We’re both from Detroit. We both used our talent, motivation and sheer will to do something out of the ordinary. Gladys is world renowned as a singer and entertainer. Her voice is thrilling, a Motown Sound unlike any other. I became a university professor. I’m not famous, though. Nobody knows me beyond the cloistered world of academe, and I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.
But I share with Gladys Knight the experience of becoming addicted to gambling and a desire to share my story with others, especially black women, in an effort to get people in the black community to come forth and let the policy makers who think gambling is good for us know how devastating it really is, even to someone as wealthy and famous as Gladys Knight.
From time to time, someone who has read my memoir, CONFESSIONS OF A SLOT MACHINE QUEEN, will say to me, “but you weren’t that bad. I know people who lost everything, their homes, their families, everything. You weren’t all that bad.”
I certainly didn’t lose the mind-boggling sums of money Gladys Knight did at the blackjack tables. But then, I’m not a famous entertainer with a beautiful voice working in Las Vegas making millions, like Gladys Knight.
In a Biography Close-up, Gladys says about her gambling, “I knew I had a problem. I knew I had a problem. I lost Gladys.”
That’s what happened to me when I became addicted to slot machine gambling. “I lost myself. I lost Sandy.”
Sandra Adell, Author, CONFESSIONS OF A SLOT MACHINE QUEEN: A MEMOIR
