My father was a gambler. He did not consider his behavior careless. He had many ups and downs. I felt each.
His gambling took many forms. He refused legal advice and lost everything when I was thirteen. We suddenly moved across the country to live with my older sister and her husband. He had experienced such hard times in his youth along with my brother. I hesitate to say that what I experienced was worse, but I know it to be true: my father’s indifference had progressed with him. to refuse.
My father covered him shame delusion with sadness and sadness, and my mother expressed herself through neediness and neutrality angerincluding anger at me. After we moved in, they had a combustible relationship, and the tension barely subsided for decades until the day she died.
Dad was both a hard worker and a dreamer, a valuable combination in work and life, but it was his tendency to believe that no matter what he did, he would overcome and “win”. Distorted thinking and the illusion of control are common characteristics of most addictions. But gambling is a way out of money problems – and wretched is he who stubs his toe. In fact, even the family treatment approach departs from most other addictions in one major way: separation from resources. It is recommended that when a partner finds out about gambling debts, they separate the funds as much as possible and the non-custodial spouse takes full control of the money – debit cards, credit cards, salary – before they too are swallowed up in a downward spiral of debt and cannot stop it. The rate of loss adds to the treacherous nature of this particular one addiction.
In recent years, gambling has received an interesting makeover. Today it is known as a game. Video game-like apps allow for seamless phone betting and joining bets with others. It all seems so easy, normal and fun. For a great history of this slow and methodical rebranding, see Danny Fant Everybody Loses: The Turbulent Rise of American Sports Gambling.
Jody Bechtold, LCSW, ICGC-II, BACC, is a game addiction expert and co-author A Guide to Treating Gaming Disorder: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals. In the course I recently completed to renew my clinical license, I saw my experience validated in his book and felt a more mature sadness at my father’s stress and his inability.
Bechtold writes about the frequent mood swings the gambler/player exhibits, including irritability, restlessness, or anxiety. He notes that these often occur when individuals try to reduce or stop gambling. I have seen this also happen when money is lost in significant amounts or when the appreciation of profits is not received with the same enthusiasm as the individual.
Another characteristic I have noticed in people who gamble or play is how they withdraw from their loved ones and suddenly leave the room to be alone, perhaps to check their scores or investments, to see how their bets are doing and whether they have won or lost. My dad spent a lot of time on the phone or away and probably had long drives to work, but who knows?
In 2021, researchers in International Journal of Environmental and Public Health Research “that the behavioral experience of gambling is itself a dynamic experience of events in a time series in which gamblers are anchored on recent events—typically small losses or rare wins.” They note that “it is highly adaptive, but erroneous, decision making the mechanism where anchor in recent events, psychological images of significant and accumulated losses in the past are changed to expressions of insignificant losses. In other words, people feel better when they gamble.”
In Magazine to Experimental analysis of behavior, The researchers note that even if a long streak of losses precedes a win, the gambler will see their value. “With this restructuring, even games with an (objectively) negative expected value, such as casino games, can be subjectively positive. The greater the delay discount, the greater the subjective value of the gamble (over the normal range of the discount slope). Frequent gamblers who rate the gamble more often discount it again than expected non-gamblers.”
Both studies confirm my understanding that even when my father was losing, he believed that he could eventually win. This is not based on reality – for example, we were almost homeless – but on the “condition”, the hope and genuine desire that he would do better; that he wins. It’s amazing how it lightened his mood, but only temporarily. He had no real agency in the matter, so the good feeling was tied to victory.
Addiction is important to read
We live in a society with free will and capitalism with hollow guards. I sometimes wonder if my father were alive now, what he would do with a cell phone and the apps that provide a direct line to the high promise of winning.
Fate intervened. He died at the age of 74 with an upward trend. Cell phones were rare at that time. And his balance was positive.
I don’t know what would have happened if I had lived longer.
