Microbetting And The New Gambling Trap with Chris Anderson

Your phone isn’t just a screen anymore, it can function like a casino that follows you everywhere. We bring back gambling addiction expert Chris Anderson for a timely, clear-eyed talk about microbetting, sports betting, and the new wave of problem gambling that’s exploding through constant ads, instant payouts, and real-time prop bets. Chris explains why the core addiction hasn’t changed, but the product has: faster play, smaller time gaps, more bets per minute, and easier ways to load money make the “gambling drug” more concentrated than ever.

We also get blunt about what makes gambling disorder uniquely dangerous. Chris shares why the thought “I can place the next bet and win” is both true and destructive, and how that belief keeps people from seeking treatment. We dig into mind betting, the invisible practice of wagering in your head while watching sports, and why it can quietly set up relapse by pulling you out of the present moment. The conversation includes hard realities, including why gambling carries the highest attempted suicide rate among addictions, and how shame and secrecy can convince someone they’re “worth more dead than alive.”

For families, we talk about the hidden addiction, why lying warps trust, and what practical steps matter when the truth finally surfaces. Chris flags a newer threat we’re seeing more often: blackmail and extortion connected to online bookies, and why legal help may be necessary. We close with hope, concrete resources like Gamblers Anonymous, and a simple question to interrupt the spiral: after that next bet, what’s next?

If this helped, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. What part of modern sports betting feels most risky to you right now?

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, you don’t have to face it alone.

Valiant Living helps men and their families move from crisis to stability through clinically driven care, community, and hope.

Learn more about our programs at www.valiantliving.com
or call us confidentially at (720) 796-6885 to speak with someone who can help.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Gambling Now

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Giant Living Podcast. I'm really excited to bring back a good friend Chris Anderson. Chris Anderson is a leading expert in one addiction. We helped a lot of our guys in the program. It's been a great topic for us today episode, but the last episode we had was one of the most downloaded episodes we had is just a wealth of information knowledge. And because it's gambling addiction awareness month, we wanted to have Chris come back on and talk specifically about microbetting, sports betting, kind of this new wave of gambling addiction that's kind of taking over right now. So I think you're gonna love this episode. Feel free to share it with others who might help as well. Um but let's just jump in and let's let's get into it with Chris Anderson. I I just appreciate you coming back. You know, we were before we started recording, I told you that we uh our the last podcast we did together was one of our top performing ones. I think it just speaks to, you know, of course, your expertise and your ability and to to do what you do, but also the need that exists here. I mean, this is right, right, this is a massive need, and we're gonna get into some of that today. And and if it's okay with you, I'm gonna bypass a little bit more of your story because I'm gonna link back to our first episode. Um, let people go back and yeah, and because I think we covered a lot of the general stuff. Today, what I wanted to dig into, and we'll just see where the conversation takes us, but I'm seeing everywhere now micro betting, sports betting. I was watching a basketball game last night, and I felt like every other commercial was a commercial for betting. And I think to some people they could see that and it seems harmless. But I know because I've got so many friends in recovery that this has ruined and damaged their lives in a lot of ways, causing a lot of destruction. So I wanted to talk about sports betting, microbetting, kind of the addiction that we're holding right here. All of us, you know, we we've got this device now, which is like the modern day casino that we can get on and and you know, feeds our addiction and it's normalized. So I guess where we start out is is what are you seeing right now that feels maybe different or even maybe more concerning than some of the traditional ways that people have fallen into gambling addiction?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Yeah, so um I think it's a it's a relevant question.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Is it is it different? Uh no, because addiction is addiction is addiction, gambling addiction is gambling addiction. What is different, uh Drew, is uh and the way that I conceptualize this is that I think the drug is constantly being purified. And and what I what I mean by that is, I mean, let's jump into, for example, sports betting. You know, in the old days, you know, back in the 80s, before the internet or anything else, and I wasn't a sports better, all my gambling that we talked about last podcast was in the securities markets. But but the sports betters uh that I I all the guys that I got to know in in Chicago, you you'd phone in your bet to the bookie on you know Friday. And if you you know, if you made it under the wire for Saturday morning to get the Saturday games, then you could do that. And and what you would bet would be um, you know, you'd bet the spread on the game, you know, who's gonna win with, you know, with the point spread. And, you know, maybe there was a money line bet, you know, uh, and then maybe uh an over and under, you know, how many points were scored or how many points. And then you would settle up with the bookie, you know, on Tuesday after Monday night football on Tuesday mornings with cash in a brown paper bag. I mean, I'm simplifying it.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

But the point is, if you're putting your bed in on Friday for a Saturday game, you don't find out the outcome of your wager for you know eight, ten, twelve, twenty four hours, whatever it happens to be. So there's a there's a time gap there. Well, fast forward to today, um not only can I uh bet um women's uh basketball in Upper Mongolia at two o'clock in the morning, if there's even a game being played, if it's even real, or whether it's a simulated game that the score depends on you know where the money's flowing. But I can place multiple bets uh in multiple arenas simply by by logging however long it takes to log on and push a button. Not only that, but it's it's gone way beyond, you know, betting the you know, betting the outcome of the game. Now we have uh as you and I were talking about earlier, all the prop bets, which means that you're gonna bet uh if you're at a baseball game, is the next pitch a ball or a strike? Wow. You know, is the next play, is it gonna be a run or a pass?

SPEAKER_04 6:03

And so So it gets that micro. I mean, that you can be almost real time betting what's happening as you're as you're experiencing it live.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

That's right. Okay, so so let's put that, let's in, and and I'm keep in mind that that what I talked about was that that the gambling drug being purified. And so in in the night, sometime in the 1990s, my my you know, good friend and colleague, uh Dr. Rich Dr. Robert Hunter, uh, who I met in uh, I think in 1980, maybe in 1989, we when he was at Charter Hospital in Las Vegas, you know, running the gambling, one of the first gambling treatment programs with Dr. Robert Custer. I met Rob, and it wasn't too long after that that he coined the term the crack cocaine of gambling. And that's a term that gets thrown around a lot these days. But Rob was the the first one who introduced that term. And what he was talking about was the advent of the video poker machines.

SPEAKER_04 7:11

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

And so um, you know, in the old days, you know, the slot machines or the one-arm bandits, you know, were mechanical devices where you had to, you know, pull a lever, you know, and you'd literally watch fruit bounce up and down in front of your eyes.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Right.

