“If everything had ended in that moment, I would have been totally OK with that,” Dave Yeager said while sitting in a well-lit hotel dining area on a chilly November day in Boulder, Colorado. The comment was matter-of-fact but filled with emotion, and there was a distant look in his eyes.

It’s what Yeager said next that was more stunning.

In July 2005, Yeager was an Army staff sergeant living in a brick building on a base in Corpus Christi, Texas. One day, those brick walls looked damned appealing. There was enough space, Yeager determined, for a runway in his 20 x 15 room, so he bent over, launched himself onto that runway, and slammed his head into the brick wall.

He didn’t die or lose consciousness, so he did it again … and again … and again.

“After it didn’t work the fourth time, I took myself to the hospital,” he said. “I had a little cut on the top of my head. I was sore in my neck. I had a little bit of a headache. I think I don’t remember it hurting so much because I was in such emotional pain.”

It was one of four times that Dave Yeager tried to kill himself to make the pain of his gambling addiction go away, and the first time that someone did something that assisted his eventual path to recovery as a civilian.

Yeager’s colonel came down to Corpus Christi from Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos) near Killeen, busted the sergeant down a rank, and then discharged him honorably, telling Yeager to “get the help you need.” It was clear, at least to that colonel, that the Army could not provide that help.

The history of gambling and the military

Gambling and the military have a fraught history. While the armed services have long counseled their members about the potential ills of alcohol and drugs, only recently did the military begin to identify gambling as another potential addiction.

And even now that it is listed in military manuals as a mental health issue, there are few avenues for a soldier to pursue specializing help — even though American bases abroad often offer slot machines as a form of entertainment. Yeager, in partnership with Kindbridge Research Institute, is starting to break down barriers through a new program that educates ROTC students about gambling addiction.

According to problem and responsible gambling expert Brianne Doura-Schawohl, there are more than 3,000 slot machines on U.S. military bases abroad, and the armed services make more than $100 million per year from gambling.

In 2022, NPR reported that there are slot rooms on U.S. military bases in at least 12 countries, most run by the Army and managed by the “Morale, Welfare, and Recreation” department on each base. In 1951, according to that same story, Congress passed legislation prohibiting slot machines on domestic military bases. The Air Force and Army 20 years later removed slot machines from foreign bases as well, but they brought them back in the 1980s.

Yeager’s addiction began overseas while stationed in South Korea. It was the perfect storm of family troubles, loneliness, and the desire to excel at his job that brought him to his first slot room.

He’d already completed one successful tour — 4½ years in the Army band playing the tuba and singing. He was stationed stateside for those years and chose to get out when he was assigned a post in Alaska that he didn’t want. He spent seven years as a civilian with ever-expanding responsibilities. Yeager was married with children, and it seemed like a good idea to return to the military for job security.

It may have been the worst decision Yeager ever made. He would endure more than two decades of active addiction, broken relationships, financial ruin, and the death of his hopes and dreams.

Hitting the jackpot felt like a drug high

Yeager went back to the Army, this time as a “veterinary food inspector,” which meant he inspected the facilities that make MREs, the dining halls, and the food coming into commissaries. As a man with responsibilities, the job seemed good enough, stable enough, safe enough to support his family.

Yeager’s first deployment was to South Korea in 2001. He left behind two young children at a time he said he had been “fighting with my wife.” When he arrived at Seoul’s Yongsan-Casey Garrison for a one-night stay at the Dragon Hill Lodge, the seeds of addiction were planted.

“So, I get settled, get something to eat, and I’m tired but not ready to sleep,” Yeager said. “I walk by this room and I hear these noises, and I walked in and I was shocked.”

The room was a gambling parlor filled with slot machines. According to Yeager, active and retired military plus military spouses/family and civilians with access to the base could play in the room.

“I thought, I’ll take a couple of hundred bucks out, and I thought I’d do what I’d always do, and play for a bit,'” Yeager said. “So I sat down, and I remember that I relaxed, the tension went out of my shoulders. And then I hit, not a huge [jackpot], but enough that I felt like everything just went away.”

In recalling the moment, Yeager slapped his arm and said “it felt like this,” suggesting that when he hit that small jackpot, it felt like a drug high.

“I didn’t become addicted that night, but it set me up for that,” Yeager said. “It was a tiny little slot machine with nine little race cars. … I just knew it made me feel good.”

