the madness of it all....

for several years

i spent several hours a day

sitting on a stool

staring at a video screen and i would

press the button press the button press the button press the button.


often, I did not eat or drink or urinate because if I did any of those things, I would have to PAUSE from pressing the button.


If my machine hit a jackpot and there was not an available machine nearby that I could play while I waited for an attendant to pay me off...I would become antsy and irritable because I would have to PAUSE from pressing the button.

While at the casino together, my husband would want to go to the restaurant…it would INFURIATE me..because I wanted to keep on pressing the button.

Oh! And let one of my kids wake up and say they didn’t feel well…could they stay home from school? Are you kidding me??? A whole day at HOME when I could be pressing the button pressing the button pressing the button.


I was not the person that I really am.


this addiction costs us so much more than money.


I REMEMBER

Going to the grocery store so that I could get cash back on the transaction without a withdrawal showing on the statement. I would buy things I didn’t even need....then, when that cash was gone, on to the drug store to do the same thing.

The stress from having several payday loans…not HAVING the loans..but having to SHOW UP at the establishment to renew the loans….what if someone saw me walking in or out? How would I explain this?

Being in Las Vegas with my mom..she became ill and I let her go to the room alone…while I gambled all night long…I didn’t know until later how much pain she was in…how afraid she was that night.

Leaving Las Vegas with a friend of mine. I had the shakes as I boarded the plane…I was exhausted, having only slept a few hours over a couple of days…I had barely eaten or drunk anything at all…I was dehydrated.

I hated taking the kids to Vegas...what??? spend time at the POOL??? in LAS VEGAS??? that was MY vacation....

So many lies.

Always rushing…because I was always late…because I could not leave my machine.

Squirming in my seat because I couldn’t get up to use the restroom. I once actually peed right there as I pressed the button… OMG…that is so insane.

The mail and the phone…the stress of the secret…knowing that the next ring could be the ring that causes my world to come crashing in.
Little did I know….that my world had been crashing in for a long long time….it was not until the secret came out that I started to rebuild it.