I’m a junior in high school and it’s the second half of the year. I’m apparently too wrapped up in all the school activities I’m involved with to notice that someone’s put up a sign on our family’s front lawn, that is until my best friend, who also happens to be my next door neighbor, brings it to my attention. She asks me one morning when we’re walking to school, where I was moving to. I’m surprised of course, because to my knowledge, we weren’t, and I straight out ask her why she would say that. She tells me her father told her I wasn’t going to be their neighbor very much longer because our house was being foreclosed. Now, being a normal teen, not really worrying about anything other than school and what I was going to wear the next day, I didn’t understand this foreclosure thing, but trying not to come off as being stupid, I laugh it off and tell her it was probably a mistake or something. I dared not ask her what foreclosure meant.
This is the part where my father comes in. Daddy was a compulsive gambler, God rest his soul, and many a times he’d get off of work on Friday, which was payday, and not come home until Sunday night ... broke. Now that I look back on those times, I wonder why my mom put up with him for over forty plus years.
Where do I fit in ... well, my father has passed this nasty trait onto me. It never really hit me how destructive his behavior was because my mom was so good about shielding us kids from the aftermath ... that is, until we were forced to leave our home.
In taking over this nasty vice, I see how this behavior has seemingly destroyed not only my relationships with family, not to mention the financial devastation it has created for me, but it has also effected the way I live my daily life ... and, the worse thing is, I can’t seem to stop.
By definition, “compulsive” is driven to do something: driven by an irresistible inner force to do something.
I am a compulsive gambler. I am my father’s daughter.
