Do Gamblers Really Commit Suicide?

"Preston,

I must tell you that your book is good but also very scary. Not to take anything away from your skills as a writer and storyteller, but I enjoyed the book especially because of what I learned about the gambling lifestyle as I have many friends who are gamblers or love going to the casino and the dog track.

When reading a book of fiction, however, it is sometimes difficult to tell what is real and what is made up by the writer. Do gamblers really commit suicide a lot? Thanks, a fan."

Oh boy. Gamblers committing suicide. Groan. This is the big one.

Thanks for the question, fan, but I have to admit that this is a serious subject with which I have firsthand experience, but limited knowledge.

Sadly, I must tell you, it does happen.

This is the one aspect of gambling that I don't like talking about, though, as you know, I addressed it in the novel, ALL OR NOTHING.

I find it much easier to handle in the medium of fiction.

One day I will be courageous enough to write a non-fiction piece about it.

I have seen enough of that to make me sick for life. See, because of your addiction you sink so low in self esteem and debt (my god the astronomical debt!) that the only way out for you is a big, big mega-impossible win or . . . suicide. You just get so tired you don't want to fight anymore. You get tired of struggling, and lying, and hiding, and hoping, and being disappointed, and cheating, and stealing, and doing other stupid, sleazy, selfish shit to the people you love, and hiding under that mountain of lies just waiting for the day when it all comes crashing down and you get arrested or evicted and then everybody knows.

Sometimes we could tell that someone we knew was going to do it. They would go awol from the GA meetings for the last couple of weeks, you would see them banging their last meager pennies at the casino for the last couple of weeks, they would be playing the really expensive games with the really high jackpots, the mega-impossible jackpots, and you would be praying, just praying, that they win. Come on, Lord, let him win. Of course, they would lose. Then they would disappear and we would hear at the next GA meeting that so-and-so couldn't take it anymore and shot himself. Slit her wrists. Jumped in front of traffic. Drank rat poison. But we knew already. We knew already. And there wasn't shit we could do about it because we were so close to making that same fateful decision. Every day eyeing that mega-impossible jackpot machine as we walked past it. The machine that never wins. The machine that would fix everything if it would just win.

Yeah, suicide--all kidding aside, this is one of the main reasons you should demand that any gambler you know and love seek help immediately for his/her addiction.

And here is the big lie I told in the book. Gambles don't go to each other's funerals; Gamblers play poker for their dead.

On the website Getting Past Gambling ( http://www.gettingpastgambling.com/ )there is a great explanation of why it happens. I will cut and paste the brief, though pertinent passage from that essay here.

"Gambling addiction has one of the highest suicide rates of all addictions and this is partially due to the nature of the consequences.

With most addictions, the addict can lose everything he had, his family, his job, his self-respect, he can take himself down to having nothing left, zero, zip, nada.

However, the gambling addict may have lost all of those things, but his aftermath doesn't stop merely at zero.

The gambler may have lost his family, job, self-respect AND may be thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and the only way he knows of to get out of debt is........(insert drum roll) ....................to gamble and win the big one.

When the alcoholic quits drinking, he picks up the pieces and moves on, but the gambler may be faced with overwhelming debt that he cannot see a way out of when he quits gambling.

Don't despair, many gambling addicts make it through, quit gambling and move on with their lives, but as with any other addiction it can be a life time struggle both for the gambler and the people who love them."

Copyright 2007 All material remains the property of the author http://www.oagaa.org/html/who_is_this_person_.htm posted by LindaH @ 10:49 PM

Thanks,

Preston