Contributions

You’re caught with drugs, you go to prison for whatever it is, depending on the levels of harm and that kind of stuff. That’s the wrong, that’s the backwards way of thinking for me and if you really want to tackle stigma you need to understand the issues a lot better, the products, how they were marketed, how they’re sold, who they’re sold by and legalize it all properly type of thing and regulate it better. I think give people better education and understanding. People understand it better then and that’s the only way to tackle stigma. Because until we tackle stigma people are going to go underground. People are just not seeking… and because this is still very much classed as this hidden addiction now because of this bloody technology now and people can hide and isolate gambling so much more than they used to be able to when I did it in my day where it was very visual because you had to do it in shops and in person, then… we’ve got a much… we’ve got a long way to go in terms of tackling stigma, so yeah.

Nick
Change

But for me, the gambling industry, if the basic, basic principle is the government industry’s business model is built on addiction. It’s as profit-making organization with zero morals. And when you when you try to tap them and deal with that in itself, you can’t change… They’re not going to change their business model, but we have to understand that we need to change the aggressive marketing. We need to understand a lot more about the products and how they’re designed and how they’re addictive. That insight that will add into the fact that we’re now looking at it’s not just more personal responsibility, it’s not just you to blame, that would start tackling stigma. It’s moving away from that whole personal responsibility. The responsibility comes from everybody, comes from government, comes from the regulator.

Nick
Stigma

I think you’ll find that first conversation you have with someone on opening up can sometimes be the most powerful and life-changing, one of the most life changing experiences you could ever have. If you are ready to admit you have a gambling problem, that’s a huge thing to admit to yourself and to others that you’ve got a problem. A lot of people don’t, like I said, some people get dragged into GA and that kind of stuff. So just… Again, this is why we’re trying to tackle the stigma. Find someone you trust and respect who are not going to judge you to have that safe conversation saying I’ve got this problem and I need help and that can be powerful. And yeah, so I always tell them to seek help and to look for it because it is out there.

Nick
Recovery

So, for me, I mean, I suffer in my hometown there’s the club I stole the money from. I went back in there three years later, I paid all the money back. Previously, the one who got suspended and sacked eventually for stealing money, and he’s there for twenty-five years, he goes back in there – normal. I walk back in there after paying all the money back within two years and it’s a different committee and stuff there now. I wouldn’t go back there again now. I see people looking down. I get people who I think are a bit more level-headed, a bit more understanding and empathetic who see the work I do and go, do you know what Nick, I’ve known you for 20 years, some of the stuff you’ve done has been horrendous but fair play to you mate, you’ve turned your life around and you’re trying to help others and blah, blah, blah raise awareness. Then there’s other people who look you up and down going shit, you’re a piece of shit, you’re an addiction, you’ll always be an addict.

Nick
Harm

And then, yeah, and then I sort of just really got hold of the recovery. But then again, I had another episode two years later, and that was where I had an offer of a job as a temporary steward, a bar steward. My mother was the chair lady of a social club and because I was freelancing with my job I could obviously… a job offer came in as a temporary steward and my Mum was chairlady and they were struggling. Bizarrely, they had suspended this steward for fraud, he’d been stealing from the club. I came and done this job, bearing in mind I’d been two and half maybe three years abstinent again, feeling really good with my recovery. The warning signs were there. I was a bar manager. I had to deal with cash and that kind of stuff. There was a committee running the club which my Mum was part of and was a Treasurer. There was all kinds of rumours going around about money going missing and you always find corruption around these places where there’s people running this kind of stuff. It’s volunteers running committees, running social clubs. And this is where I fell foul of the stealing. Money started going missing. I started feeling pressure. It wasn’t me. I fell back into the gambling with my own money, my salary, and then started dipping into the safe. And then over a six-week period, I stole somewhere close between seven and 10 grand cash going into the bookies spending. All I kept thinking was I’m trying; I’m trying to replenish or put the money back that had gone missing. It wasn’t me. If I’d… a responsible, I suppose a person who wasn’t in recovery from gambling, who was always worried about if money had gone missing you were the first finger, they would point at that, most other people would have tried to tackle that in a completely different way. Me in my irrational gambling sort of head thought I’m going to gamble my way out of trouble here. And that’s what I tried to do, and it blew up in my face spectacularly.

Nick
Harm

And during the off season during those 90s as well, those late 90s, it was obviously this credit card boom was there where I didn’t have particularly bad credit ratings. I didn’t have a lot of credit. I didn’t have a mortgage, but it was very accessible to get credit because I was working so I opened up this system of using credit cards to pay to gamble with and when I would win, I would pay my balance off. And all this in the meantime was seen, it was giving me to be seen to be a good customer with a good credit record, so my limits were increasing all the time. So eventually, over a space of about three or four years in my late 20s, I had large limits on my credit cards. One had twenty-five thousand pounds on. Now I was, given the fact I was probably salaried and earning 25 to 30 grand a year, maybe a little bit more with some of the truck jobs I was doing. But for me, I think at one point between three credit cards, I had about 50 grand between three cards. That’s a lot of money to have access to for someone on a salary that I had or for anybody really, I think.

Nick
Harm

People are reaching crisis point before they’re accessing treatment and then the treatment they’re getting is awful… I always say it’s better to have no treatment than bad treatment because I think bad treatment, which some people are going through the likes of [organisation] is going to make people worse and make people suicidal and these people are really vulnerable already and they’re getting shit treatment. So for me, top to bottom the system’s broken… but get it right at the top from government level, it filters down to the regulations and the regulator, have better prevention through awareness, education, and then improved treatment system.

Change

They’re not going to change their business model, but we have to understand that we need to change the aggressive marketing. We need to understand a lot more about the products and how they’re designed and how they’re addictive. That insight will add into the fact that we’re now looking at it’s not just personal responsibility, it’s not just you to blame. That would start tackling stigma. It’s moving away from that whole personal responsibility.

Change

I always feel as if I was escaping from something that was in me that was… gambling was giving me escapism from reality to try and deal with everyday life type of thing. And yeah, arguments with my wife type of thing. That was my excuse to go and gamble again, have a blazing argument, storm out the house, go gamble. I would find an excuse to… or we’d try and plan something or she’d want to do something, and I’d get into an argument with her just so I can go and have my gambling time

Harm

I phoned mental health services in Swansea and I voluntarily sectioned myself at a mental health hospital where I was there for three months, and I just went under. I had psychiatrists and that kind of stuff, and they never knew gambling, so they never diagnosed it. They were treating me for anxiety, depression, that kind of stuff and medication to try and keep my mood under control.

Recovery

What I tell people is it’s not a one size fits all in terms of recovery, right but I will always be a massive, massive advocate for peer support and for lived experience because I don’t think there’s anything more powerful than having an opportunity to share and open up to someone who’s gone through something similar to you

Recovery
Delivering you the best possible experience

We use cookies on our website to deliver you the best online experience, by using them to analyse site traffic, tailor and personalise content to you and serve targeted ads for the latest deals.

For the best experience, please accept all cookies, however, if you would like to manage your cookie preferences please alter the cookie choices here to control your consent.

Accept All Cookies