After that night out at the casino my boyfriend and I started going quite a bit. He liked to gamble too, just not at the level I was starting to like it.
Over time I started going more and more. Any time my boyfriend was at one of his softball games, or golf league, working, or hunting I went. I tried to go by myself as much as I could to keep him from find out how much money I was spending. I then, of course, lied about what I had done while he was gone.
The most shameful part of this whole story is that soon after I started taking money from my employers to cover my addiction. For the life of me I cant even begin to understand what made me come up with the idea. I consider myself to be a pretty honest person. I have never taken from anyone before and would never have considered in any other situation. I just couldn’t control the urge to go gamble. I tried. I truly tried. I would wake up every morning and tell myself „today is the day, the day I stop gambling and most importantly stop taking what isn’t mine”. Then as the day would progress I would get weaker. I would tell myself, this is the last time. I will win enough to pay back what I took and I wont be a coward about it. I’ll win the money back and go to my employer and tell them what I’ve done. Every time I took the money I said this to myself. I kept reassuring myself that I would make this right. But the truth is no one ever wins. Not really, not in my kind of situation.
Now I was dealing with the stress of my personal life and the gambling stress. So instead of taking the pressure off like I had thought that night at the casino, it added to it. It, of course, was too late at this point. After about 7 months of taking money, gambling it away, and lying I just couldn’t take it any more. I quit my job. I thought if I pulled myself away from the source of cash that I could get a better grip on things. And I did, for a bit. I started working for a friend who, go figure, liked to gamble. We stopped a few times after work at the casino.
Then, I got news that my last employer was having me investigated. I was horrified. I knew there was a possibility that this would happen, I actually knew it was inevitable but some how it still surprised me. To make this part, the worst part of my story, a bit shorter I’ll sum it up. I got a call from a detective and met with him. Told him the truth, a month later I was in jail. I got out the next day (the worst night of my life), and I am still caught up in a legal battle.
The horrible fact in all of this is that I’ve hurt a lot of people. This wasn’t something that I did that just hurt me. That’s the most unbearable fact of all. I am facing losing everything I care about and cherish, and perhaps I deserve to.
The one good thing out of all of this is I haven’t gambled in months. I have no desire what so ever to step foot in a casino. I know they say you never cure an addiction and it doesn’t just go away but anger and fear of losing it all is a pretty good motivator.
