Man Hates Winning His $315 Million Dollar Fortune: As Seen on 20/20

Have you ever sat back and asked yourself what it would be like to win a whopping million dollar fortune? What would you do with the money? Would you help a lot of people or start a business? Perhaps you would just retire and travel all over the world with the money. However, one man hated winning his fortune and tells all on an episode of 20/20 that aired on Friday April 6, 2007.

Jack Whittaker was the man that won a Powerball lottery jackpot in 2002 for $315,000,000. That is more money than most people would ever make through the course of several lifetimes. Anyone that had this kind of money would probably be smiling and buying themselves and their friends everything that they ever wanted. It would be a dream comes true. However, Jack began receiving thousands of letters after his big win and he even helped many people with his large fortune. He gave money to his family, churches and also to complete strangers. You would think that he had everything now that he ever wanted or even needed. However, Jack would later find out that his winnings would give him a great deal of loneliness and depression.

Jack Whittaker began giving money to his 17 year old granddaughter weekly in the amount of $2,000 per week. You may ask yourself what you could possibly buy with $2,000 every week. After you have gotten yourself some nice clothes and things that suit your every desire, you had plenty of money left over to do what you wanted with the money. Jack also bought his 17 year old granddaughter 4 cars and a beautiful 5 million dollar home for her and her mother to share. Even with all of the money, clothes, cars and home, Jack's granddaughter was still not happy. She decided to buy drugs for her boyfriend and herself on a weekly basis that eventually took the life of her boyfriend. Sometime later, Jack's granddaughter was reported missing and then her body were finally recovered dead with unknown causes.

If that wasn't bad enough, his wife of 40+ years of marriage wanted to have a divorce from him. Jack began spending a lot of time out with friends and his marriage began to crumble. How can having all of this money cause someone to tumble so badly? Jack is now a lonely man that is in the process of a divorce. He stated on 20/20 that he lost just about everything that he cared about because of the money. He stated that before he won the lottery, he would look after his granddaughter a lot more and he would have never allowed her to take drugs. He regrets winning his fortune and he blames the money for messing up his life.

For all those out there in the world that hope to get rich one day, you may want to take a look at Jack's story and ask yourself if this could happen to you. Jack also admitted on 20/20 that money doesn't bring you the happiness, but it's the people in your life that give you the happiness. The learning lesson from this story is to be happy with what you have and realize that if you have a spouse, children, friends and family, then its what makes life worth living. If you loose that, money won't be able to bring you any happiness. The point of this story is to value your friends and family more than your money. If you are trying to go to work everyday to get rich, you may have to ask yourself if it's costing you your personal relationships. If it is, then it may be a good time to reconsider what the extra work is really costing you. Once you get the money that you are looking to earn, are you really going to be happy with it if you have nobody to share it with?