She Bets Her Life: A True Story of Gambling Addiction

by Mary Sojourner

Overview

What sets She Bets Her Life apart is Mary Sojourner's ability to take both an objective and a deeply personal look at the psychological and physiological impact of gambling addiction on women. Having lived it, Sojourner is brutally forthcoming, and with her penchant for research and fact-finding, the narrative is teeming with important information and resources to help steer women with gambling addictions (and their loved ones) toward help and healing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580053556
Publisher:	Da Capo Press
Publication date:	04/27/2010
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	279 KB

About the Author

Mary Sojourner spent over a decade as a compulsive gambler, struggling with the same addiction she writes about in this book. Sojourner is an NPR commentator (two of her commentaries were set in the Nevada casinos she used to frequent). She is the author of four books and has written numerous short stories and essays for national and regional publications on social justice, Western landscape, local diversity, and women's wellness and self-esteem. Sojourner has an MA in both physiological psychology and counseling. She has a counseling background in women's self-esteem and creativity, family system theory, addiction/alcoholism treatment, mind-body connections, dream and bodywork, and gender-specific triggers for depression and mood disorders. She was the first women-specific mental health counselor and teacher in Rochester, NY, from 1972-1985.

Sojourner lives in Bend, Oregon and writes and teaches privately at universities and colleges. She has led women's groups for 30 years, and has been involved with book tours, signings, and lectures for the past 20.

Table of Contents

User's Guide 9

Introduction 13

Chapter 1 Meet the Sisters 23

Chapter 2 Crossing the Line: How a Woman Knows She's Hooked 55

Chapter 3 Dopamine is Queen: Gambling and the Brain 64

Chapter 4 Freud Was Wrong: Psychodynamics of Gambling Addiction 83

Chapter 5 Girls' Night In: Gender and Women's Gambling Addiction 108

Chapter 6 Get Her to Sit Down: The Industry's Strategies to Keep Women Playing 131

Chapter 7 The Party's Over: When It's Time to Stop 152

Chapter 8 A Long and Winding Road: Withdrawal 168

Chapter 9 What it Takes: The Reality of Recovering 191

Chapter 10 The Slip: Why She Goes Back Out 213

Chapter 11 It's a Family Affair 229

Chapter 12 Down the Road 242

Resources 269