CALGARY HERALD - Poker: The new drug of choice

[Louis Cypher]

COUPLE OF DAYS LATE. IF POSTED (DIDN'T SEE IT ANYWHERE) APOLOGIES ALL AROUND.

Scott Cruickshank
Calgary Herald

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Ria Meronek refuses to undersell the danger. Instead, she offers a jarring comparison.

"It's the same as new drugs on the street," she says. "They'll be on the street for awhile before we see the people coming in here."

An Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission (AADAC) counsellor in Calgary, Meronek is discussing poker -- the card-playing craze and the trouble she's envisioning. The trouble she's starting to see now.

"Texas Hold 'Em is on the rise," says Meronek. "Four years ago, the gamblers we saw were more middle-aged. And we had no poker players. But now we're seeing -- it's not a flood -- but we're seeing younger, in their 20s, Texas Hold 'Em players. That's really the whole culture, the rise of the TV and the glamorization of it, all those tourneys, movie stars doing it.

"There are poster celebrities out there for alcohol and drugs -- 'I've been to treatment, I'm clean' -- but name a celebrity that has come forward and said, 'I have a gambling problem. I've had treatment.' The poster kid, the role model -- there isn't any. Instead, you have the celebrities playing Texas Hold 'Em."

Some athletes have said playing poker provides an adrenalin rush just like the sport they play.

Calgary Flames forward Alex Tanguay understands that theory, especially for athletes who have retired from the game.

"You are used to having this high, this adrenalin rush, and then you get away from that," he says. "We are all competitors, we all like the competition, but I've always just played cards for fun and nothing more."

Taylor Attrell, an AADAC counsellor for nearly a decade, agrees with Meronek.

"There's lots of hype in the media about poker competitions," says Attrell, counselling supervisor at Calgary's downtown branch. "It seems like it's become quite a popular pursuit -- and, to me, presented as somewhat harmless."

Consider, too, the opinion of Gary. Not a counsellor. Not a researcher.

Rather, he's on the other side of the table. Or, actually, at the table -- as a front-line, in-the-trenches problem gambler in rehab. Like Meronek and Attrell, Gary's observations ring like warnings.

"I notice at the casino on the weekends how many 18- to 22-year-olds are in there," says Gary, from Edmonton. "It's now the cool place to be on Friday nights -- you can drink, play poker, and there's that chance that you could win money. So the lure of getting kids involved is even greater now."

Casino poker has quickly evolved into an obsession.

Every bit as explosive is online gambling -- with the fallout still brewing.

Meronek says she hasn't seen an online addict, but adds others in the business are predicting a rush -- that, in 10 or 15 years, the Internet bettor will replace the VLT bettor as the predominant sore spot.

"The reason they say it's coming is because you have this generation which is very computer savvy and very computer-game savvy and video-game savvy," says Meronek.

"The learning they have -- the more you do online and video games, the better you get at it. They think that translates into online gambling."

But Meronek insists it would be foolish to brace for the unknowable. After all, there is plenty of work for her and the rest of the counsellors as it is.

"We have 30-some counsellors here," says Attrell, "and we're very busy."

According to one estimate in Canada, four per cent of gamblers are problem gamblers.

Attrell says 60 new gamblers show up at his AADAC branch every month. In other words, an average of two a day -- every day.

So even if gambling is busily re-inventing itself, the horrors of the addiction are not.

"The impact can be pretty big, pretty fast," says Meronek. "We get family members and spouses who come in and they're gobsmacked, like, 'I had no idea.' I say to people that it's really hard to drink away your life savings, your house, your business, your RSPs, in a weekend. You can't do it. But you can gamble it away in a weekend."

Meronek's working definition of problem gambling -- AADAC, as an institution, avoids descriptions like compulsive and pathological -- is simple. "Is it causing you problems in your life? If it is, you have a problem."

Meronek, who also works with substance abusers, says gamblers have a distinctive characteristic -- the awareness that their self-control is shot.

"And they want that back," she says. "With alcohol and drugs, there's the sense that, 'It's the alcohol that's doing this to me. It's the drugs that's doing this to me.' With the gamblers, they're not ingesting any substance -- they're causing the change in the brain themselves. They know, 'I'm doing this. I'm doing it by choosing an action.' "

Adds Attrell: "It's what we refer to as a process addiction, meaning that they're not necessarily ingesting a chemical into their system, but they become dependent on an activity -- like shopping addicts or sex addicts or eating disorders."

Problem gamblers tend to be gender split and often middle-aged, while there are no socio-economic markers.

For that reason, Meronek says they keep dollar figures out of the treatment equation.

"For somebody who's on a fixed income, like a senior who's losing $50 a week, it can be devastating," she says. "But you can have someone else who's spending $10,000 a week and it's not denting the financial part of their world, but it's causing problems other ways."

So instead of dwelling on financial setbacks, rehabilitation is designed to root out the problem behind the problem.

Because of gambling's isolating nature, there's a focus on social skills and self-care.

"Everybody has the ability to stop gambling -- but if that's all that they do, they're still at a high risk for relapse," explains Meronek. "People in AA talk about the 'dry drunk' -- all the dry drunk has done is stop drinking; he hasn't changed anything else. So he's at a high risk for relapse. So treatment is about looking at what's underlying . . . and making lifestyle changes."

Retired National Basketball Association star Charles Barkley estimates he's lost about $10 million US gambling over the years, but isn't about to make those lifestyle changes.

"It's not a problem," Barkley, an analyst for TNT, told the television network this past spring. "If you're a drug addict or an alcoholic, those are problems. I gamble for too much money. As long as I can continue to do it I don't think it's a problem. Do I think it's a bad habit? Yes, I think it's a bad habit. Am I going to continue to do it? Yes, I'm going to continue to do it."

Meronek says perspective is critical.

Instead of gambling serving as an all-consuming activity, it should represent a slice of entertainment like, say, a movie. Set aside a couple hours, enjoy the experience and move on.

"It can be a fun activity but you have to set some guidelines ahead of time," says Meronek. "Like, $20 or one hour, whichever comes first, you leave. If you take your $20, you have to see that as your price for the entertainment. You don't go in with the attitude that, 'I'm going to come out with more money.' You've got to go in with the attitude that, 'This is what I'm going to spend. I'm not going to come out with anything.' "

The counsellors, however, maintain that quantifying treatment success is slippery.

"Well, how do you measure it?" asks Meronek. "If you have somebody who's an out-of-control gambler and their life is in chaos, and they manage to stop gambling for a month, is that a success? Or, now, they only occasionally gamble now -- is that a success?

"We leave it up to the client -- the responsibility for their recovery is up to them. We're here to provide services, but we don't call them up and say, 'Why have you stopped coming?' "

scruickshank@theherald.canwest.com