Contributions

I think there are some people might start drugs. That doesn’t work, they get into gambling. Some people might do gambling, that doesn’t work they then take drink. There is clearly interactions because I know of individuals who I’ve spoken to who have done all of the addictions, all three as they would say. Some have done two, some have only done one i.e., just gambling. A lot of these are all about coping. It’s almost that they’ve all been used as a way of coping with challenges in their lives, whether that be ex-servicemen, for example, whether that be people who have trauma for other reasons early on in their life.

And I do come back to [son] when he had that injury. I can’t say it’s the case and I’ve never really discussed it with him, but I do wonder. I know he always said that changed his life. He had an aspiration in life to be a P.E teacher. He couldn’t do it. And I could understand therefore, that was, I use the word, a traumatic experience. It would be in anyone’s life when you’re planning to do something and suddenly it gets taken away from you. Some people sometimes don’t see that sort of thing as being traumatic. But it is. And as I said, I think he then started. The alcohol was very quickly around that sort of time. But he’s obviously had ADHD all through his childhood. So in his case, it’s probably the ADHD that was a factor that maybe with that trauma led him to the alcohol, led him to the gambling. That would probably be what I would say. It was almost certainly the ADHD in his case was the primary driver of that. So, I think understanding all of the addictions, understanding why people get addicted is important.

John #2
Gambling Experiences

One day he came round and said Dad, I don’t know what to do basically. You know, I’ve got this debt and I’m not sure how to manage it. And I’ve always tried to encourage the boys to share their concerns or worries with me. He and I sat down, and he accumulated about this time, round about £50,000 of debt. So, a fair amount, but it wasn’t all at that point down to gambling. I think it was the fact that he had also, develop an alcohol dependency, so he is actually now also recovering from being an alcoholic. He’s now four and a half years into his recovery, the same as gambling. He goes to both AA and GA. So, what was clear was he was spending too much money. He would spend a lot of time out with his wife going out for meals. He was living above his means, I think very simply.

And I think it got to a point where he then had seen an advert on TV that was really saying, you know, it could be fun to gamble, and I think he was low. The alcohol wasn’t necessarily dealing with his problems, and he started to gamble, and I think he lost at that time maybe about £15,000 to £20,000 pretty quickly, which is why suddenly this sum had become so large and whereas he might have been able to cope before, he just couldn’t. So yes, so we basically just sat down and developed a repayment plan. I didn’t really understand gambling and I said Well, don’t do it again. You know, it might take you five years or so to get out of this. I’ll give you the support as a parent, which I now know, anybody who is a gambler you shouldn’t do. But most parents do. Although I now say to people who don’t know it just helps to provide them with good credit. But basically, over five years, we got back to a point where he was clear of all debt. But then he had some work done on their house because they’d not had the house done. They got all the money out to get the work done, the building work was all being done and then he lost all the money taken out for the building work plus more in four days.

John #2
Gambling Experiences Harm

If I look at institutions, one of the interesting things for my own son was how you can discuss this with your employer, for example. A lot of people feel that a gambler is this person who is a bad person. It is a person who potentially is going to steal money from your organization or do the wrong thing. Now, I think it’s been evidenced as a consequence of some stories in the press that some individuals have progressed to theft as part of their trying to cope or manage. It’s not right, but possibly if they had been in an institution where it could be seen they weren’t performing as normal, they were not well, then maybe that would never have happened. So, it’s back to this issue in my mind that if institutions have policies that can try to look at for example when performance starts to maybe not be as it has or is unacceptable, that employers consider has this individual potentially got an illness, whether it be a wider mental health illness or a specific addiction, whether that be other addictions, not just gambling.

So, I think to me, the more institutions are willing to accept that and acknowledge and understand this condition and that it is not the individual who really is a bad person. Because I have to say from my experience, nearly all the people I’ve met and I’ve even met a few people who have been to prison as a consequence of them stealing, and they have accepted that. I have to say, as an affected other, I felt very sorry for them because whilst I could see that they have done something wrong and they have needed to accept the consequence of that, it seems that they were the only individuals who had to accept the consequences of it. And they weren’t the only individual who was at fault, if you see what I mean?

So back to using this material potentially for wider aspects in industry, I think, and institutions, I think is fundamentally important if we’re going to try to help people who are gamblers to get the right support, not just at the point of potentially being at risk of gambling, but actually, equally as important, providing them the appropriate support for their recovery and ongoing ability to perform well as an individual.