Normalization Through Ads And Law

SPEAKER_01 7:29

And and it would, from the time you pull the lever and you know, until all the reels stopped, was you know, measure that in terms of what a few seconds or whatever it happens to be. Well, so with the advent of video poker, where they put you know, blackjack or whatever it is, uh in a that computerized that, put it on a screen and called it video poker. What he observed was how incredibly quickly or how fast people got addicted to that. And it was because of several different characteristics. One, it was uh tied into the speed of play. You didn't have to watch fruit bounce up and down. You push a button, or in the early days, pull a lever, right? And and and the outcome was virtually instantaneously, or now it's touch screens, so you can touch a screen as fast as you can touch a screen. So the the time gap between the bet and the outcome, instead of uh days, if you will, or minutes or seconds, now is measured in terms of microseconds. There's also the ability to dramatically increase your bet size. Just like that. There is also the, you know, and in the early days, for example, with slot machines, you actually had to insert money, you know, dollar bills or coins into a slot. Well, now you load it up and and it's simply uh like um um loading up a video game. You know, people you use your credit card or whatever it is, or you buy a number of points, so it's simply points on a screen. So I think that that that phenomena of the purification of the gambling drug, in addition to, and oh, by the way, at a social level it being normalized, remember, we're talking about an activity that used to be referred to as crime, vice, illegal, amoral, sin, and whatever other pejorative terms we can come up with.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

And and now it's perceived as the salvation of the state's um uh school systems via lotteries.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

And and um and old professional sports, well, yeah, people are doing it, so we got to get a piece of the pie. And in the old days, you remember a guy named Pete Rose who didn't get into the Hall of Fame?

SPEAKER_04 10:11

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Because he was betting. Right. So even with professional sports, uh, you know, if you had a drug or alcohol problem, they would send you to treatment multiple times. I think the pitcher Steve Howell went in and out of treatment, as was reported, you know, nine or ten times or however many times it was. But if you were gambling, uh caught gambling, then you were banned for life from the sport. Well, now when you can't now you can't watch a sporting event without it being dominated by gambling ads. So we've had a whole shift in consciousness with respect to gambling. And so what that means is, and you know, and I'm I'm I guess I'm kind of I'm I'm kind of hard to find, maybe, but I I'm getting I get a lot of calls from parents or 20-somethings, uh, you know, young men in their late teens, 20s, or really more call from their parents who've gotten into significant trouble with their gambling. Um not just betting sports, but also migrating from sports over to online casinos, which are completely rigged. It's a computer game that's rigged for you to lose. Right. But but it's also rigged to make sure that you win enough to keep coming back. I mean, they're masters in marketing. And so again, the addictive quality of this has gone up exponentially.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

Right.

Why Gambling Addiction Is Deadly

SPEAKER_01 11:49

We have a with gambling, you know, with with drugs and alcohol, we've got, quote, the war on drugs, whether that's successful or not successful, anyway, there's a there's a recognition that that that's a problem. Uh we we we have all the diversion programs for alcohol. But with gambling, it's being promoted. And the states are engaged in a in a major poker game with each other. I'll see you and I'll raise you. And you know, here in Texas, um, even though gambling, most forms of gambling are illegal. I just was talking earlier to a kid who's been involved in all the poker rooms in in Austin, both the card rooms and and the house games where the stakes are in the literally the tens of thousands of dollars to six-figure games. And so it's everywhere, but in Texas, you got New Mexico that's got legalized gambling, Oklahoma legalized gambling, uh, Louisiana with legalized gambling, and just like happened in the Midwest in the 1980s and early 90s, well, all the surrounding states have it, so we got to have it because our state's money is going across the border to the other state. We want to keep it. So it's a giant poker game between the states.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

I'm curious, uh, because as you're talking now, what would you say to people who are who are who might um minimize? They might say they might not think of gambling as a serious addiction. It's not like, you know, I'm not doing cocaine, I'm not drinking too much, I'm not so what would you say to someone who who, you know, it as far as it not being as dangerous, or especially compared to substance. Um, I mean, I I've got my own personal relationships with guys. So I I know a little bit from being in recovery with these guys, some of the things they've done. But because it's been normalized, and we're seeing it on that. I mean, my son is watching a game with me as 15. He's living in a generation where it looks fun. You've got celebrities I look up to encouraging you to do it. Oh, by the way, there's little little small print that says, if you've got a problem with gambling, call this number, you know. But it's he's getting inundated with a different kind of philosophy around gambling than what I even grew up with. So what would you say to those people like it's not that serious? Come on.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, so uh a couple of thoughts in response to that. And you know, it's it's you know, we can compare the different addictions, and I think different aspects of each each addiction, you know, has its own, yeah, you know, uh separate qualities. And I can't remember whether I mentioned this in our last podcast, but I I lost a you know, my brother and sister and I lost a brother to heroin uh in in 2000. And so, you know, I have firsthand knowledge of how deadly it is, but I also know that gambling has the highest attempted suicide rate of any of the addictions by far, more than twice that of heroin addiction. Wow. And so yeah, and I have uh close friends who lost a son to a drunk driver in downtown Austin. Now, I don't know how many um accidents there have been where other people have been killed because somebody's gambling. So it so it kind of depends on what's the lens that we're looking at it through. But here's the great this this kind of bleeds over into what separates gambling from the other addictions. I'm trying to answer your question. What sets the one dynamic that sets gambling apart from every other addiction is the reality that you can place the next bet and win. And I don't care, I don't care if you've lost the last 50 bets, I don't care if you owe 500, 5,000, 50,000,$100,000. I'm just throwing out numbers. You and I today can pull a dollar out of our pocket or even go online and buy a Powerball game ticket. And before we talked, I looked and I don't pay attention to that except you know, because I was thinking about this, and win$58 million, risking one dollar. Now you tell me where the where there's an equivalent to that in any other addiction. Nowhere, no how. Which also explains why, even with all the prevalence studies that show a significant prevalence rate of gambling addiction, that gamblers are not beating down the door seeking treatment because for the gambler, the loose the solution to their problem is not paying money to somebody like me to help them stop. It's that if I've got money, I can take that money and I can place, I can parlay that and I can win, and I can use my winnings in order to solve the problem that I created with the last bet.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

And this next bet might be the answer to all my problems.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah. So, you know, when I'm training clinicians, you know, what I say is, you know, if you tell a gambler, don't you know you're just gonna lose, they're gonna say, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Because that is not true. It is absolutely true that I can place the next bet and win. Best thing that I can, you know, you know, if I've got a hangover, the best thing I can do maybe is take a drink to take the edge off last night's hangover, but I'm not gonna be able to make the car payment by walking into the bar and and and having a whiskey or a beer. Can't happen with gambling, absolutely. And so what happens then is again, this bleeds over to what we say with gambling, is that it's not the losing that's a problem, it's the winning. Because the winning says, once I've win, one, which a couple things happen. One is we talk about our brain's reward system gets hijacked.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Which simply means, and here's the closest parallel, and it's it's it's uh is that the the closest drug uh high to gambling is cocaine, targets the dopamine system. The closest other addiction to gambling is sex addiction because both of those are about chasing a dopamine fix in our brain that comes from living in anticipation of. So gambling is all about what's going to happen next.

