Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with
Speaker 2: Howard Reback as we talk about gambling. What are some
Speaker 2: of the signs of a problem gambler, Howard that somebody
Speaker 2: can look at and recognize with a loved one or friend.
Speaker 3: I like to answer that by saying, it's something like
Speaker 3: when you fall in love. It's something that you just can't.
Speaker 4: Get out of your mind.
Speaker 3: You eat it, you sleep it, you drink it. You
Speaker 3: think about it all day long, all during your waking hours.
Speaker 3: You think about how and when you're going to gamble next,
Speaker 3: Where you're going to gamble next, where the money to
Speaker 3: gamble next will come from if you don't have it,
Speaker 3: Stories about telling your friends, your family, or your employer
Speaker 3: about why you might be missing some time so you
Speaker 3: can go gamble. It encompasses your life, George. It literally
Speaker 3: takes over your supposed normal thought process and you just
Speaker 3: can't shake it. And when you start thinking about gambling
Speaker 3: all day long, then God knows you have a problem.
Speaker 4: And that's that's.
Speaker 3: Pretty much how I lived my life for a couple
Speaker 3: of years, and in full transparency, and I knew something
Speaker 3: was wrong, but I just did not stop. It took
Speaker 3: over my life.
Speaker 2: Did you pull out yourself or did somebody help you?
Speaker 3: This is a story. I don't know why I get.
Speaker 3: I get very very teary when I whenever I'm asked
Speaker 3: that question. But I suppose it means it's real. I
Speaker 3: had my family help me, George, And we can digress
Speaker 3: for a second in full transparency, that my brother, who
Speaker 3: is everything to me, and of course he's he's listening
Speaker 3: quietly in his home in Los Angeles, is a friend
Speaker 3: of yours. And that's how you and I come together.
Speaker 3: And my brother Billy, along with a few cousins in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, in conjunction with my ex wife and my folks,
Speaker 3: had me come to LA and arouse on false pretenses.
Speaker 3: And of course when I when I got to Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: the family had an intervention, George. And as they say,
Speaker 3: the jig was up.
Speaker 2: They were waiting for you.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: They were waiting for me, and without the bad pun
Speaker 3: they got me in spades. And they did what they
Speaker 3: set out to do. And these were professionals, not therapists,
Speaker 3: but whatever they did, it worked. They could not have
Speaker 3: done a finer job. I never felt so low in
Speaker 3: my life, next to a few stories about getting hurt
Speaker 3: while I was gambling, but that's for another question or
Speaker 3: another date. And my brother and the family, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: did what they had to do. They called me out
Speaker 3: on it. If I could say one what one nice
Speaker 3: thing about myself at that time was I didn't give
Speaker 3: them any trouble. I didn't put up a fight I
Speaker 3: was had. They cornered me. But the important thing is George,
Speaker 3: more than anything, was that the deal with my family
Speaker 3: was if I was to admit that I had a problem,
Speaker 3: which I did just about instantly, was they were going
Speaker 3: to back me up and help me get out of it.
Speaker 3: But as anybody who went to rehab knows, you have
Speaker 3: to admit it yourself first and foremost, because if not,
Speaker 3: nothing else matters. So insummation, I was in Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: the family was.
Speaker 4: Waiting for me.
Speaker 3: They put the puck in the net. They got me
Speaker 3: to go to rehab. I admitted everything, and I won't
Speaker 3: say that as they say is history. It was a
Speaker 3: long and tough journey out, But that's the day it began,
Speaker 3: and literally and literally it was like yesterday George. But
Speaker 3: it worked, God knows it worked. They did a yeoman job,
Speaker 3: they all did. And once again, a very very special
Speaker 3: thank you to my brother, who I repeat as listening Billy.
Speaker 3: And without him, I really can't tell you where I'd
Speaker 3: be right now, George, I really, I really don't know.
Speaker 2: And he's one of Hollywood's a great scriptwriters.
Speaker 4: He's one of the best scriptwriter comedian.
