GSS 021: Jeff Joins the Show to Share His Story

Full Episode Transcript

This is episode 21 of the Gambling Still Sucks podcast. In this episode, I’m joined by Jeff, and Jeff comes on and shares his story, which is extremely powerful, and I think you’ll love it.

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.

I’m not going to say too much as the lead-in to this one. As I mentioned, we’re going to have some episodes coming up that are going to be interviews, and so let’s dive into our interview that we had with Jeff.

All right, well, today I am excited to announce I’ve been saying for a while that I’m going to have more guests on, and that’s always been my goal. And today, I’m excited. I am joined by a fellow gambler, Jeff. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Hey, Jamie. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Great to have you.

And for those of you that have listened to Brian’s podcast over the years, you probably noticed this is a familiar voice. It’s one, as I was talking to Jeff in sort of the pre-roll for the show, was saying, hey, we’ve never met, but I feel like I’ve known you. So for those of you that have listened to that episode, stay tuned. We’re going to have a lot of new stuff in this one, but definitely go over and check out Brian’s.

So I guess, first of all, the one thing I always like to have people do, just kind of give people a little bit of intro into your background, kind of who you are, your history with gambling. You can kind of take it any direction you want, but just kind of give them a little bit of background. Give us a little bit of a feel for who Jeff is.

Sure. I’d be happy to, Jamie. So first of all, I am 62 years old. I am a father and a grandfather, and I’ve had a gambling career that spanned probably around 40 years.

During my time gambling, I was also a practicing attorney in Delaware. I was in private practice in a small firm. And as I did that, I gambled. My gambling became harmful, I would say, the last 10 years of my practice, which ended in 2015. I just gambled. I gambled with more frequency, with greater amounts of money. I was a casino gambler and managed to really cause a lot of destruction in my professional life and in my personal life.

In August of 2015, I know, Jamie, you always say your date of last bet, and we’ve always done that in GA. But recently, we’ve tried to transition into saying the date you began your recovery. So I’m going to follow that rule and say, I began my recovery on August 3rd, 2015.

My first GA meeting that I attended was a momentous day for a couple of reasons. One, of course, it was my first GA meeting. But two, it was the day that I was discharged after spending a lot of time in GA. And I was discharged after spending a week at a psychiatric hospital.

So really, my recovery, I guess, started a week before that because I essentially had a breakdown. And then when I was discharged on August 3rd, I went to my GA meeting. It was also my wife’s birthday. And I like to—I’m sure I told this story on Brian’s podcast, but I’ll tell it again because I enjoy sharing it.

When I was discharged from GA, from the hospital on my wife’s birthday, I thought, wow, she’s going to be so happy that I’ve been discharged on her birthday. And welcome me with open arms. And I soon found out that that was probably the worst birthday present that I gave her because she was not very happy with me, of course, as she shouldn’t be. But I was not in the right state of mind to recognize that. So I’m glad to say now August 3rd is my date of recovery for those reasons.

Since August 3rd of 2015, I’ve been on disability and inactive status from the Delaware Bar, which means that I don’t practice anymore. I’ve been working for the past year and a half, year and three quarters, I guess, for the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems.

Delaware, as many states, has councils that are nonprofit agencies whose mission it is to reach out to those who are suffering from gambling addiction, themselves or family members, and to provide assistance, whether it’s prevention or treatment, counseling, education, etc. And I really enjoy that.

So I guess this is a good also time for me to say that my opinions that I give on this podcast are my own. I’m not representing the Delaware Council or anybody else.

What I do at the Delaware Council is basically try to use my experience in the criminal justice system and the justice system in Delaware to try to raise awareness among judges and prosecutors and attorneys about gambling addiction and try to cause the justice system to recognize the addiction as they do with substance addiction, and focus on treatment as opposed to incarceration when somebody finds themselves as a criminal offender as a result of their gambling addiction.

And probably a lot of listeners know that money is the cocaine of a gambling addict, and therefore there are a number of people that suffer from the addiction that are otherwise law-abiding citizens that find themselves committing economic criminal offenses to get money with which to gamble. It’s those people that we’re trying to provide treatment for.

A number of reasons, obviously, to help them personally and also we find that it prevents them from having to return in the justice system if they get treatment as opposed to just punishment. It’s more cost-effective and just better all around. So that’s really what my role is with the gambling council.

