The Behavioral Corner 

Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us, as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while. 

Steve Martorano 

So here we are back on the Behavioral Corner, working our way through this very strange holiday season. We hope you found us here what we do is we gather and we talk about the way we behave, the things we do, the choices we make, and how all of them together constitute our behavioral health or constitute but impact our behavioral health, the choices we make the things we do affect us mentally, physically, spiritually. So we bring lots of diverse kinds of people together to talk about those things. Now, in the past, we have done a great deal about substance abuse, both, you know, from a clinical standpoint, and also from first-person accounts of getting sober maintaining sobriety. We've been doing that for many, many years on this program and others have been involved in it, we have never joined that period of time, it occurs to me ever done a show about compulsive gambling, it's not because compulsive gambling isn't on par with any other kind of addictive behavior you can think about. It's just we just haven't done it. It's what referred to in the field as a "process addiction." It's not a substance you are addicted to or have a disorder, but it's a behavior. And there are many forms of that me we're now seeing an emerging internet, or social media, addictive behavior, people can't put their phones down. It hasn't impacted their lives negatively yet, but it may, it'll be characterized as one of these process disorders. But gambling is the one because most of us have been familiar with the notion of compulsive or out of control gambling. To that end, we're really lucky to run into a fella by the name of Matt Bloom. Matt joins us from his home in Florida. And Matt is 51 years old, you know, family man, Father husband, who overcame a very serious compulsive gambling problem, and now have had it under control for going on 19 years. So he speaks from a really broad range of expertise about this. And we're ready to stop by the corner with this, Matt. Thanks, man. How are you doing?

Matt Bloom 

I'm great. Thanks for having me. Steve.

Steve Martorano 

Did I get all that right? 51.

Matt Bloom 

You did.

Steve Martorano 

Have any kids? 

Matt Bloom 

Yeah.I got two boys, 19 and 16?

Steve Martorano 

Well, we're going to talk about your life between 19 and 16. Which is a lot different. Hopefully, your sons are going to be so going on 19 years of getting this thing under control. Let's talk a little bit about gambling disorders. What was the first bet you ever made? Do you remember?

Matt Bloom 

That's a good question. I don't really recall my first wager. But what I do remember was when I was probably 13, though, I remember my father, who was also a compulsive gambler came into my room was knocking on my door room in the middle of the winter, and said he was going to the track and wonder if I can go, you know, loan him 40 bucks. So I guess technically, that was my first wager because I gave it to him because I felt bad and nobody, you know what was going on?

Steve Martorano 

Right? Right. How old were you?

Matt Bloom 

I was probably around 13 or so. Right? Like that. But that wasn't really when I started to really get involved with it. probably say in my early 20s is that's when kind of not only did my first wager take place, but that's when I started having a lot of mental health issues that were kind of triggered and where my life story that kind of go in that, you know, a path of destructive nature.

Steve Martorano 

Would you say your dad who was also a compulsive gambler? When did you become aware of that? Was it later on when your gambling was out of control? Or did you notice it before you had the problem? 

Matt Bloom 

I kind of knew he was a bit of a gambler when I was kind of young. I would say probably right around that time or maybe a couple of years before because he would always go to I don't know if you're what you probably do remember that back in the day on the East Coast, they used to have OTB 

Steve Martorano 

Oh, yeah. 

Matt Bloom 

So he would always go to OTB all the time. And he'd have those little tickets, you know, next to his, you know, money and my mother would you know, get all upset about it. You know, so yeah, there was something going on. I mean, that was so young. I didn't really know that there was, you know, gambling or addiction to alcohol or anything like that. I was too young to realize it but you probably right around there.

Steve Martorano 

Yeah. For people who don't know what OTP is. It was Off Track Betting. It was the state of New York. I don't know if it went to other places. But it certainly, when I was living in New York, it was a very big deal. They were going to legalize off-track betting, and open up these parlors all over the city and New York State, as I remember, this Matt, became the first entity in the history of gambling to go broke. Just, it just shows you why people don't trust the government a lot. They couldn't handle the action at racetracks, they actually lost money. It was outrageous. But yeah, you know, it's interesting, because I asked you about the timeframe. You're talking about 30 years ago when your father comes in more than that now and asked you for a couple of bucks to go to the track. And when you're 20, and you're gambling, that's, you know, 30 years ago, the world was a different place with regards in every way. But with regards to gambling. 30 years ago, there wasn't a casino on every corner. There were, you know, state lotteries, that's for sure. There was no legalize sports betting which just recently happened. So when you started out, you were gambling with friends or bookmaker, who were you gambling with? 