John #2
Stigma Change

It’s only very recently so what, almost three and a half years into still trying to understand why he had become addicted and been one of those individuals who had become addicted that we found out that he actually has got adult ADHD. And he was now able to have that discussion with his employer. And I think his employer again had been fairly responsive to that. But, you know, if I would probably say maybe one thing, I think if his employer earlier on had understood about mental health as part of their processes, they might have been able to help him with his ADHD a long, long while ago, and he’s still trying to address the ADHD issue today. So, to me, you know, there is a link between all of these things and performance.

And as someone who has been responsible for running whole organizations and for someone who has been responsible for overseeing policy development, I know in a number of those policies, particularly around performance, particularly around other aspects, I’m not too sure there’s been as good a focus on mental health or disabilities. I know that’s improving because I’ve seen that written into policies. But again, quite often a lot of people talk about alcohol or talk about drugs in policies. Very few talk about gambling or gaming in policies, and I have incorporated the word gaming because actually gaming is also very similar in design as we all know that has an impact. So, it was an interesting point.

I think maybe the point I’m trying to get across here is that trying to encourage openness is important by the employer, and this is back to your point about the stigma, people I know when I’ve spoken to others, when I’ve spoken to them in our I go to GamAnon rooms, so obviously I can’t comment specifically what is discussed. But when I talk about openness, you can imagine that some people feel very worried about being open because they just do not know how the organization is going to respond and they are fearful of it. And that is something that’s got to be addressed because that would benefit the organization and institution as much as it will benefit the individual.

John #2
Stigma

I think the reality was if I look back with [son] and I look at the addiction, the gambling, undoubtedly what we saw was someone who really was over time gradually removing themselves from wanting to be out. So really withdrawing. Didn’t really want to spend time with friends. Didn’t want to go out even if given the opportunity. Really was more interested in sitting there with their phone because actually they weren’t just sitting there with their phone, they were gambling on the phone. Starting to – when you ask, what are you doing? Well, I’m on the phone.

So the other thing I would say is they are lying. The other thing you know is they’re not telling you the truth. And the other thing is you can see with time is that their general performance, their level of happiness was reducing as well. They were not happy. So, when I say the withdrawal, it wasn’t withdrawing from the point of view of the level of social isolation. It was they were not the happy person. Maybe a bit more angry, a little bit more tense in their nature. So that’s what you tended to see. And I expect that would change at different times, you know. And I expect suddenly when you think I’ve got to pay the bill or whatever. So, at different times of the month, that would change.

But I think if I looked at it, it was that it was only when it obviously got so bad that we started to really look at the addiction we could see that actually [son] was so low his whole self-esteem had almost vanished by the time that he was at this so low. You could see that he wasn’t caring about his own personal appearance. Didn’t really care about anything. So, the addiction was literally – the only thing he was interested in life was one thing which was spending time on his phone gambling. So that’s the visibility of that addiction.

John #2
Harm

The crisis point was literally he came back round with his wife to see me and his mum. He was broken. I’ve never seen someone just sitting there so broken. This wasn’t the time after he said he was going take his life. This was about six months after that period. His wife had contacted me then saying, you know, [son] is talking about taking his own life. We then went to speak to a GP. He saw his GP, he was given some support, treatment as such. Again, you then think Oh, gosh, that’s good. It’s now dealt with. You see all these steps as things as an affected other, oh yes, that’s been dealt with now, that’s the problem solved. But actually, the medication was helping him, but it hadn’t solved the underlying problem that he had.

So about six months after that period of being where he’d been suicidal, he was gambling with the intent of taking his own life if he managed to get the amount of money that he felt he needed to leave his wife and his kids so they could live without him. But he lost it all on the final bet, so it’s the only time I could probably say I was glad he lost probably over £100,000 or £150,000. Not many parents would probably say that, but if he hadn’t lost that, I’m not sure if we would be having this discussion at this moment in time. But because he lost it, he was suddenly in that position that a number of gamblers find themself, which is I’ve got no money. I’ve got this debt to pay. What do I do? and I can’t get any more money now, so what do I do? So, it’s a case of I expect talking to someone, you feel you can talk to. Which was me and my wife. And that was a really difficult time because I could see he was just broken. He just did not know how to deal with it. And obviously, we had to sort things out. He had outstanding, large outstanding bills to pay to the builders which had to be paid so that’s something that me and his mum had to sort and then to manage through.

But at that point my wife said there’s something more to this, and then she found details of GA and literally the next night we took him to his first meeting at GA. And when we got there, we also joined the GamAnon rooms, and we have been there ever since over the last four and a half years. And I think [son] would say that night he walked into GA was the night that changed his life for him. It was the first time he’d ever sat down with other people that he felt could understand him.

