There is help and hope out there. That’s the message recovering gamblers Michael* and John* want to give to anyone affected by this addiction.
Each in recovery for many years, they know the difference that attending Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meetings and following the GA 12-step programme can make to their daily lives.
“When I was gambling, I had no hope,” Michael says, “but now I know things can get better and I have hope in my life.”
Michael was suicidal several times because of the shame around his addiction and the hold that gambling had on him. Since joining GA, he has now paid back 80% of his gambling debts, he’s working and is coping well with day-to-day life.
John is farming and thankful that he got help before his compulsion put the family farm in real danger.
“At one point after I inherited the farm, I blew grant money and cattle sales income in a couple of weeks,” says John.
“A lot of people with gambling problems don’t have access to finance, but in the farming environment you do,” he says.
“You can do so much damage so fast because of that access to money. If you get into a bad state [gambling] and lose a lot of the farm and experience the shame of that – losing what’s probably been built up over several generations – it can be very hard to live with, knowing what you’ve done. The likelihood of some fellas surviving that – it really is a life or death situation.”
John thought about suicide at times over the years himself, when he knew he couldn’t control his gambling, but, thankfully, he got help in time.
“After about 15 years of being in the grip of this addiction, I finally realised, after losing that farm money, that I needed help. I’d already made the decision to look for it by the time my family found out how bad I was.”
Already in GA, John also spent three months in a residential Cuan Mhuire treatment centre at his lowest point because his “head wasn’t right”.
This has been followed by attendance at Gamblers Anonymous meetings on a regular basis.
“It’s all about the meetings,” he says. “You’re told that in the treatment centre – that you have to go to regular GA meetings afterwards if you’re to stay in recovery. There, you are learning about yourself. It’s personal development really and you get support from other members and your sponsor and the tools to help you cope with everyday life instead of running away from it – into gambling,” says John.
Michael adds: “I see going to meetings as the same as a diabetic getting their insulin injection. They give me a chance to deal with day-to-day life. I 100% believe that if I stop going to meetings then I’ll go back to gambling.”
Michael worked in the financial sector and was on a substantial salary, but got himself into serious trouble through his gambling.
“The compulsion to gamble gets so great that you’ll beg, borrow or even do illegal acts to get the money. I used to wake in a sweat at night worrying about being caught for things I’d done that day and hating myself for doing things like kiting cheques (writing them out with no money to back them) and always borrowing off friends. Even if I’d have winnings in my pocket, I’d still borrow money from family or friends. That’s how bad it gets.”
After reaching a particularly low point, where he was in “absolutely horrendous” legal trouble and after admitting for the first time to a close friend that he was broken by the addiction, Michael went to GA.
“Six years in, I have paid off much of what I owe. MABS has been a huge help to me in doing that. I’ve also undone a lot of the harm I did to people. It used to be that if any little thing went wrong in my life I’d turn to gambling, but now my strength is being built up and I can cope with stuff.”
Hiding your secret
Michael says that it was the isolation and loneliness that finally brought him to his knees.
“I can’t explain how bad it is. Today I know that it wasn’t money that I was putting across the bookie’s counter, it was my mental capacity, my job, my ambitions in life and all my relationships because I didn’t give one f**k, except about gambling.
“When you’re a gambler, you can’t let people into your life because you’ve told so many lies. You also don’t want anyone to know your dirty secret because then you won’t be able to borrow money off them anymore.”
John, who wasn’t always farming, says that his only saving grace in his early years of gambling was that he didn’t have access to huge amounts of money.
“It still left me in a constant state of debt and brokenness though. It turned me into a bum almost, depending on friends to bring me out. I never had money to go anywhere.”
John’s relationship with his girlfriend ended because of his gambling too.
“She knew what I was doing because money was missing so often. I then drank more after that. There is often a link between drinking alcohol and gambling, and bookmakers’ shops are strategically placed near pubs for that reason. I stayed away from gambling for a while, but over time I relapsed. Gambling is a disease that makes you think you don’t have a disease. That’s when the farm was at real risk, but, thankfully, I got the help that I needed.”
The insanity of the frenzy
John and Michael both consider themselves to have been insane when gambling.
“The compulsion to do it takes you over,” John says. “It’s hard to explain, but I’ve absolutely no doubt that when you’re in addiction you’re not in your proper mind. You’re in a frenzy, there’s no other way of describing it. You can’t think of anything else. You become a compulsive liar as well. Everything comes second to placing the bet and chasing the money.”
GA helps the compulsion to loosen its hold on you, they say.
“After a while, with lots of support from other members, you begin to live what’s promised – a happy and productive life. Life still has ups and downs, but you realise that putting gambling down on top of those problems is only going to make life more unmanageable. You know you don’t want to go back to that chaos again,” Michael says.