Matt Bloom 

That's a great question, Steve. So I was fortunate enough in my early 20s, to have a very lucrative career, but unfortunately, worked with a group of people that had destructive behaviors. And I kind of caught on to all that not just to blame any of them for my behavior. However, you know, I kind of went with the, I guess, "run with the Joneses" as we call them back then. You know, I started going to casinos. And like you said, placing wagers with bookmakers and multiple bookmakers. And I mean, I'd even do his craziest things is, you know, set out on the, on the golf course. And you know, I'd say to somebody, this is how sick I was, I'd say I could take this golf ball and throw it further than you can for X amount of dollars. So yeah, I was anything in anything we could, you know, we can think of it that time. I would say it was more focused or let's say geared towards sports betting and going to like Atlantic City was a big thing back then. Because the people that I worked around, we were Wall Street, guys. And that's kind of how we did things back then.

Steve Martorano 

Sure you were in a field already surrounded by people who were risk-takers. You know, they liked it out there on the edge, right?

Matt Bloom 

They love the action drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, you name it.

Steve Martorano 

I don't think people understand sometimes what that's all about it. I think they think of it in simplistic terms. I mean, somebody's involved in Wall Street or even gambling. It's not the money. The money's how you keep score, right? Was that your experience? I mean, it's nice to win money. And it's bad to lose money. But it's sort of just a medium to allow you to take those risks and get that rush.

Matt Bloom 

Yeah, I mean, back then it was the rush. It was money. And sometimes it wasn't even about making money. It was about you know, how much could you lose, because if you lost that was always the thing, you know, walk around the office, the big shot last acts versus oh, someone won, you know, a couple 100 bucks, which was really no big deal anybody back then working on Wall Street. But you know, today, money's in its proper place. For me, it's not about the money back then it was always about, you know, my life was consumed around money. And that's some of the things that actually led me to, you know, the way that my brain was functioning surrounded around money.

Steve Martorano 

When did you mention earlier that there were other guests co-occurring mental health issues you were going through, what sorts of things were you battling in addition to compulsive gambling during that time?

Matt Bloom 

Yes, probably around, I would say 25-ish, I started to, you know, feel a sense of depression. And it got really bad to the point of I was completely immobilized, at times, it would be somewhat towards the fall part of the year. And then once the spring kind of hit, everything went back to you know, kind of normal, but what I didn't realize was that it really wasn't normal was actually going in the complete opposite direction. Because at the time, you know, someone had said, "Oh, well, you must, you must have some sort of...

Steve Martorano 

Seasonal disorder.

Matt Bloom 

Seasonal affective disorder. I couldn't get it out. But thanks for having me because it's been so near so many years. And, you know, that being said, I, you know, started taking some medication for you know, depression. And, you know, a couple of years went by and then I kind of snapped and had a manic episode, and ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. I mean, my wife just couldn't deal with me anymore. She said, you know, go and I was all over. And then I was, you know, once I came out of the hospital and said, you know, I need health, I was diagnosed as bipolar.

Steve Martorano 

It's amazing how, how it takes a crisis sometimes to get to the things that are happening underneath the surface. The depression, certainly bipolar didn't cause it. Well, let me ask you, what, to what extent do you think your bipolar situations and your depression contributed to the gambling,

Matt Bloom 

It was a tremendous part of it, because what I haven't, you know, come to find. And from my experience, and doing a lot of reading and do a lot of deep writing, and, you know, honing in on gambling, addiction, it's a disease of the mind. And I attribute a lot of whether it be gambling, and you know, lying, cheating, stealing, as I mentioned, some of the other addictions that, you know, came and went, all based on character defects, and those character defects are attributed from, you know, some type of, you know, mental health or emotional issue that, you know, I'm not going to label any other compulsive gambler, but I guess you can kind of see that most compulsive gamblers and or addicts, in general, have some sort of mental health issue, which, you know, kind of, they're utilizing something, whether it be gambling or, you know, some other type of diction to self medicate.

