Who I am. My name is Wayne Guidry. I'm 46 years old, I live in Gulfport, Mississippi, and I have worked the counter at a parts store on Pass Road for nineteen years. If you bought a water pump in Harrison County, there's a fair chance I sold it to you.

I am also a compulsive gambler. It took me seven years and most of what my wife and I had to be able to type that sentence. The casinos came to the coast in 1992. I was one of the first ones through the door and, most nights, one of the last ones out. They took our savings. They took a second mortgage on the house. They took money that wasn't mine to take. In July my wife Darlene found out how bad it was. This page is where I keep count.

Entries: Sept. 26 | Sept. 20 | Sept. 16 | Sept. 6 | Sept. 1 | Aug. 24 | Aug. 9 | Aug. 3

Sunday, September 26, 1999
Day 36

Ten o'clock Mass with Darlene and our daughter Kristen. First time the three of us sat in the same pew since before Easter. Kristen sat on the end instead of between us, and I noticed, and I didn't say anything.

After dinner I told her about the college fund. Darlene and I had agreed at the pressure relief meeting that she was old enough to hear it from me and not find it on a bank statement someday the way her mama did. Darlene's mama started that account the week Kristen was born. I took money out of it, more than once, and I lied about it. Kristen is a senior. She has nursing school applications spread all over the kitchen table right now. I said all of it looking at the applications because I couldn't look at her.

She didn't cry. That was the worst part. She said "OK" and asked if she could still apply. I said yes. I told her I put back $25 every Saturday I work overtime, and I'll show her the passbook every month. She said, "You don't have to show me." Then a minute later she said, "Yeah. Show me."

Later I watched the end of the golf with Darlene's daddy, Mr. Ellis. The Americans were down four points going into today and came back and won it. Mr. Ellis said, "See there." I don't know if he meant the golf.

Last night was the full moon over the Sound. I sat on the back steps and didn't go anywhere. That's the whole story of my Saturday night. It's a good story.

Put back so far: $275.

Monday, September 20, 1999
Day 30

Thirty days. Again.

The first time I got to thirty I wrote a big proud entry about it. It's down the page. I'm leaving it up. This time I'm just going to say it quiet.

Ray, my sponsor, drove me to the meeting at the church hall tonight. When the man chairing asked if anybody had a milestone, I said thirty days, and the room clapped like I'd done something. Ray says I did. What I did was go to work, come home, go to a meeting, and hand my paycheck to my wife. For thirty days. It is about the most boring thing a grown man can do and it is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Darlene was at her Gam-Anon meeting down the hall at the same time. That's the group for the families. She says they drink better coffee than we do. On the way home we stopped at the Dairy Queen and sat in the truck with the windows down. She held my hand on the seat. We didn't talk much. Didn't need to. Tired tonight, but it's the good kind.

Thursday, September 16, 1999
Day 26

Mr. Lyle, who owns the store and kept me on after he found out, sent me to run a clutch kit and two batteries to a garage in Biloxi today because Terry, the other counter man, was out sick. The quick way is 90, right along the beach, right past every one of them.

Ray says there's no shame in the long way. So going over I took I-10 and came down. Coming back it was five o'clock and I-10 was a mess and I told myself I was a grown man and I could drive down a highway.

Here's what nobody tells you. It's not that you want to win. It's the lights. It's the parking garage and the cold air when the doors open and the sound. It's knowing for a few hours nothing's going to be asked of you. I drove past with my hands at ten and two like driver's ed and I said the Serenity Prayer out loud about six times, and I didn't turn in. When I got back to the store I called Ray from the phone in the back and told him. He said, "Next time take the long way both ways, hero."

On the news tonight they showed the cars backed up for miles out of Florida and the Carolinas, everybody running from Hurricane Floyd. Last September it was us nailing plywood on the windows for Georges. I remember I went to the boats the night before they closed them for the storm. Darlene was home filling the bathtub with water and I was out there. That's the kind of thing I have to live with now.

Monday, September 6, 1999
Day 16

Labor Day. Crab boil at Darlene's brother Buddy's in Long Beach. Corn, potatoes, a sack of blue crabs, the whole family. Good day, mostly.

Buddy's neighbor, who doesn't know, said after we ate we ought to all ride over to the boats and "see who's lucky." Buddy said real loud, "Nobody here's lucky, we're all just full," and got out the horseshoes. We used to play horseshoes for a dollar a game. Today Buddy said we were playing for bragging rights and said it loud enough that everybody heard. I love my brother-in-law. I never told him that. Maybe I'll print this out.

Kristen and her cousins went down to the water. Darlene and I sat in lawn chairs. She said, "This is nice." I said it was. It was.

Wednesday, September 1, 1999
Day 11

Paid the bills at the kitchen table. Darlene writes the checks, I lick the stamps. Thirty-three cents a stamp and I thought about every one of them. Too tired to write. More this weekend.

Tuesday, August 24, 1999
Day 3

I have to write this one and I don't want to.

Saturday I went back in. I had 41 days. I had cash in my pocket from a starter I rebuilt for a man down the street, cash Darlene didn't know about, and that right there was the whole thing. They tell you at the meetings that the lie comes before the bet. I didn't believe that. I believe it now. I told myself I'd just drive by. I told myself a lot of things.

I'm not going to write down what I did in there. If you're like me you can guess, and if you're not, you don't need to know.

I came home at daylight and sat in the truck in the driveway with the engine off. I don't know how long. Darlene came out in her robe with two cups of coffee and got in the passenger side and sat with me. She didn't yell. I wish she had. She just said, "Call Ray."

I called Ray. He said, "Day one is tomorrow. Today's today. Be at the meeting tonight." So Sunday was day one. Today is day three.

I almost took this page down. Then I figured if I only write when it's going good, it's not an honest page, and honest is the only thing I've got left to offer anybody.

Monday, August 9, 1999
Day 30

THIRTY DAYS! Thirty days without a bet. I haven't done thirty days since before they built the first casino.

Bought myself a Coke and a MoonPie at the Texaco to celebrate and drove home with the windows down and Tim McGraw on the radio. Darlene says don't count your chickens. Ray says "one day at a time" about four hundred times a week. I know, I know. But I feel like I've got this thing whipped. I really do. I'm sleeping at night for the first time in years.

Tuesday, August 3, 1999
Day 24

My sponsor says write it down. That's Ray, a retired shrimper with eleven years and some months without a bet, and he means on paper. My nephew set this page up for me instead, so here we are.

In July the bank called the house about the second mortgage, which was three months behind, and Darlene answered. We'll be married twenty-three years this October. She didn't know there was a second mortgage. That's how it came out. That night I sat at the kitchen table and told her all of it. It took till three in the morning. She had a legal pad and wrote down every number I said.

The next Sunday I went to my first Gamblers Anonymous meeting. They have twenty questions you answer. They say most compulsive gamblers answer yes to at least seven. I stopped counting my yeses at fifteen.

Last week I handed Darlene the checkbook, the ATM card and the credit cards. She cut the cards up at the counter with the kitchen scissors. I get twenty dollars a week for lunch and gas money, like I'm in the ninth grade. I'm not complaining. It's the first time in seven years I've known where all my money was.

If you think you might have a problem, Gamblers Anonymous is in the phone book in most towns. It was in ours the whole time. I just didn't look.

A favor: if you know me from the parts counter, please don't bring this up there. Bring it up with me outside and I'll tell you the truth. That's the deal I made.

If you want a note from me when I put up a new day, drop me an e-mail and say so. Thank you to the folks who already wrote, especially the lady in Louisiana whose husband is on day nine. Tell him Wayne said keep going.

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