Individual Choice and Responsibility

I think there needs to be a much bigger emphasis on everybody’s responsibilities within it because at the moment I think the only responsibility really is on the individual. When an individual has a problem, they aren’t able to take that responsibility, because by the time they realize they need to, often it’s too late.

I know it happens with other addictions, but people always come back to it’s a choice. Initially, when I did share things with friends and family, I know that they would express anger or frustration towards him because they very much felt like he’s choosing to do these things, he could just choose not to do it.

That’s the thing with addiction as well, I think that people who stigmatize, blame the person. The person blames their own addiction or their own, I don’t know, something, rather than, “What can I do about it? How to actually– can I get hold of it.” I think, also, probably, because it has such a hold on them, they don’t feel like– it’s like they couldn’t be responsible for it, because they feel so out of control. Can’t be a nice feeling.

A lot of it is a generation thing sometimes. You look back at how horse racing was just something that everybody went to and the lottery, well everyone does that, don’t they? And sometimes even now, [partner’s] parents and even my parents, to a certain extent will say, “have got your money back yet?” And he’s like, no, and I don’t want it back, like. “Do you still go to GA?” And he’s like, Yeah, I’ll always go to GA as long as I need to. You’re not broken and then you’re fixed, it’s a lifelong process. But I think the older generation don’t necessarily understand it.

I never noticed gambling adverts before, but since knowing that it triggers [partner], they now trigger me, and I see them, and we both feel uncomfortable. Those things are things that I guess people who have never experienced it before don’t notice and don’t understand. And that’s sort of a big thing is this understanding and this sort of social norm aspect of gambling and it just being something that people do. And children think that that’s just what you do.

When he first told his sister, his sister was like, “Well, everybody, gambles,” that was her response. His mum was similar. She didn’t get that it was– she still really doesn’t now. She would enable it, his mum, because if he couldn’t get money from me, it would’ve been his mum and his mum would send him some money, but not question why he needed it or anything.

I’ve read in the papers recently about someone who stole a large amount of money and quite rightly, some action. All the summing up at least that was reported, I’ve got to be fair maybe to the judge because it’s only what was reported in the press, but everything that was reported blamed the individual. There was not one iota of reference to the fact that the industry existed with products that were harmful, which was probably a key factor in why the individual did what they did. It was all about reemphasising the stigma on the individual.

There’s a perception, when people imagine a gambling addict, of a certain type of person who perhaps is unemployed or experiencing poverty and those types of things. Because I think that people probably do think people gamble to try and get more money. Maybe that’s true for some people, but this concept of it can actually be anyone, and would you be surprised to learn that it is your friends that are in really good jobs or have these other things going for them, like have a family.

I think that’s the same, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, tobacco, whatever it is. I think there’s a lot of people who hold very, quite stereotypical views about people with addiction, I think, and what kind of people they must be. I think gambling is probably even more so. I think because gambling and that kind of like, oh, put 50p. on the– it’s so now socially acceptable, whereas the others, there’s lots of advertising isn’t there around, obviously tobacco, we know that.

There isn’t even safe gambling advice out there. There’s advice about safe alcohol consumption, your diet, your sun exposure, your sleep, everything, but not about gambling. Gambling, it kills people and it ruins lives. I don’t know why it doesn’t get the same kind of attention.

I’m a bit of a chocoholic, it’s not quite the same, but that would be my guilty pleasure. If I walk past some chocolate, I’ll have to buy it. Now that’s not quite the same thing, but that’s not in my face all of the time. To have to think– I can’t imagine what it’s like. I think it must just have churned away in his stomach the whole time. I think the level of shame in it, it’s seen with I think all addictions, there’s a lot of misconceptions, isn’t there, preconceptions about the people who are addicted to things.