In this final installment of his story, Harry Levant brings us up to date on the current fight for education and reform regarding the gambling industry’s rapid ingestion and prolific supply. He uses a well-known understanding of nicotine addiction and the effectiveness of its second-hand smoke campaign to illustrate how pervasive gambling marketing is and how we must address the multiple elephants in the room if we wish, as a society, to support the millions in need of help.
This episode was eye-opening for me, as I hope it is for you, on the outright false advertising prolific in national marketing, sports arenas, and more.
Recently thanks to having these conversations where Harry opened my eyes to gambling advertisements, I saw my first gambling ad on Hulu while watching Alaska Daily.
I offer myself grace, as I do my clients when I meet them, “what we know is what we know, until we learn more.”
Join us as we learn more about the damaging state of gambling advertising and how we can support each other in recovery.
Here are some valuable resources Harry shared:
Ethos Treatment https://www.ethostreatment.com
To read more about Stop Predatory Gambling.https://www.stoppredatorygambling.org
Gambling With Lives.
https://www.gamblingwithlives.org
Find a counselor through the Directory for International Gambler Certification Board
https://www.igccb.org/counselor-directory/
Gamblers Anonymous
https://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/
Gam-Anon
https://www.gam-anon.org
#embracefamilyrecovery #podcast #gamblingaddiction #HarryLevant #NUdoctoratestudent #recovery #addiction #ethostreatment #gamblersanonymous #gamanon #stoppredatorygambling #gamblingwithlives #addictionrecovery #addictionawareness #addictiontreatment #addictions #familyrecovery #familyrecoverycoach #familyrecoverycoaching #familyaddiction #familyaddictionrecovery #recoverysupport #recoverysupportgroup #recoverysupportservices
See Full transcript below.
00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Intro: Today, Harry magnificently explains the problem with current gambling policies and how vital a public health and safety policy is to help others not to have to suffer the pain and destruction of gambling addiction. Harry has an extensive knowledge personally and professionally and a fantastic way of teaching. Let’s get back to Harry.
00:50
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:08
Thank you for your story, Harry, I thank you a lot. Actually the words that came to me, and there’s going to be more I’m sure as I reflect, but grace and humility. Grace given to you and you to others, and humility, but the going to any lengths for your addiction was clear in your story. You know, you went to any lengths to feed the beast, because you were required to, to sustain your addiction.
You also, in my humble opinion, did the same in your recovery, to wait tables, to live in rooms, to go from being a lawyer and a home and whatever your prior life was to turning yourself into confessing to taking legal responsibility to then doing what was needed to grow your integrity back in your life. Powerful story.
Harry Levant 01:58
I don’t know that I’m deserving of all of that praise, but I accept it. And I thank you for it.
I have not walked these steps alone; I have a partner who has stood by me. She can tell her story at another time and place if she so chooses. But I am grateful for her love and support. I will say to you that I had a binary choice, I could have crawled away and licked my wounds, and perhaps not ever really to have been seen or heard from again. Or I could dust myself off, find a pathway to climb back up to the top of that cliff and try and do something to prevent other people from falling off the cliff.
And I felt as though I had a moral obligation not only to myself, but an obligation to others that I know that cliff is there. And I can’t remain silent, I have to do what I can to try and help other people not fall off that cliff.
Because gambling can be extraordinarily destructive. It can also be properly regulated and restricted to be made as safe as possible under the circumstances. But public health and safety are the opposite of greed and avarice.
Margaret: Right?
Harry: Right now, we’re governed by greed and avarice on levels that we’ve not seen. I struggle to think of a time where there has been this convergence and the involvement of state government where states have made the decision to rely heavily on gambling revenue. Everyone talks in terms of revenue. Gambling is a zero-sum game. They’re not selling washing machines; they aren’t producing widgets into the economy. They are simply taking money lost by the public. And that wealth is going to gambling companies and their partners.
So, when you hear that a gambling company and I will give you a number. We’re recording this on January 3, sometime later this month or early in February. The numbers will come out for calendar year 2022. And we are going to learn that the gambling industry made more than 60 billion with a B, dollars in 2022. And that number is probably conservative. Every one of those dollars earned by the gambling industry is $1 lost by the public.