Steve Martorano 

So, I mean, yeah, you're right. There's the sense that I don't like where I am, at this moment or the way I feel at this moment. Let me change things. It's substance abuse, let me ingest this. If it's gambling, I'll be you know, I'll get the lights are on. Those are ringing, making money, stories to tell. So just transporting yourself out of a bad place into what you think will be a better place. And we know how that work works out. How quickly for you, Matt, when you were hitting it hard, did the slide take place? Because listen, most young guys in this country, overwhelmingly, most young guys in this country, like to bet in a little bet. fantasy football, all that stuff. All that stuff's geared towards young men. Not all of them become problem gamblers. How quickly did it happen to you?

Matt Bloom 

It happened very, very quickly. Like I said in my mid-20s I was basically someone who you know wanted to gamble all the time. I gave any type of I guess, rationalization or justification as to a why I want to sit home on a Saturday or Sunday and you know, have a wager on every single you know, football game and you know, every night of the week whether it be hockey, basketball, baseball, I mean I used to say this of all I'm never gonna bet on baseball because that's my favorite sport and all of a sudden I'm you know gambling on baseball or I don't know anything about you know, hockey besides you know, my local team. I'm never going to wager on them but I'm listening to hockey games and you know, in French and the only time I knew who scored was when they said goal you know, because I couldn't understand the language anyway but that's how crazy you know I was and you know, my life just just started unraveling to the point where and you know, this is probably something that I will always kind of hold to my heart is that you know, it got so bad that you know, at my bachelor party, I was in Atlantic City casino and I was literally down to you know, nothing and I asked a buddy of mine who was actually leaving that day and I said, listen, I need a couple bucks because if I don't make some money back I'm not gonna be able to pay for my wedding and he threw me a chip and thankfully so I got you know, I guess something Mike somebody up above was looking looking down at me and said you know here and I you know, I made a few bucks and then you know, things like that when you make money and you start to see you know, the light at the end of the tunnel like, Oh my god, I can make all this money what am I continue doing this? You know, between the money, the mental health and the action and trying to, you know, be involved or fit in with everybody kind of cumulated you know, all that into one piece.

Steve Martorano 

You actually lost the money to pay for your wedding at your bachelor party.

Matt Bloom 

Oh, yes. All of it. every dime that I had to my name and how to pretty expensive when 175 people at my wedding in a synagogue out in Long Island and it cost me a pretty penny. So Thankfully, so, otherwise I don't think I'd be married. And I just celebrated my 25th anniversary with my wife back in September. I don't know if we'd be married to this day.

Steve Martorano 

So you're a very stand up girl.

Matt Bloom 

Oh, God, that helped me. She's been through...

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, I mean, you know, I say this all the time about addiction and recovery. All the stories are the same, except they're different. So we don't want to live your stuff. But you know, easily you went through all the money. Your marriage is on the brink. Your sons were old enough. At some point you go, something's wrong, right?

Matt Bloom 

So my oldest son was born in 2001.

Steve Martorano 

Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. You start getting better when they're born. Right.

Matt Bloom 

So what happened was kind of like the last thing that really happened, where I sat excitedly to say to me, I mean, I need some help, was the day after my son was born, and my wife was in the hospital in New York City. I decided that okay, I'm going to go to Atlantic City, while my wife's in the hospital with my son. I was like, Oh, this is the greatest thing. I'll come back with a boatload of money. We'll have some fun. That didn't work out too well. So I entered into gamblers anonymous, in New York City, and went in, and then I went back out for a couple of weeks or so. And then ever since then, I haven't placed a wager since January 16, of 2002.

Steve Martorano 

It's remarkable, as he said, at the beginning of maintaining sobriety, no matter what the problem is, is very difficult.

Matt Bloom 

But my children are fully aware...

Steve Martorano 

Of your backstory, yeah?

Matt Bloom 

Everything. Yeah, they know that I'm in gamblers anonymous. They know about the meetings I attend. And, you know...

Steve Martorano 

Do you worry that there's a family trait here because you say your father had a problem, too?

Matt Bloom 

My father is, as I said, a compulsive gambler. He also was bipolar, my sister's bipolar. So where we have an interesting family tree going on here. So...

