Autumn 2008 I contacted an agent and told her I wanted to write a book on women and gambling addiction.  I wanted to write the book I had needed so many times.  We created a proposal.  Seal Press bought She Bets Her Life: a true story of gambling addiction.  I dug into what would be six months of research, exploration more like alchemy that I might have guessed.

I googled treatment for gambling addiction and was taken to the National Council on Problem Gambling. (http://www.ncpgambling.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1  I called.  The director Keith Whyte answered the phone.  His voice was warm.  It held none of the "I'm a busy busy man." many of us encounter too often these days.  I told him I was beginning to write a book on women and compulsive gambling.  "I know your work," he said.  "I loved Bonelight and your NPR pieces.  How can I help?"

In that instant, I felt magic carrying me, a magic specific to steadfastly honoring the writing - to refusing to write what was not authentic in my heart and mind, be it a column, a book, a commentary.  No bragging here.  I have no choice but to write that way.  To do otherwise is to not be able to breathe. 

Keith has watched my back from the first moments of our first conversation.  He referred me to the finest minds and practitioners in the field of gambling addiction treatment.  He invited me to present at last month's national conference in Portland.  Almost every few weeks, there is a note from him suggesting research, an article or a person I might want to contact.  A few months ago, he suggested Sandra A. Adell, author of Confessions of a Slot Machine Queen. Her book is wrenching.  Her blog, A Black Woman's Reflections on Casino Gambling(www.saadell.wordpress.com) is a brilliant exposition of the reality of gambling in urban life and the machinations of an industry that eats women's hearts alive.

Other alchemists stepped in.  My editor, Brooke Warner at Seal Press, pushed me to make a book both personal and scientifically rigorous - too often having to endure my whining.  The book's marketing director, Eva Zimmerman has tossed not just a thread, but skeins of vivid fibres toward me: local NPR interviews, each of them with another alchemist; podcast conversations with savvy and compassionate women; book signings and readings at indie bookstores, this blog. And when we threatened to run out of books at the National Conference on Problem Gambling, both Eva and Barbara Berlin, at U. of Nevada Press (for Going Through Ghosts) reached out for cooperation from an indie bookstore in Portland, Annie Bloom's.  The staff at Annie Bloom's took a chance on us and stocked both books, both for walk-in and on-line purchase. http://www.annieblooms.com/

There have been hundreds more weavers in this web.  I find myself mixing metaphors:  weaving, alchemy, lightning.  That is how big this growing community is - addicts, treatment professionals, friends, readers, writers, families of addicts, casino workers, editors, marketing people and you. No one image is enough.

This post seems to have evolved as a thank you note.  My mother - a true alchemist who transformed bi-polar psychoses into a rich and loving life - taught me to always write bread and butter letters to thank people for their gifts.  The is a bread and butter letter to all of you who keep me writing, clean and with threads of hope.  For you:

The Way It Is     

There's a thread you follow.  It goes among things that change.  But it doesn't change.     People wonder about what you are pursuing.     You have to explain about the thread.     But it is hard for others to see.     While you hold it you can't get lost.     Tragedies happen; people get hurt     or die; and you suffer and get old.     Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.     You don't ever let go of the thread.

---William Stafford