John #2
Recovery

I think my son was probably about two years into his recovery when he and I were literally just sitting down one day and I could tell that he was struggling with, having not shared his problem with his employer, all the family knew that he had obviously had a problem. In fact, he was very open with all his family very early on and in fact all his friends very early on. But his employer he was struggling with, and he was saying to me dad but how? And I said to him look, have you done anything wrong? And as we talked things through, he said no, I haven’t. The only thing I’ve done wrong I’ll be honest, and he’s made this very open on his podcast, he said this himself now and his employer will therefore be aware that his performance deteriorated. So yes, his performance deteriorated. He was not the person performing at the level that he had once been known for, you know, doing really well in his job. He was struggling. So, his employer was suffering as a consequence of him not performing well. He said, he was locking himself away to gamble and he therefore wasn’t even working on occasion. So, from that aspect, yes, he was not doing the right thing, but it wasn’t he had done anything wrong. He hadn’t done anything wrong criminally as such. But as a consequence of that discussion, he then went and spoke to his immediate boss. And that really, from that day, I think he would say if he could join us on this discussion was the day that probably was the most significant change. He felt pressure removed. His employer was very positive and responsive to this, knowing that he was suffering with this and trying to manage this condition.

John #2

The first thing I would say is a lot of people initially will want to possibly blame the individual or will want to hold them to account for what they’ve done. Just try to understand that no matter what they have done, that’s been as a result of using in most cases a product that in itself has been designed to create addiction. They have been harmed and the way that product worked it has impacted on the way that they think as a person, the way their brain functions etc. So actually, what the individual you’ve got there whether it be your son, your daughter, your husband, your wife, your cousin, your friend, whatever. They actually have an illness. It’s an illness that wasn’t of their own making. It was an illness that has been precipitated as a consequence of using a service or product, and they need help. And the best thing you can do is provide them support, help them to do the right things. And what I mean by that is find out what someone who’s got a gambling addiction needs to do to reduce the risk of them gambling again. What they need to do to try to minimize the level of debt. So, there are products that can block access to gambling websites. There are products that can help the individual manage their banking account better and not use gambling websites. So, if you are an affected other, try to learn about it. There are lots of websites out there that can help you.

In our particular case, we went to GA rooms, and we went to GamAnon, which is rooms specifically for relatives. They were a room that basically gave us hope, because when you first find out someone has gambled, you will in yourself, you feel helpless. I felt helpless as a father. In my case, no matter what had faced me before in my life, I’ve always known I could do something to help solve the problem. In gambling addiction, I didn’t know what I needed to do.

So the first thing I would say, therefore, is try to find out what you need to do because if you don’t know what you need to do, the risk is you would do the wrong thing, and if you do the wrong thing, you could possibly precipitate the individual to carry on gambling and actually not be supportive of them, in fact, you can push them away. And what you need to do is not push them away. You need to sit there and listen to them. You need to help them. You need to hold them to account. There’s nothing wrong with holding them to account because holding them to account is about getting the right treatment, taking the treatment or doing the right things to do it. So that would be my advice. Find out more. Don’t blame them. Recognize gambling as an illness. The positive thing I would say is it can be recovered from. Recovery is a long journey. But that recovery is for life, it will not go away.

John #2
Recovery

I’ve been fortunate to be able to be part of working with others as a result of being an affected other. I’ve been fortunate to meet many other individuals who like myself as an affected other really just have one desire. And it’s not a desire to stop the industry from being in existence. It’s a desire to try to stop any industry and in this case the gambling industry from using what I’ve classified as a modus operandi, a way of functioning that is designed to create addiction. In my view, that is not right, in any other business, it would be illegal and where it’s known that people are committing suicide as a consequence of having become addicted to a gambling product. You know, if any other industry was selling a product that created potentially or caused fatalities, I’m not too sure those industries would be allowed to exist, or they would definitely be facing court action against them and particularly the directors would…. How can the gambling industry not be accountable? How can the directors not be accountable? So, my view this needs to change.

And I think if they brought in, in my own view, a duty of care and each director was held accountable to making sure whatever services or products they offered were those that were not causing avoidable harm. You know, you can’t stop all harm from occurring, but where you can take steps to reduce avoidable harm you should be legally required to do so. And in my view, the industry is not. And whilst they will say well, we have all these things that you can do as an individual, you can set your own cap, you can do this or do that as a gambler. They also will know because if I know and I’m told this by specialists, they must also know that those products that they produce are causing addiction. And if you should then use the data to then contact individuals who have lost large amounts to offer them free bets and opportunities, I can’t see how anyone can say that they’re doing things that’s in the best interests of an individual.

