Iqaluit (Nov 20/06) - Gambling takes a toll on every life it touches, though it does so in almost complete silence.

"It is an issue. How much, I don't know. But it is definitely a serious issue," said Sheila Levy.

She runs the Kamatsiaqtut Helpline - a crisis line in Iqaluit.

Her team receives many calls from people who struggle with gambling addiction, though she could not say exactly how many.

Gambling causes all sorts of problems in people's lives, she said.

"There are people making good salaries who don't have enough to put food on the table at night, people who gamble their paycheque away as soon as they get it," she said.

It causes stress for everyone involved, she said.

"It's hard for the families, the kids," said Levy. "And for the community, when people start relying on food banks and social services."

The relative isolation shared by most Northern communities might have something to do with people getting into problem gambling, but it is no excuse, she said.

"Everyone has choices to make," she said. "There is lots to do here.

"People don't need to be gambling every night."

There is nothing wrong with playing a betting game now and then for fun, say the experts, it is when it gets out of hand that it becomes a problem.

It is evident when it has turned into an addiction, said John Vander Velde, mental health consultant for the government of Nunavut.

"It's similar to any addiction," he said. "They become obsessed with gambling and will make sacrifices in order to gamble, whether it is their own eating, household bills, feeding their kids, whatever.

"The addiction takes number one priority in their lives and other things go out the back door, even if it is their kids or themselves."

There are different approaches they use when a gambling addict comes to them for help, he said.

"Individual therapy, mainly, and if necessary going to a treatment centre."

However, there are no treatment centres in Nunavut and none that he knows of in the North, dealing specifically with gamblers.

They use clinics in Ontario: in Thunder Bay and Ottawa, he said..

"We're regularly sending people out for treatment," he said, though he could not give exact numbers.

Leo Subgot, a municipal alcohol and drug worker in Rankin Inlet, said there are not enough services available for gambling addicts.

"It's quite a big problem with some of our people," he said. "There is not enough for them here."

Subgot suggested treatment clinics located in the North could help, as they presently have to send clients to a clinic in Thompson, Man.

One of the problems, he said, is that there are many services to help drug and alcohol addicts, while problem gamblers get left out to a certain extent.