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Keith Kocarek led a double life — as student leader and gambling addict.
Gambler
Continued from page 1
recalling a friendly game of poker
when he was a Ohio State U. student.
“I won a lot of money and I got such a
high out of that."
Kocarek eventually found himself fac
ing angry fraternity brothers who had
figured out he had taken about $8,500 in
fraternity money to gamble. He was
arrested and an Ohio judge sentenced
him to 30 days at a boys’ school. His par
ents paid back the stolen money and
Keith agreed to treatment, but he refused
to face what he was. “1 was planning how,
on the day I got out, I was going to bet
the money to pay my parents back," he
said.
Kocarek was treated at Taylor Manor
in Ellicott City, Md. - at the time one of
only three gambling treatment centers in
the country. He spent a week there, con
vinced he was cured.
After treatment, Kocarek enrolled at
Maryland and joined the campus Sigma
•Alpha Epsilon chapter, marveling at the
trust members showed even after learn
ing about the experience at OSU But he
could not leave his past behind him.
Kocarek began betting again through
his Ohio bookie, using some fraternity
money that was in his charge. ‘I was pay
ing back the debts from Ohio. As time
went on, I guess the pressures of the past
just kept coming down on me,” he said.
Those pressures were alleviated by
cocaine, which Kocarek found readily
available. “I finally felt good and could
move on without the pain becoming too
strong or overbearing. Cocaine became
my best fnend."
Kocarek's energetic involvement in
Greek affairs led his fraternity brothers
to believe the separate phone line he had
installed was for fraternity business. The
line was used to make bets.
In August 1987, Kocarek resigned his
IFC post, aware that the campus police
knew about his stealing- By mid
September, he began destroying evidence
linking him to fraternity funds.
Fearful of a confrontation, Kocarek
flew to South Carolina where he knew he
could stay at a friend’s home and find
something to bet on. He won $1,500 that
weekend, using some of it to pay for a life
insurance policy he thought could cover
his debts. “I knew I had to take my life. 1
spent the next few days planning the end
I hurt so much inside and I just wanted
it to stop.”
Kocarek made a few final calls to
friends and loved ones the next day. He
tried one last lie with his mother. “I tried
to convince her everything was alright
with me, although iny voice trembled on
the phone,” he said. “She had no idea any
thing was going on, and vet she knew bet
ter."
Unsure even now why, Kocarek got in
his car and drove to Ohio. When he
reached Columbus, Kocarek drove to the
riverside and suit for about three hours,
a loaded gun in his hand. ‘It was so quiet
and peaceful, 1 couldn’t cry,” he said, his
voice now a near-whisper
“1 picked up my hand which was hold
ing the gun all this time, put it to my
heart, pulled the tnggerand it was finally
over.”
Kocarek woke up in a Columbus hos
pital 1 le had regained consciousness, but
not his memory. That would come days
later. “And I felt tile exact same pain the
day that 1 ’ his voice trailed off “When
1 first came to realize what had hap
pened, 1 thought, ‘God, I can’t even kill
myself right.”
“Now, it doesn’t even make sense 1 was
just going through actions and doing
things and not knowing why and not
knowing what I was doing."
With the help of Gamblers’
Anonymous, Kocarek has learned much
about himself and his illness. “When I
first went into the hospital, to be honest,
I had a hard time believing . . it’s a dis
ease,” he said. “1 was thinking this is a
behavioral problem, it’s not an emotional
problem or an addiction.”
Kocarek credits his doctor with turning
him around. “1 spent God knows how
many hours with this person in therapy
without even a will to live. He gave me a
lot of hope, and that’s what 1 think makes
the difference. He said things will change
and things did change,” Kocarek said.
The limitations Kocarek must now live
with all involve being honest about his
disease. “I'll never be able to place a bet
or go to a casino. I can’t control that. It
does something to me, I guess, that it
doesn’t do to other people."
He also must allow others to handle his
money. An accountant gets his paychecks
from the two jobs he holds and pays the
$650 taken out of his salary each month
toward the court-ordered restitution.
Keeping control of the money Kocarek
does handle forces him to make choices
most people take for granted. “You don't
do anything impulsively," he said. “If I
stop to grab a hamburger at McDonald’s,
1 think about it: ‘Do I need to? Should I?
Should I wait until dinner?”
What hurts now, though, is being cut
off from the friends he once had at
Maryland.
“I’m to the point now where I can walk
on campus," he said. And if he should
come upon a face from the past: “I'm pre
pared to deal with that."
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