So, to me, I feel the industry has to change in many ways, and I’m hoping that the review of the Gambling Act will lead to those changes that will at least reduce the amount of avoidable harm. It won’t stop it. But then again, you know, alcohol is still on sale. Some people will be harmed. Smoking is still allowed. There are some people being harmed. So, as I say, I’m not anti-gambling but to my mind, the way the business is run and the way it markets it and what it does needs to be changed to at least significantly reduce the current level of avoidable harm.

John #2
Change

Private companies, businesses, public sector organizations, anyone, I would say make sure you try to incorporate a level of awareness around gambling addiction as much in your policies as you do maybe in other aspects. Do think about it as I said earlier, when you’re thinking about performance, when you’re trying to consider when you may feel an individual’s not well, or you’re concerned about their mental health do bring the subject up about is this potentially a gambling addiction. So make sure your occupational health departments, for example, are aware of gambling addiction because if your not, the risk is you won’t get to the root cause of the problem potentially on that as well.

So, I think all these institutions could learn and actually, I think those companies can benefit because in my son’s case his performance at the end when he was at his lowest was negligible. So productivity was lost. You need to increase that. You can increase that productivity. And my final point to say is if you happen to work in an industry where you have a higher risk in that industry, if your employee happens to be at a period of being in their lowest ebb because of a gambling addiction and you have not identified. As I said, it’s not their fault because of their illness, there is a risk that they could lose concentration at a time that they were driving a train or a bus. Or they could lose concentration if they was a nurse when they’re trying to prescribe drugs. Just some examples. So that’s why it’s important you have an awareness because these individuals if they’re unable to share with you the fact that they need help. And if you’re unable to be open enough to give them that help, you’re not only hurting that individual, you’re not only losing productivity for yourself but actually, there is a risk that others could be harmed as a consequence of you not having created the environment to protect your own employees.

John #2
Change

Unfortunately, he ended up damaging his back playing rugby, and I make this point because I think this was a point that started to change his career path. And I believe that might have been, never really discussed it a great deal but I do believe people sometimes in gambling they have certain things happen in their life, some people put it as trauma. But he wanted to be a P.E. teacher. I think he would have been a great teacher. And so, he had a compact injury playing rugby, and he was told he could never play contact sport ever again.

Gambling Experiences

New factors were increasing the pressures on him day-to-day, which meant his ability to handle his day-to-day pressures were getting greater. And as I said, I think as a result of that, he saw the opportunity or he saw a night on I think it was Ant and Dec he was watching with the family, and I think he saw an advert come up around 365 with Ray Winstone, if I remember rightly, saying it can be fun. He started and he became addicted to the products.

Gambling Experiences Gambling Companies

In this particular case, there was wider mental health issues which I referred to earlier around him now having ADHD. So, I think we, you know, it’s an interesting thing that he was vulnerable and therefore his vulnerabilities would come out in different ways. I already mentioned about he didn’t really like money. Suddenly thinking he had money was almost new, it was a new pressure…I think you can’t look at every individual and say Oh, we do this or this, every individual is an individual. And I think people do need to understand what for those individuals, what are the things that they are struggling with to manage day to day, which could be triggers of them then wanting to find an escape. And gambling for some people provides that escape route.

What I know from [son] is that he said I can’t think of anything else other than gambling. I can’t close my eyes to even try to go to sleep because if I do, all I see is a roulette wheel, flashing round. I can’t relax. So as a human being, when we are tired, when our body is drained of energy, our normal coping mechanism is to sleep, to let our body recover. But for someone who’s in this addiction, they just can’t do that, and they will not sleep.

Gambling Experiences

He started and he became addicted to the products… He very quickly was cross sold within a short period of time, say months into more, of those most addictive products. Roulette is an example of one that he was into, and they just grew the addiction to such a high level.

Gambling Companies

At that time, he was able to bet on credit cards… He did have about two occasions where I think he lost on one occasion under £10,000 and on one occasion, just about the £10,000. So again, I spoke to him, but they were literally blips that had happened over like two or three days that money had gone.

Gambling Companies

Gambling is different because the actual product is specifically designed for or at least some of them are so designed to create addiction. It’s incredible. I just could not believe personally how anyone would be allowed to produce a product that’s so addictive, far more addictive than when I was told by the experts, they’re far, far more addictive than drugs.

