The Face of Addiction

Beating the odds: Two women offer insight into problem gambling By Faye Trafford Editor's note: As National Problem Gambling Awareness month comes to a close, Donna Zaharevitz of Windsor Locks and Joan Masot of Newington recently visited the Grace offices to spread the message that for those who are struggling with gambling addiction, there is hope. Have you had ever one of those dreams where you had a special power? Maybe it was flying. Maybe it was the ability to use your mind to move objects or unlock doors. To heal someone or to stop time. Remember how realistic the dream was? How your mind raced ahead to how you would apply this gift; how you marveled at the difference it could make in your life and those of your loved ones? Compulsive gamblers say that in the grip of addiction, the mind is as delusional as this dream world. In the dream, you believe you can fly, so you keep trying to leave the ground. In life, you believe you will win, so you keep trying to win. Even though you keep losing. Even when the sky caves in. Donna's story In 2008, seven years into her recovery from gambling addiction, Donna Zaharevitz founded a weekly program for women problem gamblers incarcerated at the Janet S. York Correctional Institutions in Niantic. There's been a waiting list each year since. Gambling is socially acceptable, she says, and many people can set aside a few dollars a month to play the lottery, or leave the card table when their $20 runs out. But there are those who don't stop at $20, or $200, or when the checking account is drained and the cars are repossessed and the bank forecloses on the house. In the face of immense personal loss, the gambler still believes "this time" will be different; this time they will win or at least control their losses. The mission statement of Gamblers Anonymous calls "the persistence of this illusion ... astonishing," and the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling lists "returning to rational thinking" among the goals of treatment. Compulsive gamblers don't stop even when the dream of a big win comes true, and the chance to repair the damage is in their hands. "There's no end to it," Donna says. "You win $100 and think you can win $1,000, and on and on." She calls her one jackpot of $27,000, "the kiss of death." "That $27,000, which God knows why I insisted on taking in cash," she rolls her eyes at the memory, "cost me $200,000, when all was said and done. $200,000." There is no ready profile for who is likely to develop a gambling problem, no indicators for age, ethnicity or gender. "You couldn't pick me out of a crowd," Donna says. In her case the problem hid inside the life of a community-minded mother and wife, a successful purchasing agent, a woman who loved spending summers on the Rhode Island coastline. Society, she says, was slow to adopt the idea of compulsive gambling as an addiction similar to alcoholism or drug use. "The attitude is, it doesn't work that way," Donna said. "But it does. The only difference is the substance." The devastation it visits on addicts and their loved ones is the same: jobs are lost, relationships suffer, families are neglected, trust is destroyed. "By the time you realize you have a problem, you're in serious, serious trouble," Donna says. Trouble can mean hiding the mail so family members don't see the late notices, or taking out a P.O. box so the mail doesn't come to the house. It can also mean crimes like embezzlement, forgery and theft, committed when a gambler has exhausted their personal resources. "Once you are in the [legal] system, no one asks the question, 'do you have a gambling problem?'" Donna said. "And then the person gets classified as a thief, not someone who is sick." One of the goals of the program at York is to curb recidivism, which, in the long run she says, costs society more than treatment. "Incarceration is expensive. Then people get out, they can't find work, they can't make restitution to their victims." Donna's problems came to a head when she was arrested for forging stolen checks and sentenced to two years of probation in the late 1990s. A neighbor had asked her to watch her house while she was away. "I told her, 'sure, no problem,' " she recalls. "The idea of stealing from her didn't even enter my mind. But then I needed money to gamble. Because I didn't have a 'gambling' problem, I had a 'money' problem; there was never enough." When the police showed up on her doorstep a month later, she denied everything. Then they showed her footage of herself cashing the checks at the bank. That's when the sky caved in. "I had run for public office," she says. "We were known in the community. After my arrest, my family had to face the town." Friends withdrew. Her 36-year marriage crumbled. She attempted suicide three times. Even now, years into recovery, she hasn't recouped all of her losses. She has a son she is estranged from, and some grandchildren she doesn't see. Still, she says she is grateful to be alive. "If I was still gambling, I'd be incarcerated or dead. There's no question," she says. It's said that an addict has to hit bottom before they can commit to recovery. The bottom for Donna came when, driving home from a casino at 4 a.m., she fell asleep at the wheel and nearly slammed into the car in front of her. "I was trying to leave it all at the door — the courts, the divorce. I had been gambling for 48 hours straight. "I