As the Lottery Commission considers requests next week to allow the addition of more than 1,800 new video slot machines in Rhode Island, a new gambling-addiction treatment program is bracing for more customers.
“Business is good,” said Robert Breen, a clinical psychologist and founder of the Rhode Island Hospital Gambling Treatment Program. Officially launched in mid-July, the state-funded program now has 30 patients and is enrolling two to three newcomers a week.
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The state Department of Health earlier this year allocated it first-ever funding to treat gambling addicts. Rhode Island Hospital’s share – $88,000 of a total $150,000 – is helping Breen and his colleague, Dr. Henry Lesieur, take patients full time, including people without insurance. The money also helps the program advertise and implement outreach programs.
But as legalized gambling proliferates – both in Rhode Island and across the state line – Breen says more services are needed to treat the problems it breeds.
“We need to acknowledge that as long as we have wide-open gambling, we’re going to have wide-open gambling problems,” Breen said, adding that the vast majority of people can have fun gambling without becoming addicted.
“It’s not a zero-sum game,” he said. “If you’re going to be in the gambling business, you need to offer (gambling addicts) something to help get their lives back on track. It’s good business and it is in everybody’s interest.”
Lincoln Greyhound Park and Newport Grand Jai Alai each have said they need additional machines to quell excess demand for certain games. Lincoln is requesting 1,300 new video lottery terminals (VLTs), which would bring its total to around 3,000. Newport wants 525 new machines.
VLTs have generated more than $500 million in revenue for the state since the legislature first approved them in 1993.
About 70 percent of Breen’s patients are hooked on VLTs. He said the games produce a “hypnotic effect” that allow users to bet several times a minute, sucking compulsive gamblers into a vicious cycle of reward and despair.
The rest of the program’s patients are addicted to casino games, sports betting and lottery and scratch-off tickets.
“The proximity, convenience and accessibility (of VLTs) is what gets people started,” Breen said. “Most of these people have no history of addiction.”
The average patient is in his or her mid-to-late 40s, often middle class, with a full-time job and family. Some have taken second jobs to subsidize gambling losses. Many who are approaching retirement age have drained IRA accounts and taken out second mortgages to cover debts, Breen said.
Most of his patients start gambling to relieve depression, boredom or the stress of financial obligations or marital problems.
“Gambling feels really good because it’s exciting and it takes away negative feelings and stress,” Breen said. “People get addicted to that feeling.”
They continue to reinforce those feelings until gambling becomes the only way they can feel good.
Take Ken MacGregor, a 60-year-old Pawtucket resident and retired engineer. He said a severe gambling compulsion cost him his career and almost took his life.
By his mid-40s, MacGregor had beaten alcoholism and a gambling addiction that had plagued him years earlier. After working his way up in an engineering firm he started his own consultancy business. He owned three homes and took frequent trips to Europe with his wife.
“By then, after 10 years without gambling, I figured I certainly could handle some sociable card playing with friends,” MacGregor said.
But a once-a-week game quickly turned into two nights a week, then trips to the dog track. Then “all hell broke loose” when he visited a casino in Atlantic City on a business trip. MacGregor said he found his passion at the craps table.
Soon he was making the 320-mile trip from Pawtucket to Atlantic City four to five times a week, rolling dice until daybreak. His business fell apart. “Eventually I said the hell with the business; it’s too slow,” MacGregor said. “I figured I would become a professional gambler.”
But the losses mounted, and soon he had tapped all his savings to support the addiction. He finally hit rock bottom after losing $60,000 during a one-week trip to Atlantic City.
“I was just emotionally whacked,” MacGregor said. “I had these insane thoughts, like thinking of robbing a bank. Normally, I wouldn’t steal a pack of gum, and there I was thinking about robbing a bank.” After contemplating suicide, he checked himself in to a three-week therapy program at a veteran’s hospital in Ohio. “Had I not gone there, I would have died,” said MacGregor, who says he hasn’t gambled since 1991.
Breen says gambling addictions commonly wreak havoc on people’s careers.
“It’s brutal,” he said. “The stress is tremendous, because they’re trying to hide their addiction from family, friends, their employer. They’re worried and preoccupied all day, and efficiency on the job is killed.”
Much like alcohol abuse or drug addiction, compulsive gambling is an issue employers cannot afford to ignore, Breen said
An average problem gambler costs his or her employer $1,300 a month in absenteeism, low productivity and theft or embezzlement, according to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Roughly one-third of pathological gamblers have stolen money from their employers, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling.
“It’s difficult for employers to detect, because gambling is relatively easy to hide compared to drug or alcohol problems,” Breen said.
Part of the program’s treatment hinges on replacing the space in people’s lives that is filled by gambling, which tends to push all other priorities aside. But for pathological gamblers that spend almost all their time gambling, that’s a tall order.
“When they take gambling out of their life, people feel like they’ve lost their best friend,” Breen said. “There’s this huge void.” He encourages patients to fill that void with “pleasant, positive activities.”
Another key is avoiding what Breen calls gambling triggers: keys that can prompt addicts to gamble. These can include talking to someone about a “big hit,” or even seeing a commercial for a casino or hearing about a big Powerball jackpot.
To reach the Rhode Island Gambling Treatment Program, call (401) 277-0707.
