Pioneers and Frontiers ... Marilyn Lancelot (Post 70)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2015
Post 70
Pioneers and Frontiers ... Marilyn Lancelot
As you may know, Kentucky has been the seat of recent training sessions for clergy and lay ministers for the American Board's new Clergy/Lay Ministers Certification in Gambling Addiction Prevention, Education, Awareness, and Spiritual Outreach Care. Within the instruction, I often remind those working on this national certification that - so far - we are "pioneers" as faith-based ministers specializing as First Responders in (what I will call) the "frontier" mental health field of problem gambling recovery. Yes, there is ongoing research and nationally certified counselors continue to be trained. Moreover, fellowships as Gamblers Anonymous and Gam-Anon are encouraging supports for persons seeking help and recovery.
However, when I was assigned to create and implement a gambling recovery outreach in 2001, there was little to pattern-after this new-start parish ministry. Yet I did find a wonderful resource to understand further the plight of persons suffering from gambling addiction. The website, geared to women gamblers, included heartfelt and heart-wrenching letters about their trials and victories. Counselors wrote educational articles on compulsive gambling and recovery issues ... testimonies made the stories personal and real. I read and read ... and I learned and learned.
This website www.female.info is the creation of a woman who personally knows about both the torment of and the recovery from compulsive gambling. Marilyn Lancelot brought the reality of women gamblers to nationwide attention in the 1990's and into the 21st century. Her online Women Helping Women Newsletter is an international outreach of encouragement to those struggling against gambling addiction. I salute you, Marilyn, for telling your story, being honest with us, your readers, opening more and more GA Meetings (including prison GA Meetings), speaking out about the basics and the details of the devastations of addiction, and providing a worldwide platform for shared advice and celebration stories! Keep on pioneering! There are many frontiers to explore in the land of recovery! Thank you for your courage to say the words we all need to hear!
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I have written the below article for the final edition of Women Helping Women, June 2015.
We were invited and challenged to be "pioneers". It was an exciting event!
The huge hotel ballroom was filled with professionals, anxious to hear about treatment for problem gambling. I had driven 2 ½ hours to attend Ohio’s First Ever Annual Conference on Problem Gambling. The keynote speaker excitedly exclaimed that, years before, a “conference” on problem gambling might be a handful of colleagues gathered around her office space. Instead, this was 2003 … and a real crowd of therapists and social workers had gathered.
Gambling Recovery Ministries (GRM) was not quite two years old then … and the call to be a pioneer in the burgeoning, frontier field of problem gambling recovery rang true. Four years earlier, a soon-to-be-leader in the field of compulsive gambling recovery offered a pioneering outreach to those struggling with gambling addiction – particularly – female gamblers. Her endeavor was a website designed to encourage women - seeking recovery, maintaining recovery, and celebrating recovery! Marilyn Lancelot, through straight-forward, honest sharing of her hellish experiences in addiction, opened up worldwide awareness to the plight of women struggling with an addiction once reserved, by the public eye, to men only.
This website, www.femalegamblers.info , welcomed contributions from both those experiencing, first-hand, problems with gambling as well as counselors and clinicians with specialties in serving this population. Over the years, articles and letters to the Women Helping Women Newsletter have come from the website’s worldwide readership. Compiled, Marilyn Lancelot’s website’s entries would be an encyclopedic treasure trove of testimonies, clinical commentaries, and openly candid, tried-and-true, soundbites of advice.
It was through this media and her first book, Gripped by Gambling, I became acquainted with Marilyn. We met at a national conference on problem gambling wherein she served as one of the special speakers. I bought “Gripped …” for the Gambling Recovery Ministries Resource Center Library and have loaned it to others seeking to understand more about recovery from gambling addiction. Needless to say, it’s been a blessing!
Marilyn’s message of both reality and hope speaks loud and clear. Her authentic testimony has been heard at the National Gambling Impact Study Commission and the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse; and she continues to speak at numerous professional conferences nationwide. Again, she is the voice of experience and encouragement - crying out to others in the wilderness of their despair - the truly, good news of recovery.
Marilyn’s work in gambling recovery continues to pioneer outside of publishing and speaking engagements too. Her advocating of recovery through Gamblers Anonymous keeps calling women to take the journey to serenity and wellness.
Thank you, Marilyn! May God bless you as you continue to pioneer and bring to all your transforming messages of personal understanding and hope for recovery!
Blessings with Sincere Gratefulness,
Rev. Janet Jacobs
Director, Gambling Recovery Ministries