wfn.org | Profile: Pastor John Eades shares own struggle with gambling

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Oct. 8, 2002 News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71BP{457}

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highlight a United Methodist who has a special perspective on a current
issue. UMC.org, administered by United Methodist Communications, also will
syndicate the feature free each month to United Methodist-related Web sites.
This month, the Rev. John Eades, 60, pastor of Shiloh United Methodist
Church near Shelbyville, Tenn., tells how gambling addiction almost
destroyed his life. Eades holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is
an expert on addictions. With gambling-related proposals on many state
ballots in November, Eades and his wife, Karen, express their concerns about
a possible lottery in Tennessee. 

A UMNS Report
By Amy Green*

Q: How many years did you work as a therapist?

John Eades: I worked over 20 years in hospital settings, working with
alcohol- and drug-addicted people. For me, the irony was that I was working
in the field of addiction when I became addicted to gambling. I worked in a
hospital in Pascagoula, Miss., but we lived in Mobile, Ala., at the time.

We started playing the Florida lottery. We started out buying lottery
tickets and then more lottery tickets and then scratch-offs and things. And
I never really wanted to go gambling in a casino, mainly because of the
alcohol. I didn't want to be around alcohol. But I probably was well on my
way, I would imagine, to becoming addicted to the lottery when I found
casino gambling. So one night I went and I loved it. I really enjoyed it.
And within three months, I was addicted to it.

Q: How old were you? When was this?

John: '93, so I would have been 51.

Q: What did you love about it?

John: The excitement. A lot of people think people gamble because of greed.
Well, that's not why gambling addicts gamble at all. A gambling addict
gambles in order to experience the rush of the action of the gambling. So
the object is to stay in action if you're a gambling addict. It's not about
winning or losing money. It's the thrill of playing. 

I was still working at a treatment center. You're talking about keeping
things a secret. I'd drive all the way down to Gulfport (Miss.) to gamble.
But the point is that it destroyed my life. It destroyed my life in all
areas: financially, economically, spiritually, socially. I loved it more
than my wife. I loved it more than God. I loved it more than my job. 

That's what gambling addiction is. Once you get there, and until you're
delivered by the Lord from it, it's a terrible place to be.
 
One night, I had pulled into a rest stop in Mississippi. I had made up my
mind to kill myself. It wasn't a self-pity thing. I knew I had a .357 Magnum
pistol in my glove compartment (I always carried it there), and I had made
up my mind I was going to open it up and just pull the gun out and stick it
in my mouth and pull the trigger. I unlocked the glove compartment and
reached in to get it, and I couldn't feel it. I leaned over and looked, and
it wasn't in there. And I remember crying, and I remember shaking real hard
because I knew I had come (close) to taking my life. 

When I went home, I woke up Karen, and I said, "You must have known I was
going to hurt myself." I said, "Thank you so much for taking the gun out.
You saved my life." She said, "I didn't take the gun out to save your life;
I took it out to sell it so we could have enough money to pay the
electricity bill so they wouldn't turn our lights off." That's gambling
addiction.

I tried a lot of the secular ways to recover. I tried Gamblers Anonymous.
I'd go to Gamblers Anonymous meetings and get up and go gamble after the
meeting. 

People do not understand the devastation of gambling addiction. One out of
10 people who are addicted to gambling will attempt suicide. We know that
statistic. One of 20 spouses will attempt suicide. It devastates the entire
family, and then you've got divorces and deaths and broken homes. 

Here in the state of Tennessee, we're talking about "let's have a lottery to
send children to college." ...Well, that's faulty logic because that's
saying that the end justifies the means, and it does not in this case. "The
children" does not justify the means of sending them to college on the
broken backs of families in this state. 

I continued to gamble for a long time. Finally, we had to move away. The
reason I came to Tennessee was because there is no gambling in the state.
But the pull to gamble was so strong, I still would drive every now and then
over to Tunica (Miss.) just to gamble a couple of hundred dollars. I'd drive
six hours over there and gamble a couple of hours and drive six hours back.

It took me three years to be totally destroyed as far as everything.

Karen Eades: During that time, I would say, "Please don't go again. Don't go
again." He would say, "I work hard. I deserve it. I deserve to have a good
time. You don't understand what pressure I'm under at work. You don't
understand how depressed I am. This helps me." That was his rationale to
gambling.

Q: How frequently were you going?

John: Every day. I worked in Mississippi. So I'd drive down to Pascagoula to
work. When I got off from work, I was 15 minutes away from Biloxi and the
casinos.

Q: How long did this go on? Gambling every day like that?

John: I would say probably two and a half years.

Q: How much money did you lose over that time?

John: Over $300,000. Most of it on credit cards and things I had pawned.

Karen: We lost both our IRAs. We had to cash in our IRAs under the pretense
of catching up on our bills, paying our bills. But instead of it lasting us
a long time, it was gone in a matter of two months. Sold a sailboat,
motorcycle, two motorcycles, a truck, a van, even a lawnmower, outboard
motors; we sold our home. I was afraid we were going to lose our home.

