Thread: Help me rescue my friend.

My friend’s on a terrible tilt. I mean all the time. Damn, I dunno what to do. Well, I’ve heard of some psychology aid out there, you know, but I haven’t any idea where to find ‘em. It’s funny, but we’ve met in a poker room and now gambling is about to break our couple. Thanks for any help, folks. I’m so disappointed…

Here's some books that can help:

• Born to Lose: Memoirs of a Compulsive Gambler
• A Way to Quit Gambling: (For Problem Gamblers)
• This Must Be Hell: A Look at Pathological Gambling
• A Day at A Time: Gamblers Anonymous

Originally Posted by CandyMelanie

My friend’s on a terrible tilt. I mean all the time. Damn, I dunno what to do. Well, I’ve heard of some psychology aid out there, you know, but I haven’t any idea where to find ‘em. It’s funny, but we’ve met in a poker room and now gambling is about to break our couple. Thanks for any help, folks. I’m so disappointed…

there is one psychology aid and thats him banning himself for a period or for all time, this does wonders because all the time your going gambling your under pressure and that pressure can be over whelming at times, taking time out is a great way to recharge the mind and focus on life

By far the most important thing is to not let something like that wreck your own life.

Try the advice in this thread, and look into "gamblers' anonymous". (I'm not a big "fan" though.)

No addiction was ever overcome by "just getting the person into something else"; simple re-location is an option, but not in its self a guarantee.

"The person" has to want something better, and then to work more toward that in those (few-at-first) days when he/she feels like it. After some attempts, the thing to emphasize is that there is NO socially- ,or other-, acceptable level of the activity... there is NO for-fun-level of engagement anymore. (Just DO NO START again. And do not think, talk, read, or practice it in the home.)

Remember, for about 1 in 50(?), there CAN NOT be a life-long CURE... like persons who will spend ALL their spouse's savings, "max out" their credit-cards, continually borrow from anyone, (secretly) spend the mortgage-payments, embezzle money from their employer, and/or etc, etc.

A judge of one such embezzlement-case (for 100's of 1000's of dollars) concluded, "Casinos just suck the life out of you."

boy i tell ya, there's some horror stories out there, many years ago, i was out there in vegas, busted, christmas day, cold, cold, cold, two little kids and a wife back home in oklahoma, i'd been able to sustain myself by painting house address numbers on the curbs, but do to the circumstances, i wasn't able to paint any curbs, what i'd do is go make me 30, 40 dollars, go back downtown, usually to the pioneer club,where they had dollar blackjack, and i'd just bet 1,2,4,8,16 etc on a positive progression, this time on christmas day, i was at the horseshoe, my progression had just hit table limit for 500 dollars, i fanned out and played 2 hands, lost 'em both, it was a hard time, collect call back home, disapointment in everybodys voice, i do believe that was the beginning of the end for my marriage and then the loss of the rights to see my son's grow up, that duty was given to another man, but that christmas night was one i'll never forget because of the misery, i remember trying to sleep up on the 2nd floor of the mint where they had a little lobby, long as you stayed awake, security would leave you alone, but they would act like they were leaving, and i'd doze off, then here comes that tap on the shoulder and wake up, wake up, god it was miserble, hungary, bitter cold outside, no prospects, not even a quarter in your pocket, sometimes i wonder how i even survived it all....when i see someone holding up a sign that says hungary, i always give 'em a few dollars, you just don't know their story , untill you've walked a mile in their shoes, i promise that good gesture will pay you back many times over.

Originally Posted by takethe win

boy i tell ya, there's some horror stories out there, many years ago, i was out there in vegas, busted, christmas day, cold, cold, cold, two little kids and a wife back home in oklahoma, i'd been able to sustain myself by painting house address numbers on the curbs, but do to the circumstances, i wasn't able to paint any curbs, what i'd do is go make me 30, 40 dollars, go back downtown, usually to the pioneer club,where they had dollar blackjack, and i'd just bet 1,2,4,8,16 etc on a positive progression, this time on christmas day, i was at the horseshoe, my progression had just hit table limit for 500 dollars, i fanned out and played 2 hands, lost 'em both, it was a hard time, collect call back home, disapointment in everybodys voice, i do believe that was the beginning of the end for my marriage and then the loss of the rights to see my son's grow up, that duty was given to another man, but that christmas night was one i'll never forget because of the misery, i remember trying to sleep up on the 2nd floor of the mint where they had a little lobby, long as you stayed awake, security would leave you alone, but they would act like they were leaving, and i'd doze off, then here comes that tap on the shoulder and wake up, wake up, god it was miserble, hungary, bitter cold outside, no prospects, not even a quarter in your pocket, sometimes i wonder how i even survived it all....when i see someone holding up a sign that says hungary, i always give 'em a few dollars, you just don't know their story , untill you've walked a mile in their shoes, i promise that good gesture will pay you back many times over.

takethe win,

Take a look a this true story... I played bj there occasionally, around that time, but luckily missed this event.

Suicide at Detroit casino—the human cost of legalized gambling
By Larry Roberts
2 February 2000

Last Wednesday afternoon, January 26, a gambler committed suicide after losing thousands of dollars in the high-roller VIP section of the newly opened MotorCity Casino in Detroit.

