Is this the Story?

I was going to wait and post the blog this evening after attending my son's Holiday play. He is playing Santa Claus and gets to sing three Christmas (is it okay to say that word??) caroles. I am also helping with the narration of the play. It should be a great time and I will recap it all tomorrow.

This morning as I was getting into the shower my wife had on the Today Show on NBC. They were teasing a story about a student from Lehigh University who had robbed a local bank. All the while as they were leading up to this story I had in the back of my mind that this person committed this crime due to their compulsive gambling addiction to Poker. Unfortunately I was correct and this fine young nineteen year old college student who is the Class President had committed this crime to pay off his gambling debts. Last Friday he went into a local bank and handed the teller a note saying he had a gun and to turn over all her money. The teller complied and later that evening this young man was arrested at his fraternity house.

On all accounts this young man had everything going for him except for his dirty little secret; he loved Poker and wanted to stay in action. "The compulsive gambler will do anything often of an ANTI-SOCIAL behavior to continue to gamble". Yes, robbing a bank would be considered an anti-social behavior.

I will post links to this story and one compelling report comes from Lehigh University's school newspaper. Apparently Poker is rampant at this University and I would suspect that this isn't isolated to this particular university. The University's leading psychologist's has not seen many students come in for treatment of a potential gambling problem. I don't know about you but if there is one person like this student who committed this crime there are many others.

I have some theories as to why students or rather people don't seek help for their gambling problem. If they are anything like me they live in denial. I didn't have a gambling problem when I was 18 years old and lost 13 grand to a bookie; I certainly didn't have a gambling problem when I was $100,000 in debt at the age of 28 and had to declare personal bankruptcy and I certainly didn't have a gambling problem when I decided to embezzle from my employer.

The facts are I did have a gambling problem and will always have a gambling problem and now I am finally doing something about this. People don't seek treatment for their gambling problem until they hit rock bottom. For me rock bottom was losing my job, career, family and facing prison. It doesn't have to be this way but for young adults who think they are invincible it is doubly tough for them to seek treatment. This is why I think this student who robbed the bank was crying out for help. He seems like a very intelligent kid who had the world going for him so why would he in broad daylight rob a bank? The answer is simple he needed money to continue to gamble and this is how he thought he would get his money. Also; deep down he knew he would get caught and hopefully he gets some type of counseling to help with his lifelong addiction.

Yes, people are gambling younger and younger these days and I certainly have my hands full with my own recovery. However; it pains me to see these problems do to gambling. Yes, people will continue to commit crimes to feed their gambling habits and there is not one thing I can do to stop them. I can only control myself and today I have not gambled and it has been nine months and sixteen days since my last bet. Life does get better when the madness stops but it breaks my heart to see good people do bad things. This young gentleman in Pennsylvania has a very long road ahead of him and I pray to God he gets help with his gambling addiction. The disease of gambling knows no friends and can strike anyone this is why the press has run with this story. He is a good kid from a good family who made a HORRIBLE decision. How many more of these stories are out there? Maybe they are not class presidents or sons of ministers but they have the same addiction. Hopefully, this young man will make something positive out of his horrendous situation. As long as he abstains from gambling life will get better.

Here is a link to more on this story. yes, it is from MTV's website and I did find the article well written. Maybe others will learn from this young man. Life doesn't have to be about winning the next big pot in a Poker game and some people will realize this and some will not.