My mum has always enjoyed a flutter on the horses for a bit of fun. Even now she’ll sit on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon putting a 50p each way bet on the horses and getting a bit of a thrill from it, but the horses never did it for me.
For me, gambling has always been about the slot machines which I was exposed to from the age of 5. I started by going into the arcades at the seaside on holiday, then when I was about 16 or 17, I used to go into the arcades where I lived, and this carried on through university, losing quite significant amounts of money on them.
From the slot machines, I moved on to casinos in my 20s, starting with relatively small sums of money, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. It was always manageable but after a big win, I found that I was upping the stakes. The most I ever lost in one night was £2,000 – which is an insane amount of money to lose.
I then moved onto online gambling in my 30s, which was when things started to spiral out of control. I received an offer of 50 free spins on the slots from an online gambling company and soon I was struggling to think about anything else, even when I was spending time with my family. I won about £700 from one promotion and started using all the bonus offers from several betting companies, trying to exploit all the bonus offers. Inevitably I ran out of free offers and started to use my own money. I look at my bank account from 10 years ago and it is riddled with deposits to gambling sites.
However, I recently had help from the East Midlands Gambling Harms Team and now I can recognise the trigger points that lead me to gambling.
As a teacher, the long summer holidays can be dangerous when you have more free time. It’s a long period of inactivity so you start looking for things to do – and for me it was gambling. I wouldn’t say I was ever truly unhappy because of my gambling but it did affect my well-being.
I was riddled with guilt about what I was doing and I experienced many negative emotions, like anger, frustration and anxiety. The thing with a gambling addiction is that you can do it in silence – it would look to others like I was doing things like work on my laptop, but I was spending several hours a day gambling. I never got myself into debt gambling but when I look at how much money I spent on gambling, and how much money I should have saved or spent on other things like my family, then I feel incredibly guilty.
I tried to stop gambling several times, even going into arcades and giving them a photograph of myself and asking staff to exclude me. But even that’s not foolproof. Several times I went into arcades where I should have been excluded and nobody said anything.
But I got sick of feeling guilty about gambling, so did a Google search and found the East Midlands Gambling Harms Service, which has been brilliant.
There were a few introductory sessions, then a course of cognitive behavioural therapy, which I found really useful. It helped me to be honest with my wife. I had tried to keep the extent of my problem a secret from her but now she knows, then it is such a relief and she has been very supportive. I still had slip ups and I know I’m particularly susceptible on payday when I see I’ve got money in the bank.
I know if I have alcohol I’ll be susceptible, and when I go out with my friends and have a few drinks I know I’ll be tempted. But using the techniques I’ve learned, I am managing to keep it under control There was one tip I really liked, which was to keep a picture of your wife in your wallet alongside a picture of the CEO of a big betting company. Then if you are tempted to gamble you can see both photos and who would you rather give your money to? Your wife or the gambling firm?
I give myself small rewards if I don’t gamble. Only something small like a bar of chocolate, but it helps with motivation to stop. The big thing I’ve learned is: before acting, stop and think. Take your time and don’t be impulsive. I’ve not completely abstained but you must look forward not back.
The therapy has been brilliant and I really hope more people take up the help that the service offers.
* Martin’s name has been changed