Born to win is a hard honest voyeur into drug addiction and all its consequences. J (George Segal) is heroin addict whose addiction begins to control his life. JJ addiction destroys his marriage to Veronica (Paula Prentiss) and finds he trolling the streets of New York’s dark underbelly drug trades relying on his one true friend Billy Dynamite (Jay Fletcher) until he gets caught trying to steal a car and falls for Parm (Karen Black), but even to Karen’s devotion to J can no save J from being lost in the never ending downward spiral of his drug addiction and the threat of death, not only from drug, but, from those that engage in the drug trafficking trade. It also reflects on the constant struggle between hope and despair. This is made poignant by the scene after J score a fix him and Karen are driving out of the city basking in the sun of the day and taking positive about kicking the habit, but, when the fix wears off the reality sets in and they drive back to the city under a sunless sky of dark.