Take the help that is for you first
Wording is the smallest part of this. These organisations exist for you rather than for the person gambling, none of them is us, and none charges.
- Gam-Anon runs meetings for the family and friends of someone who gambles. The NHS page on gambling lists it among the places to go if another person's gambling affects you.
- The National Gambling Helpline is run in the United Kingdom by GamCare on 0808 8020 133. The NHS states that it is free and runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it takes calls from people affected by somebody else's gambling too.
- Help by State is the National Council on Problem Gambling's directory for the United States, described there as a starting point for anyone impacted by problem gambling. Its helpline takes calls, texts and chat on 1 800 697 3738.
Why a sentence carries more weight here than it should
An ordinary sentence lands in a room you cannot see. Nerilee Hing, Elaine Nuske, Sally Gainsbury and Alex Russell interviewed 44 people with gambling problems for Perceived stigma and self-stigma of problem gambling, in International Gambling Studies in 2016. They report an overwhelming perception among those interviewed that problem gambling attracts acute public stigma and is publicly viewed as "caused by personal failings". Secrecy was the main way people coped, and stigma was a major barrier to telling anyone and to seeking help.
So the person may already have decided what you think, and a careless sentence can confirm it. Good intentions can do the damage here.
There is a version of being involved in this that is not a sentence at all. One of the tools built on it is Fold'em: the person gambling sets it up on their own phone, ending it takes days rather than a moment, and if someone holds their key, that person is told when Screen Time is switched off rather than asked to check.
Blame, however gently it is put
- How could you do this to us. It asks for a motive, and no answer exists that is not a confession about their character.
- You promised. It moves the subject to their honesty, the ground they already expect to lose on.
- Just stop. If it were that simple it would have happened already, and saying it tells them you do not know what this is.
None of these carries new information. Against the Hing findings a blame sentence is a confirmation, and confirmation is what secrecy is made of. The Victorian Department of Health's advice for family and friends makes it an instruction: do not put down the person who gambles, and you are not to blame either.
What carries the same meaning. Name the effect on you without naming a defect in them. I have been frightened about money since March and I have not said so. Same information, verdict removed.
The ultimatum
- If it happens again, I am leaving. It turns the next bad night into a referendum on the relationship, so the next bad night gets hidden.
- One more time and that is it. It sets a deadline you may not want to keep, and a deadline that passes teaches them nothing you say is real.
The Victorian health department states the limit plainly: you cannot force somebody to stop gambling or control it. An ultimatum borrows authority you do not have.
A boundary is not an ultimatum. It is a statement about what you will do, said calmly and then meant. I am not putting money into the joint account this month is a boundary. Stop or I go is a bet on somebody else's behaviour.
Nothing here can tell you whether to stay or to leave, and no page should try. If the money in your household is controlled, or you are frightened of the person, that is a different problem with its own help: Refuge runs the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247, and in America the National Domestic Violence Hotline answers on 1 800 799 7233.
Paying the debt to end the argument
- Let me clear it and we start again. It removes the consequence and leaves the shame, which was what stopped them asking anyone.
- I will cover it, just this once. It makes the next conversation about your money rather than their gambling.
Money is not a side issue. In Gender differences in felt stigma and barriers to help-seeking for problem gambling, in Addictive Behaviors Reports in 2015, Baxter, Salmon, Dufresne, Carasco-Lee and Matheson had 19 of the 28 people in their study rate what keeps people from getting help. Men and women alike ranked the financial consequences of gambling the most important stigma related barrier of all. Paying the debt quietly does not remove that shame. It moves it into your house.
This is not debt advice and this page will not offer any. Which creditor to pay, whether to borrow, every formal arrangement: all of it is regulated advice, better given free than by a blocker's blog. StepChange is a British debt charity regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and it costs nothing; the helplines above name the free service where you live.
What carries the same meaning. The Victorian health department's line is not to take on their burden or their debts, and to say instead that you cannot do it for them but you will be there while they do.
The offer to watch
- Give me your phone and I will check it. It swaps trust for inspection, and an inspection proves nothing unless it is repeated forever.
- Let me hold your card. It makes an adult ask you for their own money, which is a humiliation on a schedule.
- Just give me the Screen Time passcode. It can be reset, and the day it is reset it looks like an accusation.
Watching turns secrecy from a symptom into a skill. Those interviews found secrecy was already the main way people coped, so a search can teach them to be better at it. The Victorian health department is blunter: trying to take control of somebody's life does not work.
What carries the same meaning. Be named in something they set up, rather than being the one who checks. That is the shape of a commitment device, and why Fold'em runs one way only: the person installs it on their own phone, chooses what to seal and can name a keyholder, and nothing a keyholder sees says what was browsed or spent.
What the months in between sound like
On an ordinary day there is no outcome to produce, and what is needed is a way of talking on a Wednesday that costs nobody anything.
- Ask about the day, not the balance. The balance is the subject they are braced for.
- Say the thing you noticed once. Repeating it is not emphasis, it is surveillance in a friendlier voice.
- Answer honestly when they ask how you are. Somebody who is always fine is somebody the other person has to manage.
- Use the words a person would use. GambleAware advises dropping the labels and saying person who gambles, which is why the label people search for is nowhere on this page.
And when they do talk, the useful thing is nothing clever. Thank them, ask what would help, and let the silence belong to them.
The honest limit
Nothing said well makes another adult stop. None of these sentences is a technique for producing an outcome, and read as one it fails the way an ultimatum fails. What they do is smaller: they keep a door open, so that on the day they are ready to say something there is somebody there. No blocker closes that gap either, ours included. Fold'em holds one iPhone; a second phone, a laptop, a betting shop and cash all sit outside it. Nor can it be set up for somebody by somebody else, because the permission it runs on is granted only by the person at that handset. If you are frightened today, the helplines above answer now.
Where to go from here
The one conversation with an outcome has its own page, and this one carries none of it. If they are ready to read something themselves, there is a page to send them, and someone you love is gambling sets out what a person outside the phone can and cannot do.
