Guest Author - Cathy Brownfield
Has anyone ever made a conscious decision: “I want to be an addict”? It’s difficult to imagine anyone intentionally becoming an addict. Addiction can slip into your life—anyone’s life—pleasantly disguised, a wolf in lamb’s clothing. It can happen to anyone. But it’s happening more and more to seniors. By the way, addiction is not just alcohol, drug or tobacco. You can think, “It won’t happen to me,” but those are famous last words of addicts everywhere.
Clyde was completely lost when his wife of fifty-plus years passed away suddenly. His whole world was shaken. They had no children, and had done everything together. Her death left him lonely and lost, adrift at sea. The bingo at the senior center was abandoned as he went for higher stakes. Nobody knows how long he had been losing. When he had nothing left but their home, it wasn’t just his. Enid’s brother held half interest in the house, and Ned wasn’t about to sign it over to Clyde to pay gambling debts. Ned cut himself off from Clyde.
Gambling addiction ruined Clyde’s life, or was it Enid’s death that ruined everything for him? Regardless, he got in over his head with gambling debt. Gam-Anon, aka Gamblers Anonymous, can’t help a gambler to pay gambling losses, but it can assist in the fight against gambling addiction and if the gambler wants it badly enough, to improve his/her quality of life.
There is a long list of reasons why seniors gamble: entertainment, limited socializing options, boredom or loneliness, peer pressure, perceived as safe, changing cultural values that “used” to say that gambling was sinful and immoral. Gambling has become an acceptable, legitimate form of recreation and entertainment. How many folks buy lottery tickets every week? Our schools benefit from the lottery which also supports road improvements and promotes tourism.
Reportedly, compulsive gambling is an emotional disorder reflecting an “inability or unwillingness to accept reality, emotional insecurity, basic immaturity and lack of self-esteem.” It has been considered that gamblers have some need for self-destruction, advises Gambler’s Anonymous.
The Administration on Aging reports that gambling addiction is a significant problem in the United States. “Older adults are, perhaps, more vulnerable than other age groups given their greater dependence on fixed income and more limited ability to recover to secure debt or recover from gambling losses.”
The Illinois Department of Aging says senior problem gambling is rising. “The National Council on Problem Gambling defines problem gambling as gambling behavior that causes disruptions in any major area of life…It is a progressive addiction characterized by increasing preoccupation with gambling, a need to bet more money more frequently, restlessness or irritability when attempting to stop, chasing losses, and loss of control manifested by continuation of the gambling behavior in spite of mounting, serious negative consequences.
Gam-Anon advises, “Compulsive gambling brings despair and humiliation into the lives of countless thousands of men, women and children. The compulsive gambler is a person who is dominated by an irresistible urge to gamble. Coupled with this is the obsessive idea that a way will be found not only to control the gambling, but to ‘make it pay’ and enjoy it besides. This disease causes deterioration in almost all areas of a person’s life.”