SPEAKER_04 18:38

Interesting. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

You can't get drunk without drinking. You can't get high without using. Except that, and you maybe you know better than than me is that you know, I've heard cocaine addicts say, yeah, I can get a dopamine bus thinking about using. So what's interesting is that is that I can be sitting here, or I can be sitting on your couch in your treatment program, looking like I'm participating, but in my head, I'm imagining either that, I came into the treatment program and I owe so-and-so 5,000, 10,000, 25,000. In my head, I'm thinking, how am I? Oh, I know. As soon as I come up with a plan about how I'm gonna solve the problem, I have the internal affective experience as if it's real. And if you had me hooked up, you know, to a spec scan or, you know, watching what was happening, you would see uh some alterations in my in my brain.

unknown 19:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

And I'm getting high sitting on the couch in your treatment program, imagining the solution to my problem. Yes. So that makes it categorically different. Well, when we do the addiction all in our heads, yeah.

Mind Betting And The Hidden Relapse

SPEAKER_04 19:58

And I was gonna say I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I I was thinking about my friends who struggle to even watch sports in early recovery. And I'm and I'm just thinking through the lens of what you're saying just now, where you're like, well, it's just you're not betting, you're not doing anything. But there was something about even watching that I'm curious if that was giving them a little bit of a contact high, if you will, or at least triggering.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Well, so we have a term for that. It's called mind betting. Oh. And and for example, if if you know, if I'm talking to somebody and they've put some put some abstinence to get a period of abstinence together, let's say somebody who's a sports better, put a period of abstinence together and they relapse. In almost every case, before they actually put money on a game, they were mind-betting, which means I'm watching the game, I see the line posted on the screen, or I hear the, you know, the announcers talk about the line or the spread. And in my mind, I'm saying, well, uh, you know, I like that. You know, I'll take, you know, I'll take, I'll take this team, or I'll take that team. Or man, they're never going to cover the spread. Now, the interesting thing in a mind bet is you never lose a mind bet. If you guess right and you win, hey, I won. If if you guess wrong and you lose, you didn't lose anything because you didn't have any money on it. So either way, in my mind, I win. So what I'm doing is I'm reinforcing and I'm getting a buzz, just in my mind, mind betting the game.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

So, how do you that's very, very interesting to me. I'm so curious, especially in early recovery. I mean, how do you what do you say to the people that are that are doing that? So here from my perspective, I'll just say that seems way less harmful. Like, I'm almost like, hey, that sounds great. Like, do that, don't do the other thing, do that instead. But at the same time, there's another part of me that says is that sobriety, if you're still mind betting or I'm just curious how you would coach someone through that. If someone's gonna say, hey, at least I'm not, I'm not losing money, at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah. So, so the on the harm reduction side, it's I don't know how many people who are listening to this under know the whole field of harm reduction, which is, you know, real big in the addiction field. It's it's, you know, can we help people do less harm? And I think there's, I think there's a point where there's validity in that, in that. So absolutely, we could say, well, it's less harmful for you to be mind-bedding than actually risk, you know, uh you're you're you're a kid in college, you got no income, you're living off either scholarship or mom and dad. You know, so five, you know,$50 may be the same as$500 or$5,000 or for somebody out working. So you know it's the dollar amount is all relative, right? Right. So we can argue at a certain level, if I'm not betting money, I'm not causing harm. And, you know, I think we could all agree, okay, at that level, right. However, what I said to you earlier is in most cases, people who relapse, they have a pattern of mind betting.

unknown 23:10

Okay.

Presence Versus Living In Tomorrow

SPEAKER_01 23:10

That precedes that. Now, having said that, mind betting absolutely is a problem because it gets how, at least for me, how I define gambling addiction, it's not just the wagering, it's about a whole way of thinking and living. So here's the thing a wager, by its very definition, is, you know, it's if if you, you know, if we're wagering on something, we're we're guessing at the outcome of an event that is not right here and now, that's at some point out in the future. Whether it's a millisecond out in the future, or whether it's a day or a week or a month. You know, we've got the whole, you know, polymarket and calci, you know, betting on, you know, I guess, you know, when when the next ship's gonna get sunk over and over and Iran, or where, you know, when my point is is that in terms of recovery, we talk about one day at a time. Well, one day at a time in the beginning oftentimes means it's when don't drink, use a drug, or any mood-altering, you know, chemicals or engaging activity for a 24-hour clock time. Well, I think the deeper meaning of one day at a time is the invitation to live fully into the here and the now, into the present moment, into the fullness of the present moment. Well, what I'm suggesting to people is your life does not exist tomorrow. Because you're not there. It exists right here, right now, in the present moment. So if I'm talking to somebody about recovery, when in your mind you're placing mind bets, you're having a mood-altering experience about the outcome of an event out in the future that hasn't occurred, which means you're not living in the present moment. So is there a price that you're paying for that? Number one. Number two, and one of the great seductions of wagering also, is that when we place the bet, um, it is the outcome of that event that is out in the future that I have no control over that determines what happens next, that determines whether I win or lose, or if if I'm personalized, it determines whether I'm a winner or loser. It's whether the guy kicks the ball through the uprights or puts the ball through the net or draws a certain card that determines whether I, you know, it's it's not me being in charge of my life. It's the outcome of an event that hasn't yet occurred that is in charge of my life. So what I'm saying is, and that I'm just making it, that's just operationally what wagering is. If that's the case, then it seems to me that what I'm doing is reinforcing a sense of victimhood. I'm a victim of the outcome of a wager, win, lose, or draw, because it is not me making life happen. It's not me assuming responsibility for my life, the direction of my life, taking charge of my life, exercising the courage to change the things that I can.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

It's me placing my bet, sitting back, waiting for something to happen that is absolutely 100% outside of my control, and it's the outcome of that event that determines what happens next in my life. That's reinforcing victimization, and that's diametrically opposed to recovery.

