Someone asked you to be their accountability partner.
It’s worth knowing what it involves before you say yes. In short, you get emails.
What arrives
Four kinds of email.
An email about likely gambling activity or a new gambling app
It links to a timeline you can read in your browser.
A weekly summary, even when nothing happened
So you can tell a quiet week from an app that stopped working.
A notice if monitoring stops or stops working
If it’s turned off, uninstalled or goes quiet, or is on but can’t see the phone’s site lookups. You’re notified when it’s working again, and when a phone is added or stops being listed.
A note if the arrangement changes
If they add or remove a partner, cancel their subscription or delete their account, or if a payment fails.
You’ll see gambling activity and whether monitoring is on. You won’t see their messages, photos or the rest of their browsing.
What it doesn’t involve
It’s less than it sounds.
- No app to install.
- No account or password.
- No dashboard you have to watch.
- No obligation to respond to every alert, or to police anyone.
Self-reporting fails when it matters most. Asking “how’s it going?” puts the honest answer on the hardest day. With the app, you don’t have to ask and they don’t have to bring it up.
What you do with it is up to the two of you. For most people, what helps is that someone knows.
You don’t have to say yes. The invitation email has a link to decline. They’ll only be notified that you declined. Saying no is better than saying yes and not reading the emails.
If they haven’t set it up yet
Send it to them.
You can’t set this up for someone else. They install it on their own phone and choose who gets notified. If you think it would help, send it and let them decide.
Support for you
Being close to someone’s gambling is hard in its own way.Gam-Anon is for family and friends, and the helpline below is for you too.
The National Problem Gambling Helpline is free, confidential and available 24/7 at 1-800-MY-RESET.