John: In a couple of months, I will have finished seven years of (Chapter
13) bankruptcy, in which I've paid back money. And it's been a long seven
years - about 40 percent of my income goes toward that. 

Gambling addiction has terrible consequences. When I look back on it, I'm
glad my wife stayed with me. I think there were times that she was ready to
leave me because I made life unbearable for her.
 
Q: How did you keep up this double life, treating addicts during the day and
at night nurturing your own addiction?

John: Well, pretty much (by) lying. Once you become a gambling addict, you
really know how to lie. You lie about money and how much money you have,
where your money goes. You lie about your time. I'd tell my wife I'm going
to give a talk down at this church or over here at this civic organization.
And I'm going gambling.

I had this delusion that I would win the money. This is the great delusion
that gamblers have. It follows like: you win, you lose, then you chase after
your losses. After a while, you realize that you're not going to get them
back. Then you go to a bailout phase, where you start getting someone to
bail you out financially. You borrow money or you have credit cards to bail
you out. And you keep going. Then you reach a desperation stage where you've
run out of money. You've exhausted everything. I thank God I didn't go into
robbing grocery stores and stuff. But I have known people who did.

Karen: We wanted to play Mr. and Mrs. America. We work hard all our life.
We've been married 39 years. And it's hard to just admit after 30 years of
marriage that my husband's gone cuckoo and he's a gambling addict. And we're
losing our house. We're losing everything we've got. 

I couldn't control any situation at all anymore. And once I realized that I
couldn't control it anymore, I just lost it. And I just grabbed the bottle
of Xanax and took the whole bottle. Very humiliating. I had to go to the
hospital and have my stomach pumped. 

I was embarrassed for what I had done, but mad and angry at him for gambling
again after a zillion promises of not gambling. And after that day, though,
that's when I knew it was totally out of my hands. And I knew at that moment
God had to take charge of our life. God had to solve this problem. I
couldn't do it. 

I also knew at that point, I'm not leaving. I didn't marry him to divorce
him at the first onset of a problem.

Q: What about effects on your family?

John: The day I stopped gambling was Nov. 24, 1996. Ginger, (our) youngest
daughter, had been diagnosed with chronic depression. (She had attempted
suicide twice.)

I went up (to North Carolina), and I got her and brought her down to Boswell
Road. That's where we were living here in Winchester (Tenn.). We tried to
nurture her back, but every day she'd be crying and everything. And one day,
you know, she started getting better, a little bit better each day. And then
one day she told me, she said, "Daddy, I want to go for a walk." 

Karen: We lived in like a 385-acre area.

John: We were renting a farmhouse. Karen had gone to the store and when she
got back I said, "Did you see Ginger up the road?" She said, "No." I said,
"Let's go look for her." 

Couldn't find her. Then I told Karen, "Go back down to the house and check
the medicines." She came back and told me that all the medicines were gone -
I mean, a tremendous amount of everything: Xanax, anti-depressive
medication, aspirin. There was no doubt that she was going to kill herself. 

There was about a hundred men out there looking. I figured, well they'll
find her. They'll find her soon with these dogs. Well, they were out for
about three hours.

And the next morning they were there ... and we took off looking for her.
Couldn't find her. The Tennessee Highway Patrol sent a helicopter. They had
one of those heat-seeking devices to find bodies and stuff. Then somebody
said, "We ain't gone to the right at all. No dogs gone to the right of the
house. Let's go down there and see." Within 15 minutes I could see men run
and scurrying back and forth. 

Another 15 minutes later ... (the) head of the rescue squad ... come up the
hill. And his face was so grim looking. And he says, "We found your
daughter, and she's alive." 

God broke me that day. I didn't get down on my knees to pray. I got down on
all fours and I told God that I wanted him to forgive me. And I confessed
him all my sins and I repented. And I asked him to let me come back home
again. And I guess I looked like an ol' stray dog at the back door. But God
opened up that door and let me come in, and my life has not been the same
since.

So what I saw was that God ... God had come, not for me. He came in spite of
me and my gambling addiction and my sorriness. He came because of
intercessory prayer from people from the United Methodist church where we
were members. He came and he worked his wonders, and I saw those wonders.
And I knew what he had done. 

William James wrote a book one time. He said that there is no permanent
change without a spiritual transformation. I believe that.

Karen: The good news is Ginger has not had a bout of depression since. She
had been fighting depression for about six years up until then. The miracle
was that her life changed. His life changed. My life changed. And hundreds
of people in this city, their lives have been turned over to God. And their
lives have been changed as a result of that one day.

John: After that day, it was like my motivation in life changed. I wanted to
know more about the Lord. I started reading the Bible more. I started
praying more. I started becoming actively involved in church. I took the
Disciple (Bible study) series, you know, that they teach. I was baptized
again. It was so strange. Karen and I got married again. We renewed our vows
after 30- something years because I had taken those vows not very seriously.
But now I was to a place in my life where I meant to take them seriously.
And I have. And I meant it on that day. It's almost like I woke up from a
deep sleep that had been caused by sin in my life.