Military personnel at higher risk for gambling addiction

The National Council for Problem Gambling estimates that 2% of the U.S. population is at risk to develop gambling addiction, and that 4% of those in the military either “meet the criteria for at-risk gambling” or have a serious gambling problem. During an ROTC seminar Yeager led at the University of Colorado in mid-November, he listed some of the reasons military personnel are at higher risk, including the mission-first mentality, competitive nature of the job, the “warrior ethos,” loneliness, trauma, and grief.

Yeager never returned to the slot room at Yongson Garrison. He was processed and sent to Camp Hialeah in Pusan. His first weekend there, he was back in front of a slot machine.

“I went into the community club to get a drink,” he said. “And I saw that there was another one of those rooms. No sign on the door, just a little room. So, that weekend, I took some of the money I won in Seoul and went in.

“Within [two to three months I] went from going Friday night, to Thursday and Friday, to Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, to almost every day. It went from I want to go to this to I need to go to this room.”

This week, we review a study that examined the associations among gambling, homelessness, and mental health/substance use disorders among low-income U.S. military veterans. Read more here: https://t.co/gTefC1JmyX pic.twitter.com/JhCceI2VFF

— Division on Addiction (@Div_Addiction) November 3, 2023

By the time Yeager went home on leave to visit his family, he had been visiting the slot room at least daily and sometimes twice a day. He was also actively lying to his wife and had sold everything of value that he had, including a 10-speed bike.

Though the need to gamble took over every other instinct, Yeager continued not just to do his job, but to excel at it, including building a training program for his group that his commanding officer eventually shared and put into place up and down the Korean peninsula.

“All these good things were happening while this other thing was growing,” Yeager said wistfully.

That experience offers a window into gambling addiction not often seen — while Yeager is clear that the addiction was the key driver in his life at that time, it did not keep him from being productive and innovative and excelling at his job.

‘I stole from the petty cash fund’

Yeager did not gamble during his 30-day leave home, but as soon as he returned to South Korea, he sought out the slots. At the same time, he was promoted to staff sergeant.

At about that time, Yeager’s wife stopped sending him spending money. (As is common in the military, his paycheck was deposited to an account in the U.S. and his wife used it to support their family, sending Yeager some money each month for entertainment). Yeager’s gambling addiction continued to blossom, and when he ran out of money or things to sell, he did something he is still clearly very ashamed of.

“Every time I talk about this, it still makes my stomach churn. I borrowed money from my subordinates,” he said. “It was my job to lead them.”

And when borrowing money no longer seemed like an option, Yeager stole.

“I was what was called an escape gambler, I didn’t want anyone to know that I was doing it,” he said. “I snuck into that room. I was always looking around to see if anyone was watching me. I was able to do my job almost until the end, until I stole from the petty cash fund in our veterinary clinic.

“I had in my head I thought I was going to win it back and put this back and no one will ever know. But at the same time, I’m thinking I will never leave that room with any money.”

Yeager doesn’t remember exactly how much he stole, but it wasn’t much, “$100 or $200.” It wasn’t the amount that mattered. It was the fact that he did it at all. Days later, when his commanding officer learned the money was missing and reported it to the criminal investigation division, Yeager turned himself in.

“I was taken out of my command and pulled out of that squad. No more work days, I was told to come back to Seoul,” he said. “My first sergeant at that time thought about putting me on a suicide watch. I had so much shame and guilt, but I wasn’t thinking about suicide.”

Yeager’s commanding officer ultimately stripped him of his rank, telling him he had violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and his conduct was unbecoming of an officer. His boss was at a loss, telling him “I don’t know what to do with you. You are a stellar non-commissioned officer, there is just this character piece.”

Yeager now says the officer’s comments “showed the lack of understanding for what I was going through.”

‘I didn’t want to change at that time’

Yeager was eventually sent back to the States and was made an inspector at an MRE processing plant in Mullins, South Carolina, a rural tobacco town of less than 5,000 people. The nearest Army base was 90 minutes away, and the nearest urban areas were Wilmington and Fayetteville, North Carolina, each also about 90 minutes away.

While there in 2002, with his family falling apart and his career crumbling, Yeager turned back to gambling. He would drive six hours to the nearest casino, and at least one time when doing so lost all his money, drove back to Mullins to borrow money from a friend, and then returned to the casino — driving 18 hours in total and ultimately losing his own and the borrowed money.

Yeager says he knew by then that he had a problem and was at war with himself.

“On the drive back, I was thinking about how I was being shameful and I was killing my family and I was not going to do this anymore,” he said. But then, “after I had leveled up a little bit, I decided I was going to visit my mom in Pennsylvania because she was an enabler, and she would give me money.”