Speaker 3: But to me, his best job is being a brother.
Speaker 3: He was a great son and a great friend of mine.
Speaker 4: He stood by anything, and it's he stood by me.
Speaker 3: And I'm very proud to say that. Although he lives
Speaker 3: on the different coast, in a different country, three thousand
Speaker 3: miles away, we speak at least five times a week,
Speaker 3: even if it's to check it with each other or
Speaker 3: tell each other a ridiculous joke or talk about baseball.
Speaker 3: We never let thirty six hours go without speaking to
Speaker 3: each other. He was behind me. He waited for me
Speaker 3: to apologize, which I did. He waited for me to
Speaker 3: apologize to everybody that had hurt around me, which I did.
Speaker 3: And I repeat the rest as I say, is history.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't easy. George, and anybody listening right now
Speaker 3: to your listeners, anybody going through what I went through
Speaker 3: before I had help. I beg you, I urge you,
Speaker 3: I ask you, ever so politely, to put up your hand,
Speaker 3: speak up, speak out. People do want to help, but
Speaker 3: you have to either ask for it or be honest.
Speaker 3: It's not just going to always come to you. I
Speaker 3: was exceptionally lucky with the family that I had and
Speaker 3: that I still had today, but not everybody is that lucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how many problem gamblers are in denial?
Speaker 3: Oh god, I have to say that any problem gambler
Speaker 3: at the beginning are all in denial. And again I
Speaker 3: go back to myself in first person, that it's so
Speaker 3: hard to explain when you're going through a horrific addiction
Speaker 3: and deep down and I'd like to think that I'm
Speaker 3: not I mean, I may not be Albert Einstein, but
Speaker 3: I'm also not the dumbest guy in the block. I
Speaker 3: had to have known, and I think about this often, George,
Speaker 3: I have to have known that I had a problem,
Speaker 3: but somehow that thought process went away and I kept
Speaker 3: on doing what I'm doing. So I think, at the beginning,
Speaker 3: until you feel pain, be it with your family, be
Speaker 3: it at work, be it in your bank, account. I
Speaker 3: think everybody goes through denial until the point when it
Speaker 3: begins to hurt you. And hurt comes in all different
Speaker 3: all different ways, right, and when it stops, it begins
Speaker 3: to alter your life. And Tuesday wasn't the same as Monday,
Speaker 3: and Monday wasn't the same as Sunday, and your relationship
Speaker 3: with your family wasn't the same as it was a
Speaker 3: month ago. Then you have to either change your ways
Speaker 3: or you are living in denial. Because again, I repeat,
Speaker 3: I think anybody and everybody must know when they're doing
Speaker 3: something wrong, and it just takes that that little moment
Speaker 3: in time, that little moment in time when we finally
Speaker 3: reached our breaking point. And with me, it was sitting
Speaker 3: in my brother's living room in his home in Beverly Hills,
Speaker 3: when I knew facing the family and I knew that
Speaker 3: it was up. The word denial just left my body
Speaker 3: and I had a whole new process that I had
Speaker 3: to go through. It was a new project that I
Speaker 3: had to live through and work. Yet, So to answer
Speaker 3: your question, I think everybody's in denial until such time
Speaker 3: yours as it begins to hurt your life.
Speaker 4: If that makes.
Speaker 2: Sense, could you go at this point to Vegas, sit
Speaker 2: at a blackjack table, have a little fun, and get
Speaker 2: up and leave.
Speaker 3: One thousand percent. And I'm not saying nine hundred percent,
Speaker 3: one thousand percent or more. Again, when Billy comes home
Speaker 3: to Montreal a couple of times a year, we live
Speaker 3: the old days. It used to take my mom and
Speaker 3: dad when they were alive, to the casino and have dinner.
Speaker 3: I sit with Billy. He plays his one hundred bucks
Speaker 3: or fifty bucks in THEI Kino machine. I have my one,
Speaker 3: two or three diet cokes. I watch the world go by.