SPEAKER_04 26:55

Chris, that is a that is a masterful explanation of that question. Because that, I mean, for me, recovery has been all about how how do I stay present to where I'm at in the moment? Because I've learned that peace is only found in being present. So how you just unpack that from mind-bedding, I mean, I you can apply it across different addictions. I'm sure it'd be like a sex addict fantasizing.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 27:24

You know, whatever it is, you are it's it is taking, and I'm just saying back to you what I just heard, but it's taking you out of the present, which the whole thing of being in recovery is how can I be present in this moment? And then I love the the the victimization of like putting out come. I mean, that was that was a beautiful way of of unpacking that and helping us understand, especially there's still so much to learn on gambling addiction and sex addiction too, but I think gambling is even further behind in our development of understanding you know the harm. And you know, because I was I was gonna dig a little deeper into microbetting as to why that particularly is so risky, you know, and I think you I think you covered it pretty well. I'm curious if you got any other thoughts on that because it's to me it's it's very clear that the instant gratification, instant reward, so it was like taking a drink and immediately feeling on the buzz as opposed to waiting a few minutes or a few hours or exactly, you know. Right. Um, is there anything else around microbetting specifically as to why it's so risky?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Well, I think again, and and you correctly pointed out is that again, to me, that's just under the heading of the drug being purified. You you get a you get a quicker, a quicker fix, uh a a more closer, closer to instantaneous, stronger fix.

SPEAKER_04 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

And so is that more toxic and more highly addictive? Yeah. And and so uh to me, it that's simply what's happened. And and then you you get to a point, by the way, when you know we're talking about recovery, is and and what I what I talk to people about is the necessity of taking our brains off of autopilot. Because at that point, I mean, I mean, with the with the micro betting or the the proposition betting or I mean, you know, with gambling, there's no saturation point.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

You know, there's no you you're not gonna OD on gambling. You you're gonna tap out. Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

But but but how many how how long a line of cocaine can you do before you either pass out or pass out and die? Right. Well, the question is is how much money do you have and can you can you keep the money flowing? And of course, you know, in close to 50% of the cases, some studies show almost 60%, you know, gamblers cross the line into illegal activity to get money to support their gambling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Is that why the suicide rates are so high, Chris? Is it because the the secret the almost the shame part of like I I don't know how why do you think the suicide rates are so high in gambling?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah, and that you know that's that's a question that that you know I've wrestled with with answering uh for close to 40 years now. And I I may be closer to answering that, but um, you know, I know for myself, uh it was the incredible amount of shame, you know, when when when I was, you know, as I talked about in the first earlier podcast, when you know I was uh locked up in the suicide ward of Austin State Hospital before I talked my way out of there. Uh is the shame is extraordinary. And I remember uh sometime back in the 19, I don't know, it was maybe mid-1990s, um uh when I was executive director of the Illinois Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling and uh on the board of the National Council, and we were, you know, doing you know public awareness and education. And I got a call from a woman named Martha Shirk, remember her name of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I answered the phone and she introduced herself. I said, Why are you calling? She said, Well, she said, I'd like to talk to you about the Collinsville, Illinois woman that they just found, you know, with her, you know, who had killed herself in the parking lot of Walmart. I still get choked up when I, you know, when I remember that story today. Well, it turns out she had uh uh she gambled at one of the local casinos. Her husband, I believe I remember this, was a factory worker. And the the sheriff had shown up at while her husband was at work, had shown up at their door to evict the family for non-payment of the mortgage for however many. She handled all the money in her family. Her husband knew that she gambled, but just thought it was social. So here's another difference is is you can if if if somebody was using drugs or alcohol in the way that they were gambling, they would have either been dead or intervened on by family, friends, uh business associates long before. It would have shown up.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

They wouldn't have been able to hide it.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Oh, it it it absolutely, but completely that's why we call it the hidden addiction. She'd hidden it all. And and she couldn't face the prospect, I'm I'm pretty sure I'm right, of telling her her husband that she'd gone broke. And I know this from visiting not only my own experience, but talking to many who were at that point and didn't do it. So the shame is extraordinary. Then there's also the phenomenon for some people with suicidality. I mean, I had a life insurance policy and I made sure that I was past, quote, the suicide deadline, that it would still pay off if I had, you know, if I suicided. And I thought in my head, I'm I'm worth more dead than alive, just on a financial basis. So I had monetized my worth and value. But also, and here's the real kicker if I'm not around, I can't hurt anybody anymore. Wow. That's the shame, right? And just the the guilt. And and you know, money gets at safety, security. You know, I'm responsible for, you know, causing the loss of my my home, my marriage, my family. I can't live with myself.

SPEAKER_04 33:53

Well, and the addiction probably tells them that's that's the solution, is I I feel the shame. I don't want to come clean about how I've I've squandered all this money that affects other people that I love. So instead of coming to them and admitting what I've done, if I commit suicide and it pays off those debts, it's the solution to the problem. Like in the addicts' mind, they probably think I'm doing this as an answer to what I've done. This is the solution for it. And it's us as addicts not realizing that our our presence, our value, our our withness, if you will, being present with people is what they want more than even, I mean, of course, the lying and the deceit that's tough to overcome. But wouldn't it be true that people would rather have us with them in honesty than oh of course, but we're not processing things.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

I mean, you know, because because all I I you know, I dare say that all of us in the midst of addiction are are, you know, you know, self-centered sociopaths. You know, not saying we are clinically, but right, right, right. Yeah, what what what does the big book of AA talk about? The primary problem is not alcohol, it's self-centeredness, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

So yeah, I mean it's it's is it an act of of selfish? I don't know if selfish applies, but I remember I I you know in my own in my own mind at that point, you know, I uh uh remembered the biblical passage, greater love has no man than this, that he give his life for his family. I said, Well, actually, I'm doing them a favor because I'm removing uh removing the cancer from their life, which is me. And so in that, and I think what's important to me, you know, let me jump on the treatment side, is what I what I do as best as I can is help an individual get inside their own head and wake up and become conscious of the true story in our head.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Yeah.

Can Gambling Ever Be Healthy

SPEAKER_01 36:00

The half truth is I can place the next bet and win. 100% true. If my story stops there, then in gambling terms, it's a lock that I'm gonna place the next bet. Right. If I play it out in my head, and this is this is also a bit different from intervention with substance abuse, is even though it's still relevant. If I play it out in my head, so you know, even when I win, I ain't gonna stop because finally I'm on a winning streak. And what fool would walk away from a winning streak? Finally, Lady Luck has turned her face. God is bestowing me with the blessings that I've deserved, you know, whatever it happens to be. So I'm not gonna stop when I'm winning. And then when I give it back, it's like, oh crap, now I got to place the next bet and win back the money that I lost. Right. And now I'm chasing. So either way, I'm not gonna stop. And either way, you don't have an edge. The man has the edge. Either way, in the long run, you're gonna lose, but in the short run, you absolutely can win. And so what we do is we invite people to tell the whole story. Because if I tell, and then I'm gonna end up feeling like crap, you know, I'm gonna have to tell my spouse, you know, my kids, my wife, blah, blah, blah. So instead of a dopamine hit when I think about gambling, what I'm doing is I'm more grounded in a degree of pain connected with that. And so that's the inside job.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

Makes sense. In your in your professional opinion, is is there it is is healthy gambling, is that a thing? Is there a way to do this in moderation? Is there a is there of a a form of this that's not problematic?

