What the Gambler Leaves Behind
The gambler's forsaken wife grieves alone, and the mother mourns the son who roams from home. Chased by debt, at night he creeps near strangers' doors — the dice have made him so.
Is the price of my small indulgence in fact being paid by those beside me, not by me?
📝Reflection
The cruelest thing about addiction is that its price is paid not by oneself alone but by those beside one. The poet turns his light not on the gambler but on the wife weeping alone and the mother who lost her son. Whatever grips me never sends the bill to me alone. When I collapse, that shadow falls longest on those nearest. So restraint is not for my sake only. Guarding myself becomes, at once, the guarding of those beside me.
🌱Apply It Today
Recall a habit you have wanted to quit, and picture the one person, other than yourself, whom overcoming it would protect.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
