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A portrait of an online gamblerBy Lara Farrar  Online casinos cost Tim Smith $20,000.  I can be a perfectly normal, functioning member of society, as long as I don't gamble -- Tim Smith, recovering gambler
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSBOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The habit started seemingly innocent enough, buying scratch tickets at local liquor stores and gas stations 10 years ago. But a few years later, he would find himself -- night after night -- in a Kinko's FedEx store. He wasn't there for the copiers, but for the Internet connection. And he was in trouble. Seven nights a week, for four- or five-hour stretches, he'd hunch over a computer -- for 25 cents a minute -- sometimes until 5 a.m. It was here that Tim Smith (his pseudonym, as he asked to remain anonymous) dreamed of striking it rich, and ultimately where he bottomed out. The rush of betting -- like he got from a $4,000 winning scratch ticket -- ensnared Smith early in his long, ultimately destructive gambling odyssey. But he lost more often than he won, declaring bankruptcy when his scratch-ticket debts got too large. Realizing he had a problem, Smith began tagging along with a friend to meetings of Gamblers Anonymous, a 12-step program modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. "I was playing this dance with GA," Smith said. "I was going but I wasn't really going. I participated on the outskirts." Then came a computer, the dot-com boom, a new job at an Internet company and the discovery of online casinos. Gamblers Anonymous soon fell by the wayside as Smith's addiction rapidly drove him to new cravings: online slot machines, video poker and blackjack. In an attempt to curb his new spin on an old habit, he allowed a friend to take control of his personal computer. But rather than not gambling online, he would spend hours every night gambling at Kinkos. It cost him roughly $2,000 to use the store's computers. "That was the cost of doing business with these casinos," he said. "That is what I expected to lose." But that paled in comparison to what he lost gambling -- $20,000. Smith now has been clean for one year and nine months. He is counting the days -- one at a time -- that he does not gamble, trying not to be too optimistic, just holding steady. "I kind of block it out," he said, thinking about his years imprisoned by addiction. "I numb myself from the whole thing." Now Smith's weeks are filled with Gamblers Anonymous meetings. He is a sponsor, fielding phone calls from new members who are where he once was, still caught in the cycle, losing money, friendships, hope and, slowly, their lives while Smith gradually tries to reclaim his. "I feel very sad about all the wreckage that I caused and all of the damage that I have done to other people," Smith said. "The irresponsibility, the deception, the lies." Smith has come a long way, but he knows he has a long way to go. The thoughts still haunt him, taunt him to sit down in front of a computer and download a game just once, for "fun." But, this time, Smith said he knows better. "I have to be careful," he said. "I can be a perfectly normal, functioning member of society, as long as I don't gamble." 
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