SPEAKER_01 37:53

You know, that's that's an interesting question. So um that that would be the subject of a lot of debate. You know, if you go to gamblers anonymous is don't in LTEX, don't gamble for anything. This includes buying from the stock market commodities and options. Well, the way I frame it is this. Uh I'm gonna answer a specific question with maybe go go more global.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

To me, gambling is the great metaphor, unlike other addictions. Because most of what we have to deal with in life is that which we cannot control. I mean, I mean, how much of what's going on in the world today that we have no control over is affecting, you know, whether it's at the gas pump or the grocery store or whatever. And I don't mean to get you know political or economic, but but um so much of, and even and even by the way, in in our serenity prayer, which is recited at as far as I know, virtually every 12-step meeting, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change. Right there in the first paragraph is we're asking for something bigger than us for a gift, grant me for the gift of peace that comes from accepting all that I cannot control. Right. That's to me, is just deconstructing the first um part of the serenity prayer.

SPEAKER_04 39:23

So Which just flies in the face of gambling because that is exactly the opposite of that.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Well, well, yeah, because gambling is all about uh uh uh placing a wager and I can't control the outcome. Now we could argue it's trying to gain mastery over that. Gambling is also uh arguably about trying to deal with loss. I mean, if you listen to gamblers long enough, you'll hear many say gambling is not about winning, it's about not losing. So if that becomes a metaphor, then gambling is about, oh, we could have a whole, we could do a whole podcast on gambling and loss and the and the and the significance and the relevance of that and all the different ways that that manifests. Because if I'm chasing, I'm literally trying to, what I'm telling myself, I lost 500 yesterday, I need to get that back. Hang on. That's delusional because somehow that implies that I can change the past. You or I can't do a damn thing to change what happened yesterday.

SPEAKER_04 40:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

I can place a bet and I can win$500 today, and then my balance sheet may be zero, but I didn't win back the$500 that I lost.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

So chasing, which is a foundational diagnosis or characteristic of problem or compulsive or addictive gambling, there's a complete fallacy in that because somehow that implies I can undo the past. Well, my gosh, how much how much uh mental disorder, emotional disorder, addiction is about us stuck in a past that we keep trying or wishing was different.

SPEAKER_04 41:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

That we can't change anything. So it's about, and that we're numbing ourselves to the effect of that. And so the healing path is is is owning, claiming, I mean, you know, you know, treatment program, get our history straight. Well, that is what's the truth, you know, not not what's the story we tell ourselves. And so uh that's what I mean by gambling as the great metaphor. And uh it again, it makes it categorically different. And I completely forgot what your big question was because I got it.

SPEAKER_04 41:42

It's really good, Chris. What you're saying, it's it's better than what the question I was asking, because I I I just was what I was going to ask before I asked that about just is you know, is there a healthy version of this and whatever is where is the line cross from casual betting into okay into something more dangerous? But I didn't ask that question.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

But it's like maybe there's no such thing as casual betting. Okay. Well, there, well, but there may be.

unknown 42:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

I mean, I mean, with with gambling, there's it's interesting, uh, you know, talking to somebody just before we, you know, are recording this about you know, historically we divided there's there's you know, there's people that buy a lottery ticket when the lottery gets over a hundred million dollars. Now, I don't know what's wrong with fifty million dollars, but but but you know, yeah, how can you buy a lottery? Well, whatever it goes across is a hundred million.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

So yeah, and then there's people that play friendly games of you know poker or will bet a dollar on the golf course. Now, if if you're NGA, again, there's this wisdom that says, you know, don't gamble on anything. Um I know people who, and here's what I say. I say, well, look, I I never had a problem with, you know, betting a few bucks on the golf course. My problem was betting sports. And I say, look, it's not my job to tell you what to do or what not to do. Because by the way, gambling, you'll have some hear some people say, well, everything's a gamble. No, it's not. Does anything involve involving money uh involve risk? Yeah. So in the financial markets, if you put your cash under the pillow or in the closet or in a shoebox, you know, talking to somebody earlier this week who college kid who had$120,000 duct taped to the uh, you know, to the leg of his bed in his dorm room, right, you know, from some poker games.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

Uh um so I mean what's the the the question's

SPEAKER_01 44:00

For each individual, alcohol's alcohol.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Cocaine's cocaine. Heroin is heroin. Um, money, we have to deal with money. Right. And so what I frame it is gambling, it's about many things. One thing it absolutely is in a pathological, compulsive way, is about a pathological relationship with money. My belief is that part of the healing journey is to develop a healthy relationship with money. Now, does that mean that, you know, we you know, we put roadblocks in place for somebody who's early in recovery? But I I happen to believe that that for most gamblers, it's important to get to a place where you have a healthy relationship with money, which many gamblers, by the way, did before they, you know, before they fell into the pit. Other people need to learn how to do that. And so the answer to that is individual. But I got people who, you know, who have torn their lives up with a certain form of betting, but it appears as if they don't have a problem betting on the golf course. Right. What I will say to them is look, let's just let's frame it this way. You're making a wager, and your bet is that I'll bet I can gamble on the golf course, and it will not take, it won't be an open door or a pathway back into pathologically or compulsively gambling on sports. Let's just acknowledge that there's a wager there. And if that's one that you want to make, it's it's it's you know, it's not my life, it's your life. Right. And and so, and and oh, by the way, what about people who are whose profession is traders in the securities market? I mean, I remember in Chicago in the in you know, in the 1980s when I first came in, guys who were traders on the board of the SIBO would come in and, you know, old time GA guys would say, well, you have to leave your, you have to quit your job. What do you mean I have to quit my job? I'm not gambling in in uh my opinion is the securities markets uh can be and are the greatest gambling casino in the world, bar none.

SPEAKER_04 46:22

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Uh, but that doesn't mean that everything you do, you know, it's all about the mitigation and the management of risk. So I don't have I don't have a black and white answer for you on that one, unlike a wager where you either way or lose. To me, there's there's some gray in that.

