The price to play

Carla* sold all her furniture and then began stealing to ‘feed her kids’. Only her ‘kids’ were the pokie machines she had developed an addiction to, which she hated, but just could not break.

Carla began playing the pokies when she became the sober driver for her husband. ‘He was an abusive, violent alcoholic and drug user and he lost his licence on multiple occasions, but of course he still wanted to go to the pub every night. So he’d give me $60 or $70 and say, “Go play those pokies and I will come and get you when I’m ready to go home”.’

The pokie machine room soon became a sanctuary.

‘They give you free eats, free tea and coffee, there are no lights and there’s nice quiet music. It was a safe haven from the violence, with friends without commitments who sympathized with me for my bruises, black eyes and broken bones.’

After almost a decade she managed to escape her husband, but not the gambling. ‘The first place I went to meet friends was down to the pokie room.’  

Not Alone

Carla was now firmly among the 2.5 per cent of Kiwis who gamble harmfully. It seems like a small number till Chris Watkins, manager of The Salvation Army’s Oasis gambling harm support service in Dunedin, adds some perspective:  

‘I did some research and found that 0.7 per cent of people are injured in motor vehicle accidents and have to go to hospital. So you’re four times more likely to have a gambling problem as to be in a serious car crash.’
About five per cent of Kiwis are regular gamblers, gambling at least once a week, meaning a large proportion of regular gamblers end up in trouble, he adds.

Most, like Carla, get hooked through the pokies—50 per cent of Kiwis who seek help for gambling say their main gambling is on pokies. The next biggest cause is gambling at the races or casino tables (10 per cent each) and through lotto or casino pokies (nine per cent each).

In New Zealand, pokies tend to be targeted at poorer communities. A higher proportion of Māori and Pasifika people also end up seeking help for harmful gambling. However, it’s not a poor, brown problem Chris says, they just have the misfortune of being more exposed to gambling, especially pokies.

‘It doesn’t matter if you’re a banker, a teacher, or someone on a benefit, if you play the pokies enough they will get you. What we’re seeing is that the biggest risk factor is people who believe going to the casino is no different to taking the dog for a walk or going to the cinema.’

Auckland Oasis Public Health Worker Sara Woodward agrees, saying their clients include business managers, nurses and teachers. ‘We have, on occasion, seen someone who’s had problems with investing and stock market trading, so we get a wide range of clients.’  

A high price

Gambling is an expensive pastime–Kiwis gamble more than $2 billion dollars a year, an average of $5.7 million a day. For Carla, who was gambling every day, it was especially expensive now she was using her own money.
She began to buy and sell on items from garage sales and Trade Me and got a second job, but was barely keeping up. It was exhausting and shameful, and her few wins just fuelled the desire to go back.

‘I tried to stop. Every time I’d go into a pub and lose all my money I’d be so angry with myself, and then the next day I’d go back and do it again. I despised myself; I had become a loner, no self-esteem. I let myself go in looks, dress and personal hygiene. I hated myself so much I tried to commit suicide.’

Fortunately, she was found and then placed in a mental health facility for six months. Throughout, she had severe withdrawals. ‘I could still hear my machines calling me,’ she says.

Carla’s story is typical of gambling addiction, Sara says. While some people feel gambling is not an addiction, gamblers get all the same effects of a high as alcohol or drug addicts, from elevated heart rate to the same chemicals flooding the brain, she says.

It can take hours for gamblers to come down from the rush, Sara says. And a pokie machine only takes four seconds to stop spinning, so a gambling addict can get more hits, faster. Pokies are also programmed to do things like giving small wins (less than you put in the machine) or putting winning combinations close to what you bet and highlighting them to make you feel like a win is close—encouraging you to keep playing.

‘We have people who talk about how when they shut their eyes they see the reels spinning and hear the noises the machines make. So they have a really strong pull on someone,’ Sara says.

It’s a feeling Carla knows well: ‘A lot of people think you should be able to turn away, but it’s hard. I used to hear the machines calling to me, saying, “Feed me, feed me”. I used to refer to them as my kids. I’d have to go over and feed Jack every day, because there was a Jack and the Beanstalk themed one at the place I’d play.’

Rock bottom

When she was released from the mental health unit Carla went straight back to gambling. She got a job near three pubs with pokies—where she would play every lunch time and after work till the pubs closed.
Carla had moved to Wellington and although she had been associated with Salvation Army churches in other places, the corps where she was living had closed down. She found herself drifting away from church just as she reached her lowest moment.

She sold most of her possessions, including all her furniture, to pay for her addiction and had begun stealing from her employer, which fuelled her shame and self-loathing.

‘I felt so guilty I couldn’t look at my bosses in the eyes. I felt I had THIEF tattooed on my forehead for all to see. I suffered from ulcers, heartburn and poor health to the point of needing surgery.’

The wider impact

While the effects of harmful gambling are devastating on the gambler, the impacts go much wider. Studies estimate between five and 10 other people are affected by harmful gambling.

When staff began screening Salvation Army foodbank clients in Manukau for harmful gambling they found 40 per cent were affected by their own or someone else’s gambling, Sara says.  Families can be left unable to buy groceries, behind on their rent or mortgage, or losing personal possessions that a gambler has sold.