Addiction makes you blind
Both agree that there is a “blindness” to addiction.
“You don’t see what you’re like,” Michael continues. “You tell so many lies that you can’t remember what you have said. I even got my best friend gambling because I told him I wouldn’t be friends with him if he didn’t gamble. That’s the way the disease affects you. It sucks in everyone around you. My family were giving me money because they were afraid I’d kill myself. With GA though, you slowly become more self-aware and honest and start making progress in every area of your life.”
John adds: “You get your self-respect back. It’s a long journey, but one that’s so worth doing. It has turned my life around.”
Upsurge in those seeking help
Gamblers Anonymous has experienced a huge upsurge in membership, Michael adds.
“When I joined, there were only a few people at a meeting. Now there could be over 20 at it. The demand is so great that there are now meetings on every day of the week in the Leinster region and throughout Ireland.
“Gambling is in your face all the time now,” says Michael.
“In some towns there are more bookies than pubs. It’s online and available all the time, you can’t even watch a soccer match on TV now without the odds coming up. It used to be horses and dogs, but now football has become huge.
“Schools are asking GA to give talks because gambling is so rife among students. It’s swallowing up the youth. Because of the downturn also, people seem to turn to gambling, but there is help out there in GA.”
Meetings
Open meetings, where everyone is welcome to listen, are being held in September in the Leinster region. An open meeting is also being held in the Community Centre in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, on Saturday, 20 September, at 8pm. For more information on meetings near you, see www.gamblersanonymous.ie or contact the GA helpline on 01-872-1133.
*Names and some details in these stories have been changed in the interests of anonymity, an important GA principle.
Questions to ask yourself
Here are five questions that compulsive gamblers often answer yes to:
1. Do you lose time from work due to gambling?2. Is gambling affecting your reputation?3. After losing, do you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?4. After a win, do you have a strong urge to return and try to win more?5. Do you often gamble until your last euro is gone?Info
www.mabs.ie
www.cuanmhuire.ie
www.aiseiri.ie
www.hse.ie
www.gamblersanonymous.ie
Private clinics like Aiseiri centres across the country and the Rutland centre in Dublin also provide treatment programmes. If you have private medical insurance the cost may be covered on your policy.
There is help and hope out there. That’s the message recovering gamblers Michael* and John* want to give to anyone affected by this addiction.
Each in recovery for many years, they know the difference that attending Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meetings and following the GA 12-step programme can make to their daily lives.
“When I was gambling, I had no hope,” Michael says, “but now I know things can get better and I have hope in my life.”
Michael was suicidal several times because of the shame around his addiction and the hold that gambling had on him. Since joining GA, he has now paid back 80% of his gambling debts, he’s working and is coping well with day-to-day life.
John is farming and thankful that he got help before his compulsion put the family farm in real danger.
“At one point after I inherited the farm, I blew grant money and cattle sales income in a couple of weeks,” says John.
“A lot of people with gambling problems don’t have access to finance, but in the farming environment you do,” he says.
“You can do so much damage so fast because of that access to money. If you get into a bad state [gambling] and lose a lot of the farm and experience the shame of that – losing what’s probably been built up over several generations – it can be very hard to live with, knowing what you’ve done. The likelihood of some fellas surviving that – it really is a life or death situation.”
John thought about suicide at times over the years himself, when he knew he couldn’t control his gambling, but, thankfully, he got help in time.
“After about 15 years of being in the grip of this addiction, I finally realised, after losing that farm money, that I needed help. I’d already made the decision to look for it by the time my family found out how bad I was.”
Already in GA, John also spent three months in a residential Cuan Mhuire treatment centre at his lowest point because his “head wasn’t right”.
This has been followed by attendance at Gamblers Anonymous meetings on a regular basis.
“It’s all about the meetings,” he says. “You’re told that in the treatment centre – that you have to go to regular GA meetings afterwards if you’re to stay in recovery. There, you are learning about yourself. It’s personal development really and you get support from other members and your sponsor and the tools to help you cope with everyday life instead of running away from it – into gambling,” says John.
Michael adds: “I see going to meetings as the same as a diabetic getting their insulin injection. They give me a chance to deal with day-to-day life. I 100% believe that if I stop going to meetings then I’ll go back to gambling.”
Michael worked in the financial sector and was on a substantial salary, but got himself into serious trouble through his gambling.
“The compulsion to gamble gets so great that you’ll beg, borrow or even do illegal acts to get the money. I used to wake in a sweat at night worrying about being caught for things I’d done that day and hating myself for doing things like kiting cheques (writing them out with no money to back them) and always borrowing off friends. Even if I’d have winnings in my pocket, I’d still borrow money from family or friends. That’s how bad it gets.”
