An overdose of gambling

An overdose of gambling

My son died of an overdose of gambling. A few months ago. He hanged himself. And it was gambling that put the noose around his neck, pulled it tight, cut off his air supply. The people that got him started, sold him on gambling, are still raking in the money. And nobody’s holding them accountable for the death and misery they cause.

Here we are—fighting a war on drugs, going after drug lords in Colombia—and pushers in the ghetto, trying to keep them from killing our kids.

Then we turn around, and our own government is pushing the lottery. A dollar and a dream—win big!! Ten million, two hundred forty million dollars! Make every dream you ever had come true! And you’re helping education. Isn’t that great?—win/win—nothing to it, nothing bad. And if you get tired of one game, there’s “win 3” and “win 4” daily numbers—or you could try “pick 10” and “take 5” three times a week, and then there’s MEGA MILLIONS—or “scratch offs” that started with 50 cents or a dollar each, but now they’re up to 2 dollars, 5—10—20—50 dollars! And so well decorated you can give them as gifts. Hell, you hardly need to buy anything else.

And the trouble is…some people hardly do. Like my son. Before he got hooked on gambling, he and his wife owned 5 apartment houses: 4, 5, or 6 apartments in each one. And a heating and air conditioning company. He did roofing, plumbing, house remodeling, and electrical work. He was the hardest working person I ever met. And he was making good money. Till he started gambling. And couldn’t stop.

He became obsessed with LOTTO, began selling his property, gambled away over $500,000 worth of assets. He maxed out his wife’s credit cards without her knowing. He drained his son’s bank accounts, and then—this really got me—he laid his hands on the money—$4,500—his granddaughter was saving to go on a horse farm vacation. You can’t stoop any lower than that. His wife left him, his family broke up.

He tried Gamblers Anonymous, but he just got better at lying. He was such a good liar none of us knew he was still gambling. But he never stopped. In the weeks before he died, he kept borrowing money. He signed contracts and got advance payments for roofing or contracting jobs he never even started. And then…he hanged himself. [He hanged himself.]

After we found him…when we cleaned out his place, we found five 30-gallon garbage bags full of lotto and scratch off tickets, not counting the ones he’d thrown away.

And the nightmare didn’t stop there. We had people calling us, coming to the door, threatening us—people he owed money to, people with job contracts he’d signed. They were mad at him, at us—frustrated, sometimes desperate. We couldn’t do anything for them—these weren’t our debts—but after a while my wife was afraid to stay at home by herself.

Some people will say, hey, this guy was a loser, couldn’t handle it, that was his problem, not mine. But I want you to think about a few things.

First, the State—our government—was doing everything it could to hook him. Notice the way they put out one game after another—get tired of one, and there’s another new one, and the stakes keep rising. And there are ads everywhere: commercials, TV ads, with those insidious messages: “Just a little bit of luck”—designed to suck you in—hooks to grab you. A lot of people can’t resist them. Bob couldn’t.

And another thing—no addict ever hurt just himself (or herself). A lot of people are paying for Bob’s addiction. Not just his family. You think second-hand cigarette smoke can hurt you—kill you? Try the second-hand effects of a gambling habit.

I’m telling you—gambling is a killer: gambling has the highest suicide rate of all the addictions, people die every week from an OVERDOSE of GAMBLING, and none of us escapes the effects of that! None of us.