At 40 years of age my gambling problem has led me on a journey to destination: loneliness and depression.

At 40 years of age my gambling problem has led me on a journey to destination: loneliness and depression.

  

I started gambling from the age of 11; I would travel 15km (each way) every day by train to the seaside town of Southport where I would go to the amusement arcades after school instead of socialising with other kids or doing homework.  As a result other kids would be hanging out together and learning social skills and I had only a few friends who had the same interests as me. (Mainly gambling)

From the age of 13 I went to a school nearer home and I had to find other ways to gamble, hence I took up train spotting as a hobby. This enabled me to have an excuse for travelling to Southport (to go to the amusement arcades) and also to hang around train stations where they had unattended fruit machines in the buffet where I could gamble. Through this time I had three good friends but didn’t socialise outside of this group. As a result I would miss out on many opportunities to have fun with other kids and to acquire social skills. I would lose touch with the three friends I had in the next stage of my life.

My late teens were quite a traumatic period of my life, my parents were by now well aware of my gambling problem and unable to cope with me, I was thrown out of home at the age of 17 and didn’t speak with my parents or two of my brothers/sisters for over six years.  I was meeting a third brother in secret and against my parent’s wishes. From this time I find it hard to find joy in shared times of celebration (Christmas, Birthdays etc.). For me every-day is the same, and we can always find time for loved ones and to come together as a family without needing the excuse of a special day.

I had a cousin of my fathers’ (now sadly deceased) and whom my son is named after who provided me with love and support that knew no limits. Whatever I did and however bad I behaved Sam and Elsie (wife) always loved me, fed me, gave me a roof, cheered me up, encouraged me, and tried to support me.  Sam was a doctor and that was their approach to life in general; to help others in need. Both Sam and Elsie were very active and much loved in their community.

From my early twenties I knew I had a gambling problem but at different times was either unable or unwilling to deal with the addiction. I hid my problem gambling from others and certainly didn’t talk about it. So nobody would have known the full extent and the amount of money I was spending, the debts I was accruing, & other things I was doing to fund my habit. For the most part I was largely unwilling to talk about it, and was frankly too messed up at this stage in my life to be able to make sense of it all. I was also moving around the country a lot, and I would rather ditch friends and find new people then let friends find about my gambling problem.  

I made two friends, Terry and Carl who I met around the age of 20 who I remain friends with to this day. My gambling problem has undoubtedly been a negative influence in their lives but both have stuck with me on this journey and shown me incredible love and support over the years. 

Into my late twenties/early thirties I started to make some changes in my life, one being that I took a job and started contributing to society!  With the job came friends but I was leading a double life with the problem gambling and associated mental health difficulties and I was a character that was either loved or hated. Despite being perceived as very self-confident I had a burning insecurity complex fuelled by the gambling problem and I needed to feel accepted. This would display itself in bouts of over confidence, showing off, or  big stories at the one extreme or by depression, sleeping, eating at the other extreme, and most people did not know the real me.  In the end my experience was that people only put up with so much that they cannot understand and I have ended up pushing a lot of people away from me throughout my life.

Into my mid-thirties I changed a lot to try and start afresh including moving abroad and settling in Slovakia with my wife. Unfortunately the gambling problem did not stay behind and about 7 months into my new job in my new life I spent about 100,000 Euros in less than a month.  I broke down and went on the run for a while in Poland away from my job, wife and gambling problems. I was searching out for some help to make sense of it all. At work nobody knew me nor about my gambling problem and I was off work for nearly four months. In this time a lot of negative comments were made about me, I never reacted to them openly but I did feel very hurt by each of them. But what could I expect; I was a complete unknown with very erratic behaviour. I had to take responsibility for my actions and return to work.

The last four years have been a hell to be honest in my recovery from gambling addiction. In particular I still have huge financial problems due to a lack of agreement with my creditors and no formal restructuring process exists for this situation in Slovakia. (such as IVA, personal bankruptcy in UK)

There is still a huge stigma attached to problem gambling and a lack of understanding of the addiction itself and its consequences to family life, friendships, work life, financial matters, and the community.

My hope is that through blogging and talking about my gambling addiction and how it has ruined my life that it will at least encourage conversation and debate about this illness and what we can do to prevent more lives from being ruined by gambling.


The below video is an excellent piece of journalism that shows where that first gambling experience as a child can lead to:


Video: The Pitch (Australian TV), 
Season 1 
Episode 5
Aired: 26.10.2011


Gruen Planet asked two advertising agencies to convince Australians not to bet on the Melbourne Cup. And they aired it in the same week as the event itself.