News & Events 2004-2005
Speakers Share Misery of Gambling Addiction
An enrichment block featuring two recovering compulsive gamblers enlightened students and the Blair community about the destructive nature of compulsive gambling.
“I could actually spend 30 hours at a Blackjack table,” said Adam Resnick (pictured below). He told the audience that compulsive gambling is self-destructive, an escape from reality and provides an incredible rush.
Terry Elman (pictured above), education coordinator for the Council on Compulsive Gambling for New Jersey, said, “Prevention and awareness are key. Eighty percent of gamblers are social gamblers, twenty percent will have problems as a result of gambling, and five percent will become pathological, compulsive gamblers. Many in this third group contemplate or attempt suicide.”
Resnick is currently still under indictment and may be imprisoned for behavior related to his addiction. Elman was convicted seven times and imprisoned for crimes connected to his gambling. “I was already in serious trouble with gambling in high school, and while serving in Vietnam, I gambled and made enough money to return to the States and buy a home,” said Elman. Eventually he married and raised a family, but his gambling problems worsened when casinos came on the scene in Atlantic City. Finally he lost his home, his car and his money. “My kids, though, are the ones who took me to get help. They gave me an ultimatum that unless I got the help I needed, they would have no part in my life anymore.” Once he received counseling, Elman spent the next seven years reestablishing his life. Today, he’s often on the other end of the phone when a person in need of help calls 1-800-GAMBLER. He asked Resnick to fly in from Chicago to speak at Blair about his experience.
Resnick noted that his friends and family were his enablers. “It’s more natural to be an enabler than to intervene and force a friend or family member to get the help they should,” he said. Speaking publicly for the first time about his gambling addiction, he read aloud from a letter he had written to his family on the day of his indictment. He also told the audience that his wife and children were wonderful, that he was qualified to join MENSA, but that his addiction was so great, he had even dropped out of college to pursue his gambling habit. “Gambling cost me money, friends, pieces of my life. On the day that one of my children was born, I couldn’t even enjoy it because I knew there was a bookie there at the hospital.”
Resnick added, “I may go to jail, but if I can prevent two people from doing what I did, then speaking out about my problem is worth it. I want to tell people what this compulsion cost me.”
In an article published in The Star-Ledger on May 5, Elman said the number of schools asking him to talk to students has doubled over the last year. The Ledger noted, “Generally he [Elman] visits 50 schools annually… This year it could be 100, including a larger portion of private schools and, for the first time, middle schools… ‘Because of this poker craze, with this Texas hold’em and the World Series of Poker on TV, there’s anywhere from a minimal to a large problem in almost every school,’ said Elman.”
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