After reaching a particularly low point, where he was in “absolutely horrendous” legal trouble and after admitting for the first time to a close friend that he was broken by the addiction, Michael went to GA.
“Six years in, I have paid off much of what I owe. MABS has been a huge help to me in doing that. I’ve also undone a lot of the harm I did to people. It used to be that if any little thing went wrong in my life I’d turn to gambling, but now my strength is being built up and I can cope with stuff.”
Hiding your secret
Michael says that it was the isolation and loneliness that finally brought him to his knees.
“I can’t explain how bad it is. Today I know that it wasn’t money that I was putting across the bookie’s counter, it was my mental capacity, my job, my ambitions in life and all my relationships because I didn’t give one f**k, except about gambling.
“When you’re a gambler, you can’t let people into your life because you’ve told so many lies. You also don’t want anyone to know your dirty secret because then you won’t be able to borrow money off them anymore.”
John, who wasn’t always farming, says that his only saving grace in his early years of gambling was that he didn’t have access to huge amounts of money.
“It still left me in a constant state of debt and brokenness though. It turned me into a bum almost, depending on friends to bring me out. I never had money to go anywhere.”
John’s relationship with his girlfriend ended because of his gambling too.
“She knew what I was doing because money was missing so often. I then drank more after that. There is often a link between drinking alcohol and gambling, and bookmakers’ shops are strategically placed near pubs for that reason. I stayed away from gambling for a while, but over time I relapsed. Gambling is a disease that makes you think you don’t have a disease. That’s when the farm was at real risk, but, thankfully, I got the help that I needed.”
The insanity of the frenzy
John and Michael both consider themselves to have been insane when gambling.
“The compulsion to do it takes you over,” John says. “It’s hard to explain, but I’ve absolutely no doubt that when you’re in addiction you’re not in your proper mind. You’re in a frenzy, there’s no other way of describing it. You can’t think of anything else. You become a compulsive liar as well. Everything comes second to placing the bet and chasing the money.”
GA helps the compulsion to loosen its hold on you, they say.
“After a while, with lots of support from other members, you begin to live what’s promised – a happy and productive life. Life still has ups and downs, but you realise that putting gambling down on top of those problems is only going to make life more unmanageable. You know you don’t want to go back to that chaos again,” Michael says.
Addiction makes you blind
Both agree that there is a “blindness” to addiction.
“You don’t see what you’re like,” Michael continues. “You tell so many lies that you can’t remember what you have said. I even got my best friend gambling because I told him I wouldn’t be friends with him if he didn’t gamble. That’s the way the disease affects you. It sucks in everyone around you. My family were giving me money because they were afraid I’d kill myself. With GA though, you slowly become more self-aware and honest and start making progress in every area of your life.”
John adds: “You get your self-respect back. It’s a long journey, but one that’s so worth doing. It has turned my life around.”
Upsurge in those seeking help
Gamblers Anonymous has experienced a huge upsurge in membership, Michael adds.
“When I joined, there were only a few people at a meeting. Now there could be over 20 at it. The demand is so great that there are now meetings on every day of the week in the Leinster region and throughout Ireland.
“Gambling is in your face all the time now,” says Michael.
“In some towns there are more bookies than pubs. It’s online and available all the time, you can’t even watch a soccer match on TV now without the odds coming up. It used to be horses and dogs, but now football has become huge.
“Schools are asking GA to give talks because gambling is so rife among students. It’s swallowing up the youth. Because of the downturn also, people seem to turn to gambling, but there is help out there in GA.”
Meetings
Open meetings, where everyone is welcome to listen, are being held in September in the Leinster region. An open meeting is also being held in the Community Centre in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, on Saturday, 20 September, at 8pm. For more information on meetings near you, see www.gamblersanonymous.ie or contact the GA helpline on 01-872-1133.
*Names and some details in these stories have been changed in the interests of anonymity, an important GA principle.
Questions to ask yourself
Here are five questions that compulsive gamblers often answer yes to:
1. Do you lose time from work due to gambling?2. Is gambling affecting your reputation?3. After losing, do you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?4. After a win, do you have a strong urge to return and try to win more?5. Do you often gamble until your last euro is gone?Info
www.mabs.ie
www.cuanmhuire.ie
www.aiseiri.ie
www.hse.ie
www.gamblersanonymous.ie
Private clinics like Aiseiri centres across the country and the Rutland centre in Dublin also provide treatment programmes. If you have private medical insurance the cost may be covered on your policy.
This is a subscriber-only article
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