We should never give up hope. Here is a story to tell you why.

While I was an actor, I lived in Beverly Hills with two male roommates. We were 25, an age where we hadn’t completely grown up yet. One of my roommates was called Jack, the other was Bob. Bob was a musician. Jack was a working actor like me. He bartended in a really cool bar called Christie’s. One evening, Jack met a customer who said he was a bookie. Immediately, Jack became fascinated. He decided to place a $100 bet on a football game.

While I was an actor, I lived in Beverly Hills with two male roommates. We were 25, an age where we hadn’t completely grown up yet. One of my roommates was called Jack, the other was Bob. Bob was a musician. Jack was a working actor like me. He bartended in a really cool bar called Christie’s. One evening, Jack met a customer who said he was a bookie. Immediately, Jack became fascinated. He decided to place a $100 bet on a football game.

Jack won $800, and the bookie delivered his winnings. Jack placed another bet and won again. He became a regular better.

Two months later, Bob and I returned to our apartment after one of Bob’s gigs. We found Jack sitting in the living room on a couch. The sports section was laid out in front of him. A small pile of cocaine was on the coffee table. Jack’s nose had white powder everywhere.

He looked up.

“What’s up, guys?” He asked.

Bob and I looked at each other.

“You ok?” We asked.

“Oh yeah,” he answered.“Just looking over the college games tomorrow.”

Jack wasn’t an athlete in high school, or anywhere else. It was apparent that his addition to betting was transforming into a different, more insidious addiction.

I moved out to the Valley a month later, for a job and a girl. I didn’t see Jack again until fifteen years later. I happened to see him at a stoplight. He was driving a BMW. I waved him down and we decided to get coffee. Once we sat down, Jack told me his story.

He ran up a $15,000 debt. His Dad agreed to bail him out, on the condition that Jack would go to rehab and look for a job when he got out. Jack agreed.

Jack got out of rehab after six weeks. He eventually found a job as a production assistant. He worked for a film company that eventually moved Jack to Florida for a shoot. Two weeks into the shoot, Jack happened to be in the office when the Executive Director got into a shouting match with the Chief Financial Officer, who quit on the spot. As the door closed, the Executive Director threw his phone off his desk. He yelled at his assistant to get him a new financial officer. Jack stood up and knocked on the open door, and said: “I majored in accounting in college.”

Jack started that day and received credit as a producer on the film. After he finished the film, Universal offered him a two-picture deal. They put him in his own bungalow, with an assistant and his own production assistant.

“That’s where I am today,” Jack said.