Solomon Bell, 38, an off-duty police officer from suburban Detroit, lost between $15,000 and $20,000 in wagers that day, first at the MGM Grand Detroit Casino, and later at MotorCity Casino. After losing $3,500 at the blackjack table, at $500 a hand, Bell pulled out his service revolver and shot himself in the head.

Bell's suicide came as a shock to many Detroiters, who have been told that the establishment of casinos would be a boom for the city, creating jobs and an economic revitalization. The MGM Grand Detroit Casino opened in April 1999 and the MotorCity Casino opened this past December. Billions of dollars have been poured into the casinos, including millions from the city to acquire land and infrastructure to house the gambling businesses, even as hospitals for the poor are closed because the city does not have a few million dollars.

However, for those who have followed the casino industry and its tremendous growth, last Wednesday's events did not come as a surprise. "We expect people to commit suicide," said Sheilah Clay, agency director for a program that runs a hotline for gambling addicts. "But to do it in the casino, that's shocking."

Clay reported that 5 to 7 percent of casino patrons become addicted, and those addicts have a high rate of suicide. Within the nine months casinos have existed in Detroit her office has received calls from 12 people threatening to kill themselves. "In those cases," reported Clay, "we've kept them on the line until we could get someone physically to the place they are."

Clay's experiences are echoed in national reports investigating the gambling industry. A report published by the National Gambling Impact Commission reported that 5 million Americans are pathological or problem gamblers, and another 15 million are at risk. A second report published by the National Research Council, part of the National Academy of Science, reported that "pathological gamblers are far more likely to commit crimes, run up large debts, damage relationships and kill themselves."

In both Atlantic City and Las Vegas, the largest casino resorts in the US, suicides have become commonplace, a byproduct of the industry itself. In Atlantic City, three people committed suicide within an eight-day period in August after suffering massive losses at the betting tables.

News reports stated that following Solomon Bell's suicide the MotorCity Casino continued its operations on three of four floors. Only the floor where the shooting occurred was emptied, provoked primarily by the panic of witnesses to the suicide. However five hours after the suicide, even before the blood on the carpet had dried, high-stakes betting was continued.

In their short period of operation, the Detroit casinos have proved extremely lucrative. MGM Grand Detroit has pulled in more than $1 million a day in profits, more than its parent Las Vegas resort, according to 1999 fourth-quarter earnings reports.

Solomon Bell was the type of person the casinos seek to attract. As a suburban policeman he made $75,000 last year in salary and overtime, owned several cars, and was buying a $134,000 home. The majority of casino patrons are Detroiters with far less means—generally working people, many poor, hoping to hit it big and move out of poverty.

The odds are always stacked against people who enter the gaming halls. Winning margins are set by the casino operators, with the aid of computers, and are always in favor of the owners. The only winners have been those who invested in the casinos, often with very little money, and have walked away with millions at the expense of people like Solomon Bell.

What has spurred the growth of the gaming industry in the US? The drive by big business to cut costs led to the wide-scale destruction of jobs in the late 1970s and early 80s, unopposed by the unions. Autoworkers, steelworkers, rubber workers and airline workers, to name just a few, were hit with massive job losses, leading to levels of poverty unseen since the 1930s. In Detroit, as the auto industry cut jobs and spun off its auto parts manufacturing, often to nonunion companies, the incomes and communities of workers were devastated.

Significantly, the attempt to bring gambling into Detroit was strongly opposed for close to 20 years. Beginning in 1976, casino proponents tried four times to pass referendums to legalize casinos in Detroit, defeated each time by large margins. At that time the political establishment, including the present Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, a Democrat, and Michigan's Republican Governor John Engler, opposed the construction of casinos.

In 1993 a fourth Detroit referendum on casinos was narrowly defeated. By 1994 the views of the political elite had changed. Casino proponents, with the support of the news media, claimed the new Windsor, Ontario casino, across the river and directly in view of downtown Detroit, was taking in money that Detroiters could be using to rebuild the city.

The 1994 vote was also assisted by a new element seeking to get in on the action: black businessmen and the clergy who were promised they would personally benefit from the establishment of gambling in Detroit. Millions of dollars were spent to sell the casinos to the public as its savior. The 1994 referendum, the fifth attempt in 18 years, finally passed, paving the way for the construction of casinos.

Until the late 1980s gambling existed only in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Today, a person can make a legal wager in every state except Utah, Hawaii and Tennessee. Thirty-one states, including Michigan, have casino-style gambling, and thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia operate state lotteries. An industry that was once an exotic rarity has become a $600 billion industry, and is growing.

Detroit was once proudly called the auto capital of the world, but in the year 2000 there are only two remaining auto assembly plants within the city limits. In their place, garish casinos have sprouted up, surrounded by poverty and blight.

Gambling is at best an unhealthy industry that accentuates the inequality in society, acting as a cash nexus, transforming everyone and everything into a commodity. Culturally, the growth of the gambling industry is yet another example of social decay, a parasitic enterprise that appeals to the worst instincts: greed, individualism and indifference.