Problem Gambling Quotes

“Do this. Right now, while you are thinking clearly and can prepare positively (sound familiar?) make a list of all the excuses that you use to justify your gambling. You know them all too well. Keep the list handy, memorize it. Tell yourself that when your addiction is cramming any one of those excuses into your brain, that this is the trigger to get you to pause, go back, and figure out why this is happening. What were the emotions? What were the thoughts that caused the emotions? What thoughts would your better-self have had instead?”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Mindfulness will play a prominent role in learning how to derail your urge to go to the casino.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“I want to address something here specifically about the intersection of mindfulness and slot machine addiction. Remember that mindfulness is a practice that helps you be in the present, that helps you shut off the guilt and shame of the past and shut out the thoughts of fear and anxiety about the future. Mindfulness asks us to live in the present because the present is the only thing we can control.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Compulsive slot machine playing, i.e., sitting on that ugly stool, pushing that stupid button for eight hours without a break, does the same thing as mindfulness! Mindfulness asks us to be acutely aware of our current surroundings, of the sights and sounds right in front of us. I can think of no activity, including mindful meditation, that has us slot machine addicts focused so intently on the sights and sounds in the present moment as when we compulsively play a slot machine. And while most people can meditate for several minutes (some even up to an hour or more), us slot machine addicts can push that button for many hours without a break, all the while very mindfully aware of the present sights and sounds. This is why the treatment professionals call slot machine addiction "escape gambling". This is why those evil machines have such a hold on us. When we sit down on that stool pushing that button, we know we will enter another world, a world outside of our day-to-day existence, outside of that day-to-day world that is too often full of confusing and painful thoughts. In the slot machine world, our focus becomes completely involved with the machine - the visuals, the sounds, the anticipation of a win. There is no room what-so-ever for any other thought to intrude into our consciousness. We are totally in the present (for however long it takes to lose all our money). Mindfulness by machine addiction.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“If you can eliminate the need for escaping from your negative thoughts, you can eliminate the need to gamble. Make that your quest.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Addicted gamblers carry a substantial burden of shame and guilt. Unlike most other addictions and disorders, gambling most often is done in secret; and in order to keep their addiction secret, gamblers will lie, deceive, and steal. Not only are they ashamed about gambling, and losing money, they are even more shamefully about all the lies and deceptions that they constantly need to employ with their family and friends.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Unlike most other addictions and disorders, gambling most often is done in secret.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“I would assert, and I know this personally from years of living with it, that the shame of not being able to quit, of being too weak to stop, of being unable to do the right thing, unable to do the thing that everyone else that I know could easily do - that weakness, that level of shame changes your life. You can deal with the financial losses, and you can even deal with the lies (they have a short half-life, either you get away with it, or you apologize and say you won't do it again). But the shame, guilt, and loss of respect for yourself when you can't make yourself stop, that awful sinkhole of personal failure, never goes away.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“At some point in the recovery process, the addicted gambler will learn that they have an addiction, that their brain has been compromised by their gambling behavior, and that it is now preventing them from stopping that behavior. That knowledge will help a little to reduce the shame. The problem that still exists is that your friends and family likely don't know you have an addiction, or they don't really understand what that means. You know that they are judging you, you still feel the helplessness of that judgment, and yet you still don't really understand why you can't stop. It gets even worse. In order to justify your new reality that you can't quit, that you have an addiction, the thing that will irrefutably prove your inability to quit, and that will show to others that you do, in fact, have an addiction, is to continue to gamble. You can then say with confidence to your therapist or family, I have an addiction! I went to the casino again, I can't stop. Because if I do simply stop, I wouldn't have this inability to stop. My addiction excuse would disappear, and I would have to go back to knowing that I'm stupid and weak and immoral for all the gambling I have done. So, in order to not feel weak, stupid and immoral, I'll run with that addiction idea and just keep on gambling! This is where Dr. Linehan's concept of Radical Acceptance can be very powerful for addicted gamblers. It is a way out of the negative spiral described in the previous paragraphs. Don't get stuck in the guilt and shame cycle. Accept that those things are in your past, cannot be changed, and need to be understood simply as what you've done, not who you are. Then you can move on to finding solutions for your goal of changing future behavior, for your goal of living a gambling free life.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Do not confuse acceptance (or forgiveness) with "acceptable". What we have done - the gambling, lies, deceptions, etc. - is not acceptable. Radical acceptance simply means that yes, you did all those things. You gambled and lied and deceived - all of that happened, and you now accept your prior behavior as fact. Beyond acceptance comes forgiveness.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Most of us are compassionate people. We are often compassionate to others, but seldom with ourselves. Do you think it might be time, as you work toward your recovery, to forgive yourself? What would that mean to you? Could that possibly free you up and give you strength to focus on your future in a more positive fashion?”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“In the 12-step program, the reason you are successful in recovery is because you stopped trying to impose your willpower on your addiction and have instead turned your recovery over to a higher power. But if our personal willpower is unable to conquer our addiction, then how do you explain all the people who are in long-term recovery who don’t believe in a higher power? How did they recover? Fortunately, there are many paths to dealing with addiction that don’t involve a higher power.