I think that’s incredible. And I think, especially you have such a unique skill set and kind of background to bring to it, but I guess I’m curious, when you bring up kind of the fact that gambling is very similar to alcohol or to drugs, what kind of reaction do you get? What’s the initial feedback?

Yeah, that’s a great question. It really runs the gamut. People that are more in tune to addiction and mental health disorders have an understanding that gambling addiction is a legitimate mental health disorder, and just as legitimate as someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol.

And if they really have a lot of knowledge, they know that under the DSM-5, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, which is like the Bible that mental health professionals use, insurance companies, and the government use to diagnose and basically identify all sorts of mental health disorders—in the most recent edition, the DSM-5, which was, I believe, published in 2013, the term “pathological gambling” was replaced by “gambling disorder.”

It was characterized in the same section that substance use disorders like alcohol use disorder are characterized in. So it really adds validation to this addiction, this disease as you and I know it. And now the professionals know it.

So people that, again, to your question, people that have a background understand that. There are other people—and I’d have to say that I think the statistics bear this out—that most people still feel that someone who is a compulsive gambler or is a harmful gambler suffers from some sort of a moral or personal failing as opposed to an addiction.

One of the jobs that our council has and other affiliates around the country is to educate and raise awareness that no, it isn’t a personal failing. It’s to be treated like an addiction. And just like society has come around in recent years to be more sensitive to people that have addictions and to offer help, people that suffer from gambling addiction should be afforded those same opportunities.

Absolutely. And I think we are making progress. I always point to, like, the NBA this recent season when you had guys like DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love talking about mental health issues. I think as a society, we’re starting to catch up.

And that’s why, I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast was just to bring awareness, like you say, because I think it is one of those things that we don’t know until we know or we know someone with the problem. And then it creates kind of a little more understanding.

I mean, I even think just you being a lawyer, right? You’re a practicing lawyer. And how many people think, oh, gambling, it’s only for people that have money issues, and they think the root of it is gambling. The root of it is strictly money.

Yeah, I speak a lot to lawyers and actually to law students. I’ve been really grateful to have had the opportunity to be asked to speak to law students in a professional responsibility or ethics class. I talk about lawyers and gambling addiction, and I say that lawyers—and this is probably more anecdotal than backed by science—but as I’ve formulated what I talk about, I say that we have the factors that are so favorable to developing gambling addiction. It’s stress, it’s ego, it’s the opportunity to gamble, and it’s accessibility to money. I think that most lawyers fit in those categories.

Again, the idea is to make people aware that this is something that can be extremely harmful. People sometimes are surprised to learn that gambling addiction has the highest rate of suicide compared to any other addiction because of the devastation that it causes.

Yes, and obviously that’s a huge one. And I can appreciate that because I’ve dealt with some of those suicidal thoughts along the way. It’s one of those things that scares you, and it’s sad to think that this disease pushes you to that point. But obviously, the other side is hopefully providing some hope for people that are in that same thought process that, hey, there is better life ahead.

No, absolutely. And when I share my story, I obviously talk about the devastation that it caused, but I also am a prime example that treatment does work. If you are committed to your recovery, just like you were committed to gambling, then you are going to be able to live a very rewarding life and get back your integrity, your self-esteem, etc.

I’ve reinvented myself. I really enjoy what I’m doing now. I hope that people who listen, who may be suffering or may have issues, can understand that all it takes is commitment to recovery. I think you do so much good work in getting that message out, as well as Brian. That’s what we need more of.

Yep. The more stories we have, the better. I think that’s absolutely true.

One other thing I want to touch on, I think it ties in also—you’re talking about when you speak to the lawyers or the graduates, and you educate them about how they have all those factors—I think the other thing those factors afford you is just kind of like a longer leeway, like the ability to hide it longer, right? The isolation. Did that play a role? I mean, did your family know? Did your kids know? Did your friends know?

It’s crazy. My wife, I told her back in, I want to say 2007, about my problem with gambling, just because I had to as a result of certain financial issues that came up. But of course, I swore that I would stop, which I never did. Never went to a GA meeting, never sought treatment, and I continued to gamble, and it worsened. But she trusted me that I did stop.