Karen: You looked back on all the people that you had worked with that were
drug addicts and alcoholics, and he said he got to thinking about those that
had had recovery - excellent recovery - and those that had had a short-term
recovery, the difference in those people were the ones that had had a
spiritual transformation. 

John: If you want to say I became addicted to God, that's good. I mean, I
can say that because I am addicted to God. I'm addicted to Christ and to the
Holy Spirit.

Churches say all you need is God. And psychologists say all you need to do
is go through therapy. Both of them are wrong in one aspect. The thing is
that, for a person to change, I now see that they have to have a spiritual
transformation. And I think that's what happened to me.
 
And I had no idea of becoming a pastor. 

A guy I used to gamble with in Mobile called me on the phone. He said, "I
heard you've become a pastor." And I said, "Yeah, I am. I have become a
pastor." He said, "Well, I want to talk to you because I think I'm dying
with cancer." He was down in Mobile, and I went down there. Sure enough, he
was dying with cancer. So we spent a lot of time praying. And I was getting
ready to come back up to Tennessee, and he said, "Now, when I die I want you
to come do my funeral. You've got to promise me you'll come do my funeral."
So I promised him, and a couple of months later the Lord took him home and I
had to go do his funeral. That was my very first funeral that I had done.
And I was thinking how strange it is that the Lord will work things out the
way he works them out. It was an honor and a privilege to be able to do this
man's funeral. But there was a lot of people, they just couldn't believe the
change in my life. They do now. They do believe it now. 

Lottery addiction is very powerful. If this (Tennessee lottery proposal)
passes, and I pray to God it does not pass, but if it does, then I know that
one out of 100 people in the state of Tennessee who play the lottery will
start to experience problems with it. If it goes to full-blown addiction,
then they are going to lose everything that they have.

Q: Gambling - and casinos, especially - creates jobs, induces economic
activity. Can we make gambling safe?

John: No, there's no way. The only way for a person to ensure that they will
not become an addict is simply to never gamble. 

Teen-agers are going to buy a lot of lottery tickets. And that's one of the
fastest-growing groups of lottery addicts in this country. 

Karen: You mentioned that it creates jobs. If the lottery passes, it's also
going to create unemployment because the money that's going to be spent on
lottery tickets is not going to be spent on regular merchandise in stores,
and in some cases some stores will start having to lay people off because of
the lack of sales. 

John: Basically, (the state will get) a third of whatever is gambled - if
it's $600 million, then the state will get $200 million. 

Karen: The amount of money, whether it's $600 or $900 million, there's no
tax on that money. The state's going to lose that revenue. 

John: The people who make money on the lotteries are the large corporations.
... And then this is one of the problems, too: There's corruption. Anytime
you have a lot of money that is run through so many hands, there's always a
great chance of kickback or dishonesty. 

You've got the children that we talked about, and that's going to be a
terrible thing - they're going to get addicted. And the second thing is
you're going to have corruption. And the third thing I like to talk about is
convenience. That's the hallmark of addiction. I hear people (in Tennessee)
say, "Why should I drive to Kentucky and give them my money?" Well, the
truth is a kid can't get on their bicycle and pedal to Kentucky, but they
can pedal down to the 7-Eleven and buy a ticket themselves and wind up
becoming addicted to it. 

People seem to think we're doing this for the children. We're giving
scholarships ... and if there's anything left over, we're going to go do
some things in the K-12 schools. There ain't going to be anything left over
after the scholarships for college. It's not going to make our schools any
better. It's not going to allow us to hire ... more teachers for our
schools. There won't be any new buildings that will be coming up. 

Here's the way it reads out: The state of Tennessee wants you to lose your
money. We want to make you a loser because the only way that we can get
money is to make you a loser. 

The billboards will come, and they prey on the poor person. ... They put the
billboards in the poor areas of town. "The lottery might be your ticket to
easy street." Well, that's almost lying because the chances of winning the
lottery are so slim. It is really a tax on the poor. The poor are the ones
that are going to suffer the most, get addicted the most. 

Q: What do you see in the future for yourselves?

John: My future plans are to preach fulltime. I'm doing part-time now. But
I'm praying about it and wanting to go full time as a minister. I will
continue to write. I've got a book, Christ-centered Recovery Program - about
gambling addiction - coming out in the spring. 

One of the high points of my life was when Alabama defeated the lottery. I
had gone down there and I had spoken in several churches. You know what
really won that thing for them - for the anti-lottery? It was when the black
preachers got together at the civic auditorium down there in Birmingham. And
when they came out, they had a press conference, and they said, "We are
against the lottery. It's another form of slavery. Credit cards and
lotteries are the new chains of slavery for the black people, and we're
against it." And ... that was it. 

Karen: It's just educating the people because I used to think there was
nothing wrong with (gambling) before he got addicted. I would have been for
it unless somebody had come to me and really shared with me all the
devastation. You don't realize that it can happen.
# # #
*Green is a free-lance writer in Nashville, Tenn. She formerly covered
religion for the Associated Press.

*************************************
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