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to understand, fight and ultimately defeat your urge to go gamble. Here’s a bold statement: If you can win these battles, you will stop gambling. What would happen if every time you got that strong urge to go gamble you fought it, wrestled it to the ground, stomped on its throat till it croaked and then kicked it into the gutter? Seriously, how fun would that be? How good would that feel?”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Think of the 10,000 suicide victims last year who might still be alive today if they had won that battle with their urge on their fateful day. Believe this: This next urge might be your life-or-death battle. You need to win it. Prepare. Arm yourself. Fight as if your life depended on it. Because it does. What follows are your weapons in this fight.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Urges are a normal part of your recovery. They will always be with you in one form or another. Just as what we are instructed to do during mindful meditation, when we have thoughts, and we accept them just as thoughts, and then we let them pass, simply accept the urge as an urge and as something that is normal during your recovery, and then mindfully allow it to slip away. Urges have a very short half-life — they will lose their power over you in less than a half-hour. Know that it will pass if you can just wait a while.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“You experience an urge (as I have been all week while writing this chapter), then you step back, both metaphorically and literally, and say to yourself, “I’m having an urge that makes me want to go gamble.” Then you pause. Then you again step away a few more paces and say to yourself, “Now I’m noticing that I’m having a thought that creates an urge and makes me want to go gamble.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“The more you can separate yourself from your addiction, the better you will be able to apply the many ideas in this book. CBT, mindfulness, DBT, acceptance, self-compassion. All these techniques require a degree of separation between you and your addiction. Work on that separation. It is important.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“There are a lot of tools out there that can make it possible for you to limit your ability to have cash. You can get a credit card that doesn't work in casinos, you can have a close friend handle your bank accounts, you can hire a trusted payee, you can buy a timed safe, and you can voluntarily exclude yourself from all the nearby casinos. If you have the strength and commitment, it is theoretically possible to make it so you can never have cash in your pocket. Theoretically possible, yes, but unlikely. We addicted gamblers, when we are in heat, seem always to be able to find a way to acquire cash. We will use pawn shops, steal, embezzle, and borrow (while lying) from friends. Please understand what financial controls can and can't do. They can help you to resist or postpone a trip to the casino, "Damn...my husband's wallet has only thirty-five dollars in it, not enough...". They can limit the amount of damage you incur when you do go to the casino, "Sorry sir, this credit card will not work here." But, if financial controls are your only plan, or the primary plan that you have for treating your addiction, not only will this probably not work, you might be setting yourself or your loved one up for even more serious trouble. If the addict feels the need to gamble strongly enough, and if the addict does not have any other tools to fight that powerful urge except a temporary lack of cash, guess what they will do? My guess is, they will "get cash" by whatever means they can.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“You should never rely on financial controls alone to stop you from gambling. Think of them as a secondary tool, like getting good exercise or meditation. They can help by putting up barriers that can cause you to pause, and then be able to work on your “urge warfare” skills, or they can simply give you more time and separation from your urge. But in the end, they are unlikely to stop an addicted gambler with an overwhelming urge to gamble and with no skills to fight that urge. The addiction will find a way.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“When the magnitude of these losses by the addict is discovered, the spouse, or partner, or parent, or whoever else is vulnerable to losing their own money because of the addicted loved one, needs to take actions immediately. The NCPG website has an excellent section on all the precautions a loved one needs to take to segregate and protect their assets from the gambler. If you are in that “significant other” category, do not be shy about doing this. Do not feel guilty about imposing financial controls and protection for yourself and family, you are doing the addict a favor, and maybe even saving their life.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“As we addicted gamblers plunge into our addiction, and as we see and know how much financial damage we are doing to our family and friends, our despair, shame, and guilt multiply. All too often this leads to suicidal thoughts and actions. Therefore, the sooner you can keep family assets safe from the gambler, the less likely you will have to deal with the horrifying aftermath of their death.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“If you are the significant other, there is one more thing you should do - check carefully to see if the addict has taken out, or recently increased, a life insurance policy. If they have, then you know what that means. They are considering (or planning) a suicide. You must figure out an appropriate way to intervene. I can’t help you with that - just get help from a therapist, loved one, priest, and do whatever you can (quickly) in a thoughtful way that won’t make things worse.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Often when the problem gambler decides to gamble, they will plan to do it “responsibly”. They will get a set amount of cash and intend to leave when that amount is lost. I have used exactly this plan approximately a million times—basically every time I’ve gone to the casino. The problem with that plan is that after I’ve lost my allotted amount, I don’t want to quit gambling. By that I mean I desperately want to keep playing. I will walk around the casino looking for cash on the floor (you would be surprised how many times I find bills down there), I’ll collect two cent tickets until I have enough to get a dollar bill. I’ll go out to the car and scrounge for change on the floor or in the ash tray. That’s how desperate the addicted gambler gets when they are physically in the casino, staring at the machines, and unable to play because they are out of money.

