Clara Hughes's first job was at a small, family-owned drug store in Winnipeg where she learnt a valuable lesson about the reality of gambling addiction.Photo Illustration by The Globe and Mail. Sources: Lou Dahl Photography, Getty Images
Six-time Olympic medal winner Clara Hughes, the cyclist and speed skater with the additional brag-worthy feat of being one of few athletes to win big in both summer and winter games, took a very different lesson from her one-time summer job than just hard work pays off. Here’s how a cashier gig taught the then-teenager that addiction is real, fast-moving and can find anyone just about anywhere.
I usually trained during the summer, but I briefly had a job when I was 14 or 15 at a drugstore. It was a little family-owned drugstore down the highway from where I lived called Brown’s Drugstore in Winnipeg. Everyone in the community came in all the time, including me, so when I needed a summer job, I made a little resumé and everything. I can imagine what was on it: I’m a clarinet player! I do art! I’d never had a real job before.
But I was also really tall – 5 foot 9 – so I probably looked older than I was, which helped. I think they paid me $5 or $6 an hour. Whatever it was, I was pretty stoked, because it was the first job I’d ever had and the first time I’d ever made money.
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They hired me as a part-time cashier to run up the prescriptions; I never had to do anything else like stocking or cleaning. It was easy but the problem was that right there at the cash, under the plexiglass, were the lottery tickets. People were always coming in just to buy them, then coming back in when they’d won. I was always just standing there looking at them until one day, I figured I would buy one, too.
Because they’re colourful and shiny and fun, I picked one of those scratch-and-win ones and I actually won! It was only 20 bucks but it was like double my pay, so I thought, “This is wicked!” I promptly bought another, where I won another $7, so I bought another after that, and I won $15!
I’m pretty sure it was illegal for me to play the lottery at the time and I’m pretty sure I knew it too, because I didn’t tell my parents and I definitely didn’t tell my boss.
Whenever no one was looking and there were no customers in the store, I was stealthily gambling. Just one more, just one more. My winning streak ended pretty soon and then I was in recoup mode and by the end of my gambling spree, I’d lost my whole paycheque. I had so much shame and embarrassment about it that I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Dopamine hits are real and I felt completely out of control.
In retrospect, I think it’s funny now, because nothing really bad happened. I’d learned a good lesson and I’m acutely aware how many people’s lives are affected by addiction, including mine. I have a great sense of empathy for anyone living with any kind of addiction because I remember how quickly it took over after I’d even a little taste of it. I know people who can buy a ticket once in a while, and it’s just fun, but that’s not me.
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After I grew up and entered the world of sports, I saw gambling just totally normalized by society. I lived and trained in Reno, Nevada. I realize it’s funny and strange that gambling in many ways funds the sports industry and the career I was able to have ; gambling was and is just everywhere and I felt really lucky that lotto tickets scared me away from it long ago. This was a deeply-ingrained lesson that stuck with me my whole life. Whenever I see slot machines or a casino, something inside me goes, “Ugh, no.”
Even as a kid, it was the best lesson ever in how incredibly seductive and addictive gambling is and how fast you can lose everything. Easy come, easy go. I was so pissed off that I’d lost my whole paycheque and I thought, “This needs to stop.” It felt like a point-of-no-return decision where I could keep going or stop right there. I stopped.
As told to Rosemary Counter