Margaret: Right
Harry: Harm is taking place.
Margaret: Right
Harry: One of the reasons I’m going to Massachusetts tomorrow is to do some research in Northeastern, but also to meet with a state senators office. Massachusetts is about to put the finishing touches on expansion of online sports gambling. And there are some elected officials in Massachusetts who are interested in figuring out how to regulate the advertising.
Now, if you are silly enough to invite me back, we may have to do a whole other podcast on how the gambling, industry markets, and promotes, and advertisers. All of it is done in a way that is designed to keep people using the product.
Well, the more people use an addictive product, and the more rapidly they use it, the more harm that has to occur. That’s just scientific reality. The more people gamble, the quicker they gamble, the more harm that is going to take place.
The National Council on Problem Gambling has bought into this responsible gaming model. Responsible Gaming is the gambling industry, mantra and code for industry self-regulation. The gambling industry says, look, we know it’s an addictive product. It’s our responsibility to educate the public. State government has to join us educating the public, but at the end of the day, each person has to make their own choice. And listen for those infinitesimally small numbers of people who suffer harm, they claim about 1%! We’ll put up money to pay for their treatment.
This is a vial program that the gambling industry through it’s a lobbying group, the American Gaming Association, in partnership with National Council on Problem Gambling, in working with the sports leagues and teams and the media companies has conned state governments into thinking, well, this makes sense.
I ask your audience to think of this question.
Would we let big tobacco advertise and market and promote cigarettes any way they want? Because they say to us that’s okay, anybody who suffers harm we’ll pay for chemotherapy and hospice?
Of course, we wouldn’t. We regulate, we restrict, we do what we can to control access, because we know the product is dangerous. We don’t stop people from smoking. But we create safeguards so that hopefully people don’t fall into the river.
With gambling, all of the money and the marketing is around responsible gaming, which is designed to pull people out of the river after they’re drowning.
So, I said to you earlier, that one of every two people who struggle with gambling, contemplate suicide, and one in five, including myself will make an attempt.
When I hear the words responsible gaming, I know that it is the wrong message because people who contemplate taking their lives are being bombarded with this message, that, there’s something wrong with you.
Margaret: Right!
Harry: No, there isn’t. No there isn’t. You suffer from a debilitating disease. And we’re you’re in a situation where the product that is related to that disease is being marketed to you relentlessly. And right now, there are precious few folks doing anything to try and stop it. That’s what sent me to Northeastern.
I’m privileged to work at Northeastern with two law professors who run an organization called the Public Health Advocacy Institute, Professor Richard Daynard and Professor Mark Gottlieb. If you don’t know of them, you should look them up. And if you really want to do something fun, you should invite the three of us onto a podcast to talk about what we hope to accomplish in bringing public health attention to gambling because what we’re trying to do is directly transferable to alcohol, and the opioid industry, and tobacco. And it’s designed to try and create a system that will make things as safe as possible and create screening and prevention so that people aren’t as vulnerable as they are right now.
09:26
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
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10:11
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Can you relate to what you’re hearing? Never missed a show by hitting the subscribe button. Now back to the show.
Margaret 10:22
So, one of the reasons that I knew I would enjoy this is because I knew I would learn a great deal. And I am. And I’m humbled to always be willing to learn, right? That’s one of the things my sponsor said to me early in my recovery. When you’re green, you’re growing when you’re ripe, you’re rotting, stay green, kid. I try? One of the things you said to me in conversations leading to this podcast recording was around tobacco, which associates with gambling today. When did the industry change around tobacco? It’s marketing. It’s helping, it’s everything.
Harry Levant 10:59
This is a great question. And this will be my second plug for you to consider doing a podcast with Professor Richard Daynard, Mark Gottlieb, and myself. Because there is no one in this country more directly involved with the reform of the tobacco industry than Richard Daynard, he has devoted a portion of his entire legendary and ongoing legal career to the understanding, the research, the litigation around tobacco as an issue of public health.
And Richard, Daynard, and his group at the Public Health Advocacy Institute, along with Mark Gottlieb have now taken a real interest in gambling, and gambling as an addictive product and issue of public health, for this reason.