If I do have any credit cards in my wallet that have available cash advance amounts, I will take that card to the cage and get whatever the maximum allowable cash advance. Often that amount is a thousand or more dollars. This scenario is played out by every addicted slot machine player that I have ever known, over and over again. If I went to the casino with $300 in my pocket, knowing that was all I could afford, by getting an advance I could easily walk out having lost $2,300. It is precisely that unanticipated failure of my plan, that now unmanageable loss, the confusion, shame, and despair of my weakness, that leads to the sudden and unexpected impulse to commit suicide. This is why restricting cash advances from your credit card is so important.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Credit card advances at the casino are perhaps the biggest indicator that you have a serious gambling addiction. They are the last resort to get cash after you have spent the money you brought with you, then maxed out your debit card at the ATM, then cashed checks and emptied your checking account.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“This is the part that you non-addicts cannot relate to: After the money is gone, the addict is overwhelmingly desperate to keep gambling. The brain juices are flowing. You are in the casino, you have made the drive, you have broken all the barriers you have put up to protect yourself, you have already been gambling for hours, and now you are staring at the machine you were just playing. And you are certain that your machine is about to pay off, big time. But most of all, you just want to keep playing. You must keep playing! And the only thing you need is more money.

So, you tip your chair forward to keep others from stealing your machine, and you hustle over to the device that authorizes a credit card advance. You figure out how much cash you might be able to get, and you go up to the cage where the casino guy hands over the last bit of money that you have access to.

Then, after several more hours of messing-up-your-brain button-pushing, you stand up, broke, despairing, angry, disoriented, and you stumble out to your car. This is the moment when the impulse to commit suicide washes over you. This is the moment I’ve asked you all to prepare for. The cash advance is all too often the tipping point.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“It is possible to turn over all your finances to a third party who will receive your paycheck, pay your bills and then give you a small allowance for spending money each week. This person or company is called a 'representative payee.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“Us addicted gamblers are experts at lying and deception. If faced with a choice of going gambling when we really want to or lying to a friend - we will lie.”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“In some ways, the decision to voluntarily exclude yourself from all the casinos in your area is a litmus test as to how committed you are to your recovery. By doing this you can be proud of yourself and encouraged that you can stop gambling. It is a very positive step. Do it. You are worth it!”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“If the compulsive gambler desperately wants to keep gambling, and they are cut off from their own funds, they may resort to more drastic means. The options then become pawn shops, stealing, embezzlement, even bank robbery (I've been in treatment (or meetings) with two bank robbers).”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.

“There is a chicken and egg problem with gamblers and depression; do they gamble because they are depressed, or are they depressed because they gamble?”
― Kurt Dahl, Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.