I remember it clear as day…I was 16 and I was out for coffee with my best friend and her boyfriend and they said to me "You’ve got to come to the RSL, it’s really cheap pool and cheap drinks…" and things like that, so we went along and we went upstairs and played pool…and we we’re just about to leave and they said "You’ve got to come in and play the pokies. We played last week and we won 30 bucks". I thought, "Nah, nah, not for me, not for me" and went in there with them anyway and put 5 bucks in and ended up winning 10 dollars and thought it was the best thing ever! And that was the first time I ever went gambling…
Gambling. I don’t think is seen as a normal activity for young people by society, but it definitely is. I guess the main reason would be young people go out, they drink, they stay out late…and I guess the one place in Melbourne that’s open really late is the Casino. I think that’s where most of them end up. If you go to the Casino at 2 o’clock in the morning the place is filled with people aged from 16 to 25…all out after their big night out.
The best part was winning the money, definitely…and also it was something for my best friend and I to do. We discovered it together, so we would go together.
Gambling got worse for me, I guess, because I had somebody there egging me on, as well. So, it wasn’t just me going all the time, it was a friend of mine. I knew it was getting bad when we were pawning things to get money to go back to the pokies and spend more money. That’s definitely when it started to go bad…
If it was at its worst I would at least go three times a week. Some weeks I would go every day. But three times a week, it would be as soon as I got my pay…I would go and blow it…then again sometimes I would win. I remember a time I won 1,000 dollars, but went back the next day and lost the whole lot. So a typical week would be…might go on a Monday, spend all my money, pawn something on the Tuesday, spend all of that, make up a lie on the Wednesday to borrow some money, lose it again on the Thursday…and that would just continue and then I would get by over the weekend until I got paid again on the Monday…and that was done all over again.
It’s a great feeling, but it’s mixed with an uneasiness as well. I always remember if I had a big win I’d get nervous because I knew even though I’d won a thousand dollars and "Oh, that’s great" and in my head I’d think, "I can pay the bills and I can get this and I can do that and I can put some aside and save it", in the back of my head I knew it was going back in the pokies again so it was kind of an uneasy feeling as well.
The one worst thing about me gambling would be that it stopped my family and friends from trusting me. Even after I stopped gambling and my life was 100% better, still for a couple of months after I’d stopped gambling, still if money went missing in the house or somebody lost something valuable, there would be that instant that they would think about me and think maybe I took it.
Gambling affected my physical and emotional health…I guess I’m one of those people that when I get stressed I get sick. To be under that stress…I guess for the two years where gambling was the worst for me, I was really sick all the time. I missed a lot of work. Gambling actually resulted in my boyfriend and I breaking up late last year. That was the biggest one, it caused us to break up, because I was just so stressed and relying on him constantly to pick me up every time I fell. And then as soon as I stopped gambling I became a lot happier and we got back together and it’s been fine ever since, but that was a big one.
Gambling impacted my finances, I guess, by the fact…I’ve always worked in sales…I’ve always earned a lot of commission, I’ve always earned a lot of money in my jobs and I should have something to show for it by now…I should have savings, I should have a car, I should have something and I don’t have anything to show.
I would cope with the negative impacts of gambling by going gambling again. And I guess that’s why it was such a vicious circle and it lasted so long.
I seeked (sic) help because I already had a lot of information about addiction. In my family a lot of my family members have been addicts, were addicts, so I already had a lot of information about the kind of help that was out there. So I knew that there was GA, I knew there was counselling, I knew that there was people I could turn to, so I was lucky in that way.
I think it was a way…first it was just a way to have fun and do something when I was bored. If I had nothing to do, or I was lonely I could go to the pokies and sit there for hours on end and I wouldn’t be bored and I wouldn’t be lonely. It was also a way of coping with stress as well. You know, if something was bad in my life then I would go there and I didn’t have to concentrate on that part of my life that was going bad because I was concentrating on gambling that was going bad…so I guess it was a kind of a blocking thing for me.
It took two years for the gambling problem to get to the stage where I actually needed to go get help.
The signs that I was in trouble was in the early days where I would think about gambling…the thought of gambling would come into my mind and my skin felt like it was itching, I didn’t feel like I could sit by myself or sit doing what I was doing until I went to the pokies and gambled. And also other things…that if I went out with a group of friends to the pokies, and they were all ready to go home and leave, and I didn’t want to leave, I just wanted to stay until I’d lost everything.
People asked me all the time how I was going…definitely my mum and my family. My friends didn’t want to confront me about it. The only reason that anybody ever confronted me about the gambling was because they already knew. I was quite open about it from the beginning, from the first time that I lost my pay cheque, which was at the time only 80 dollars or something. But from that first time I was always open about it, so of course, whenever I had mood swings, whenever I was in a bad mood or I didn’t have money, or I was depressed, or I disappeared for long periods at a time and didn’t answer my mobile, of course, that’s when people would suspect that I was gambling.
I would get defensive when people approached me about it, definitely, I would turn it back around on them. I would manipulate them into feeling guilty for even questioning that about me. Make them feel bad for thinking something bad of me.
I wouldn’t of gone on for as long as I did it if it had been recognised as young person’s problem. You see all the advertising that they have in pokie venues, and it’s a picture of a man with his family or, you know, a woman who owns her own house and things like that with, you know, everything in the world to lose...and I’ve never seen any advertising or any help advertised for young people…it’s just not recognised as a young people’s problem.
I guess…you can never prevent completely…young people are going to gamble just like older people are going to gamble…but I would definitely like to see more advertising of help available or just even in general, help available, to children…like youth groups, or youth GA meetings would be brilliant, or youth debtors anonymous meetings would be brilliant, or counselling offered to young people through Gambler’s Help.
If I was going to give any advice to youth workers it would just be to recognise that gambling is a much bigger problem amongst youth than anybody realises. It’s a really big problem and not many people are going to talk about it, not many young people are going to talk about it openly because it is a very shameful thing. They don’t feel like they would be taken seriously because it’s not recognised as a problem for young people. So I would definitely recommend that youth workers recognise that it is a problem and put in place some sort of help structure for young people that do have a problem with gambling.
I’d say to young people who are getting into gambling, "It’s all right to have fun with gambling. A lot of people can go out there and have fun with gambling and not get in trouble, but just look out for the danger signs, look out for debts accumulating, trust your instincts as well…there’s always going to be that voice in the back of your head or the pit of your stomach that’s saying "Hang on a second, this isn’t right"…you know, "I shouldn’t be doing this". Something does tell you in your brain that it’s not right, it’s not acceptable what you’re doing…and listen to that and seek help on it.
I really hope that my story will help people grow an awareness of gambling in young people.
Since I stopped gambling I can’t remember a time where I’ve been happier. My relationships are perfect, my home life, my work life is perfect. Life is just so much easier without gambling involved.
