For many people, social gambling is an innocuous way to pass the time. For others gambling is something more — an addictive thrill that adds excitement to life. Who is a candidate for a gambling addiction, and who is not? And is it worth taking the risk to find out?
Once a wife is wise to the situation, she needs to get herself not only financial protection but emotional support as well. Gam-Anon, the family support arm of Gamblers Anonymous, is the most effective place to start, offering education and support groups.
“The family should start the process even if the gambler refuses to get help,” Mr. Abrams says. A wife can block her husband’s access to money, and casinos will often cooperate in limiting the betting of a pathological gambler. A computer program called GamBloc works to prevent the addict’s computer from linking to gambling sites — although a determined gambler can easily enough find someone else’s computer to gain access.
Since the gambler is too deeply in the grips of his obsession to help himself, the family usually has to force him into taking the first steps. “When the gambler hits a wall, he still thinks he’ll get over the wall,” Mr. Brill says. “So you have to work with the family to make the wall immovable. I won’t work with anyone who doesn’t get into a 12-step program. The gambler needs a group with whom he can identify and find support, and people besides the therapist he can turn to when the urge to gamble hits.”
A special benefit of Gamblers Anonymous and Gam-Anon is that meetings are often held concurrently, in the same building. Hence, if a wife tells her Gam-Anon group that her husband stole her wallet that week, the leaders will immediately march down the hall and confront the husband in the Gamblers Anonymous room.
Addictions can be arrested, but never cured. A pathological gambler has to quit cold turkey and never get near it again, the same way an alcoholic cannot allow himself even one drink. One of Rabbi Dr. Twerski’s reformed gamblers refuses to even play dreidel with his children on Chanukah, for fear of falling back into the abyss.
Therapists for gamblers must have special training in addictions counseling, preferably CASAC certification, since most psychological and psychiatric programs give zero or minimal training in this area. Within the therapy setting, cognitive-behavioral therapy has been particularly effective. It helps identify the triggers that entice a gambler back to his habit, such as stress, boredom or money problems, and teaches him to refocus his attention.
Rabbi Goldwasser suggests that if the gambler still misses the “rush” he once got from risk taking, even after going to GA and receiving other therapies, he can look for other more constructive ways to get a thrill, such as sports. A hobby or social outlet can fill the time that gambling once took up and meet the same social needs. A frum gambler might try to fill the emptiness with Torah learning, family time, and community work.
But Mr. Brill says you have to go even deeper than putting a stop to the gambling and replacing it with more constructive activities. In the same way you have to dry out an alcoholic to start rebuilding his life, a gambler has to stop his habit and then pick up the pieces of those wasted years and psychological emptiness.
“Gamblers tend to be grandiose people,” he says. “They have big egos, but low self-esteem underneath. When they don’t have the props that make them feel like winners, they feel very low, like nobody. Recovery is about learning to connect to themselves, and building meaningful connections to other people.”
In the meantime, as cartoonist Kin Hubbard (1868–1930) once quipped, “The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.”
According to the mishnah in Sanhedrin, gamblers are disqualified from serving as witnesses in court. “There’s some discussion,” Rabbi Goldwasser says, “as to whether gambling here refers to something that is done full time, or only occasionally. Full-time gamblers are not considered productive members of society.”
The legitimacy of gambling wins relies on the principles of asmachta — the idea that if we make a bet and I win, you’ve agreed to give up your right to your money. The Rambam doesn’t agree that betting gives the winner the right to the other’s money. In his Hilchos Gezeilah V’Aveidah, he calls such transactions robbery, because a person acquires money frivolously, without having toiled for it. Since the yishuv shel olam is based on man toiling for his food and shelter (Iyov 5:7, “Man is born to toil”), gambling is an attempt to sidestep the normal path Hashem laid out for us to take.
When the Vilna Gaon saw people playing cards, he was disturbed even more by the bitul Torah than he was by the chance of losing or making money inappropriately. “What will be with such people after 120 years?” he asked. Similarly, the Minchas Yitzhak comments that when Dovid HaMelech refers to “moshav leitzim” in the first perek of Tehillim, this includes people who gamble.
Like any addiction, the gambler’s need to fuel his addiction leads to any number of other aveiros, which range from the mild (missing zmanim for tefillah) to the egregious (stealing, lying, mistreatment of a spouse). Alcohol and drugs often accompany gambling settings, encouraging yet more behaviors not befitting a Torah Jew.
Below are the “20 Questions” from Gamblers Anonymous. “These are about as good as any diagnostic tool for determining whether a person has a gambling addiction,” says David Kohn.
SAFE Foundation: a Jewish, Brooklyn–based drug and addictions counseling service. (866) 569-SAFE
Recovery Road (residential treatment center in West Palm Beach, Florida, kosher food available): 1-888-LAST BET www.aswexler.com
Gamblers Anonymous (12-step program for gamblers): www.gamblersanonymous.org, 877-664-2469
Gam-Anon (for families of gamblers): www.gam-anon.org, 718-352-1671
National Council on Problem Gambling: www.ncpgambling.org, 1-800-522-4700. They publish a free booklet titled Personal Financial Issues for Loved Ones of Problem Gamblers.
New York Council on Problem Gambling: www.nyproblemgambling.org, 518-867-4084
Columbia Gambling Disorders Clinic (free, and has groups for women): www.cumc.columbia.edu, 212-543-6690
New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS): www.oasas.ny.gov, 800-553-5790
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800 273 8255
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 437)
