Pieces of a Dream: A Story of Gambling

Introduction

When Phillip Wong died by suicide, his family thought that silence would end their pain. But his sister, filmmaker Michelle Wong, needed to make sense of her brother’s death. What drove him to end his life at age 36?

Weaving together intimate conversations with those closest to Phillip, as well as her own candid reflections, Wong embarks on a personal journey. Gently peeling away layers of silence, she uncovers her brother’s story of gambling addiction and his lonely spiral into desperation, isolation and depression.

Filmed against the backdrop of the noisy casinos of Las Vegas and the quiet town of St. Paul, Alberta, the documentary lays bare the grief of family and friends. Sifting through feelings of guilt, sadness and shame, the once-fragmented family begins to discover a new closeness. This heart-wrenching film is a sister’s uncompromising search for the truth and healing–for herself, her family, and others struggling with addiction. [source]

Quotes

“He felt like if he stayed at home he would be sort of tied down, that eventually his dad would want him to run the restaurant … him running to Las Vegas, he felt a little bitmore free to do what it is that he wanted.”

“Las Vegas has become that kind of city where weird things happen, wonderful things happen out of the ordinary. Almost the mystique of Vegas is larger than the city itself … I think the things that my brother learned in Vegas were ‘street smart’ things.”

“He would go out at midnight and would come back the next morning. He went everyday for a whole week. And every night, he’d come home and give me $100 and say, ‘Honey, I made $100.’ So he tried brainwashing my mind that he doesn’t need a job. If he can make $100 a day – 30 days, that’s $3000. So he tried brainwashing my mind. But I really don’t know whether he made money or not. But every day he’d come home and give me $100.”

“Gambling was always a part of our life growing up, it was a form of entertainment, a fun distraction. But I was becoming aware that this was more than just a pastime for Phillip. When did gambling become something that Phillip couldn’t control? How did it go from entertainment to something so serious? I didn’t realize until I started asking questions that there was a darker side to Phillip that hadn’t been shared with me before.”

“My brother was covering his gambling losses by telling each person a different story. He had created a huge web of deceit. It was only later when I was putting together the pieces that I realized how tangled in this web he had become.”

“I read in a book that over 50% of people who struggle with a serious gambling addiction contemplate suicide as a way out. When I read that I began to understand the choice my brother made. Maybe he didn’t tell me about his gambling problem because he was my big brother, a person I’d looked up to all my life, and part of him didn’t want me to see that he wasn’t perfect.”

“My brother’s death in many ways has actually brought this fragmented family close together in a way that I’m not sure the family would have been able to do on its own. But since his death there’s been a lot more immediacy around my relationships … I value that connection so much more than I used to. We’ve begun the long process of healing.”