Speaker 3: I say hello to everybody I know, and I literally
Speaker 3: and I want to say this very very politely. It's
Speaker 3: not that I couldn't care less, but I have such
Speaker 3: a different take on the building that we call the
Speaker 3: casino than I used to have that it's not remotely
Speaker 3: it's literally black and white, George, it's not the same.
Speaker 3: So to answer your question, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: I've been trying to get to Vegas and meet Billy
Speaker 3: in Vegas, and maybe this show will will promote us
Speaker 3: to finally go one of these fine days. I'd love
Speaker 3: to go, absolutely, but it's very simple. If you're not
Speaker 3: going to go with a gazillion dollars on you that
Speaker 3: you can't lose, then there's no harm. Why not? I
Speaker 3: still love the game of black jack. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, I consult for a lovely, lovely casino. That is,
Speaker 3: for those of you who may not know. I'm in Montreal, Canada,
Speaker 3: and halfway between Montreal and Quebec City is a city
Speaker 3: called Three Rivers, but an hour and a half drive
Speaker 3: from Montreal, and I consult for this casino in Wallenack, Quebec.
Speaker 3: It's a native casino and I consult for them for
Speaker 3: this sole reason that the people who run the casino,
Speaker 3: the general manager and the operation manager. And I'll give
Speaker 3: a quick shutout to Carl and JF. The guys that
Speaker 3: run the casino, they walk the walk and they talk
Speaker 3: to talk, and they care about the customer and nobody
Speaker 3: gets hurt in their casino if they should see that.
Speaker 3: And my job is to keep the casino basically clean.
Speaker 3: If anybody has a problem, I'm there, meaning that I'm
Speaker 3: in the casino now more than I used to be
Speaker 3: when I gambled, which is comical.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Families hire me George to watch their partner who might
Speaker 3: be lying I'm giving a picture. Please see if you
Speaker 3: can see John at the casino. So I go in
Speaker 3: blah blah blah. So I literally spend more time in
Speaker 3: casinos now than I ever did in the throes of
Speaker 3: me having a sickness, and I just look at it
Speaker 3: completely differently. Obviously it's it's I'm comfortable, but it's a
Speaker 3: whole different world. The idea of going in, George and
Speaker 3: blowing the kinds of money that I did in what
Speaker 3: I call the old days twenty plus years ago, sickens me,
Speaker 3: revolts me, disgusts me, and there's no interest at all,
Speaker 3: none done.
Speaker 2: What is it about addictive gambling that happens to people?
Speaker 2: What are they looking for?
Speaker 3: I think the average look not the average person. I
Speaker 3: think the five, six or seven percent, George, that are
Speaker 3: the addictive gamblers. I think what they're looking at is
Speaker 3: they want all the money in the building, which is
Speaker 3: not going to happen unless your steed you win, or
Speaker 3: you own the casino or you're the operator.
Speaker 2: And look what happened to good old sleeve.
Speaker 3: Okay, well exactly that's a whole other story. Absolutely, and
Speaker 3: it can't be done. You know, people who have the problem.
Speaker 3: They have forty chips in front of them, George, they
Speaker 3: want sixty. They have sixty chips in front of them.
Speaker 4: They want eighty.
Speaker 3: It's never enough. And there in lies the problem that
Speaker 3: it's never enough, which goes back to the beginning of
Speaker 3: our conversation almost fifty minutes ago, about being greedy, about
Speaker 3: wanting everything everything in moderation. And the problem is, I
Speaker 3: said before, they have a great marketing team. Most casinos do,
Speaker 3: and they lure you into the building, which is fine,
Speaker 3: no different than alcohol companies or celebrities that own tequila companies.
Speaker 2: Or retail companies trying to get you to buy their products.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's exactly.
Speaker 3: I bought one thing an Amazon three weeks ago. I
Speaker 3: still at ninety eight ADS a day, exactly exactly, and
Speaker 3: that doesn't add in. Good luck to them. That's called marketing,
Speaker 3: which is a brand new enterprise in the last thirty years.
