Born to Lose: Memoirs of a Compulsive Gambler

Born to Lose: Memoirs of a Compulsive Gambler

by Bill Lee

Hazelden, $101

In the tradition of Elizabeth Wurtzel's More, Now, Again, and Marya Hornbacher's Wasted, second-generation Chinese-American Bill Lee's Born to Lose is an important memoir of addiction. Works of this kind are not only arresting in narrative, but necessary as teaching implements. From them we not only learn about the nature of addiction but of its causes and, indirectly, how it can be avoided.

Lee quietly lists the statistic that 40 per cent of all white-collar crime is committed by or for compulsive gamblers. A third of all prison inmates are compulsive gamblers. One in five compulsive gamblers attempts suicide, and gamblers have the highest incidence of suicide attempts - and successful attempts - of all addicts. Gambling among adolescents is growing three times as rapidly as it is among adults. The dropout rate for Gamblers Anonymous is 90 per cent. And unlike alcohol, cards cannot be detected on the breath.

There can be no addiction without dysfunction. Lee's father, sold as a young boy to cover a gambling debt, was a violent alcoholic, a gambling addict and a sexual predator (both Lee and his sisters were targeted); Lee's unstable mother was a seamstress who worked 16 hours a day to support her five children. 'Money,' he writes, 'was always a point of contention in our home ... I defined and validated myself based on how much money I earned.'