Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 67

COURIER-POST, Tlmrsday, September 30,1993 3e Gamblers willing to risk another bet 1 1 4 "IT vti 1 VV jW 5 If By PAUL EISENBERG For the Courier-Post At the height of his addiction, Wally an accountant from Lindenwold, would beat his wife in front of his children whenever she tried to stop him from going out to gamble. Today, his wife is dead and his children refuse to speak to him even though he is a recovering addict. Tony Milillo, a certified gambling counselor, recalls the mother who said, "Thank God my teen-age son is only addicted to gambling, not something terrible like drugs." A year later, while his parents were on vacation, the son sold all of the furniture in his parents' house and his mother's jewels to support his gambling habit. Arnold Wexler says he first became addicted to gambling at age 7. Eventually, he began stealing to support his addiction.

By the time he was 30, his gambling addiction had caused him to lose his job, he had driven his wife to the point she could no longer function and he had sold practically all of the family's belongings, including a brand new car for only $1,000. "I had only $8 in the bank and I was wishing my wife would somehow die because maybe that would solve my problems." Today, Wexler is executive director of The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey and he hasn't gambled in 15 years. But he knows what compulsive gambling can do to an addict and he's concerned that the number of compulsive gamblers is increasing rapidly. To illustrate: In 1982, the council received a total of 420 calls from compulsive gamblers looking for help. In 1992 the number of callers had risen to 22,000, up 100 percent from the 11,000 in 1991.

So far this year calls are coming in at a rate that, if it continues, will total machines and casino gambling. Based on calls to the Council's hotline the average gambler had a gambling debt of $34,244, almost equal to the callers' average annual income of $36,944. More than hal had more than two children under age 19. Male callers outnumbered females 4 to 1. So far little research has been conducted into what causes compulsive gambling.

But, says Wally "A compulsive gambler can experience the same kind of high or euphoric feeling that one gets from drugs or alcohol every time he wins. And a win can be anything even just getting one more chance by a family member. To an addict, not getting thrown out can be just as big a win as hitting a million dollars; the rush is the same." "When gambling controls you rather than you controlling the gambling," says Wexler, "you are over that edge and it doesn't matter what you call it, you have an addiction to gambling. You are in trouble." The cure? Withdrawal. But that's not always easy.

Milillo, also a recovered gambling addict himself, recalls he had the same physical ailments, diarrhea and vomiting, that substance addicts experience upon withdrawal. In such severe cases, treatment is needed in a rehabilitation center, like Belmont or the few outpatient facilities in New Jersey Atlantic Mental Health in Atlantic City, St. Claire's Hospital in Denville, and JFK" Hospital in Edison. A 28-day in-patient program is available at the New Hope Foundation in Marlboro. Because there are so few facilities, most compulsive gamblers turn to self-help groups that use the 12-step approach, such as Gamblers Anonymous.

Unfortunately more than a third of addicts are never cured. Courier-Post Library Wager: The stakes are high for many gamblers against staying straight. think more people are becoming hooked because we are making gambling socially acceptable and legal. 'he 95 "Gambling is already at epidemic proportions. You would be very hard pressed to find any teen-ager that has not already gambled on something, whether it be sports betting, at a casino, or at a race track.

My own personal surveys of students show that 40 percent have already gotten into trouble because of gambling." Compounding the problem, say Wexler and Milillo, is the fact that gambling addicts are constantly exposed to bulimic episodes. Less prevalent is anorexia nervosa, another compulsive eating disorder which causes sufferers to starve themselves thin, then compulsively exercise frequently as well as self-induce vomiting. It's estimated that about 1 in 250 young women fall prey to anorexia nervosa each year. Bulimia and anorexia nervosa were once to be HsJ Arnold Wexler temptation. How, they ask, can gamblers withdraw when they are bombarded everyday with advertising from state lotteries reminding them to be sure to play every day if they want to win.

A Gallop Survey for The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey found that 95 percent of all adults reported having gambled some time in their lives, the lottery being the most often played (82 percent), followed by slot similar disorders. Now experts think they are completely separate and distinct illnesses with different criteria for diagnosis and treatment. Bulimics generally tend to be normal weight; anorexics starve themselves until they look as though they just came out of a concentration camp. Anorexics insist they are fat, even when they are skeletal. Bulimics, on the other hand, tend to be more realistic about I 55,000 calls.

That would be another 150 percent increase in juat 12 months. "I think more people are becoming hooked because we are making gambling socially acceptable and legal," Wexler contends. Milillo agrees. A counselor with the Belmont Center for Compulsive Treatment in Philadelphia, Milillo spends most of his time working with teen-agers in the schools and from his perspective, binge-and-purge eating disorder. Many in the addictions field believe bulimia may be reaching epidemic proportions in the United States.

It's estimated that about 8 percent of all women and 1 percent of all men are bulimic. Bulimia is most prevalent among women between the ages of 15 and 30, with one study concluding that 20 percent of all women in this age 1 group have experienced Eating disorders strike more women than men their body shape. Like other addictions, eating disorders can be life-threatening. Caroline Miller, president and co-founder of the Foundation for Education on Eating Disorders (FEED), and herself a former bulimic, says eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. "Fifteen percent of anorexia victims die from complications," ishe notes.

By PAUL EISENBERG For the Courier-Post Sharon G.V remembers well how she would eat dinner with her family in Cherry Hill and gorge herself. Then 15 minutes later she would "retire" to the bathroom and force herself to vomit. Like an estimated 10 million other people in the United States today, Sharon suffered from bulimia, a compulsive.