We knew for decades that tobacco and nicotine caused health problems, including cancer, it was known the labels were on the cigarette packages. There was no question, everyone knew it.
That wasn’t the thing that fundamentally changed the discussion and debate and regulation with tobacco. What changed tobacco was secondhand smoke. And I am speaking for myself, I want Professor Daynard to speak for himself if and when you have the opportunity to interview him. But what changed tobacco particularly as it relates to gambling, is secondhand smoke.
When we learned if you’re seated in table 18, in your favorite restaurant, and you don’t smoke, but the people at table 16 do and they’re blowing the smoke in the air, that smoke is impacting your health. That is when we realized, wait a minute. This issue regarding tobacco isn’t about responsibility. Someone’s being irresponsible because they’re smoking. This is a known addictive product that is causing significant harm to the public. And we need public health reform regulation, restriction. And we could do a whole other podcast on what some of the ideas and how to accomplish that are.
Well, this relates directly to my doctorate, because they’ve studied this in other countries. They’ve studied in Australia, they’ve studied in the UK, they’ve studied in Finland, they’ve studied in Spain. They look at gambling as a public health issue. Not just how many people are diagnosed as suffering with gambling disorder, a gambling addiction, but what is this scope of public harm related to this product. And in other countries that have a looked at it. We are consistently seeing that approximately 16% of the general population suffers harm related to gambling.
If those numbers hold true in America.
And the studies I just mentioned to you took place before gambling was delivered electronically on every device. But if those numbers are even close to accurate in America, we’re looking at upwards of 50 to 55 million people a year suffering harm related to gambling. That is an issue of significant public health. That is not addressed by the ethical failures of the Responsible Gaming Model.
I went to the National Council on Problem Gambling this annual conference in Boston in 2022. Approximately $300,000 was contributed by the gambling industry to the National Council on Problem Gambling to fund that conference. This system is broken. It’s going to take the work of independent advocates to bring a public health approach.
A part of my research is going to look at what is the scope of gambling harm. We’re going to bring some of the same measures to gambling that we saw of tobacco. When is the last time you saw a tobacco commercial on television? I’ll answer the question for you in 1970.
Margaret: Wow.
Harry: Go home tonight, turn on any sporting event. And tell me how many gambling commercials you see.
Margaret 15:11
So that’s a tough one Harry for me because I don’t watch sports, right? So, I’m a little naive, but I will take your challenge. And I encourage my listeners to do the same if you’re not a sports person, because I don’t think I truly realize the accessibility changes to gambling that have come with cell phones, technology, and modern-day reach.
Harry Levant 15:34
And you don’t need to be a sports fan to be concerned and aware,
Margaret: No doubt,
Harry: I think as a concerned person paying attention, not only to the sporting event, but what time. Pay attention to the gambling advertising, the marketing the promotion. And watch for one thing.
Margaret: Yeah,
Harry: Actually, I’m I ask you to watch for two things.
Margaret 16:20
And listeners Take heed, like I think this is good for all of us.
Harry Levant 16:24
The first is, I want you to pay attention to what time of day, these commercials are coming on. Maybe do it on a Saturday. Ask yourself sports, how many children are likely watching this sporting event? When they are talking relentlessly about gambling, and gambling advertising.
And then pay attention to what the promotions are pushing.
The gambling companies have what they call risk free bets, where they tell you make your first bet with us. If you don’t win the bet’s risk free. $1,000 risk free bet. Actually, two of the companies have just tried to change the language from risk free to no sweat bet. Now, first of all, DraftKings and FanDuel just did that. First of all, if a person is sweating a bet in the first place. It’s a symptom of a gambling problem.
Margaret: Right?
Harry: Okay. But they tried to change the name. Because those of us who are out here doing some advocacy work or pointing out how the risk-free bet promotion really works. They don’t give you your money back in a risk-free bet. They offer you $1,000 risk free bet or now No Sweat bet, if you lose your $1,000 bet. And by the way, there are no guardrails to determine did you have the financial wherewithal to bet that $1,000 in the first place.
