MANILA, Philippines - ?It was the ?80s, man,? says Caloy, by way of explanation.

The Decade that Taste Forgot has been used as an excuse for a lot of things: synth-pop, padded shoulders, the Cory perm, but I had never heard it used to explain why Caloy (not his real name) nearly decimated his trust fund at the Casino Filipino after seven years as a compulsive gambler.

Now on the brink of 50, Caloy looks back at his misspent youth with a mixture of regret and nostalgia.

?You have to remember, the ?80s really began for us in 1983, with the Aquino assassination,? he says. ?By the time we kicked Marcos out in ?86, the decade was in full swing.?

The year 1986 brought Caloy two things he had been craving: popular democracy, and a new high. The new high was called shabu (metamphetamine hydrochloride), then still a relatively exotic substance known to only a few early adopters.

?I had just graduated from law school and made junior partner in a Makati firm,? he recalls. ?Some friends introduced me to shabu, and from the first rush I knew this was the drug for me.?

By 1987, he was more than just a habitual user. He had developed a gram-a-day habit, going for five days at a stretch without sleep, then crashing in exhaustion for a couple of days before the next binge. It was the long sleepless days and nights that led him to another addiction.

?I was far from being a compulsive gambler, at least in the beginning,? he says. ?I would go to Casino Filipino, play the slot machines, play a little blackjack, maybe win a little or drop a couple thousand, then go home to recharge.?

But in his energized state, Caloy had no need to go home. ?The dealers had a term for us,? he recalls. ?They called us ?times three.?? Times three was the payoff in blackjack for a hand consisting of 6,7,8 of the same suit. The blackjack dealers, he explains, used it to refer to casino habitués who would still be at the tables, wearing the "same suit," when they reported for work the next day.

As a regular, Caloy became privy to the dealers? gossip. ?I rubbed elbows with fishmongers and high government officials at the tables,? he says. ?There was one government official, a woman, who would show up every day with two million (pesos) cash,? he adds. ?If she won, she?d pocket her winnings and go back to work. But if she lost, she?d be at the tables for days trying to recoup her losses.?

So would Caloy. As his twin addictions fuelled each other, he found himself spending more and more time at the Casino. ?There was a definite rush,? he says of gambling, ?comparable to the rush I got from speed. But different. It was also the chase. After losing, there was the desperate struggle to win back your losses. The chase and the rush, that was the drug.?

By the advent of the ?90s, Caloy knew it was getting out of hand. He was still vaporizing more than a gram a day of shabu, a habit that put a serious dent in his funds. On top of that, he was losing big at the tables. Not big by corrupt government official standards, but big for a junior partner in a small law firm.

?I was losing as much as six figures in a single night?and my salary couldn?t possibly cover that kind of money,? he says. There were times he?d find himself pawning his stereo system for quick cash. He nearly pawned his car, except that he needed it to shuttle between his pad and the Casino.

?In retrospect, I?d have to say gambling was an addiction just like shabu. I was addicted to the rush I got from betting more than I had in my pocket, just as I craved that first rush of pure speed.?

Fortunately for Caloy, fate intervened. He was busted for possession, an embarrassing fiasco which led his family to send him to detox. After two weeks in the hospital, the shabu was out of his system, and much to his surprise, his urge to gamble was similarly purged.

?What can I say, it?s just not compatible with a responsible lifestyle,? says Caloy, now married and a father.

Today, psychiatrists classify compulsive gambling as a mental illness similar to other compulsions. According to one definition ?compulsive gambling, or pathological gambling as most psychiatrists prefer to call it, is an inability to stop gambling even when one recognizes that gambling is causing serious financial, family, work, or other problems.?

Its characteristics parallel other addictions in an uncanny way, so much so that some scientists are convinced that it affects brain chemistry just like other addictive substances. Like other addicts, compulsive gamblers develop a secret life, and frequently lie, cheat and steal in order to maintain it. Like other addicts, they frequently attempt to cut down or quit, but find that they can?t.

At least not without help. Gambler?s Anonymous, which is patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, is one institution in the West which seeks to help compulsive gamblers help themselves.

The Net mentions that locally, a group of psychologists and psychiatrists formed the Philippine Foundation on Compulsive Gambling, Inc., a rehab center for compulsive gamblers which treats it like any other addiction. Unfortunately, there is no contact information available