I am the daughter of a problem gambler

Hi Everyone,

My name is Anna and I am the 34 year old daughter of a problem gambler. My father has been gambling as long as I can remember, long before I was born. His father was a gambler as was his brother. His gambling has caused many problems in our family and while he swears that he is no longer gambling I cannot be sure. No one can. We have been down this road many times before, particularly after big losses. There is always some level of anxiety that he is still gambling or will gamble again in the future which creates a sense of financial insecurity in my mother and the rest of our family. After all, as they say … the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. I often wonder to what degree will my siblings and I need to financially support them as they approach older age and have recently retired.

My father has been engaged in a number of different types of gambling over the years but sports betting has been something he has consistently done for as long as I can remember. When my siblings and I were younger he took all the money out of our life insurance policies to use towards gambling or pay for losses without first consulting my mother. Although he was part-owner of a restaurant that was successful for a number of years, my mother worked two jobs to ensure that we had enough money to pay the bills and to give us an education. Time and time again he would withdraw large amounts of money from their joint banking accounts and would not be able to explain to my mother where the money was going or what it was used for. Hundreds of times she has asked him promise to talk to her before taking out large sums of money, and hundreds of times he promised to do so, only to break those promises each and every time. Bills at his restaurant went unpaid and he would show up to my mother’s work asking for help when the city threated to turn off his electricity or water.

There are numerous other examples of the financial difficulties he has put my family through with his gambling but the losses were not just in the way of money. His gambling also affected his behavior and personality. When there wasn't a sports game on he was an attentive parent and loving husband but when he was watching a game he was distant, focused on the television, and nothing else seemed to matter to him. You couldn’t have a conversation with him. He would disappear into the basement or garage to make secret phone calls. He would get agitated when the his team was losing. My mother is non-confrontational by nature but I saw my parents fighting about my father's gambling on a handful of occasions. More often than that, I saw my mother upset and not know what to do since time and time again he promised he would stop after each devastating loss but soon after he would be sports betting again. She eventually began threating to leave him if he did not stop. As you can imagine, this tension and instability in the household was stressful for all of us.

My feelings towards my father have always been conflicted as he is an incredible person and father in many ways. I love and admire him for his great qualities (he is loving, kind, charismatic, a social butterfly, adventurous, a lot of fun, has great taste in music, etc.) but I also resent how much damage he has done to the family with his gambling and how much hurt he has caused my mother through the numerous lies, deceit, withholding of information, and general “shadiness” that comes with his gambling problem. Even as a small child I was perplexed by how one person could be so wonderful at times and so withdrawn, distant, and even irritable at other times. Perhaps some of you can relate to this.