Read this Offaly forward’s deeply personal story of the desperate power of gambling addiction and also some advice on how to pull yourself out of it. If this is something you are going through or someone you know is going through, please get the help you deserve.
When I went into a treatment centre in 2011 I did not know what to expect. Gambling had me ruined. At the time I was convinced that I gambled for money. That I was greedy. That money was going to be the answer to all of my problems. A nice house, a nice car, these were the things that were going to make me happy again. Over those five weeks of treatment, I was brought on a massive journey of self-discovery. You see, I was never really taught how to express negative emotions or any emotions for that matter.
My gambling, as is the case with all compulsive gamblers, began with a few bets on the weekend with very low sums of money. As time progressed, the frequency of the bets got higher along with the amounts. Gambling has a way of sucking you in. All the stories I have heard are similar to mine in their pattern. In the beginning it’s fun, it’s a pastime. There are a lot of wins in the early stages that make gambling almost appear easy. It is these wins and the thought of more wins to come that kept me going, even throughout my darkest days in a bookies.
Pain has no memory. I would often get into my car and scream at the top of my voice, punch the steering wheel, cry, pray and swear to myself that this was the last time I was going to go to a betting shop and throw away my weeks wages. It might take me twenty minutes to get home. By the time I was home I was seeking out ways in my head to win the money back. Who could I ring to borrow money from? What cover up lie would I have to tell as to not get found out? What jokes can I tell to the people closest to me to make them think that everything is okay? Who do I already owe money to?
Sometimes it is difficult for people to understand the mind of a compulsive gambler. It’s difficult for people to comprehend how a person just can’t stop, especially when they can see the damage it is doing to them financially, emotionally and in almost every other aspect of their lives. Let me try to help you understand.
There is the lure of the dream world. That one bet can transform your life from having nothing to having everything you’ve ever dreamed of. You also have the buzz and the adrenaline rush you get from each bet. Having placed a bet and seeing your horse or dog cross the line first was a thrilling experience and one that I craved. It was that craving which played a large part in the bets becoming more frequent. Gone were the days of having a couple of bets on a Saturday. It got to a stage where I was placing a bet on every race, just to keep the buzz going.
If I was looking for a place to hide I had found it. Now I don’t mean hide in the sense of no one knowing where I was, I mean it in terms of hiding from the large problems I was creating in my personal life. If I was having an issue with work, if I had lost a game of football, if I was having trouble in a relationship, if I was feeling angry or resentful, the betting shops were the perfect getaway. In these places, even though a part of me knew it was slowly killing me, I was comfortable. I felt at home. It was an escape from all my problems. The only problem was, by going there, I was compounding the problems.
I knew what I was doing was wrong but I genuinely thought that I was the only person in the world with this problem. I know now that is not the case. A friend in recovery put it beautifully to me during the week. He said that you will have everything you ever dream of when you stop gambling and none of it if you continue to gamble. Right now, we are the lucky ones. I know what he says to be true because I have lived it these past three years, nine months and twenty nine days. The best days of my life.
There are a couple of things that have helped me over the years.
The simplest of those is to stop watching horse racing or dog racing or whatever it is you gamble on. Do this for a while until you feel that bit stronger in yourself and the urge to gamble isn’t there anymore. I gambled on horses and dogs and haven’t watched a race in almost 4 years.
The second thing to do is to give your money to a parent or someone you trust. It might seem like a very childish thing to have to do but it takes away the temptation once you know that you don’t have money to gamble.
I am not sure how possible it would be but personal counselling is another route you could explore. Often people gamble to escape other problems that are going on in their life. Things like parents separating, a relationship breaking down or even something like losing a game of hurling or football. The disappointment can make you want to escape that feeling and gambling does exactly that.
There are also gamblers anonymous meetings taking place throughout the country every day for compulsive gamblers who want to stop. It is a great place to get comfort of knowing that you are not alone.
From an educational point of view, I think there is a complete lack of knowledge and understanding around compulsive gamblers and the effect it is having on families and relationships at home and at the workplace. My Facebook and Twitter feeds are becoming saturated with betting companies offering free bets to get people to set up an online account. Advertising campaigns make gambling look fun. For some people it is fun but for a very large number of people (40,000 in a recent UCD Study) it is destroying their lives. The saddest thing about this is that if these people were educated properly in the first place about the dangers gambling offers, they at least would have an informed choice. As it stands, they are being brainwashed, they have no choice. That has to change.
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