When the first of Joliet’s two riverboat casinos docked there in 1992, Linda Smith, a 47-year-old mother of two grown children, boarded it with her husband for an entertaining evening of gambling.
The colorful lights, the jingle of coins cascading from slot machines and the rush of excitement that comes with winning were nothing but harmless diversions for Smith’s husband.
“But for me it became an obsession,” said Smith, who preferred not to use her real name for this story.
Smith is one of 20 people who have participated in a gambling addiction program begun in 1996 at St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet.
Smith hasn’t gambled for nearly a year, but her addiction already had taken a heavy toll when she sought help. At her lowest point, Smith, who lives in the southwest suburbs, said she visited the gambling boats three or four nights a week.
“I would get on those boats, and I wouldn’t want to leave,” she said. “I’d go all night long and then shower and go to work.”
Smith, who works in the medical field, said that for several years she didn’t think that her gambling addiction was harmful.
“I really didn’t think I was in trouble,” she said, “because gamblers will tell themselves every time, `This is the time I’m going to hit the big one.’ “
Although she won jackpots worth thousands of dollars, Smith couldn’t take her winnings and walk away. As her debts mounted, so did her anxiety. She maxed out credit cards, borrowed money from relatives and wrote checks that bounced.
“One day, I came off the boat and I had written a check for $5,000 (to the casino). I knew I couldn’t cover it,” she said. “I couldn’t tell my husband. I knew he’d be furious. I started planning my suicide.”
Fortunately, Smith found the courage to call her husband. On the recommendation of a doctor, Smith turned to the medical center’s gambling addiction program for help.
Thoughts of suicide are not uncommon among compulsive gamblers, said Christopher Anderson, executive director of the Illinois Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling.
Anderson recently conducted a study of 184 compulsive gamblers in the Chicago area and found that 79 percent had experienced feelings of wanting to die, 50 percent had made a definite plan for how they would kill themselves and 16 percent had attempted suicide.
Anderson said compulsive gambling is like an illness that runs an inevitable course ending in deep despair or even death.
“I consider it a disease in the sense that it has a clear set of symptoms,” he said. “It has a progression and a predictable outcome.”
Smith began to alter the course of her compulsion when she acknowledged that she needed help. It is a first step that many people find very difficult to take, said Kim Fifer, clinical supervisor for the St. Joseph’s substance abuse program, which oversees the gambling addiction program.
Fifer said many people are embarrassed to admit they have a problem and may go to a hospital or social services center outside their community when they seek help. Often, compulsive gamblers are jailed before they find help because they resort to theft or other crimes to finance their habit, Anderson said.
Although state law requires the gaming industry to support efforts to publicize and treat compulsive gambling, Anderson said the problem is not as well-known as addictions to drugs or alcohol. An $8,000 grant from Harrah’s River Casino paid for the training of the five counselors who treat gambling addictions at St. Joseph.
Fifer said the program is integrated as part of the hospital’s efforts to treat substance abuse because gambling is similar to other addictions, such as to cocaine.
“At great moments of risk, the brain chemicals (in compulsive gamblers) go up,” Fifer said. “People who play the fast action (gaming) tables get a rush. Then they need even greater feelings of risk to feel normal.”
People who play the slots, as Smith did, “go into something like a trance. It’s like a narcotic,” Fifer said.
Indeed, Smith said she often wouldn’t speak to anyone after she boarded the riverboats.
“I could be there 24 hours straight and not talk to anyone,” she said. “I’d block everything out.”
Enrolling in the addiction program was a release from that self-imposed isolation, Smith said.
The first four weeks of the hospital’s treatment program are intense. Because of the risk of suicide, patients are usually hospitalized for the first three to four days of the 12-week outpatient program.
“A person who has stopped gambling is at high risk of committing suicide for the first 72 hours,” Fifer explained. “The (brain) chemicals that go up (during gambling) come crashing down.”
The hospital assesses the patient’s gambling problem and looks for other factors that may play a role, for example, a concurrent problem such as depression, Fifer explained. The patient’s overall health also is evaluated.
“Many people neglect their health while they are gambling,” Fifer said. “They don’t eat or they don’t take their medication. They are too preoccupied with gambling.”
One-on-one counseling and group therapy sessions also are part of the treatment.
The program helped Smith understand the everyday stresses that seemed to trigger her gambling.
“It helped me learn what caused my problem,” she said. “For me, gambling was an escape. It was a safe place where no one put any responsibility on me.”
Once a week, Smith’s husband also participated in therapy sessions.
“It helped him to see that I had recognized my problem,” she said. “Because I was helping myself, it helped our relationship.”
Treatment also can include a financial counselor to help a patient set up a budget and pay off debts. Counselor Mimi Kambric said gamblers are required to call creditors to make arrangements for repayment.
“We want them to take responsibility for their problem,” she said. “We want them to realize that their problem is most likely not going to be solved by gambling. If everybody was winning, then the riverboats would be out of business.”
Kambric is employed by the non-profit Family Counseling Agency of Joliet, part of the nationwide Consumer Credit Counseling Service. Patients referred by the medical center don’t pay a fee for budget preparation, and a maximum fee of $30 applies if the client takes part in a program to negotiate with creditors.
The fee for the medical center’s gambling addiction program is $2,500, and Fifer said that insurance sometimes will pay the fee, or the hospital can arrange a payment plan spanning two or three years.
Smith said the cost of the program was money well spent. She is working toward repaying debts that had totaled about $30,000. Twice a week, she attends Gamblers Anonymous meetings.
“That’s now my lifeline,” she said. “Everybody in that room is a gambler, and you’re not afraid to say what you’ve done (to keep gambling), and we all understand that feeling of compulsion.”
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For more information on St. Joseph Medical Center’s gambling addiction program, call 815-725-7233, ext. 3328. A nationwide helpline sponsored by the Casino Gaming Association, which represents casino owners, is at 1-800-522-4700.
