The article also talks about how easy it is to get players to shave points.

Read the story here>>

Adam Vanek, in  my novel Clean Break, exactly fits the profile of someone who started gambling in college with sports betting. He also gets involved in a point-shaving scheme.

It doesn’t pay off in the way he expects.

Elizabeth has been immersed in the publishing world longer than I have and she gave me some good advice, which I already knew, but it was good to hear her say the words: Write what you want to write.

There’s really no guessing the market, there is only following your own muse and putting out the best work you can. Maybe that’s why I’ve started three different novels recently and have already put two aside. The one that remains may or may not go anywhere, but for now, it’s the one I want to write.

One basis for judging Celeste is whether you believe her husband needs medical treatment and psychological counseling, or more self-control and personal accountability. Although there isn’t a black and white answer, any answer will likely lean in one direction or the other and impact the level of sympathy for Celeste and for Adam.

What’s a fact is that more behaviors are being classified as addictions  by the FDA. And more addictions are being treated like a medical disease. Drugs, alcohol, smoking, gambling, sex, porn—even addictions to shopping or cruising the Internet. I’ve seen bodybuilding listed as an addiction. Personal responsibility might be at an all-time low.

Celeste, who has felt the blunt end of Adam’s behavior, reflects on her own position, later in the novel:

That was one of the things that bothered her about the Glendale Wellness Center. Its philosophy was to treat compulsive gambling as a disease. You take that perspective and now you have a medical problem to deal with, as if Adam had a damaged organ instead of weak self-control or a destructive habit. One aim of this approach was to make others more sympathetic to sufferers, but Celeste’s capacity for sympathy had been exceeded. What was next? Choking and assault as a medical problem?

Just today in my town there is a story about a school psychologist and her husband arrested for pot. It’s a sad story, and it happened to good people. They have two kids. The husband I know; he taught my kids piano. Talented musician. Nice guy.

It seems their teenage babysitter went snooping around their house and found some weed, took it, got busted with it at school, and had to tell where she got it. The police go to the house with a search warrant, find the couple’s private stash, arrest them. Now their lives are pretty much torn up.

These asinine drug laws! There’s probably some bonehead that lives next door getting shitfaced on vodka and cursing at his wife and kids. But that’s okay; it’s legal.

This one is just too close to Stash. I feel awful.