Some addicts, like Carla, are driven to steal—and gambling is the second leading cause of fraud in New Zealand. There is also a huge emotional toll, adds Sara.

‘It can have quite terrible effects on relationships. Gamblers know there’s a stigma and they’re ashamed, so they will often lie about what they’re gambling. The lies build up and eventually, when it all comes out, it’s often the lies that do the most harm.’

Because of this, in addition to helping gamblers, Oasis offers help to any ‘significant other’ who has been affected. They work with everyone from family and friends to the people who have been stolen from.
Carla stole from her work for three years before she quit and moved away to stop herself. Not long after the police came knocking on her door and within five days she was declared bankrupt, then charged with theft.

‘I had to move in with my son. That was the hardest part, to explain to my family about my addiction and theft.’  

Recovery in chains

Carla had begun going to her nearest Salvation Army corps and she confided in her corps officer who referred her to Recovery Church. There she met Recovery Church founders Majors Merilyn and Kevin Goldsack. ‘Merrilyn took me under her wing and I confessed all my sins, low self-esteem and self-hatred before the cross and wept.’

In court she immediately pleaded guilty and was sent to prison for over two years. ‘In prison they have help for the alcoholics and people on drugs, but nothing for gamblers, so I made a stink. I said, “I’m in here because of addiction, what have you got for me?” They got together with The Salvation Army and arranged for a person to come and see me.’

After that, an Oasis staff member began visiting Carla weekly for counselling. Her Recovery Church community also sent her letters, jokes, books and other support and she worked with the prison chaplain doing Bible studies inside.

Without Oasis, the Salvation Army support and her newfound faith she would probably still be behind bars Carla says, but she insists being sent to prison was a good thing.  

‘Prison was the best thing that happened to me. I went in as a bitter, angry woman, but inside I found many others had been sexually abused in childhood and had been beaten and threatened and unloved—I wasn’t the only victim in the world—many others had very similar backgrounds. I left prison as a new, changed woman; full of hope and faith, love and peace and contentment.’  

Finding an Oasis

Like Carla, most clients wait years before they seek help, Chris says.

Although some are referred to Oasis from probation, Salvation Army food banks and other addiction centres, most refer themselves, he says. When they call, a staff member meets them for an assessment, to make a treatment plan. Treatment is usually weekly one-on-one counselling. Some clients have one session, some stay for years, but most do eight sessions on average, Chris says.

They’re also encouraged to be part of a peer group that meets regularly. Often, clients tell Chris he’s the first person they’ve ever shared their story with and being part of a group is useful in helping them understand they’re not alone. People with gambling addiction are often isolated, and the group helps them stay accountable and get back into the community.

A smaller number of clients also take out an exclusion order, banning them from places with gambling. They work with staff like Chris and Sara getting the orders in place with pubs or casinos who then have a legal obligation to refuse them service.

Many clients have wider issues that contribute to their gambling, such as relationship problems or mental health issues and Oasis work with clients on those issues as well. That variety of people and the joy of seeing their lives change has kept him going over 12 years at Oasis, Chris says. And he also gets energised by the work Oasis does in the community, where public health workers partner with businesses and community groups to teach them about spotting and preventing harmful gambling.

That community work can include supporting other Salvation Army groups. Sara recently organised training for staff at Epsom Lodge supportive accommodation unit on gambling and screening for gambling related harm and she’s encouraging other corps and centres to get in touch. Or it can range to organisations like the Dunedin banks Chris has been working with. Banks are in a unique position to see issues with people’s finances, he says.

‘So, instead of denying them loans so they go over the road to the finance company, they can refer them to us or to budgeting advice.’

The public health workers also raise awareness of the harm gambling does. Gambling has a strong hold in New Zealand, because by law gambling money has to be given back to the community. Many sports clubs and cultural groups rely on funding from trusts giving out gambling money, leading some to argue it’s an important part of New Zealand society.

However, not all the money has to go back. Casinos keep all their money, clubs and pubs only have to give back 40 per cent of the money put into their pokies and Lotto can set its own targets, Sara says. For example, in 2013/14, Kiwis spent $988 million on lotto, but it gave $231 million to the Lottery Grants Board to go back to the community.

The majority of the money also doesn’t go back to the communities it came from, Sara says. Most goes to groups who can afford a dedicated person with a high level of skill and knowledge of the system to fill out regular grant application forms. While parliament is looking at changing the law to try and improve that system, it remains a ‘totally unimaginative way to fund a community, through something that does so much harm,’ Chris says.

After being released from prison, Carla moved back in with her son and now works part-time in a retirement home. Recovery is a never ending process, she says. Every time she hears a pokie machine she feels the pull of her addiction, but she finds strength in her faith and her soldiers’ oath not to gamble. Recovery Church has also been a key part of rebuilding her life, she says.

‘The shame is still with me. Anywhere I go I look around to see if anybody knows me, who might say, “Hey, there’s that lady who did all that stuff”. But at Recovery Church everybody accepts you as you are.’

Along with being an active soldier in her corps, she is trying to use her experiences to help others by helping to set up a gambling support group in a nearby town and being part of her corps’ prison outreach team.

*Name changed

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as told to Robin Raymond (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 30 April 2016, pp 5-6
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.