Steve Martorano 

Before we get into what you're doing now because you haven't just moved on, you've stayed in the area of helping maintain, you know, your control, and you're helping other people. Before we get into that, though. This is something I don't think I've ever asked anybody either. Did you experience physical cravings when you could gamble? Or is it all sort of a mental process?

Matt Bloom 

That's a great question. Well, the way I would answer that today would be more mental. Back then, I was thinking it was just the question of, you know, boredom, I want action. So I used any type of excuse to, you know, go gamble, or go have a fun party, do whatever it is, you know, that I can do to cause destruction. But now it's all about, you know, again, as I mentioned earlier, it's all about the mental aspect. And this is a disease of the mind and its cunning.

Steve Martorano 

In that context that there is a physical component to it, even if it's not a classical sense of, you know, I gotta have it, I gotta have it. There's something going on. It's organic. It's changed the way you're thinking. that's changing your behavior. Matt Blum is our guest, Matt, Matt does a lot of work now in the area of helping other people maintain control over their compulsive behavior. With regard to gambling, he's now going into 19 years of having his very serious problem under control.

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Steve Martorano 

So you go into GA. Works for a while. Then you got really involved in it. When did you start hosting or putting together groups to work with other people?

Matt Bloom 

As I mentioned, again, I've been in gamblers anonymous, just under 19 years, and I've been attending, you know, meetings, you know, whether they be in a church or synagogue or you know, I've gone to meetings and you know, on the beach in California while on vacation with my family, because anytime I go somewhere, I got to get to a meeting. Even when I'm on the road for work, I make sure that I'm at meetings. But that being said, I've always you know, whether it be a chair to meet because that's kind of the term that we use in at least our program and many other 12 step programs, you know, I would share meetings. And I also have gotten involved in doing some things on social media, like doing live videos, and shows, and things of that nature. But most recently, since COVID, came about, a buddy of mine, we were sitting across while we were actually we were on the phone, and we were discussing, like, you know, what, what are we going to do here? You know, we can't go to meetings. And, you know, we like to help people. So when we sponsor and whatnot, what are we going to do? So I said, you know, maybe we should do something on Zoom. And he was like, well, what's Zoom, you know, 60. So, we started hosting Zoom meetings, back in the was like, the second week of March, to be exact. And we have run a daily Zoom meeting seven days a week, since that time, and we haven't stopped since. So it's been going on and on these Zoom meetings. And it's kind of been a word of mouth. And we have hundreds of, if not 1000s of people coming in and out of these meetings, on a daily basis. All over the world, primarily, US base, we have a lot of payment. We have regulars from you know, Ireland, and you know, Asia and Australia and New Zealand. I mean, these are guys that are like buddies of mine now. It's gotten to work with each other. So well, it's been such a blessing. I mean, last night, we were at a meeting, we've had over 50 people. And it's been going really well. And in addition to that, I've also gotten involved in some types of situations similar to this where I've been doing some interviews. And also there are some Facebook groups that I've been doing some videos on recently, I've actually done a couple of very large network out there. And I'm going to continue to do those. And also, I'm working on building my own brand, because I really do enjoy this. I do this strictly for not only myself, which you know, but it's also a selfish program. So I look at myself first because my recovery comes before anything. And then I'm, you know, looking to pass the message on, as it says, and our steps to recovery. So that's why I do all these things. Again, I don't charge anybody for any of this, our Zoom meetings are free.

Steve Martorano 

So for people who might not know, is gamblers anonymous 12 step program is modeled the same way, right?

Matt Bloom 

Yeah. 12 step, there's just like it just like they do with AA, NA and OA and all of them.

Steve Martorano 

For people. Some people are still confused about this. I mean, when folks ask me all the time, I'm not in recovery. Let's talk to lots of people. And when people say to me, you know, come AA does that really work? I'd say it works for the people that work for and there are millions of them. But I think people still are confused about what you know, something like AA or GA really is, it's not a treatment, per se. It's a support group for like-minded people who want to get better. Is that the way you view it? 

