Deserving honor awaits remarkable gambling counselor
After penicillin, the greatest life-saver to my knowledge is Arnie Wexler, over 50 years in the thankless business of rescuing anonymous souls and their families from the addiction of gambling.
And gambling is often a twin-addiction as it pairs with drugs, alcohol and even obesity in the downward spiral.
Wexler, 85, made his last best on April 10, 1968. You can look it up: He had the Mets on Opening Day when they blew a lead in the ninth to the Giants. He has spent the rest of his life as the go-to-guy for the gambling addicted.
That he has fought against insurmountable odds — with the help of vice-reliant legislators, America is now deeply invested in the business of bad-odds gambling aimed at vulnerable young adults — has made Wexler no less determined.
He taught me to know there's nothing romantic about the media's sell of gambling as something out of "Guys and Dolls," nor is the human condition such that anyone and their loved ones are immune from the disease.
Wexler and his magnificent wife, Sheila, are Certified Compulsive Gambling Counselors who have successfully treated, in person and by extension, thousands of addicted, many, if it wasn't too late, from the precipice of suicide.
As the executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of NJ, Wexler took personal care of several candidates I sent him for his compassionate, yet no-nonsense, streetwise counseling that led to successful recovery. And Arnie, having quit gambling 55 years ago, never quit on those who lapsed.
While not a man of letters — his spelling is comically rotten — Wexler has been blessed with the ability to read humans better than any scholar I've known.
Even when he allowed me covert entry into G.A. meetings, he'd later tell me whose testimonies were legit versus those who were just conning themselves — and explain how he knew.
For a man who lost so many bets on horses, ballgames and turns of cards, he was never wrong about humans, starting with himself. He remains an extraordinarily accurate tout of souls, the most remarkable unremarkable man I've known.
On June 9 at the Law Center in New Brunswick, N.J., Arnie will be honored by the Council on Compulsive Gambling for a life of saving lives.
The featured speaker will be WFAN's Craig Carton, a criminally addicted gambler now presumably in recovery and host of the Saturday morning show on gambling disorders. For details: Felicia@800gambler.org.