knew then how dangerous I was. I knew I couldn't live with myself if I killed someone else." She completed treatment through the Bettor Choices program and started volunteering on the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling hotline in 2002. She now works as a peer counselor at the Wheeler Clinic, a nonprofit, community-based behavioral health provider; and runs the weekly meeting for 12 women at York. That's where she met Joan. Joan's story Joan Masot has blond hair, blue eyes and a soft-spoken, gentle demeanor. She is quick to smile, and her voice fills with a feeling any mom would recognize, when she talks about her 16-year-old son. She and her second husband were married just a year ago and she has what she describes as a good job in human services, as a case manager for people with co-occurring mental health disorders. Her life now, she says, is a world away from the hopelessness of the days she lost to her addiction. It began in 1994 with social outings — getting together with friends or coworkers for bingo. But things "quickly, quickly, went out of control," she says. "I was buying instant tickets, playing slots, I would bet on anything that was bettable." As the money disappeared, she began hiding bills from her husband. Her marriage fell apart. Joan stopped gambling briefly after the divorce, but says that merely put the addiction on hold. "Because I stopped, I felt I didn't have a problem. In reality, I had lost a 16-year marriage, my home, our cars, and every bit of pride and hope I had ever had." When she started up again two years later, it was as if she had never stopped. "I was out of control again, like that," she says. "I was right back in that dream world." Eventually, she says, she ran out of money to fund her habit. In 2003, she was arrested and charged with embezzling from her then-employer. "When I was taking the money, I was convinced I was going to win and put double back the next morning," she takes a deep breath, "my stomach churns when I say that now. That is how sick I was. The intention is always, always to put it back. You think, 'I'm borrowing this money, and when I win, I'm going to fix all my mistakes.' "I thought when I won that I would make everything up to my son." Donna nods. "When I stole those checks, I stole deposit slips, too," she says. "Which sounds crazy. But you believe it at the time." Joan served a total of four years in the York Correctional Institution for women in Niantic. Her eyes well up as she talks about her elderly parents getting searched when they would visit her; about how she had to tell her son, nine years old at the time, that she was going away. "To a lot of people it makes no sense," Joan said. "I was 40 years old, and I had never even had a speeding ticket. The person I became was not the person I was raised to be. I wasn't a mom, I wasn't an HR person. I looked in the mirror and I did not know who I was." While in prison, her despair deepened. Believing her problem was hopeless, she searched for a reason to live. "I was so in fear of losing my son," she says, her voice breaking. "I never wanted, ever, to have to say goodbye to him. There were times when I was purely, purely hopeless. And parts of that are just indescribable." She says Donna, and the program, saved her life. "She came in, and she could relate, and she had been in our shoes. 'You can do the same thing, someday,' she told me, and I didn't believe it. But she was the first place I went the day I got out." Joan hasn't placed a bet since Jan. 19, 2003. There is hope The perception of gambling addiction is changing, both women say. There are more treatment opportunities, support groups and some external steps people can take to guard against relapse. One option is for the problem gambler to self-exclude from the regional casinos. The exclusion list — the first of its kind in the northeast — was the outgrowth of a joint effort between The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling after Foxwoods opened in 1992. Donna says the casinos work with people to redeem their outstanding points, through a gas card or something equivalent. She adds that in her experience, once a gambler self-excludes, the Connecticut casinos are discreet but firm in enforcement. Opportunities to gamble, though, they both emphasize, are everywhere: lottery tickets, sporting events, keno, and the host of sites (most of them illegal) that have cropped up online. This is why treatment and support, both women point out, are critical to maintaining recovery. Addicts are often alienated from family and loved ones, and the stigma of incarceration can make rebuilding a life difficult. As part of the program at York, participants compose empathy and apology letters to the people they've hurt. "You don't realize what you do to your family. I didn't realize what I did to my family. I was 12 years in, and I expected everyone to be fine the next day," Donna says. "The person in recovery can know they're doing well, but it's hard for others to see." And recovery is a process, they say. Compulsive gamblers, like alcoholics, cannot ever "safely" return to the behavior. "I'll never be healed," Joan says. "It's a continuous fight. But I know that I will never be in handcuffs again. "The life I live today is just a miracle," she smiles. "I look in the mirror and I am the mom I should be and I love the person I see." "I've never been able to say that."