The Face of the Gambler:

It has been in my prayers for a number of years: trying to look into the face of the gambler, trying to explain the phenomenon or invisible line that turns a game into a craving, a craving into a hunger, a hunger into an addiction so pervasive and destructive as to lead all addictions in the national suicide rate. Even counting accidental overdoses of heroin or oxyconton, cocaine addicts and smokers of meth amphetamine and crack cocaine, gambling kills more people each year than alcohol and drugs combined. Spotting the gambling addict, however, is not an easy task. He is illusive: the stealth gambler. The gambler does not stumble upon his words or smear her lipstick across her cheek and chin like the sloppy drunk. She does not splatter bloodstains on her clothing like the anorexic junkie. He may be a teenage boy hoping his fake ID allows him entrance and lets him remain in the casino down the road, or an elderly woman living solely on a too-small social security check and often doing so alone. She can be absent for days before a neighbor or relative decides to check on her well being and reports her inability to focus lately, her absence from community gatherings, her loss of weight and interest in things she always loved, her possible demise or status as a missing person. He may have no proof of citizenship and have only 24 hours to find some in order to claim the $10,000 jackpot only he in the line of slot machines hit that evening, or be forced by the security patrol at the casino to go home and shower if, after five or six shift changes he remains at the same machine or table, wearing the same clothing but sporting several days accumulation of beard. The paramedics may be called to her barstool in front of the five-dollar machines where she has accidentally emptied her bladder or bowels, unable to leave the stool in exchange for the throne. Or, they may have to treat him for facial burns because he is hooked to an oxygen tank but lit a cigarette just beneath it anyway. He may return angry, knowing the moment he left some stranger overtook "his" machine and hit "his" jackpot or simply drive to another tribe's facility a few miles away, still unwashed but ever hopeful that the change in scenery will accompany a change in luck. She may fall asleep at the wheel due to sheer exhaustion; sleep deprivation coupled with a blood alcohol level to challenge the charts. I read of one car accident wherein the driver had fallen

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