Why I Don’t Smoke, Drink And Gamble

I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t gamble.

And it goes beyond being a ‘good boy’. It’s personal.

My aunt died from lung cancer in 1999. My uncle is a chain smoker and as I am writing this, his health is deteriorating. Today he has to wash down dozens of supplements daily and watch his diet like a hawk. He hasn’t been able to cut back on his cigarette intake much due to decades of addiction to smoking, since the day he picked up his first stick in his teens.

When my father was still living with us, I would sometimes dreadfully accompany him to places that an underage shouldn’t be hanging out at. My father flirted with women, got drunk, got abusive with my mother by the time he gets home, and still pissed ass drunk.

I’ve also seen my father lose at the table every time he gambles. There were days it would seem he will be going home green, but knowing that’s too good to be true my feelings were always right. I kept telling my dad that the money would have been better spent putting food on the table or pay off our debts back then, but to this day I still don’t understand gamblers. Every time I see a gambler, I see a loser who doesn’t have his priorities right.

While my mother wasn’t a gambling addict, her lack of ability to get a higher paying job coupled with desperation made her resort to the only other means of income she knew: buying Toto. Unlike my father, my mother had better luck and there were actually several times she struck the consolation prizes, enough to get us by at times. But I hated the hopelessness we felt at the dread of having to pray and be at the mercy of luck.

So if you have always wondered why I don’t smoke, don’t drink and don’t gamble… now you know why!