SPEAKER_04 46:39

Well, you just helped me understand a little bit more how gambling applies to other process addictions because you know it, you know, it's like food. You gotta have it to live. You know, I was even sex is like that's a good thing. It was a good gift given. That's right. I didn't I never knew how gambling applied until you related it to the the the money relationship. Because it's like, okay, money, you know, you can argue we gotta have you got money's part of what we gotta have to live.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 47:10

But it's the relationship with the food, with the sex, with the money, with the shopping, with the, you know, it's like there's nothing wrong with buying a new pair of shoes when you need one, but when you've got a hundred pairs and you can't stop buying, you know, it's like that relationship. You really help me see how gambling fits in the process addiction family.

Brain Chemistry Loss And Escape

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Well, and you're you're absolutely right, because with alcohol, we don't need alcohol to survive. Right. I don't need hero, don't need heroin, don't need heroin, don't need cocaine to survive. But but we're sexual. That's what to me, that's what separates sex addiction from the other addictions, is that part of who we are is a sexual being. So it's what's our relationship with our own sexuality, what's our relationship with food, what's our relationship. And so we can say, well, there's certain behaviors in that relationship that we need to be abstinent from. And you know, I know there's people listening who are, you know, can make the argument all forms of gambling. Well, I'm not sure. Depends on how you're defining gambling. So anyway, I'm saying there's it's an it's not as black or white an answer as would be nice to have.

SPEAKER_04 48:23

No, no, and I think that's fair. Can we talk just for a minute a little bit more about the psychology of gambling as far as what emotional needs are we trying to meet with a gambling addiction? Or is that is that dependent on the person?

SPEAKER_01 48:41

I think that's person dependent dependent. I I've a I've I've um claimed for years. I don't know that I'm right, but it but it sounds good to me. I believe gambling can cause addiction, gambling itself, and the outcome of a wager can alter an individual's brain chemistry to such a degree that they become addicted, absent any deep underlying uh trauma, you know, and you know, that's uh, you know, loss, whatever it happens to be. And here's a I got a biochemical basis for that. This hopefully this is not too much aside. Do you know that there are there are medications that people take for Parkinson's disease and for restless leg syndrome called dopamine agonist medications?

SPEAKER_04 49:44

I haven't heard of that.

What Families Suffer Most

SPEAKER_01 49:45

It is known that people who take these dopamine agonist medications, and you can look on the warning labels, for some people, they start gambling compulsively or acting out sexually compulsively as a direct result of the ingestion of these drugs. Interesting. So, okay, so that so that's the drugs uh altering an individual's biochemistry. And look on the warning label. And by the way, the the person responsible for that was a patient of mine, and I'm not divulging any confidences. All you got to do is go on my website, Christopher W. Anderson.com, and there's a link to a Chicago magazine article of the woman who she and her husband sued the drug companies who ended up acknowledging, yeah, we do that do cause does cause problems, and we've known about that, and that's why those warnings are on those drugs. Permex, Mirapex, uh, you know. Wow. So so if we know that that an individual taking those drugs, that can dramatically affect that individual acting out compulsively or pathologically, then why is it so far-fetched that somebody winning a massive amount of money can't likewise alter their brain chemistry and set something in motion that may be separate and apart from any underlying uh disorder that may preexist. That may pre-exist. Now, having said that, um Bob Custer years ago said that the greatest uh single source of relapse among recovering gamblers was some kind of loss. Well, so we can argue that uh the sadness, the loss, you know, that's the equivalent of, you know, drowning my tears, bellying up to the bar, drowning my sorrows. I would argue it's there's another layer to that. There's there's a workshop that I've done over the years called Pathological Gambling, a Morbid Grief Reaction. We touched on this earlier, where I'm not just uh creating a mood-altering experience so I don't have to feel the pain, but I'm actually engaged in an activity where I can place the next bet and win, which undoes the problem of loss, of losing, metaphorically undoes the reality of winning, undoes the metaphorical problem of loss. And so we see that playing out over and over and over and over again in all kinds of ways.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Yeah. So, Chris, one thing I I wanted to talk about before I let you go here, because it's all been really, really good stuff. We've got a lot of people that listen and watch this that are that are family members of addicts. And so I wanted to kind of talk about maybe the first question is is maybe a no-brainer, but I I want to hear what you have to say about it, which is what makes this addiction particularly um so devastating for spouses and families.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Okay, uh at a couple levels, and I think we mentioned this earlier, and that is the not knowing. Oftentimes, by the time a spouse finds out there is significant financial damage. It is it is rare. I couldn't tell you, but I don't have a memory of a situation where a spouse knew everything. Um there may be so so the typical pattern is spouse, uh, parents don't find out uh until there's a crisis point, you know, where that crisis point could be a number of things. All right. So and then the question is, okay, what's what's the nature of the damage? You know, how how damaging is it?

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Um, and that runs the gamut to, yeah, I've uh lost a chunk of money. Um so the other thing I'll say that the devastation for family members, you know, there's this old, you know, there's a saying that goes around, we can deal with what we know, what we don't know makes us crazy. I mean, it's not uncommon for spouses of gamblers to think that you know the person's having an affair. Like, where are you? Why are why are you not here? What are you doing on your phone all the time? What's going on? And and because I mean, one of the things that sets gambling apart from the other addictions, too, is that uh gambling addiction, um, it's called disordered gambling now, I guess, in the DSN 5. There's only three diagnoses in the whole DSM of which lying is a central feature. Gambling is one of them. Now, that doesn't mean that that alcoholics and drug addicts don't lie.

SPEAKER_04 55:17

Right.

