. That’s what you want as well if you’re listening to this podcast. So I wanted to do this episode just to share with you, like I said, those pitfalls that I’ve seen or experienced so they don’t catch you off guard.
The first one I wanted to go over, and it’s probably the most common, is the small bet. We’ve all been there. We’ve all had that thought: “Hey, you know what? In the past, I got in trouble because I gambled too long and for too much money. This time, I’ll just take $20, and then I’ll quit.” Or in my case, it was, “I’ll just play in this little poker game with buddies.” I didn’t want to raise any red flags and be like, “No, I’m not going to play,” because I always played. So I was like, “Oh, this will be fine. It’s a small game—$20, $40, $60. It’s not going to lead to $1,000 losses. This won’t be a problem.”
I think we’ve all experienced those situations—those little small bets where we think, “This time will be different.” That’s the thought: This time will be a little different; we’ll just stop; we’ll control it; it’s not going to get out of control. We have it under control. After all, we have 60 days, or in my case, nine months of clean time at that time. So we think, “Alright, I finally got this whole thing figured out, and I can go do a little small bet or go to the casino with my friends so they don’t think anything different.”
This is probably by far the number one thing that I’ve seen as a hiccup—the pitfall that catches most people. It’s that belief that this time would be different. Unfortunately, it’s just not true. I once read something, I think—I don’t know if it was GA literature or somewhere else—I believe research shows that it takes somewhere between 24 and 72 hours before a person is back gambling at the same level they were when they quit. That last day, where they just kind of reached that breaking point and gave up, it only takes us 24 to 72 hours to get back there.
I can say this is definitely true. It was true for me. I think that poker game was on like a Wednesday or Thursday night. By the weekend, my online account was fully loaded up, and every dollar that I had was going right back in. So that’s pitfall number one. Be very wary of those thought processes that say, this time will be different, I’ll just control it, or I’ll have a different amount, because those are the ones that, when those thoughts creep up, are hard to fight off. It seems like it would make sense, and we feel like we would have control, but I’ve just seen so many people… and once you go down that path, you just never have that full control.
Pitfall number two is peer pressure. I’d say one and two were sort of both combined for me. Like I said, I didn’t want the guys that I used to play poker with to think, Why isn’t he coming? What’s going on with him? They’d always give me a hard time because poker games, especially with friends, need a certain number of people to play. You were always bummed out if people didn’t play because you didn’t have as big of a game. So I didn’t want to throw off that thing. It was the peer pressure that really sort of, I think, got to me. I didn’t want to do anything. I can see this happening with people. You’re in a situation, and you’re out to dinner, and everybody wants to go to the casino after just to have a little fun, or your friends are doing some kind of event, and there’s peer pressure there to be involved.
I’d say this is definitely hardest earlier on—it’s very, very hard early on. It gets easier with time. You get more comfortable, and certain people either just say, “Hey, you know what?” You tell them the truth, “I don’t gamble at all.” I mean, I’ve told people, “I’ve had bad experiences, or I’ve seen friends get in trouble with it, and I just don’t do it.” You can go that route. Or you can share as little as you want, and you can also just say, “I’m not into it, I’m tired, I’m going home.” You can make up excuses, use those white lies to help get out of a situation where there is a lot of peer pressure.
Number one was the small bet thought. Number two was peer pressure. Number three, along the same lines, is social pressure. There are so many places in our day-to-day lives where we feel socially pressured to gamble, and to other people, it doesn’t even seem like gambling. This often comes up—the office sports pool, the March Madness bracket, “Hey, just give me $5, and you can be in the Super Bowl squares.” Even fundraisers—how many fundraisers are 50/50 drawings, raffles, and these different things that are definitely classified as gambling?
If you follow the GA book to the letter of the law, they are 100% gambling. While we’re on that topic, I heard something on a podcast, and I’m not sure if I mentioned it in last week’s episode, but it rings true again here, so I’ll repeat it. It’s from Clayton Christensen, who is a Harvard Business School professor. He made the comment, or I guess it’s in his studies, and he says, “Look, 100% commitment to something is so much easier than 98% commitment.” When you think about that, 100% commitment is so much easier than 98% commitment. It’s true because, with 98%, you’re constantly looking at the 2% of things that are in the gray area, as we like to say, “Oh, I don’t know, is that gambling, is it not?” When you have complete commitment—100% commitment—everything becomes easier.
This is something I think is applicable to all areas of life. 100% commitment is so much easier than 98% commitment, and I’ve been trying to incorporate that into my life a little bit more because it is really powerful. It really helps to see things as more black and white. You eliminate some of the gray area and the anxiety or indecision by just going with the 100% commitment.
Getting back to pitfall number three, these are things like the raffle tickets or when your neighbor’s kid is selling lottery tickets where you buy a ticket for $50 and have the same pick-three number all month. You feel guilty, and the social pressure comes up: How can I not give the money to the kid and support his cause?