Matt Bloom 

Well, the first thing I'll say is that Gamblers Anonymous saved my life. I've taken medications, I've been to psychiatrists, I've been to psychologists, I like I said earlier, I've stayed overnight in the hospitals for many days, the only thing that ever helped me not only stop gambling, and stop living that destructive way or, you know, thinking and living was Gamblers Anonymous, you know, working on the steps of recovery is really what changed my life. That's where it kind of went because for the first 11 years in gamblers anonymous, all I did was not placed, you know, but and I thought that you know, as long as I don't place a bet, my life's gonna be phenomenal. And guess what, you know, in the steps of recovery in any 12 step program. The second part of step one says life is unmanageable. I couldn't get past that first step, which was even after 11 years of not placing a bet, my life was still unmanageable. And then I had to take it to another level. I had to throw my hands up, I couldn't take the pain anymore, because I was so addicted, you know, you spoke before about, you know, addictions, I'm also addicted to the word pain, you know, and that's part of the process of being in a 12 step program is that's where all the _____ is from, you know, guilt, fear, and pain. I needed to I need to get rid of that pain somehow.

Steve Martorano 

The surprising disappointment when you stop gambling, but life doesn't get worked out. You got lucky it led you to the realization that gambling was a symptom of the problem. And that there were problems underneath that. So it's a very strong message and the people that are struggling, I mean, they're out there right now. People are just shaking their heads. You know, that won't work for me. It won't work for me. Well, won't work if you don't try. Let me ask you something about, you know, getting control of this thing now, in the rooms? What are these other guys telling you? How, for instance, how in the world do they resist the triggers, which we know are things that might result in you doing bad habits? in the environment, we live in now, where you can gamble, legally or illegally all the time? What are they telling you in the rooms? What are you telling them?

Matt Bloom 

You know, it's funny, you use the word a few times the word control and use the word triggers. First of all, if you're in a 12 step program, initially, when you come in, you believe in your mind that you can control your addiction, not only if you stop, you can still control it, and abstain from gambling, well, that's complete if you do any reading, you can see that that's not true. Number one, you're always going to be a compulsive gambler. There are no two ways about it. I don't care what any, but at least for me, I actually shouldn't say that. For me, I know, I'll always be a compulsive gambler, I can, you know, manage that. But I can't eliminate it, the only thing I can eliminate at any given moment is my character defects whenever I want. So that being said, the way I look at the triggers and the compulsion aspect to it, look, it's simple. We have, you know, literature that, you know, we read daily, our combo book our day at a time book, and I do a lot of reading. One of the things that I've been, you know, open to which I'm going to tell you that just from being in the program, I would say probably 98% of the people that are in 12 step programs do not do, which is writing. Now, if you read in the literature, it'll tell you that right and removes the obsession. And not only does it remove the obsession to gamble, it removes other obsessions. And I mean, it's a shame, because again, as I mentioned to you before, I have so many, you know, character defects that I, you know, go out party or, you know, lie to my wife, cheat, steal everything like that. Now, if I don't continue to do my writing, and I don't continue to do my reading, it says, in our literature, if you don't make character changes, you'll eventually go back to gamma. It's a given it's read in the literature, that, you know, in order to prevent a relapse, you know, one must make a character change. I don't know if I answered your question but...

Steve Martorano 

No, it does completely I mean, but show me, you know, there's so many people who don't get that. They just think Well, look, this is ridiculous. Don't go into a casino. Don't place it a bet on a sporting event to, you know, come on, what's wrong with you? Well, there's a lot wrong with me. I'm working on it. Anyway, we only got a couple of minutes here. Matt is a very inspiring story. As I said, You, the first guy who comes on to talk to us about compulsive gambling is a huge problem. As devastating as any other addiction if people want. I know it doesn't sound like you need more people in these rooms. But if people want more information about you, and what you're doing, what do they do? 

Matt Bloom 

They can reach out to me by, you know, going to a Zoom meeting, they can reach out to me I actually have a Facebook page, my own, kind of just playing around with here and there. It's called Recovery Hearts. I've had it for quite some time...

Steve Martorano 

Recovery Hearts?

Matt Bloom 

A lot of people post on there. It's a combination of addiction to drugs, alcohol, and gambling. 

Steve Martorano 

So you've got your Facebook page, Recovery Hearts, and you often are involved with this rehabs 411. So we'll put in the post that stuff to our site. And this will be up in you know, early next week. I'd love to get you back real soon. Have a great holiday, continued success with your work. And thanks for joining us on the Corner.

Matt Bloom 

Thanks for having me, Steve. I appreciate it.

The Behavioral Corner 

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