It was so easy for me to hide the addiction because in my practice, first of all, it’s not like I clock in at 9 a.m. and clock out at 5 p.m. Many times, I told my secretary or other lawyers in the firm that I was going to meet a client, or I had a court appearance or a deposition—I’d be going to the casino. Working late at night was not unusual for an attorney. It was unusual for me because I wasn’t working; I was at the casino. So my wife thought that I was the hardest-working attorney in the state of Delaware.

The lie continued, and the manipulation, and so on. In fact, one of the things I talk about is that as lawyers, we are trained to advocate a position for a client that we may not, in our heart of hearts, believe is the correct position, but that’s not our role. Our role is to advocate for a client. It sort of clouds this whole issue of really pouring your heart into something that you believe in and that you think is truthful.

By doing that, I think that we get this talent to manipulate facts in order to support a gambling addiction. I was able to do that. I could convince anyone that I was an absolutely great father, worker, friend, and didn’t have any flaws. I was very far from that.

It was not difficult to hide. I enjoyed my isolation. In fact, I went from being a social gambler—I know you played poker; I played blackjack. When I gambled, I really enjoyed the social component of playing blackjack, especially with friends and having a couple of beers. In my last five or six years of really destructive gambling, all I wanted to do, and all I did do, was play high-stakes slot machines.

I always looked at people that played slot machines like they were nuts—I mean, you can’t win on slot machines. There’s no skill involved and so on. But I found that playing blackjack or any table game was just too slow. I needed the immediate response, and I got that from a slot machine. I also didn’t want to have any kind of interaction with others. It was just the machine and me. I was a perfect example of what’s called an escape gambler. I gambled to escape stresses, many of which, almost all of which, were caused by my gambling. It was a vicious cycle.

I know that I think it was the last podcast you did, Jamie, you talked about missing playing poker and missing the joy of just the game. I relate to that. When I played blackjack, I did enjoy it. But once I got into slot machine gambling, in its most severe form for me in terms of consequences, it wasn’t joyful. It wasn’t about the excitement or the win—it was strictly to numb myself, to go into this tunnel where I didn’t have to deal with the other stresses of life, which were many. That’s really what defines an escape gambler, as opposed to an action gambler.

I can definitely relate to that. Yes, I did enjoy it quite a bit and have that missing feeling, but it was definitely an escape for me as well. Even when I played—I mean, I played a lot online—but when I played socially, it wasn’t social with other people. In live games, I didn’t talk to very many people unless I was winning. Then, obviously, I was the obnoxious person, I’m sure.

But anyways, one thing, and then we’ll transition into talking about the Supreme Court ruling that just came down recently. I think it ties in—you mentioned the ability to hide it. One of the things I’ve long championed is that people consistently, and I’ve heard it a lot since this ruling came out, say, “Problem gambling only affects 2%, 3%. It’s some small number.” I always challenge that and reply, “Most people I know who gambled, their wives didn’t know, their families didn’t know—nobody knew.” So how can we actually say that we have some legitimate number? I know you have a lot of the facts and figures, so I’m curious how they get that number, if you know it, or if you think it is skewed as well.

Yeah, you know, I hear, again, I hear anywhere between 2% and 5%. And of course, there are all levels of, you know, in the broad spectrum of problem gambling, there’s all levels of severity. But I totally agree with you. I think it is probably one of the most underreported disorders because of the stigma, and because of the ability to hide it, and the reluctance of people to disclose that they have an issue.

And as you probably know, people, when they start their recovery, they haven’t—you know, they didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Hey, I think I’m going to recover and start going to GA and start a new life.” They either have some catastrophic event that caused it, or they get caught. And, you know, that’s typically what happens. So, yeah, I think it is very underreported.

Well, I’m glad to hear that someone else agrees. I’m not the only one that thinks that’s the case. But I guess let’s transition in. For those of you that are in the United States or not in the United States, we’ll give you a brief overview.

In the last week, the Supreme Court has ruled on a case that states that Nevada is not going to be the only state that allows sports betting. I believe that, and Jeff, obviously, this is more in your area, but I believe that the ruling was that it is unconstitutional that only one state can have that, and they are basically leaving it up to the states. They’re not saying it’s legal, but they’re saying that it’s illegal to have a law that forbids other states. Am I correct in that?

Yeah, you’re absolutely correct. In 1992, there was a federal law called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA, which prohibited gambling on professional and amateur sports federally, meaning every state had to follow that statute except for states that had some form of sports gambling at the time the statute was enacted—Nevada being one of them.

