If David Nangle of Lowell were still a prominent member of the Massachusetts House, he would advise Gov. Maura Healey to restore cuts she made in the state’s fund help addicted gamblers.

Nangle knows what he is talking about. He was one of them.

Nangle’s long and secret addicted gambling nightmare caused his family great deal of pain. It  also cost him his reputation, and the House seat he held for 22 years, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

It sent him to prison as well.

“Unless something is done to rein in online gambling, we are facing a gambling epidemic, particularly among our youth, Nangle said. “I would put the money back in.”

“The state has just made it too easy for young people to gamble. Professional sports celebrities in television ads are urging kids to gamble, That’s a mistake.”

“I know about mistakes, I voted to legalize gambling when I was in the Legislature. It was a mistake,” Nangle said. “I was guilty of going along to get along.”

Gov. Healey, in her $56 billion budget, has proposed cutting some $6 million from a $12 million fund dealing with problem gambling.

Healey, facing a revenue shortfall and increased spending to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants who have decided to make Massachusetts their home, is being forced to cut services elsewhere.

At the same time, though, she has called for doubling what the state spends on advertising for the state lottery from $4.5 million to $10 million.

Gambling in Massachusetts is indeed big business. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission estimated that gamblers have wagered $4.8 billion online since online gambling became legal. Anyone, including teenagers with a phone, can bet on almost anything, anywhere at any time.

Nangle, 62, pleaded guilty in 2021 to misuse of his campaign funds to pay for his compulsive gambling addiction as well as for defrauding on a bank loan and failing to report income to the IRS.

He was sentenced to 15 months in prison. After serving six months, he was released during the COVID epidemic to home confinement.

Nangle, once a key player in former House Speaker Bob DeLeo’s leadership team—as well as a legislator well known for helping constituents in need– needed help himself.

So, Market Basket, through its helpful and benevolent hiring program, gave a grateful Nangle a job stacking shelves. Nangle, meanwhile, worked to shake off the gambling addiction that had wrecked his life.

He succeeded and has put everything back in place, including his family.

Now Nangle is working for The Bridge Club of Greater Lowell, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people with addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling or other things.

The Lowell-based nonprofit organization was established in 2018 by city native Bob Cox, its executive director, who had fought his own battle with alcoholism.

It has a team of certified addiction recovery coaches (CARC) dedicated to helping individuals with addictions through counseling, support groups, rehabilitation, detox, and placement in sober living environments.

Nangle, who recently completed a CARC training program at Middlesex Community College, is on his way to becoming one of them.

“I think I have come full circle,” Nangle said. “I started out in the Legislature helping people who came to me with problems. It’s what I did. Now, after all these years, I am back doing the same thing.”

Upon his sentencing in 2021, Nangle said to the court: “I take full responsibility for my actions. Whatever sentence you impose on me I’m ready to accept, and what I want to do after that is to become a productive citizen again, maybe in my community, Maybe I can help a young high school kid or a college kid not to travel down the road that I have traveled  for forty years.

“In my office we used to take pride in the fact that every constituent that called, whatever it was, we did our best to help …they’ve hit a wall, they’ve hit a dead end, they’re at their wits end. They needed our help. Well, the truth of the matter was I needed help, and I realize that now.”

He got the help and is now helping others.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: [email protected].