Blackmail Extortion And Online Bookies

SPEAKER_01 55:17

You know, uh, but lying is different from denial. Um and and I'm lying, uh, you know, again, that that's a whole maybe a whole podcast just on lying, that that whole dynamic. But but what I'm doing is I I don't want you to know the truth because if you knew the truth, then that would get in the way of me trying to solve the problem, uh, which means getting money to place the next bet to win back the money that I lost and solved the problem, whatever. So the not knowing is is and the lying, most oftentimes, um, you know, if if if you're talking to a family member, they'll say, Yeah, the money really bothers me, but what bothers me the most is the lying, because that, you know, the foundation of any healthy relationship arguably is trust. Right. And and so if I don't know what's true, and and and so by the way, if you know, if you got an alcohol problem and you come in and I smell alcohol on your breath, you can swear up one side and down another that you haven't had anything to drink, you know, that your buddy did and it just rubbed off on you. I just think, well, you're full of you know what, and you know, you just but but the reality is the word denial or minimizing doesn't apply in most cases to spouses of gamblers. They don't know. If you don't know, it's not denial. If you don't know, it's not minimizing. And if you don't know because you're being lied to in a way that sounds right but doesn't. So what happens is spouses, family members begin to question their own reality. Whereas if I don't, if I smell cigarettes on your breath or alcohol on your breath, I'm not questioning my reality. Right. But with gambling, you do. So that's a you know, that's a fundamental difference, and that gets at the hidden part of it. The other piece that well, and then the powerlessness, because you know, if you're responsible for paying the light bill and you didn't pay it, I have to sit in the dark. And so that the consequences, or if you if you haven't been paying the mortgage, I lose a place to live. So, you know, the consequences by the time it's found out are pretty devastating, like the story I told you of the Collinsville, Illinois woman. And that's just one among many. Yeah. The other thing that is that is happening, though, Drew, that is new, is that there is an increase in extortion. And what I mean by blackmail and extortion, and what I mean by that is I think it's the convergence of you know, the internet where people anonymously can get away with saying all kinds of things that they probably wouldn't say if you were face to face, you know, can hide behind the shield of anonymity. Right. Well, what's happening that isn't it is uh have an increasing number of situations, another new one this week or last week, where where kids, oftentimes, you know, college kids, get in trouble with a so-called bookie. The bookie goes online and finds a way of contacting parents, siblings, family members, and sends out threatening emails or text messages that says, you know, your son, mostly your son, I'm I'm sure there's some some uh you know young women out there that are getting in trouble. I I haven't talked to any, I'm sure some people are, but he owes owes me fifteen thousand dollars. Kid who's in school, who's got no money and no job or anything, owes me$15,000. And if he doesn't pay, I'm gonna start posting things on the internet that he's a sexual predator, and I'm gonna send messages to you at your company, which actually, in fact, has happened. So there's these, and that's literally blackmail, it's extortion, it's illegal, and and so that's new. That is that is absolutely new in this day and time. And and I get calls from parents saying, what do I do? Well, first of all, there's there's an education process and saying, look, the person on the other end is de facto guilty of multiple federal offenses. And by the way, I can't remember whether I mentioned this in the last podcast. Part of what I do is is is I've been retained andor testified in over 60 legal cases, uh, most, many of them in federal court of gamblers who cross the line into illegal activity, some of them bookies, and you know, worked with the FBI on cases. And so I have a you know uh bit of an understanding about how this stuff works in the background. But when they go after people for gambling problems, they could care less about the gambling. What they what the government does care about is federal income tax evasion, right, mail fraud, fire fraud, uh, you know, forgery, fraud, theft, embezzlement, that sort of thing. So this is new. And and what I what I do is say, look, you are in fact in a hostage situation. What's happening here is this person is saying, unless you pay the ransom, you know, they don't use the term ransom, but that's what it is, unless you write a check to me for$15,000, you know, I'm going to publish all of this information that's going to do harm to you and your family members. And then somebody's got to decide, well, do I pay the ransom or not? And what do I say to them? It's time for you to hire a lawyer. It's time for you because it's a giant poker game, also.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:21

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Yeah. But Drew, that's that's that's new.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:27

Yeah. Never scary, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:28

Never happened. Scary stuff. Well, it well, it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:33

Yeah. Well, and earlier you're talking about the line. One thing that came to my mind, if and I'm only saying this because I can imagine myself doing this, is my line would have been, what if there was a discovery or something happens where you you get caught, or you know, because I want you to weigh in on what families do if they discover that there's you know something that needs to be addressed or whatever. But my first line would be, I was going to tell you as soon as I had it figured out. Like that would have been my first instinct. You know, I know I've been lying to you, but I promise you, I was gonna tell you, I just I was gonna come up with a solution first. And once I had it all paid off, I was gonna then tell you. Have you come across any of that in the story that they're telling families, or is that just a Drew thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

No, no, no, of course. It's it's under the heading of it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:30

Right. Yeah, I promise I was gonna tell you, but you just found out before I had a chance to come up.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

Yeah, yeah, you you you you just you beat me to the punch. You you know, I got I got busted before I had a chance to figure it out. Well, and you know what I'll also uh tell family members, they say, well, he's you know, he's he they say they've told me everything. I said, okay, well, that's what they said. You know, and then the Titanic saw the iceberg. Yeah, you know, right. Uh um, and here so so, but but that but that's an interesting here here's where I'm going with this, with with spouses or family members. And and by the way, me as a clinician, look, as much as I know, as as as many tens of thousands of hours I've done that, what I tell somebody is, look, the only person that knows whether you've got a bet on right now is you. I don't. I can't have you pee in a cup, I can't do a hair follicle, I can't do a breathalyzer, and I'm not going to. The only one who knows the truth is you, and I'm not going to spend any energy trying to figure out whether you're telling me the truth or not. And so with a family member, what I'll say is what's important to acknowledge, again, lying is a central feature. And what I say is, as a gambling addict, the ones we lie to the most are ourselves. Usually they're in the form of a half-truth, which is I can place the next bed and win. Absolutely true, but that's not the whole story. Is it's what we do is maintain a healthy degree of mistrust. And so what we have, and and and by the way, this is also different from uh radically different from interventions with spouses of drug act, drug addicts, alcoholics, you know, quit boring the booze down the drain. You know, let go, go to Alan. Well, with gambling, because if you're married, you are a 50% business partner in the business call to marriage. Right. And if boat that you're on is taking on water, guess what? Unless you take charge, you go down with the ship.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:55

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

So it's not about letting go. I mean, there's emotion some emotional letting go, but at a practical level, it's about the necessity of taking charge, which again is different from an intertypical intervention with spouses, family members when it comes to substance abuse. The other difference is it's really easy if somebody has the money to write a check. Okay, they've learned their lesson. And at that point, my kind of go-to on that that I think is relevant said, look, if you know, if your son, daughter had a heroin problem, would you go buy the heroin for them? Well, of course not. Okay, well, that's what you're doing. Yeah, but if I don't, then they'll, you know, you know flunk out of school or then they'll have a have a bad mark on their credit score. Well, what do they need a credit score for as a college kid? Right. Well, for later in life, I said, well, actually, if you pay the credit card off, all that does is clean the plate for them to run it back up all over again.

unknown 1:05:59

Yeah.

