pine wilt

The Scotch Pine trees in this area have been attacked by a pine beetle that inevitably kills them.What appear to be perfectly healthy trees are dying in the millions.The beetle eats the bark, lays eggs, and within a few weeks or months the tree is brown. Once the tree is affected, it is almost impossible to stop the progression.
I stopped in a nursery and asked about preventative measures, a spray or treatment that would make the beetles avoid the trees. The answer I got was that the only real prevention was to keep the trees healthy, that the beetles could only infiltrate a susceptible tree.Healthy ones could have beetles crawling all over them, but would not be affected. Trees that look healthy (but are not) are killed off.
Compulsive gambling is my pine beetle. I am the unhealthy tree. Millions of people can go to a casino, not be drawn into degenerate gambling by the intermittent reward system of the games, not get hooked on the highs of the wins, because they weren't "susceptible".
The last thing the nursery owner told me was that even if the pine beetles hadn't invaded this area, that the unhealthy trees would succumb to something else eventually, that it wouldn't be as quick or obvious as pine wilt, but they would die before their time.
I was unhealthy, though I looked fine on the outside.
If there were no casinos, no scratch tickets, I would have succumbed to something else too.
I was an addict looking for an addiction. Mine just happened to be gambling.