A gambling addict
 

One of our new friends came over, all weepy and want to talk to MrsWD. Over the 2 years we've lived here she and her husband have become friends, not really close friends but we talk and help each other a lot. She revealed that Mr Neighbor is a gambling addict.
I saw signs, but I only realized what they meant in retrospect. I knew Mr Neighbor drove an hour down to a river casino in Indiana about once a month. I didn't think anything about it. I have a hobby of betting on football games.
She's a fairly high earner and he is unemployed, and I thought it odd that they do not commingle their money (he has his and she has hers). Being unemployed and broke I've seen him ask her for money to buy a pack of cigarettes. A pack is $7 and change and she gives him $8. Why not give him $100 a week or something and let him manage his own money? Now I know why.
Turns out the guy is an addict, spending money he doesn't have on playing cards in the casino. She laid out a list of things he's done to get money over the years - selling stuff, stealing stuff, selling stuff and claiming it was stolen to collect the insurance, etc. Every time he gets a few bucks he heads to the casino and blows it or hits big and goes back the next week and blows it. This year when doing her taxes she learned he cashed in a $17000 IRA early without telling her and blew it all at the casino. Tax and penalty was nearly $6000. That's a $6k hit that she had not budgeted for. She is pretty upset, but says this is just another episode in a long history of his stupid behavior. She's a good woman and I used to think the was a good man - I don't know what to think of him now. I used to like gambling myself, and taking $1000 to Vegas with my friends once a year was a fun vacation for me. I still bet on line on football during the season. It's fun if you stay within your budget, but I don't understand the addiction part.

Frightening.

I can understand alcoholics, but gambling addicts. that's really weird.

Gambling is very common in the pool world. As is gambling addiction. There was a recent video I watched...one of Canada's best players, placed in a tournament, but not winning. He won $5,000...not long after winning it, he lost it. On a coin flip! Some twisted code calls that "showing heart", to gamble big. It's not. It's gambling addiction.

(edit) Found the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFeaLbcJHl4

Ever noticed how often someone says that after spending time in a casino town, they broke even or came home a little ahead? Yeah, right...

I lost my shirt on my 21st birthday weekend in Reno. Had a long drive home to think about it. Winners didn't build all that glitz...losers did.

Yes, gambling addiction is an illness...one that can ruin a life as easily as alcohol or drugs.

It's an addiction. I don't understand it but I don't really understand the others either. She's enabled this over this years by allowing him to get this far down the rabbit hole and not bailing. It sounds like she's kept most of their finances separate but that won't likely help during a divorce depending on the laws in your state. Sucks for her. Her life won't get better until she draws a line in the sand and leaves. He may get his life back on track, he may not. She needs to go live hers.

Addiction is an illness. Can be drugs, drink, sex, gambling, shopping... Different manifestations but the same sickness at the core. Sad and destructive. Hope the fellow can be helped, but like any form of addiction - recovery requires that the addict wants to get better.

Hate hearing stories like this as they often do not end well. Disease just like alcoholism, Until he admits/accepts that he has a problem, he will continue on this trajectory which likely will not end well for him or his family. Cashing in $17,000 without discussion says the problem is very serious.
Have a friend who discovered that his now ex wife went through almost a quarter million gambling; savings, investments, college fund. None of us had a clue until it hit the fan.

Her fault for enabling his behavior.
Should have left him.

Watch "Uncut Gems" for another example of gambler behavior
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Tragic story. I went to a casino once, lost $7.00. Went home. Not for me. It did not take me long to see this was a way to get rid of money.

A great movie that lays out exactly what a gambling addiction is all about.
The character in the movie destroys the relationships that matter the most in life for the next thrill.

It's not about the money, it's about putting it all on the line. The "risk" is the thing he craves.
The whole way through the movie I had a feeling of dread because you knew it wasn't going to end well.

I have sympathy for anyone dealing with addiction.
BUT I won't support it or enable it. I did that for 10 years with my ex wife who was an alcoholic.
She wasn't wen I married her but at about the 7 year mark it started to become a problem.
Have you ever woken up in your bed that is wet because your partner was so drunk she just let go?
After about the fifth time it starts to wear really thin.

Never easy but she should probably leave him. He’s demonstrating irrational and dangerous behavior. I’m not one who believes everything is a syndrome of some kind. Nope...this is his fault and should be recognized and dealt with. If not...she should go.

You’re in a tough spot because they confided this and you’re not close enough to exercise tough love. At a minimum, counseling of some kind as a precursor to divorce.

I don't understand gambling addiction, but I've seen it, and it's ugly.

I got laid off in 2001 and got a temporary job working at a "game room" that was attached to a bingo hall. The games were electronic slots. People would spend real money to play, and since gambling isn't legal here, they would win gift certificates to then play bingo or occasionally, prepaid cards for target. Lots of folks played bingo, and quite a few played the slots in between morning and evening bingo or after evening bingo. They'd spend a lot of money, it was crazy.

Humans operate on a mental model of how the world works. The gambler carries a very flawed model.

Casinos and States (lotto) prey on and reinforce this flawed mental model.

If not for gambling, professional sports would be much less popular and the XFL would never have gotten off the ground (again).

After that, most addictions start as escapes from reality...not long before reality becomes even more unbearable.

The irony is he was a counselor and a lot of his clients were drug addicts! He has two brothers who are also heavy gamblers and probably addicts themselves.

I don't believe I've ever met a gambling addict (that I knew of) but I've met a couple of professional gamblers. I guess the only difference is how much you win vs. lose.

It is a sickness.

Question is, how to address it?

She tries to address it by not letting him have any of the marital assets except for specific things and specific amounts. He has about burned through everything that he can access. I guess his retirement account was all he had left. This does not prevent him from stealing, etc of course.

All addictions are the same relative to the adrenaline rush and escape from reality. I know from experience. Also there is a common thread of something driving that behavior. Some people never get low enough to want to heal from that......ever. I used to have a close friend that was addicted to pills, specifically opioids. His job, his wife enabled it to this day.

All very sad really. Until she holds him accountable and he agrees to seek real professional help nothing will change and that's the unfortunate part. Life is short.

He will be onto the next thing. Addictions need feeding and if not fed, tend to be substituted then fed with the substitute. It's an ugly cycle that almost always takes the addict and everyone connected to their ship to the bottom.

My dad took 1M 1985 dollars and squandered it on booze, cigarettes, houses, slot machines and stock brokers. He died on food stamps.

Gambling addiction can be worse than drugs. You cannot shoot $300k worth of drugs into your arm in one day but losing that much in Vegas is a piece of cake. :(