First Steps After Discovery

SPEAKER_01 1:06:01

And and so the education is what constitutes bailouts. So we talk in terms of bailouts with gambling as opposed to enabling the substance use side of the street.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:13

What if practically what if what if families do? So they they learn the truth about something and there's a discovery of some port at some point. So for the families listening, what's the first healthy step they should take?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:27

Well um so it depends on the relationship. Uh if it's if to answer that question, if it's a marriage, one of the things I'll say is um, you know, the first thing recognize you're in a legal business financial partnership. And depending on the state and whether it's a community property state or whether there's spousal protection, at a minimum, get hold of as much of the financial information as you can, recognizing that you can't know everything. Run a credit bureau to find out what, if any, legal loans, but that is not gonna tell you whether they owe uh the guy at the card club down the street$15,000 or whether they have a credit line with a bookie. It's not gonna tell you that. So just accept that that you can know what you can know, but also accept that there's things that you probably do not know, but that what you don't know will come to the surface sooner rather than later. But but but take responsibility for that which you can know and you can learn. So I think the answer to that question honestly is very situation specific. And and it's also why, by the way, is uh, you know, clinically, the majority of of my early work with people has has little to do with the psychology around the addiction, what it has to do with cleaning up the mess that the storm left. It's problem, it's it's very practical problem solving, crisis management. Um and and and that's different for most clinicians.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

Uh you know, speaking, speaking from the from the treatment side of things, because there are very real tangible life problems that have to be dealt with, like owing money. So if it's money, you know, gamblers anonymous has this wonderful process called pressure relief, where if you're involved in Gamblers Anonymous, ideally you sit down with a couple of other GA members and Gamanon members, which is Gamanon's the equivalent of Al-Anon, and you do the equivalent of pulling down your financial pants, which most people don't want. We can talk about kids, we can talk about sex, but money, no way, no how. So you you come clean financially, and most gamblers and everybody's worried about paying back the money. The reality is that's the least of the problems. Right, right. Because the fact is, I don't care if you owe$10 million, uh, if if you have to pay, you know,$100 a month, you know, for the rest of your life, then that's what you do. Well, they're not gonna accept it. Well, guess what? If you owe it uh and they want it and you don't have it, they can't get it unless it's secured, you know, like your car has a note on it and your car's gonna get repossessed. So you you prioritize debt repayment. Those are practical issues that have to be addressed. And again, not that that's not relevant in substance abuse issues. Of course it is, but it's front and center stage with gambling addiction in most cases.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:52

Sure. Let's close with this. I want to, because there's so much more meat on the bone here. And now, and before we started recording, you were gracious enough to say, like, you know, we're gonna keep having these conversations because I think it's really important. It's a growing need. Um, yeah, you know, we we partner together quite a bit in the work that you do and the work we do at Valiant, and you've been an amazing partner for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

Um and I'm gonna link to all your at the two-way that's a two-way street. Thank you.

A Way Out Plus Resources

SPEAKER_04 1:10:21

Thanks, Chris. And I'm gonna link to all your information in the show notes. So if someone's listening or watching, and they want to work with you and go to your website, email you, all that kind of stuff. I want to make sure they've got access to that. Um, but let's let's close with this. If someone's listening, or maybe they're secretly struggling right now with gambling, or or maybe it feels like they're losing control, what would you want them to hear today?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

Um message, the most important message is I don't care how big a mess you got in your life, there's a way out, there's a way through it. And the re and that is in gambling terms, a lock. That's a guarantee. And the reason I can make that guarantee is because I'm here to tell you that. Because there's people that helped me when I was uh locked up in a suicide ward of a psychiatric hospital in the middle of a divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure of my house. And and here I am today, you know, almost, you know, 40 years later. The worst thing that I experienced was my gambling. The best thing that I experienced with my gambling was was my gambling because it it it actually charted the course. So you have no idea what life can be like on the other side of that. So there is, you know, good, you know, help's hard to find. There are gamblers anonymous meetings, they're online, doesn't cost a thing. You know, I've only got limited time and space, uh, but um, you know, there's a few treatment programs, you know, Valiant is great. I would also, I want to, since last time we talked, uh, I want to show you this as a resource. My my great friend, Dr. Richard Rosenthal. Well, you're not gonna see the title of this, let me get that on the has written a new book. This is the culmination of his life work. Uh Richard is uh you know, co-author of the DSM4 Diagnostic Criteria. So go online and look up Richard Rosenthal, R-O-S-E-N-T-H-A-L-M-D. I love the title. His it's From Self-Deception to Self-Forgiveness. Gambling Addiction, a guide to recovery. And he's written this in a way for many of us who have ADD, ADHD. You can open it to pages. You don't have to read it straight through. You can you can skip. Uh, another great resource. Um, go online on a Facebook group and Google Arnie Wexler, W-E-X-L-E-R. Uh, Arnie uh was a man who was a life preserver for me uh in my first week of recovery in 1987. Uh and and um uh uh he's he there's a Facebook group that he started that I I don't know whether there's a hundred thousand people online. So there are resources, but more mostly what I would say to you is that that also be honest with yourself. And when you hear yourself say, I can place the next bet and win, acknowledge that that's a true statement, but then ask yourself the following question was what am I gonna do next? I can place the next bet and win. Then ask yourself, what am I gonna do next? What's next? What's next? What's next? And I think, I don't think, if you do that, then you're gonna get closer to the truth. The truth is that you don't have an edge. The truth is that um over time you will lose, and the amount of damage that you do financially is the least of it. What happens is it kind of goes back to the suicide question. I I think it does some incredible damage to our own soul and spirit, because if you really think about it, um gambling is about the pursuit of something for nothing. Wow. And when we receive something, when our whole fantasy world is around once I win the lottery, then I'm gonna have this incredible life, and you discover. Yeah, maybe you maybe you win, maybe you buy a lot of things. Yeah, I mean, I've known people who won massive amounts of money. I'm talking about in the millions. And guess how miserable they were. Yeah. Like my friend Richard Rohr heard him say once, many of us spent our life climbing the ladder of success only to discover we've had it leaning against the wrong wall.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:00

Yes, I love that quote. That's so true.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

Yeah, right. When when we when we have our dreams fulfilled and only discover it's the stuff of nightmares, there's an incredible seduction of our soul and spirit, and it leaves us in a place of profound emptiness and darkness. And I think that's what you discover with gamblers who are close to the end of their rope is a profound uh uh sense of emptiness and disconnection from realities. Wow. There's a way through it. Absolutely, there's a way through this, whatever it is. So I don't care if you cross the line into illegal activity, you know, there's there's consequences for that, but there's a way through this. I've got a number of friends that, you know, have walked through that and come out the other side and kicking ass in life.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:57

Man, I just love talking with Chris. I have a feeling he's gonna be a regular on this podcast because there's so much more to cover in this area, and the need is only getting greater. Um, the problem's only getting greater, but there is hope, there is a solution. If we can help you at all, please feel free to reach out to us. Go to our website, giantliving.com, and send us a message, give us a call, give us someone who might be struggling. Um it's always worth a conversation. We'd love to just have consultations, conversations with people to help out in this area. We'd love to connect you with Chris and other people as well. So thanks for listening. It means a lot to have you engage with us in these conversations. And until next time, thanks for listening to the new podcast.