Speaker 3: But as far as Gambers are concerned, they want easy money.
Speaker 3: And the problem is when somebody does win, they think
Speaker 3: it's easy. They think why work, I can go to
Speaker 3: the casino and make a living that way, And when
Speaker 3: you start to think that way, that's when you know
Speaker 3: you're really a sick person with a problem. I did.
Speaker 3: I thought that way. I was in the clothing business.
Speaker 3: I was a pilot. I did okay, But I figured
Speaker 3: I could go to the casino and make a month's
Speaker 3: salary in an evening. And you know what, I could.
Speaker 3: The problem is I would give it back the next
Speaker 3: day and some so at the end of the day
Speaker 3: or the end of two days, you're negative. Eventually, as
Speaker 3: you said before Georgia half an hour ago, Vegas wasn't
Speaker 3: built on winters n so invariably people give it back.
Speaker 3: The key is if you can walk into a casino
Speaker 3: and you know when to leave, and you know when
Speaker 3: to stop, and you have a budget, and you listen
Speaker 3: to yourself, you wouldhere to that budget. You don't lie
Speaker 3: to yourself. You go with two hundred dollars and that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean you go in with three and you stop.
Speaker 3: I think it's a terrific way to spend an evening.
Speaker 3: You can have lots of fun. It's when you lose
Speaker 3: yourself that's when the trouble begins. And I lost myself
Speaker 3: and that's when the trouble began. And to answer your
Speaker 3: question from a few minutes ago, can I go to
Speaker 3: Vegas right now and have a great time. Absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 3: matter of fact, I will, and I'll have a great time,
Speaker 3: and I won't be sick, and I won't blow my
Speaker 3: brains out, and my family will not have to rescue
Speaker 3: me again. How's that. That's a promise in front of
Speaker 3: all your listeners right now? Okay, George.
Speaker 2: I was there about six months ago and met Wayne Newton,
Speaker 2: and that was worth the entire trip to me.
Speaker 3: Howard, he's about three four hundred years old.
Speaker 4: Now, how old is Wayne Newton?
Speaker 2: He's up there, he's up there. But it was fun.
Speaker 4: It was his story.
Speaker 2: I heard a Sinatra story that he was at the Sands,
Speaker 2: done with his show, had a line of credit with
Speaker 2: the casino. Howard Hughes had just bought the casino and
Speaker 2: they didn't get along because they were fighting over Ava Gardner.
Speaker 2: And that Frank was sitting at a blackjack table losing,
Speaker 2: ran out of money and asked the pit boss give
Speaker 2: me my marker because he thought he had like fifty
Speaker 2: or one hundred thousand dollars on credit, and Howard Hughes
Speaker 2: had already revoked it and they didn't have anything. And
Speaker 2: Frank got up and he was so upset, so angry,
Speaker 2: gone to a fight with the pit boss, who knocked
Speaker 2: out his two teeth, knocked out his front teeth. Sinatra's
Speaker 2: teeth got knocked out.
Speaker 3: One thing you learn when you're in the casino business,
Speaker 3: never argue or fight with security because.
Speaker 2: You're not going to win. You're not going to win.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm one hundred and fifty pounds five seven jew
Speaker 3: from Montreal. It's not a good idea to take on
Speaker 3: casino security.
Speaker 4: Here's the good news.
Speaker 3: I now work with them, not against them, So it's
Speaker 3: all good. No, but you're you're right. People walk into
Speaker 3: the building, George, and luckily it's not a big amount.
Speaker 3: But but mathematically it's still too many. And people do
Speaker 3: tend to lose themselves. And that's a great story you
Speaker 3: just told. I never knew that. I wonder that's a
Speaker 3: public story.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've seen I've seen athletes. I work with athletes, entertainers, politicians,
Speaker 3: some local big wigs here in Montreal, Toronto, and you'd
Speaker 3: be surprised what these people turn themselves into when they're losing,
Speaker 3: or they have lost already.
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