Getting ready for the lottery
The aim of a conference scheduled for Cheyenne next month is to give local mental health professionals and the general public a heads-up on gambling problems, including gambling addiction.
The June 6 session at Laramie County Community College is timely given that the state’s new lottery law goes into effect July 1.
The primary speaker at the conference is Joanna Franklin, an international gambling consultant and addiction specialist.
She was the first clinician hired by the first state-funded gambling treatment program run by Johns Hopkins University. She has been the director of training for the Taylor Manor Gambling Treatment program and the program manager for adult services at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington D. C.
The idea for the conference came from Ed Atchison of Cheyenne, who worked for 15 years at the Veterans Administration Center in Las Vegas, where he saw the downside effects of gambling up
close.
He learned that the center had its own Gamblers Anonymous group with meetings attended by everyone from lawyers, engineers and other top professionals in the community to the people on the street.
He joined a volunteer group council on problem gambling and ultimately became its chairman. He testified before a national commission on casino gambling.
His group, he said, also began knocking heads with the CEOs of the Las Vegas gambling casinos.
“They were in total denial. They said there was not an issue with problem gambling in Las Vegas.
That was 20 years ago,” he said.
Before he moved to Las Vegas, Atchison worked for the mental health division of the Wyoming Department of Health.
After he retired about four years ago and returned to Cheyenne,, he thought he was through with the gambling issue. But then he received a call from an acquaintance in Riverton who told of the difficulties resulting from the casino gambling on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
He organized the Wyoming Council on Problem Gambling, a small group that is sponsoring the conference.
He said he is not anti-gambling and is personally a “social gambler.” Wyoming already has a gambling problem in Fremont County.
People with the dual addiction of alcohol and gambling are common.
Atchison said he was irritated at the comments of state senators during the debate on the lottery bill last winter.They claimed that a lottery will not be harmful because it does not provide instant gratification.
It is inaccurate to say some games are worse than others, he said, because while there is a difference between the games, all of them are gambling.
“I’ve heard these stories for 20 years,” Atchison said.
He said he has also known Franklin for 20 years from their mutual involvement in gambling issues.
She is one of the top gambling authorities in the world, he said.
She agreed to speak at the workshop for no fee.
Franklin said that 1 percent to 3 percent of the population have problems with gambling.
Treatment recommended includes the 12-step programs like Alcoholic Anonymous.
Other strategies are available and no two gamblers are treated the same, she said in a telephone interview.
Although outcome studies showing the result of treatment are few, she estimated that 40 percent to 60 percent of gamblers do well, which is about the same success rate for alcohol addiction.
There is little standardization of treatment in this field, a lack that hinders the assessments of progress.
Unlike substance abuse and mental health, the federal government has no financed program and provides no leadership for gambling addiction.
The efforts in this field are coming from the states and occasionally through university projects.
“We’re not where the other addictions are,” Franklin said.
The conference is free to the public.
Behavioral health professionals who attend can earn 7.5 training hours approved by the International Gambling Counselor Certification Board.
http://trib.com/opinion/columns/getting-ready-for-the-lottery/article_46d4b72f-b73a-5cd0-aed4-114a2395fac5.html
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