He believed he would win back everything he lost. But while Yeager was making that trip north, he drove through a rainstorm in winter, and his truck fishtailed on an icy rural bridge and was broadsided by a tractor-trailer. In the collision, he lost his phone, and he had no money due to his gambling binge.

Remarkably uninjured, after his truck was towed he walked two miles to a truck stop and begged for a ride. Once back in Mullins, he told the non-commissioned officer in charge about his transgressions because he had broken the rules by driving more than 50 miles from his post.

Dave Yeager from @fallinPodcast, a recovering gambling addict, shares how #gamblingaddiction took hold of his life on active duty, its negative impacts on his life and finances, and how he got help through the VA.https://t.co/8OWb3UjWpU pic.twitter.com/omaz0Jphtf

— MilitaryMoneyShow (@MilMoneyShow) February 11, 2023

Little changed on the work front, but his family arrived to be with him in June 2002. By then, Yeager was working two jobs to support his gambling habit, which had morphed into playing scratch-off tickets. He knew he was out of control, but also believed that no one would believe he had a real problem if he ever revealed it. That isolation led to a drug overdose.

“I was in my office and I was blowing through my mind all the things that had happened to that point,” he said. “I wanted to say something so badly, but who would I say it to? And who would believe me? So I took a bunch of pills (pain killers left over from back issues) and remember being on the floor. It was an open office, so they saw me drop. My commanding officer then told me I needed to see a counselor. So I had to find a civilian counselor. My wife insisted on going with me.

“We talked about depression, coping mechanisms, I told her the story about my childhood. I was a master manipulator, so I said what the counselor wanted to hear, what my wife wanted to hear, and I was still in the same situation. I didn’t want to change at that time.”

He didn’t know what help looked like

It would be nearly four more years before Yeager finally made the decision to get help. In 2004, Yeager was reassigned to the base in Corpus Christi. His wife made it clear she and their children weren’t going to join him.

After renting an apartment, furnishing it, then selling the furniture to gamble, then stealing and selling a digital camera to gamble, Yeager moved into the room with the brick walls. He was playing scratch-offs and was filled with self-loathing.

“I didn’t want to do it anymore. … I saw that as an opportunity to try to run into the brick wall four times to try to kill myself,” he said. “Since I didn’t, I took myself to the hospital and told them I wanted to kill myself. That got me into a two-week hold at a civilian psychiatric hospital.”

The following year, after being discharged from the Army, Yeager moved in with a friend in Corpus Christi, but then decided to move “home” to Pennsylvania. He was still gambling, and on the drive, he stopped in Georgia to visit an aunt because he didn’t have enough money to get to South Carolina to see his kids. The aunt gave him some money, and he went on for a one-night stay with his family.

“My wife said, ‘You need help.’ I said, ‘I know,’ but I didn’t know what that looked like.” They ultimately divorced.

Once in Pennsylvania, Yeager had a series of jobs and was almost always a model employee, but he quit jobs that got in the way of his gambling. One time, he stole the night deposits from a Wendy’s he was managing and used the money to gamble.

He brought what money was left to the local police station and admitted what he had done, but Yeager is such an affable guy, such a good employee, that his boss wanted to forget about it and allow him to keep his job. Yeager declined and continued to wander through life until a two-night binge started to convince him that he really needed to seek help.

“One Friday evening, I drove down to [the casino in] Chester, Pennsylvania, and took a couple hundred out to gamble,” he said. “I was up, I was down, I was up, I was down. I got in the car in the morning and was wondering why I was hearing Sunday morning music on a Saturday? It was because I had been up two nights!

“I always left the casino depressed. I was anxious, depressed, and spent that day sitting in a parking lot of a grocery store. I had some pills available, so I took ‘em all, then took myself to a local hospital, and they gave me charcoal slurry, which was disgusting. I left (against medical advice) because I realized that I had a paycheck in the mailbox, so I went to go get that. I went to the casino, lost it all, and knew I needed help.”

From there, Yeager was in and out of VA hospitals until at one facility, a “person dug out a dusty paper packet labeled ‘VA Gambling Program.’ She didn’t tell me what to do with it, just that I could read it. So I did, and I went through it, and made all the calls and got myself a bed at a VA inpatient program for gambling.”

Dr. Chapman of Cleveland’s VA Addiction Recovery Program presents on treatment and recovery for Gambling/Gaming disorders #OHSAM2023 #gamingaddiction #sportsbet #sportsbettingtwitter pic.twitter.com/NIl8AaFxsq

— Ohio Society of Addiction Medicine (OHSAM) (@OhioASAM) October 13, 2023

Despite thinking that the experience would be “a cult where we all sing Kumbaya,” Yeager in 2010 entered the VA’s eight-week inpatient program in Cleveland. As he heard others there talk, he was struck by how similar their stories were to his, and  he realized that he wasn’t alone. He completed the inpatient program, and after six months of outpatient therapy and group meetings, Yeager thought, “I got this.” He stopped following the program.

