Addiction Comes in Many Colors

Rev. Paul Sprecher

Second Parish in Hingham, www.secondparish.org

January 29, 2012

Reading: “To the Foxboro Board of Selectmen” Dec. 27, 2011, from the Foxboro, Norfolk and Walpole Clergy Associations

We are joined together to affirm the decision made in September by your unanimous vote to oppose gambling in Foxboro. We believe it was the wise and correct decision and extend our support.

As religious leaders in Foxboro, Walpole, and Norfolk, it is our responsibility to help persons struggling with life issues to make more healthy moral choices. Our concern is that casino gambling, whatever form the proposal may entail, is harmful to the communities where we minister.

One study, done by the Community Research Partners of Columbus, Ohio reports:

1.5% of the population will become addicted if they gamble, in one county cited alone there were 22,000 problem gamblers.

The cost to a community of one casino is $28 million in costs related to job loss, unemployment and welfare increases, and mental health treatment per year.

The cost to the community is $223 million in "lifetime" costs due to arrest, imprisonment, bankruptcies and divorce costs.

Crimes increase as visitors increase.

The local economic benefits are decidedly mixed since most jobs provided are low paying.

Beyond that, effects on teens and added stress on law enforcement officials are additional effects harmful to families.

Casinos do not summon the best attributes of humanity, as Lincoln called it "the better angels of our nature." Our life's work is to summon people to live by the highest ideals, to love their neighbors, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Casinos create in human nature something very different.

As moral leaders who love all the people of our communities and are not ashamed to say so, we urge the citizens and selectmen of Foxboro to abide by their earlier votes and keep gambling out of our area.

Sermon: “Addiction Comes in Many Colors” -Rev. Paul Sprecher

A certain man had two sons. The younger son, when he came of age, demanded that his father give him the inheritance that was due him at once. Despite the resentment of the older brother the father, who loved his son, did as he asked. He divided his money in half and sold part of his land to give the younger son his patrimony.

The younger son left and went to a large city some ways away. He felt himself to be quite wealthy, and it seemed that he could do whatever he wanted to given his means. He bought a house and hosted many parties there for friends. He began engaging in some of the diversions available in the city that he had known nothing of while growing up on his father’s farm. He found that he had a taste for fine wine and invited friends over for drinking parties, which gradually came to get started earlier and earlier in the day. He discovered certain houses of ill repute and began to frequent them. And he discovered that it was thrilling to bet larger and larger amounts of his wealth on the casting of lots. He saw this as a way to maintain his expensive lifestyle indefinitely. He remembered all the triumphs when he won, the thrill of victory; but he put out of mind the times he lost and the crushing disappointment it brought with it. He convinced himself that on the whole he was doing pretty well, and he didn’t notice that his fortune was gradually slipping away; it didn’t help that he spent much of his time in a wine-induced haze. Finally, the day came when he realized that most of his fortune was gone; he decided that the only way to save himself was to bet everything he had in hopes that he could recoup his previous losses. The first time the lots were cast, he did indeed win. He experienced the elation of winning big and he was thrilled to find that by staking everything he could win everything, and that that at last he had come up with a way of recouping his mostly-dissipated fortune. He doubled down and once again won. Now, he thought, this was a grand way to live; what thrills were revealed to him! So he doubled down again, staking all of his winnings on another round, convinced that he was invulnerable. This time the gods didn’t smile on him, and he lost everything. Since he had no money left to put down, he put up his house on the next round, and again he lost. Suddenly he had nothing – no possessions and no income – and was reduced at last to caring for some pigs and sharing their food.

You know the rest of the story. He came to his senses, realized that the most humble of his father’s servants was living better than he was, returned home to his father’s open arms while incurring the outrage of his industrious brother. He had been dead, his father said, but he had returned to life.

