A first step to overcoming addiction
CASINO EXCLUSION ORDERS ALICIA WONG SOON after they held their customary wedding ceremony four years ago, the hongbao (red packet) money that they had been given went missing. That's when she had her first suspicions about her husband's gambling addiction. Since then, the 41-year-old crane operator has "relapsed" twice from counselling. Altogether, he has incurred a debt of at least $100,000. So when the opportunity to bar him from entering the casinos at the integrated resorts came up, Mdm Tan (not her real name) took it. "(His gambling addiction) is not easy to handle, it's a long process. That's why I decided to apply for the exclusion order," she said yesterday in a phone interview. Mdm Tan, also 41, and her husband are one of the seven families granted a family exclusion order - one of three types of exclusion orders - by the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG). The order allows a family to seek help to curb a problem gambler's behaviour and bars the addict from entering the casinos. The other two orders, self-exclusion and third-party exclusion, will be implemented later. Mdm Tan knew her husband had been gambling since his teenage years, but thought he was "just a social gambler". Her husband knows all types of gambling "but it's soccer betting that got him into trouble", she said. She only noticed things were amiss about three to four years ago, when they seemed to be in financial difficulties. "We don't have children, and we're both working. So we shouldn't have ended up in this state," she said. It was then that the office administrator found out about his $50,000 credit card debt and loans which he had taken from his insurance policy and from his company. Checks on her husband's mobile phone turned up text messages on betting tips. Often "black-faced" and "depressed", he would also wake up in the middle of the night to access online betting sites. They quarrelled when she confronted him, but he finally agreed to seek help. He knew "his mistakes" and would have agreed to a divorce had she asked him for one. But Mdm Tan decided to give him another chance. The couple went for marriage counselling but stopped after a few months. Almost a year later, her husband went back to gambling and racked up another $50,000 in debt in four months. This time round, they turned to gambling addiction counselling. But after about "a year plus, he relapsed again", said Mdm Tan. Spotting a Giro application form for betting with Singapore Pools that had been mailed to him, Mdm Tan "immediately talked to him and tried to understand (his struggles)". Counselling has taught her that her husband "needed time to cut off the habit". While the couple had quarrelled frequently and "almost wanted to separate a few times", the silver lining this struggle is her husband's willingness to change, she said. Their families and most of their friends are unaware of the couple's situation. Only her brother-in-law is aware of his brother's addiction, and attends counselling sessions with them. Their counsellor has also advised Mdm Tan's husband to tell his gambling buddies of his problem. For now, Mdm Tan continues to cut out soccer news from the newspapers and asks him to leave a party if she sees his friends gambling. "So far, so good," she said. The application process Madam Tan was granted the family exclusion order at the end of August, after waiting for about two months. Her counsellor at Tanjong Pagar Family Service Centre prepared the report and submitted it to the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) secretariat. "They (NCPG) called me and sent me a letter to ask me to go down and sign documents," she recalled. She was initially told she may have to attend a hearing - where a committee of assessors will decide whether to issue a family exclusion order - but because her husband agreed to the exclusion, the hearing was not needed. "So he signed (the documents) and we sent it back (by mail) … After that, they sent us the exclusion order." The order can only be revoked after a minimum of one year. The NCPG will review the case and decide if it should be revoked. ALICIA WONG From TODAY, News – Wednesday, 23-Sep-2009
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