He would spend a lot of time out with his wife going out for meals. He was living above his means, I think very simply. And I think it got to a point where he then had seen an advert on TV that was really saying, you know, it could be fun to gamble, and I think he was low.

Gambling Companies

What I know from [son] is that he said I can’t think of anything else other than gambling. I can’t close my eyes to even try to go to sleep because if I do, all I see is a roulette wheel, flashing round. I can’t relax.

Gambling Companies

What I found about the gambling addiction is I did watch it, but I didn’t realize I was watching it. I’ve watched alcohol… My son on occasions he would have a lot to drink. But I’ve seen many people have a lot to drink in life and I didn’t really see him, I know he may be slightly more excessive, but to me it was different, it was visual. I’ve seen people who have potentially taken drugs and I can see them the way they are.

Stigma

It’s the invisible addiction… The risk is if someone is just out there on their phone or they might just be a bit touchy, they might not want you to see what they are doing or they start telling lies about what they are doing… These are things as an affected other we keep an eye out for. They’re the sort of early triggers whereas if someone was drinking or someone was taking drugs, you could see it. You can’t with gambling addiction.

Stigma

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.

Stigma

[Son] didn’t really want to worry his mum. So, he spoke to me, and he said Dad, don’t tell the mum. And me and my wife have never kept a secret about anything from ourselves. Never. No matter what, we never have… I don’t think I slept for five nights. I was turning over in bed and my wife was saying what’s the matter John? What’s the matter? There’s nothing to worry about I said. And it was eating into me the fact that I had my son telling me one thing, it was eating into me that I was not telling the truth to my wife. And that was really difficult.

Stigma

The way the brain is being stimulated for the average person to understand it, it is exceptionally difficult to understand. But you’ve almost got someone with an urge, a constant urge, which you cannot stop. So, there’s some people, they will possibly feel I just cannot deal with this. I’ve got no one to go and speak to, I can’t talk to… how to get out of it. And I think in some cases some people therefore do what’s almost for the average person if you would never think about suicide, do the unthinkable.

Stigma

I smile when I say now because I sometimes say to someone think about yourself having something that you love to do and I love a packet of crisps I have to say, more than chocolate. And I then say to people, imagine you can never, ever pick up a packet of crisps again in your life. It seems quite trivial I said, when you put it into perspective. But just think, you can never do it. If you like a cake and you can never, ever pick up a cake ever again. You tell me one thing you like: a piece of chocolate. You can never, ever, ever pick that up again, because if you do you it potentially will trigger your addiction, and you will maybe get to a point where you will feel so low that you will take your own life on impact on your family. And when you made that point to people, rather than just talking about gambling, you help people to understand how addiction can drive behaviours.

It’s a very interesting statement because sometimes people are or can… I’ve never had it, but people haven’t understood it’s an illness, like myself thought it was something that could be stopped very easily. So, if that has been said, not that anyone has been critical, but said Well can’t they just stop it. And I’ve said Well, and I’ve then used my analogy that I’ve just given, and when they said Is that true? I said, yes, and you know, hope you trust me but if not, just go and look it up. And they’ve said Well, I can’t believe how hard that must be.

John #2
Stigma

It has impacted on my ability to sleep as well as I used to sleep. I don’t have every night that’s a bad night. I sleep pretty well most the time. But on the occasions when I speak to my son and I can see that he’s going through periods where he’s struggling for a variety of reasons, then clearly you start reflecting on that as his parent and I try to support him and his family in managing their life and the challenges they’ve now got with that, you know, financially, he’s still got a lot to pay you back. You’ve got those worries. And that affects us.

Harm

[Son] didn’t really want to worry his mum. So, he spoke to me, and he said Dad, don’t tell the mum. And me and my wife have never kept a secret about anything from ourselves. Never. No matter what, we never have. And I had about five or six nights when he first told me this very first time so it’s not, this was like five years before the major problem when he suddenly had all this debt and I knew it was gambling that I don’t think I slept for five nights.

Harm

I’ll say this a bit tongue in cheek, I looked about 20 years younger five years ago. I don’t joke actually in some respects because everyone used to say to me I was young looking. Now I look at myself and my granddaughter says to me Grandad you look about 80. So, on a serious note it has aged me. And I mean that, and I know a number of people they would say it.

Harm

From being someone who was looking forward to many things in life, I suddenly had a new worry and I’d say that worry will never go away. It changes and it eases, but there are up days and down days.