The approach I’ve been taking—and I think I’ve heard this from others, and many people do it as well—is that in those situations, if you want to support the cause, just give them the $50 or the $5, whatever it is. Don’t take the raffle ticket. That way, you’re not gambling. Just say, “I don’t need the ticket.” That’s one easy way. You can still support the cause but avoid the gambling aspect. If you’re in a situation where the people are relentless, I’d rather be looked upon as being a cheapskate at this point than being broke and having no money because I slipped up and fell into a pitfall. Again, 100% commitment is so much easier than 98%. If you like the cause, donate the money, just give them the money—don’t take the tickets.
That’s pitfall number three—social pressure.
Pitfall number four I want to talk about is clean time. This one is just an observational resource—I don’t have data on it—but clean time seems to be a place where people tend to trip up more often than not. There are certain numbers—30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and nine months—that just seem to come up too frequently. I don’t know why, but there seems to be something there.
I don’t know if it’s some underlying psychology—maybe it’s that 100% vs. 98% commitment, and you feel like you’re not 100% committed because you’re still at nine months, and you still have three more months to get to a year, and you think about those smaller milestones instead of the bigger picture. It was nine months for me—I went nine months on willpower alone before I fell victim to social pressures and the small bet.
These things don’t work in isolation—they tend to work together. But again, there’s something about those dates—30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and nine months—that just seem to be times where people trip up. Again, there is also a tendency after a year, somewhere between that one to two-year window. But for the most part, that first window is tough to get through. A lot of it is because it’s so fresh, and there’s so much change happening. I hear it from a lot of people—”So much has changed in my life in the last 60 days and 90 days.” And that’s awesome—there’s so much positive change during that time, but all of those changes do have another side. A lot of change can be tough and can catch you off guard.
Maybe you start to feel really comfortable, almost too comfortable, and you stop checking in, you stop attending meetings, or you stop listening to the podcast. All of a sudden, because you think you have everything under wraps since you’ve hit that certain milestone, things start to catch up with you. Those little pitfalls begin to add up, and maybe you fend off the first couple, but eventually, the willpower tank isn’t full anymore, and it becomes really tough to say no.
These are the four pitfalls I tend to see most often. A lot of this is observational research and personal experience, but there’s definitely something to it. Hopefully, this helps, and you can look at this as you hit those times—30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and nine months—and always be cautious. It could be any number of days—360 days, 99 months—you are always at risk. But keep your guard up, doing the things that got you to 60 days, 90 days, and nine months. If it’s willpower alone, go back and listen to the last episode again on the dangers of using willpower alone. Eventually, the willpower tank just gets low.
Use this—use my experience, use the experience of others—and keep doing the work, and good things are going to continue to come.
One last thing before we close out: Thanks for listening. I truly can’t say thank you enough—it’s awesome. It definitely is good for my ego, or just kind of my desire to continue this podcast, when I see all the downloads. I wish there were zero—I wish it was just myself downloading, maybe my mom or something—because nobody else had this problem. But I’m glad that this can be a resource and one piece of a bigger puzzle of recovery for so many people.
To see—I just checked and it was 2,600 downloads—the numbers keep getting bigger each week. It’s very cool. I appreciate you listening and sharing it with others. It’s been awesome to get your notes. Please continue to send me the notes—I really love to receive those. They’re great—they make me feel good and make my day. Thanks for those, and with that, I’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 that suggests that this is just a terminal condition and that we’re going to be forced to deal with the negative side effects and results of our actions for the rest of our lives. While I know that, in the moment, it feels like this is something that you’re going to be struggling with for the rest of your life, science just doesn’t back that up. Recovery is real, but we just need to seek out treatment.
This brings me to point number two: Help is available. Many states here in the United States actually offer free counseling and therapy for not only gamblers but family members as well. You need to know that these programs are available, and the best way to start finding out more information is to call the hotline number: 1-800-522-4700. Again, that’s 1-800-522-4700. This is the number run by the National Council on Problem Gambling, and it covers all 50 states. They’re going to have information and be able to start to guide you on the path to seeking help in your area.
These hotlines aren’t just available here in the United States—they’re available around the world. Just simply open up a web browser, type in “gambling help” or “gambling hotline,” and you’ll be able to 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 I’ll continue to add to this as I find new resources, whether they’re chat groups, online forums, or just great information.
So again, that’s gamblingstillsucks.com/help.
As a disclaimer, this podcast does not provide legal or medical advice. I’m not a doctor, a therapist, or an attorney—I’m 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 that we discuss is for informational purposes and should not be taken as professional legal or medical advice. Reliance on the information appearing on the podcast is solely at your own risk.
The music for this podcast is “Something Elated” by Broke For Free and licensed under Creative Commons.