Impact Of Problem Gambling Upon Women

The recent expansion of the commercial gaming industry has had two major and adverse effects upon the well-being of women, one indirect, the other direct.

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The Indirect Impact - Wives of problem gamblers

Indirectly, the increased gambling activity is impacting upon women by generating additional male gamblers; the woman suffers where the husband becomes a problem gambler.

Loss of Intimacy and Trust

Possibly the hardest thing for the wife of the problem gambler is the loss of intimacy and trust. "... people do not enter marriage relying on their defences. They enter it to become involved with each other and that makes them vulnerable, each before the other." Gambling takes over the husband's life and the wife and children must fit in any gaps that are left free. The gambler's wife and children signify in his life as means to serve his gambling or as hindrances to it. The problem gambler preys "mercilessly on the very people with the weakest defences against their pressure, cunning and deceit".

The sexual relationship is very likely to be affected; as one counselor observes: "I never met a [problem] gambler who had a healthy relationship or a healthy sex drive."

Loss of Self-Esteem

When the wife first learns of the husband's problem gambling, the problem is outside her; later it is inside her. The gambler will often succeed in making the wife feel that she is a poor money manager and the financial problems are her fault. Often the wife will take her frustrations out on the children and then feel remorse at the children's suffering. When the gambler experiences a financial crisis, often the wife will collude in arranging the bail out and suffer embarrassment and shame over her role. She will feel bitter and helpless:

"...you cannot change your gambler, you cannot even control your efforts to do so. By the time things have reached an advanced stage, you will have become so frustrated by the pathetic excuses, lies, deceptions, betrayals and broken promises that even if you do try to reason with him you will be overcome by a desire to punish him, to make him suffer. Bitterness, contempt, resentment and hatred master you, and all your attempts end in screaming failure. Then your passion dies, your resolve collapses and you sink once again in shame into your usual condition of humiliating helplessness."

Financial Problems

On top of the breakdown in relationships within the family the wife has also to face up to trying to maintain the household with little or no money. As a member of Gamblers Anonymous observed when contrasting alcoholism and problem gambling: "Financial ruin sets in motion a staggering set of special problems apart from the problem of gambling sickness itself."

"It is the wives who must contend with the bill collectors, the insistent dunning notices, depleted bank accounts. It is they who face the apprehension and humiliation of disconnected lights, gas, water, a dead phone, the unpaid mortgage instalment ... It is they who somehow must magically keep the marriage and household going without strength and support, they who must maintain the facade of a civilized life despite the chaos caused by their husband's gambling."

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The Direct Impact - Women as problem gamblers

Women suffer directly where they themselves become problem gamblers.

Why Women Problem Gamblers Tend to Suffer More than Men

Although women follow the same path into problem gambling as men, women problem gamblers, particularly wives and mothers, tend to suffer more than their male counterparts. Financially dependent wives, for example, have little money to spend on gambling.

The Double-Standard Applied to Women Problem Gamblers

There is a double standard applied to the woman problem gambler. Whereas a male problem gambler may be seen as a lovable rogue at best or irresponsible at worst, people see a woman problem gambler as dissolute, immoral and indecent, even worse than a woman alcoholic.

Dr Robert Custer, in charge of a neuro-psychiatric hospital in Brecksville, Ohio, noted that the difference in male and female attitudes was evident "in a second". "No matter how badly depressed the male compulsive gambler may be, no matter how much havoc he has wrought on himself and his family and with creditors and the law, he still, somehow, managers to retain a 'hang-tough' combative, challenging attitude, almost a cockiness, as if he feels he is justified in what he has done, that there really is nothing wrong with him, that the problem is everybody else's fault". By contrast, the woman who comes in for treatment is "subdued, withdrawn, frightened, abject and almost cringing in her demeanour". She sees herself as an object of loathing and contempt."[

How Shame Often Inhibits Women from Seeking Help

This shame often inhibits women problem gamblers from seeking help. They are also inhibited from seeking help for fear of being discovered. It may be that in Australia today we have a less paternalistic, more open-minded society in which women problem gamblers may feel less shame and be more willing to seek help.

Special Problems for the Problem Gambling Mother

A problem gambler who is a mother suffers because she is closer to her children. She can see, more clearly than a problem gambling father, the effect that her problem gambling is having upon them when they go without adequate food, clothing and other essentials. The mother also feels guilt if the child is forced to be an accomplice for her and lie to its father to conceal her gambling.

Women Under Stress Vulnerable to Problem Gambling

Another issue of concern is that it seems that it is vulnerable women, women under stress, who are developing into problem gamblers. One woman the author spoke to had lost a loved one, another had suffered the failure of a family business. A caller on a talk-back program had a child with a learning disability. The National Australia Bank teller who stabbed an elderly client in a bid to cover her gambling caused thefts, was suffering from an undiagnosed depressive order arising out of violence and sexual abuse as a child. The mother who stole $130,000 of her quadriplegic son's compensation payout, told police she started gambling after her husband died of cancer. Another woman lost control of her gambling after her husband's death from cancer. Ms Tania Coppel, a gambling counselor with Sunshine Community Health Services, said she was seeing an alarming number of women who had developed gambling problems while suffering from post-natal depression.

Source: Gamble Tribune—http://www.gambletribune.org/

Date Published—05-01-2005

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