It is said that to kick addiction, you must hit rock bottom; the prodigal son is a vivid illustration of what it means to hit rock bottom. Addiction comes in many colors, and many of its varieties had not yet become a temptation to prodigal sons in his day. Alcoholism was certainly a slippery slope, and betting on lots was a temptation –remember that the soldiers at the food of the cross on which Jesus was crucified threw lots to divide his clothes among themselves. In our day, there are many other addictions available to those who are prone to self-destructive behavior: drugs of virtually infinite and ever-growing varieties both legal and illegal, including tobacco; organized gambling in the form of state-sponsored lotto games, casinos and horse races, floating casinos outside the jurisdiction of any government, and so on; and the internet itself, especially for role-playing games, internet poker, compulsive day-trading on the stock market, and even Facebook.

These latter are forms of behavioral addiction. They don’t involve a literal physical dependency, and they don’t have the same sometimes agonizing pain of withdrawal, but they have the same compulsive character and they can ruin families and lives. Neuroscientists using brain MRI techniques have found that behavioral addictions like compulsive gambling appear to generate similar brain activity as compared to physical addictions like euphoria-inducing drugs.[1]

In light of the recent passage of the Casino Gambling law in Massachusetts, I wanted to look at the particular addiction associated with expanding the opportunities for gambling in the Commonwealth. Compulsive gambling has the potential for ruining families and lives in a similar manner to other physical and behavioral addictions. Rev. Bill Dudley, pastor of Union Church in Foxboro – one of the signers of the Foxboro clergy letter – tells the story of one such family:

[He] said he recently counseled a woman whose husband gambled away their house and bank accounts at a Connecticut casino. He said he fears the expansion of such gaming in Foxboro will come with a bevy of social costs.

"Who will reimburse this lady from the profits they made for her lost house?" Dudley said. "What casino owner gives money back to the kids who go hungry because Dad or Mom gambled away the food budget?"[2]

The Connecticut Alliance Against Casino Gambling gathered some of the available data on gambling in that state in a 2005 article entitled “Raw Deal: Measuring The Toll Of Connecticut's Casinos” by Jeff Benedict. Benedict notes that the Division of Special Revenues in the state was required to conduct a study of gambling impact every five years from the time casinos in the state were authorized in 1996. The study was deferred by the legislature multiple times, with the result that the state had avoided a reckoning of the social costs that came with the increased number of slot machines installed at the casinos. He found a number of social pathologies that were directly tied to the authorization of casinos and especially slot machines. Here are a few stories:

In 1997, the tax collector in Ledyard, Yvonne C. Bell, began using tax receipts to support playing the slots at Foxwood. She embezzled more than $302,000 from the town to support her addiction. She was sentenced to 4 months in jail in 2001. Sprague’s tax collector embezzled $105,000 from the town to support her gambling habit. In 2005, a Stonington finance staff accountant for 25 years, Donna Allen, 44, was sentenced to a year in prison for stealing $257,000 in town funds for gambling. She was also ordered to pay the money back. The judge said he wanted to send a message that those who steal to gamble will go to prison. The three towns spent more than $100,000 for audits as part of their investigations, in addition to legal costs and higher insurance. Funds were also embezzled from local companies. Three professionals - a lending officer, a paralegal and a postmaster - all living outside the casino base of New London County and all resorting to white-collar crime to finance gambling –together stole $4.8 million from investors, veterans and taxpayers.

Violent crime has increased significantly, much of it in the form of robberies from banks, convenience stores and gas stations, especially ones along routes to casino. Bank and jewelry store robbers altogether stole $547,000 over several years. As is the case with white-collar crimes, courts cannot compel casinos to pay restitution to victimized banks or businesses. One of the bank robbers hanged himself in jail a week after his arrest.