Margaret: right
Harry: No credit checks. And this could be the topic of a whole other podcast discussion about what reform can look like. But they keep your money, it’s gone, it’s in money, bye bye land, it is never coming back. What they give you are 1000 credits, to chase your losses. And those credits expire in seven days.
Margaret: Wow.
Harry: So, you have seven days to use credits to try and get your money back.
One of the diagnostic criteria for gambling disorder, one of the things that science tells us to look for. Does a person returned to chase their losses, looking for more action? That’s a diagnostic criteria. The gambling industry promotion promotes that criteria, they are giving you credits to chase your money. So, these are the kinds of things that nobody is out there talking about, except myself.
There’s a wonderful organization that your listeners might want to look up called Stop Predatory Gambling. I happen to be their director of education, they are run by a fantastic gentleman by name of Les Brunel, who has been their national director for a number of years. They are an important voice that has been talking about this for a long time and will continue to talk about it for a long time. Short of that. And the amazing work being done by professors Daynard and Gottlieb, their precious few of us who are talking about this and exposing the truth as an issue of public health. And that’s what it is.
Margaret 19:35
And I will put links to all of this in the show notes so people can access them easier.
Harry Levant 19:40
I would strongly, strongly urge people to visit
stoppredatorygambling.org and take a look at their website.
Margaret 19:48
It’s going to be part of the links. Thank you for those resources, and I’ll add them to my resource page. I think that’s also important. I want to bring this full circle to collateral damage. I respect so much that you don’t speak for your family members and their experience. But I would ask you to speak to what you’re aware of changed in your family. The collateral damage you’re aware of from your own recovery and work to just help family members, maybe feel validated in some of what they’re experiencing and haven’t yet chosen to get help for.
Harry Levant 20:30
I’d rather speak to directly anyone in your audience, who is either themselves struggling, or related as friend or family, to someone who is, or you think is struggling with gambling.
As Margaret pointed out earlier in this podcast, all addictions harm affected others around you. Gambling addiction in a particularly acute way. It is directly linked to lies, to deceit, the things that are toxic to any relationship. By the time you learn about what has happened, the mountain of lies is often so much that you don’t know where to begin to unpack them.
If you are suffering, because you even think that a loved one is struggling, pick up the phone, find a counselor. I’m an internationally certified gambling counselor, there’s gambling counselor certification board. You can go to the website, Margaret, I’ll be happy to give you that link as well. And you can find someone who has specialization in the area involving gambling and gambling addictions.
Your suffering is real. Everyone in the wake of the person who is struggling with gambling is impacted. When I tell my story, I tell it from my perspective, I don’t speak for other family members. But I do want to speak to all affected others. Your suffering is real, it matters. And regardless of whether the person that you love is themselves ready to get the help that they need, and I hope that they are. There is help available for you.
Now there are all kinds of problems, insurance wise that we didn’t get into in today’s podcasts that are part of our advocacy work as well. But understand that the related mental health conditions, the anxiety you’re suffering, the depression you are suffering from. These are diagnosable, treatable real things that you should carry no shame about.
Those three words are so courageous, “I need help” and help is available, and recovery is attainable. But understand that what you think you are suffering, you are in fact suffering. And there’s nothing wrong with you. And sadly, the person you love may be caught in a pathological, progressive disease that they need to get help for. But you don’t have to wait. You can seek help on your own.
Margaret 23:51
With that in mind. This is another education point for me and I’m sure my listeners. Al-Anon is very much a part of many people’s journey NAR-anon to find help around substance addictions or substance use disorder. I use it. I used it when I couldn’t find an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. Right? So, like there’s ways to accommodate different addictions as a family member getting help through that lens. But a lot of people say to me when I read the literature, I get it, but I don’t read specifically for gambling. So, is there support networks out there for loved ones of people with gambling addiction?
Harry Levant 24:32
There’s a great one, there’s Gam-Anon. In fact, I spoke just before the holidays at a Gam-Anon meeting. If any of your listeners are looking for a connection to a Gam-Anon meeting and can’t find one, I would be more than happy, whether it’s through you or through someone taking my email address. I connect people to Gam-Anon with great regularity, and I strongly recommend it not only for the family member, but sometimes that can also be a way to move your loved one step closer. You develop understanding. And you may be able to therefore, be that much more supportive of your loved one and helping them get the treatment that they need. Gam-Anon is a fantastic resource.
