The Prairie Meadows casino in Altoona, Iowa, has more than 1,700 slot machines. The machines are in an 85,000-plus-square-foot gambling hall that looks and sounds like something out of Vegas. The action is 24 hours a day. No matter when you go, you’ll find people hunched in front of screens, punching buttons with a hungry look in their eyes.
I used to be one of those people. The first time I went to Prairie Meadows, I was young and carefree, out for a good time with my husband and some friends. The last time I went, I was a forty-something gambling and methamphetamine addict, who sold drugs to support my addictions. I’d lost jobs and mortgaged my house and my father-in-law's house to pay gambling and drug debts. I’d been arrested for dealing and had thoughts about killing myself. Now I was on probation and my driver’s license had been suspended.
Late one night, I was running low on meth. I drove to the edge of the city where one of my dealers lived.
I was on an unlit back road, driven by the same bottomless need I always felt. The need for more drugs, more money, more something to fill the emptiness.
Tonight I felt a new need. I wanted out of this dead-end life. To be clean. Free from those hypnotizing slots and the financial chaos they caused. Free from debt, addiction, crime, and shame.
Out of nowhere, I spoke a prayer into the night sky. “God, I can’t go on like this. I need help.”
I was not a praying woman. Why should I be? My mom was an alcoholic when I was a kid, then died of emphysema soon after she sobered up. My dad left our family when I was four. I reconnected with him as an adult, and we grew close. Then he died of cancer. I loved my husband, but drugs became a bigger priority for him than I was.
Everything and everyone I cared about got taken away. No reason for God to start listening to my prayers now.
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Guideposts.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Guideposts.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
EVERYDAY GREATNESS: Jessica Manfre
Uniting military and civilian communities through acts of kindness
The Cake Mixer Mishap
I should’ve listened to Mom
Star Turn
I worried about my introverted daughter. Then Olivia flipped the script
Unearthed
I pulled the overgrown remnants of my herb garden, putting it to bed for the season, and went over a mental list of all the things to do before winter began—change out the screens for storm windows, finish the yard work, bring down the draft blockers from the attic.
Confidence Builder
My five boys didn't need me to homeschool them anymore. Now I wanted to be good at something else. But could I?
Ordinary People
The story behind Norman Rockwell's celebrated painting
A Woman of Courage
After I was widowed, fear took over my life. How could I trust anyone if I couldn't trust God?
Keep on Truckin'
How to bring a couple back together: share a long-haul drive in an 18-wheeler
My Answer to Pain
Inflammation was wreaking havoc with my health. Was God trying to show me a better way to live?
Letters From Phil
My older brother and I went our separate ways: he to the Air Force, me to a marriage that didn't last. He lived a rough-and-tumble life, but that's not what really worried me