Harm

I’ve learned it is the thing that you worry about is what might trigger a relapse. And I think therefore all the things you need to learn as affected others is the things that can actually cause a relapse of us in anything in life, a family bereavement, a loss of a job. They’re all things that affect the impact on the way we feel, the way we do things and if we struggle to cope, that’s a factor.

Harm

Same as my wife, our lives have changed completely. And the things we do, how we spend our time has completely changed… [Son’s] brothers would do anything for him, they have never resented it. They didn’t understand it. Now they understand it like we do, but they worry. They worry about their brother. They worry about what he has to go through. So, I think, you know, in summary terms, it has impacted on the family in ways that means that we now worry more about our son.

Harm

We have to do things slightly differently in life. We might have gone for a day out to a race. We wouldn’t do that again. We have to think about it now. Can’t even do a raffle because a raffle can trigger a gambler. We still do a once a year we do a family golf day, in remembrance of my father. And we always used to have a raffle. We had to stop doing the raffle, and we had to make it clear to other people who came along why we did because of [son]. So, it’s impacted us lots of ways… and it’s impacted on just what we do in life and our interests and how we can spend our time.

Harm

He said this himself now and his employer will therefore be aware that his performance deteriorated. He was not the person performing at the level that he had once been known for, doing really well in his job. He was struggling. So, his employer was suffering as a consequence of him not performing well. He said, he was locking himself away to gamble and he therefore wasn’t even working on occasion.

Harm

We’ve been open pretty much from day one with immediate family. It did take a little while before we told some friends. And that’s partly because I didn’t understand it enough… Now that now I know more, if I talk to people, I try to talk to them in a sort of way that is factual, in a way that’s objective… Once I think those people have known the details behind it and understand it, they have been supportive.

Recovery

I used to love going to racecourses. I used to love going to the casino. If I was on a cruise ship, I’d go to a casino. Now, I don’t ever want to do that again. So actually, for someone who would have would have possibly contributed to the industry funding-wise, not an excessive amount, I will never want to do it again because to me, they’ve lost all my trust.

Recovery

Sometimes learning a bit more as I have done now, I almost certainly would have dealt with the situation slightly differently.

Recovery

We took him to his first meeting at GA. And when we got there, we also joined the GamAnon rooms, and we have been there ever since… And I think [son] would say that night he walked into GA was the night that changed his life for him. It was the first time he’d ever sat down with other people that he felt could understand him. Up to that point, no one had understood him.

Recovery

We had arranged for him, to go to the National Addiction Clinic during that period, which as he would say himself, he wasn’t ready for it. So, whilst he’d gone there, he really wasn’t getting any value from it. We had paid for him to go and see someone who potentially could discuss trying to change behaviours. And again, we’d had some hope… But the reality was that he was struggling with it day-to-day but managing day-to-day during that.

Recovery

It was her that, as I said, organised him to go to GA rooms, and I’m so grateful for my wife for doing that… she organized for him to go privately to get that done only recently. She’s been a key person in initiating, I would say, possibly the three key steps in what was needed to help [son].

Recovery

The job I was doing and the job I do now is still in healthcare. And I’m trying to actually get health care to understand a bit more around gambling addiction in the current role that I’m doing in this moment in time.

Recovery

If we were having this discussion four years ago, it would be in my view a completely different discussion to what we’re having four years on. And that’s because as an affected other I’ve been on a journey of really trying to discover the reasons behind why my son became addicted to gambling.

Recovery

Products have to be changed. It is immoral. It to me is unethical. It’s just not right.

Change

Gambling and the reasons for it are multifactorial… It’s a complex issue. It needs to be dealt with in a coordinated way. All the aspects need to be looked at and solutions or actions to address all those need to be dealt with. If you only deal with one part, the factors you may have, you will definitely have some benefit. But the overall benefit might be far less than what you would have been if you had dealt with all the various aspects. So, looking at the health care system, working with partners, I believe that system, the integrated care systems need to start understanding a lot more about what is gambling addiction. Why does it happen and what’s needed to help individuals who have got it?

Change

I’m not too sure there’s been as good a focus on mental health or disabilities. I know that’s improving because I’ve seen that written into policies. But again, quite often a lot of people talk about alcohol or talk about drugs in policies. Very few talk about gambling or gaming in policies… Trying to encourage openness is important by the employer.

Change

I think more wider, private companies, businesses, public sector organizations, anyone, I would say make sure you try to incorporate a level of awareness around gambling addiction as much in your policies as you do maybe in other aspects.

Change
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