There were, I believe, three other states, including Delaware, but those other three states had what was called limited sports betting. In Delaware, we could bet on football games, but not on single games—only on parlays, for those familiar with that term. So those forms of sports betting were limited and left intact.

New Jersey, which obviously has had its challenges in terms of Atlantic City and the revenues made from gambling, challenged this federal law, wanting to enact sports gambling in the state. There were a lot of technical arguments regarding this law being challenged, which aren’t really relevant to our discussion, but the bottom line is that the Supreme Court, as expected, found this federal statute that prohibits sports gambling among states to be unconstitutional. This means states are now free to decide what they would like to do in terms of sports gambling. A state can choose not to have it or can choose to have full-blown sports gambling.

In terms of protections that may go along with sports gambling, a state may choose to have no protections at all for people with potential gambling issues, or they can enact a number of protections as they see fit. So it’s really a free-for-all in terms of what individual states decide to do.

Obviously, I’m from Delaware, and I know Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have set the wheels in motion because they saw this decision as likely to be favorable to allowing sports gambling. In fact, the governor of Delaware said on the day or the following day that this decision came out that Delaware should have full sports betting in place by the end of June. They want to be the first to reap the revenues of sports gambling before other states follow suit.

Like other forms of gambling—again, this is just my opinion—gambling is seen as a cash cow. It’s seen as a way to help with budget deficits, and what better way than to have citizens voluntarily spend their money, and the state takes a piece of it? It’s really unknown what the ultimate impact of this decision will be, but I think, as you pointed out, Jamie, the more opportunities there are to gamble, the more people will gamble. And the more people that gamble, the more people with gambling problems will exist. I don’t think it takes a lot of research or data collecting to conclude that we’re going to see more people suffering from gambling problems as a result of these new opportunities that come with sports betting.

I’m also concerned because I think it opens the door for people who may have never gambled at all, have no interest in it, but are sports fans. They may have never gone to place bets with bookies or offshore sites because it wasn’t that important to them. But as it becomes easily accessible and as advertising starts to roll in, these people may at least try it out. Unfortunately, some will go beyond just trying it—they’ll continue, and some will suffer. It opens the floodgates in terms of more people developing issues like we’ve had.

Absolutely, and as you said, I don’t need too much research. I’m comfortable with my gut instinct on this one, saying that this is clearly the most significant expansion of gambling in the United States. Would you say that’s fair?

Oh, it is—clearly. It’s not even close. Whoever’s runner-up is a distant, distant runner-up, especially when all is said and done.

So the impact of that alone, but as you said, making it legal… It’s one of those things, like, I don’t smoke cigarettes, and those are legal, but the legality can make it more acceptable.

Absolutely, I think you’re spot on. It’s not only going to be legal, but it’s going to be made available and attractive. You already see all the commercials. I don’t know if you have it where you are, but you can’t turn on the TV for more than 30 minutes without seeing a commercial about gambling. I can only imagine the number of commercials that are going to infiltrate, making sports betting seem like the most attractive form of entertainment. That’s just how it works.

Without a doubt. We advertisers—I’m in the advertising and marketing field, you’re in the legal field—I always like to say advertisers and marketers ruin everything, and this is just another thing we’re going to ruin. It’s going to become much more accepted.

If I may, I’ll just tell you a short story about the impact this has had already from a personal experience. One of the members of my GA group has struggled, but the last couple of years he’s been doing great. He’s in his 30s and is a teacher. He was a sports bettor. I don’t have much interaction with him outside of the GA rooms, but I was surprised when he called me the day after the ruling.

He had that panic in his voice. He said, “Jeff, I just need to talk to someone. I need to talk to you.” He told me, “I listen to sports radio all the time when driving to and from work. I’m a big sports fan, and now all they talk about is gambling. I just feel so violated. Not that I’m going to run back to gamble, but it feels really intrusive on my recovery, and I don’t know how to handle it.”

We talked about it, and I suggested he listen to sports through podcasts or something else until this newness dies down. But it just goes to show that this decision has an impact on people in recovery who were doing great, but now have to face new challenges. I’m sure for some, it may even drive them back to gambling, which is really tragic.

That’s very sad. Like you said, it hasn’t even been a week, and you’re already seeing the personal impact.

Yeah, it’s happening. And then you add smartphones—we’re already addicted to them as a society, and now they’ll be used for betting. I just don’t see this ending well.