Margaret 25:16
Wonderful. I would also add that my language is around the family aspects of the illness of addiction. That if you engage in your recovery as family members, and you practice your recovery out loud, you have far greater influence over your loved one than ever trying to tell them what to do around their disease. And so, I love that this is a resource for people out there, whether their loved one is yet to seek help for their gambling addiction.
Harry Levant 25:46
I think Margaret, you have just described the true magic of Gam-Anon. That’s exactly what it is designed to do. And as gambling becomes more mainstream, in this country, the need for Gam-Anon meetings only grows, I strongly support people finding a Gam-Anon meeting.
Margaret 26:07
I want to say that, you know, my lack of education around gambling addiction, and my clinical education, my personal education, you know, not going to say shame on me, because I think we all have our passions. And that’s part of the work that we do.
I have my passions around food addiction, and the impact on family and society not looking at that in the same way. You know, we could probably dissect every addiction in the way that you’re passionately tackling one that is prevalently hurting people. What I’ve always heard was the risk of suicide within gambling addiction was higher than any other addiction that we know of out there.
Harry Levant 26:52
All the research shows that. I’ll give you another organization that your listeners want to look up. They are not based here in America, they are in the UK, but they are just an amazingly powerful voice, Gambling With Lives. Gambling With Lives was started by a couple, Liz, and Charles Richie, whose son took his life in the grips of a pathological, gambling addiction. And Liz and Charles have dedicated their lives to trying to reach other families. Sadly, too many who have suffered a similar tragedy. And they reach a great many, where they’re able to help before that type of tragedy takes place. And I’m proud to call them friends and people that I look to collaborate with. I think you’ll be hearing more from Gambling with Lives in the months and years to come. But I would encourage anyone listening to this to look that up.
If you ask me back, my answer will be yes. If you ask me back on a panel, my answer will be yes. And wait for you to get the phone call from me, where I asked you to appear on a panel with me but
Margaret: love that.
Harry: Consider it done. You just said something that I need to address because I don’t want to leave it hanging. You talked about not fully being aware of the extent of gambling and gambling addiction. And you got fairly close to taking some I’m gonna use the word blame for not being fully aware. And I don’t want to leave with that message for a couple of reasons.
First, is I’m concerned that affected others will continue to blame themselves. Why didn’t I know about my loved ones?
Margaret: Absolutely.
Harry: I know you didn’t mean it that way.
Margaret: No, I think that’s a good point.
Harry: But we’ve said this a few times here today, that there is no shame in this at all. And it is sometimes very tough to spot and you are going to have pain and guilt, when you begin to learn. Use that to motivate you to seek help, not as a reason to withdraw. I urge people to take that message from the two of us.
But I also want to point this out to you.
Prior to 1980 the gambling addiction wasn’t recognized as a mental health condition of any type at all. It wasn’t even a thing. That in 1982 The American Psychiatric Association recognized gambling as something, and they called it an impulse control disorder. That is, there’s something wrong with the individual, she can’t control herself, similar to kleptomania. And for 33 years, gambling addiction remained categorized not as an addiction. But as an impulse control disorder. There’s something wrong with you. Why can’t you control yourself?
Margaret: Right?
Harry: In May of 2013, medical science caught up with itself and said, wait a minute, we got this one wrong. They looked at the hard scientific data, they looked at the studies of the human brain of someone struggling with opioids, and someone struggling with gambling and the impact on the brain is virtually identical.
Margaret: Right.
Harry: No one disputes it any longer. Not directly, at least, because in May of 2013, what you and I know as the Bible of mental health diagnoses, DSMV, was issued in May of 2013. And gambling was categorized as the first non-substance addiction on the exact same level as heroin and opioids and tobacco, cocaine, and alcohol.