At least eight suicides were directly linked to gambling in the casinos by 2005. As an example, a middle aged white male started gambling at Foxwoods regularly after a business trip to Las Vegas. As his losses mounted, he went from playing $5 slots to $1 and 50-cent slots, finally bottoming out at the 25-cent slot machines. Before he committed suicide, he used his ATM card to make scores of withdrawals at Foxwoods, totaling $14,820. His last ATM withdrawal was made on Sept. 4, 2000; his account balance was $8.11. Then he drove to Stonington, parked his car, walked into the woods and hanged himself. Divorces resulting from compulsive gambling have increased significantly as well.[3]

This collection of data represents the viewpoint of opponents of the casinos, of course, and can be expected to represent the worst-case scenario. However, other sources have found that the net returns from casinos are significantly less than promised when these social costs are included. One positive feature of casino bill in the Commonwealth is that compulsive gambling is recognized as a side-effect of bringing casinos into Massachusetts and $25 million dollars of the projected revenue each year will be devoted to the treatment of the addiction, including counselors in the casinos and training for casino personnel in recognizing the signs of compulsive gambling. Perhaps the social damage can be better mitigated by these measures, but they will hardly go away, and many will be borne by the local communities –one reason why the Foxboro clergy oppose gambling in their town.

Addictions of all sorts are a spiritual problem. The addiction promises to fill a hole in the soul of the addict. Instead, it hollows the addict out, gradually depriving the victim of the means of preserving the things of real value in life. Addiction starts as recreation but gradually takes over the mind and literally the brain of the addict, changing the neural pathways in ways that we don’t yet completely understand, thereby making withdrawal almost impossible without treatment as well as the help of support groups like Alcoholics, narcotics or gamblers anonymous. The substance or behavior becomes in effect the center of the person’s desires; we might even say that they worship that thing – that is, it becomes the central concern of their lives. As Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it,

A person will worship something – have no doubt about that.

We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts – but it will out.

That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character.

Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.[4]

My larger concern is with the reality that by allowing casinos and slot parlors in the Commonwealth, we are licensing an industry that has widely understood social and personal costs. We don’t have the information to balance these costs against the tax revenues and jobs that can be gained – though studies have found that the beneficial economic results from casinos usually fall short of often unduly optimistic expectations. Of course, there are many arguments in favor of allowing casinos in the Commonwealth: neighboring states are drawing patrons from Massachusetts who might be contributing to our tax receipts; people will gamble anyway, as they already do in the lottery and in the many other games of chance already available, so prohibition will never work; and after all, the state has no business interfering in private vices.

I’m afraid, though, that there is a bigger moral issue in allowing casinos in the Commonwealth and that is the fact that we are effectively tolerating an industry with significant potential for increasing human tragedy and almost seeming to approve of it. We will come to rely more and more on the tax revenues that will be generated while avoiding coming to terms with the human costs that come with those revenues. We might say that the Commonwealth’s “addiction” to those revenues will become more and more difficult to do without. In effect, we citizens then become party to feeding some of our baser impulses rather than the better angels of our nature. We remember the warning Jesus gave, saying [Luke 17:1-2] ¹“Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! ² It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”

Many of us have struggled with addiction in our families, with friends, and within ourselves. There are no easy answers to how to help and how to overcome them. There are recovery and treatment programs, but as I said earlier there are other spiritual dimension as well. One of the most significant ways we can prevent addiction is to reduce the occasions for being tempted; as we pray each week, “lead us not into temptation;” and let us also not lead others.

Part of the answer for me is that people, nature and the living we do are a source of wonder; that we can find meaning and purpose in our living without starting down the paths that lead to addiction. As Howard Thurman puts it:

How wonderful it is to be able to feel things deeply!

The sheer delight of fresh air when you have been indoors all day;

The never ending wonder of sunrise and sunset;

The sound of wind through the trees and the utter wetness of the rain;

The excitement of finding something that was lost and is found:

My fountain pen,

A beautiful word forgotten,

The return of an old book,

The reconciliation after estrangement,

The first step after months of illness…

How wonderful! (Howard Thurman, 1899 – 1981)

How wonderful indeed. May we be grateful for each of these blessings of our living, and may we worship that which is good rather that which leads to misery and destruction.

Amen, and blessed be.