[ngmucker]

Hello, I'm writing this post concerning a very severe gambling problem my little brother has. I know this is a long post, but please bear with me. He is a 21 year old student at a very prestigious college on the east coast and he have a very severe gambling problem. He has been playing online for about a year and a half and in that time has gained about 45 pounds and has had a very bad drop in his grades. He may be like many prototypical internet players who was a straight A student in H.S., got a 1560 on his SAT, was editor of his newspaper and very ambitious. But, he is a compulsive gambler. His problem can be summarized with what happened over a two day course last week: he deposited 1k into a website, built it up to 60K (playing just ring games) and proceeded to lose all that, along with about 12K of my money (which right now is the least of my concerns) and is no also 5K in debt to various sites. I am at my wit's end. This has been his M.O. since he has started playing: chasing losses, playing outside his BR, and tilting to severe extremese where he is no longer playing poker, but simply gambling. He would win and lose thousands a month, in a revolving cycle. I knew this for a while, but perhaps I was just in denial, or didn't know the full force. I am here asking for help. He is currently back home (LA) on winter break. He has started seeing a therapist, and we have discussed his going to GA. I just need to know what else I can do, for I feel helpless. I, along with my older brother and two cousins (who are practically our borthers) are all on the west coast and I feel he needs tremendous support when he restarts school next semester. I don't want this to ruin his life. I may be overdramatizing it, but I feel he has a sickness. Has anybody personally dealt with this or knows anybody who has? Any pieces of advice you can give me? How likely is it that he can recover without relapsing? One of the biggest problems is that he is currently broke, and I keep telling him that he mustn't feel that poker is the way to win it back, for that will just add fuel to the fire. I'm just really concerned. thank you for reading through this long email. I will happily answer all questions. All help is appreciated.

Thanks