Well, interestingly, in this country, a couple of months before that, the Affordable Health Care Act as some people, more commonly referred to as Obamacare. In February of 2013, the regulations for the Affordable Health Care Act are fully enacted. And under those regulations, health insurance policies in this country have to provide coverage for all substance disorders. That’s February of 2013. Gambling at that time, was still categorized as an impulse control disorder. Three months later, gambling is fully recognized as an addiction a full substance use disorder. Therefore, treatment for it and for the affected others, and the loved ones ought to be under federal law, covered by every health insurance policy.
The insurance companies and the gambling industry have kind of kept that off on the wayside. They use this responsible gaming model to control access for treatment. Well, that shouldn’t be the case. And I assure you that there are those of us out there who are doing things about this right now, you will be heard on this.
There’ll be more to come because we need to make it mandatory that your doctor as part of your annual screening, looks for signs of gambling, talks to family members about problems with gambling. And if there is even the hint of a problem, there is coverage for a diagnostic visit, followed by any necessary treatment. We have that model for alcohol, we have that model for tobacco, we have that model for pharmaceuticals, we have that model for opioids, we have that model for all other addictions. Watch this space. Let’s continue to talk we’re gonna do something about this. Because this is a way to serve families.
It’s not about responsible gaming, putting money up for treatment, when somebody is already drowning in the river. It’s about building guardrails, so they don’t fall in the river in the first place.
That’s where the public health approach is going to go. That’s the work that I’m doing at Northeastern. That’s the work I’m privileged to do with Richard Daynard and Mark Gottlieb. And you’ll be hearing a lot more about this. In the weeks and months to come.
Margaret 33:57
Harry, I have to say you are on fire and your passion is palatable, but it’s marked with a knowledge base, that’s quite remarkable. I think you’re exactly where you need to be not that you need to hear that from me, but I’m grateful for.
You know, I used to always say I don’t think I’ll ever be grateful for that relationship that came into my life that led me into my own recovery. I am tremendously grateful for it. I am so, so grateful that you have used your story and your life experience to now pass it on, to work so hard to help others not have to suffer.
Harry Levant 34:32
Well Margaret, thank you for that. And there’s a lot more work to be done and I hope that you will continue to remain interested in it. And let me close by saying you know; I am asked with some regularity to do podcasts. I’m selective in where I choose to do them, saying yes to you was an easy one.
We joked around about that being because of Northeastern and that certainly plays a role.
Margaret: Go Huskies.
Harry: It got each other to take each other’s phone call and messages, right? Go Huskies. But it’s something much more than that.
The work that you have done, and continue to do in this field, with a particular emphasis on families and impacted, affected others is so important. And you do two things. You do many things, but you do two which pro video. One is, you give voice to people who may feel as though they don’t have any place to be heard. That’s the impact on families, that’s the impact on affected others.
You make sure that that is considered at all turns. That’s one thing that you do. The second thing that you do is you relentlessly give up yourself to this cause. You relentlessly give and steadfastly give of yourself hoping that other people won’t suffer. That’s what motivates you. And when a person is genuinely doing that, it’s impossible to say no to them. So, I look forward to saying yes to you, each and every time you ask. And I thank you for the privilege of reaching your audience today. I hope that people have enjoyed listening to us, and I look forward to more dialogue.
Margaret 36:24
Thank you, thank you for your kind words, and also your acknowledgement of the work that I find passionately important. And I truly believe there are no coincidences for how people meet and where people meet. And I am grateful for what you’ve taught me and there will be more resources on my page for people affected by the disease of addiction when it comes to gambling, and their family members because it’s scratching the surface, but it’s out there from the standpoint of families will start bringing more to the forefront because they’re empowered to do so. And Gambling with Lives, I have just found through you, and I am in awe of that couple and the grassroots work of these courageous people who’ve been so devastated by the disease and willing to step up.
Outro: I found this series on the podcast with Harry Levant to be very interesting and informative.
I very much needed to learn more about gambling addiction. Harry’s personal story shows the devastation of gambling addiction and more importantly the hope that recovery offers. Harry’s passion and extensive knowledge are gifts for the future of public health policies for our country surrounding gambling and gaming.
Thank you, Harry, for sharing your experience, wisdom and hope.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability and sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website.
This is Margaret Swift Thompson. Until next time, please take care of you!
