Gambler Seeks Sponsor In Fight Against Addiction

Shirley doesn’t care if she wins or loses as long as she plays.

“It began as greed and turned to a craving for that feeling, that rush,” she says. She’s ashamed of her addiction and chooses to use the name Shirley instead of her real one.

The video slot machines hooked Shirley like a prize fish. The fun of the first few nickels a year ago somehow grew into obsessive machine-feeding. Now she’s desperate for help and has started a North Idaho chapter of Gamblers Anonymous, where first names only are the rule.

“Hi, I’m Shirley and I’m a compulsive gambler,” she recites, as if preparing herself for the day she may have company at her weekly meetings.

The bright lights and crowds of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s casino beckoned her last December from a lonely home she shares in Coeur d’Alene with her dog. She was 62 and knew compulsive behavior. Her ex-husband was an alcoholic.

After three $1,000 jackpots in three months, Shirley couldn’t get enough. She gambled for the $2,500 she needed for a down payment on her home. Then money was no longer the goal.

She gambled for the faster heartbeat, rushing blood and euphoria that nothing else produced. She remembers the sad looks she drew from casino workers as her single-day play time stretched to 18, 19, 20 hours.

Time lost meaning. Bills went unpaid; she nearly lost her home. She lost 25 pounds and pawned her guns. She lied to her family.

“How could I tell them I’d spent all that money?” she says. “They saw me differently than I am.”

Her friend recognized the problem in August and invited her to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She spurned the idea. A month later, after she gambled away her high blood pressure medicine money, she was ready for help.

But there wasn’t any. The toll-free Gamblers Anonymous phone number doesn’t work in Idaho. The closest chapter was in Spokane, but Shirley couldn’t sustain her desperation for help long enough to drive that far.

She joined Alcoholics Anonymous because the 12-step recovery program is the same as for Gamblers Anonymous. But she needed support from people who knew the undeniable temptation of the next bet. So she started her own chapter.

Two recovering gamblers from Spokane joined Shirley for her first meeting Dec. 7. She admitted to them her compulsion and her shame at her relapses. They encouraged her to forgive herself and measure success day by day.

She lasted five days before returning to the casino, which was longer than usual. But no one showed for her second meeting.

“I need a sponsor,” she says and her voice wavers unhappily. “I need someone who understands the problem because they’ve been there. I’m awfully different now than I used to be.”

Hills like white elephants

I asked for the best sled hills and Coeur d’Alene’s Caroline Crollard picked the famous Cherry Hill off 15th Street. Absolutely the best for sledding, she says, and the worst for traffic. Every year, cars slipping up the hill just miss kids walking their sleds to the top, she says.

Mullan’s Gayle Goodsen picked Lost Avenue between Dollar and 14th in Coeur d’Alene, where she grew up. She remembers the fire pit her mother built by their driveway to keep chili hot, and eating chili in a snow bank with her brother, Grant, between sledding.

What’s your funniest sledding story? Spill out a tale to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814: fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: SUPPORT The North Idaho chapter of Gamblers Anonymous meets at 3 p.m. Sundays at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 501 Wallace Ave., in Coeur d’Alene. For information, call 667-4799.