Relapses are common

Controlling a gambling addiction is challenging. About 90% of gambling addicts relapse after their first attempt, in part because there are multiple treatment options, and not all options work for every person. Psychotherapy, treating underlying or adjacent issues like depression or anxiety, and committing to ongoing treatment are all options. There are also drug therapies available, though none are approved specifically to treat gambling addiction.

It didn’t take long before Yeager slipped back into his old habits, making bad decisions on the personal front and gambling again. In the midst of another downward spiral, the one bright spot was that Yeager reconnected with his high school sweetheart, to whom he is still married.

Despite that, Yeager struggled. His gambling once again grew out of control. He maxed out his credit card and tried to find a way to pay it off without his new wife knowing. He took a title loan on his truck, and one weekend when his wife was away, Yeager did something he’d never done before — he went to a casino and lost $20,000 in one session.

During those years when he was hiding his addiction and financial struggles from his wife, Yeager “kept a knife in my pocket sharpened, and with intention that if my wife called and wanted to talk about finances, I would go to the back of my property and end it.”

It never came to that. Instead, at the start of 2020, Yeager reached a pivotal point.

“I spent a whole weekend on the couch, basically deciding whether I would get help or end it all,” he said. “I went to the local VA and said I needed help. Before they admitted me, I wanted one call and called my wife in the middle of the day at work. I can’t describe what was on the other end of the phone … absolute shock and betrayal, all in the same moment. That was why I was making the decision about what to do, it was about that moment.”

The moment was every every bit as traumatic for both Yeager and his wife as he’d imagined. But what happened next was not, as he began his path forward.

His wife stayed. He’s in recovery. And 20-plus years after Dave Yeager first lost control, he regained it.

Gambling and military a priority

Today, Dave Yeager is contributing to society, but every day remains a challenge. During and after his return to inpatient recovery in 2020, Yeager reached a point where he realized that recovery “took lifelong vigilance.” He had learned from his previous attempt at recovery that while he may have believed at that time that he no longer needed meetings or counseling, he — and others in recovery — do in fact need that support.

“After the relapse in January of 2020 I went from ‘I had a gambling problem’ to ‘I am powerless over this unless I stay in front of it,'” he said. “I think I finally understood staying in recovery. The other part of this answer is the feeling I felt when I really realized what I had done to Bonnie, and to my children. I never want to feel that again.”

He’ll tell you that he is still a gambling addict who is working at his recovery. He chose to “live his addiction out loud,” meaning that instead of relegating it to some back corner of his world, Yeager lives it every day. He is an addiction counselor with KindBridge Behavioral Health, a nationwide network of mental health professionals who focus on gambling and gambling disorders.

At the University of Colorado this month, Yeager gave his first presentation to an ROTC group. He’s also written a book, Fall In: A Veteran With a Gambling Addiction, published this year by Fulton Books, and hosts the Fall In podcast, billed as “The Problem Gambling Podcast for Military Members and Veterans.”

He will talk to anyone anytime anywhere about his own journey or how to get help. His passion is helping those in the military not only deal with gambling addiction, but potentially prevent it. He said that in 2020, the Army amended its drug and alcohol policy to include gambling, but that “there are clinicians in the Army that don’t know that that is in there or what to do.” So, Yeager plugs on, spreading the word where and when he can.

In May 2020, Yeager began working as a supervised therapist and counselor at a Retreat Behavioral Health in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. Gamblers often have multiple addictions, so Yeager worked with those who came to the center for alcohol/drug problems but also had gambling issues. He also started a group just for veterans at the drug and alcohol treatment center. The experience was “one of the most joyful jobs of my life.”

Kindbridge hired Yeager earlier this year as a full-time gambling recovery coach. His addiction has, in some ways, come full circle. He continues to think about gambling on a regular basis, but he is not obsessed with it. And the way he thinks about it is different.

“There are things that caught my eye and things that come up, like there’s a new Hollywood Casino in Morgantown (Pennsylvania), so that caught my eye. But when I see it now, I look at the parking lot and wonder how many people in the parking lot are struggling with what I did,” Yeager said. “I think I am more comfortable owning who I am. I wanted to untangle what is underneath of the gambling, because maybe if I understand that I won’t want to gamble anymore. … Now, I’m living my addiction out loud.”