A Gambler Born and Bred 1

Here are five of my typical gambling formats:

…Get some money, but I need a damn sight more so I rack my brains thinking of how to get more without gambling, but then there’s no time left, so I gamble.
Eventually, I lose the lot.

…Get some money, and think of all the great things I’ll do with it, like buying the children a nice pair of shoes, taking my Mum out for lunch, paying off some bills, but I float into a betting shop as if in a trance-like state for a tentative flutter.
Hours later, I have lost.

…Get some money, have a few beers of an afternoon, gravitate towards the fruit-machine, play for an hour and my wallet is dry, so I jog to the cashpoint to get more but when I return to the machine, someone else is playing it and he wins the jackpot. I play another machine.
Tail between legs, I lose.

…Get some money, win a few races and tell myself to leave, at which time I feel good, but then I go to the pub, sink a few beers and play the fruit-machine, I lose so I return to the betting-shop and put the lot on a hot favourite.
You guessed it, I lose.

…Get some change together, go down to the betting shop and analyse the prospects of each horse with a fine toothcomb and free cups of tea, placing small stakes on outrageous outsiders in particular races.
Sooner or later, I lose.

Every time I gambled, I’d be left, in the end, with nothing. There would be no provision for bus-fare home and no food in the fridge. The next day, without money for sandwiches and transport, I might skip a day’s work and wallow. Otherwise, I’d try and skip fares.
I’m unemployed now, which is the reason I’m writing this.

The strange thing is, I can’t write when I’ve got money because the temptation to spend it is too great.

A month ago, my drug counsellor (who I’ve been seeing the last three months) advised me that I might do well to see one of his colleagues who gives therapy through creative writing within a group. Having been unsuccessful, although I like to think ‘unsung’, as a writer for so long, the thought of working on words as a key to stemming my addiction to gambling with a Harley Street addict-doctor whizzkid seemed like a good call, especially as it was on the NHS. Needless to say, I’m skint.

By writing this, I have found that my memories of gambling are the only means by which to recall the year-on-year antics of my life, from aged seven until I left school. I don’t remember anything before seven. It drives me mad when I hear people reminisce their first memory, aged two or so, perched on an apple tree with an adult holding onto them.

Seeing that first flashing light on an arcade-machine instantly buried all other memories. Along the lines of looking into the eyes of Medusa, those playful lights picked me out and made me their soldier. From then on, I would constantly battle to get money for my gambling warchest.
The sound of the arcade. The electronic noises fusing in chaos. These drowned out all other sound. I felt as if I belonged there. It was my shrine. The amusement arcade was my place of worship.

Gambling, though, has effectively stolen my thoughts and feelings, having taken me out of sync with reality and flinging me into the horror of a crippling obsession, all at age seven.
I have flickering memories of playing cricket for the school, some good times and some bad times, skateboards, girls, music, but my most lucid memories come from the getting and spending of money for machines.
That’s how powerful the addiction is, and how cruel a master.
I struggle to remember family, holidays, lovers and places but, by retracing my past, gambling has become the reference to my life, and I now want to change.
I’m forty-four. It’s now or never.

I know that I have to forgive myself in order to stop wanting to chase my losses. For me to cut my losses, I have to understand the power of gambling.
It’s like saying goodbye to what I thought was my only friend when I knew all along that he was my worst enemy.

For an addiction to grip with such force and from such an early, impressionable age, you may wonder how gambling managed to stand the test of time. How come it wasn’t banned? Why was it never been banished from civilisation when it clearly kills and steals at will from the most vulnerable?
I’ve often wished that gambling never existed, that without it I would have had a much better chance in life, but, always in the back of my mind, I knew that we were given free will for good reason.
Life is what we make it. Choose wisely.

Battling gambling has always been part of my everyday life. I knew that I had to conquer it, because it would have no qualms in finishing me.
When I count the cost of my gambling habit, it amounts to more than just money. In fact, money accounts for a fraction of the harm that gambling has caused me. If I said that I could have bought ten houses with the money I’ve frittered, (and I’m no great breadwinner), you get the picture. I ploughed everything into gambling, and I knew that I would always lose in the end.

Gambling took me away from all things true.
There are the countless worthy relationships I squandered, the friendships I trounced, the families I betrayed, the time I lost, the children’s needs I ignored.
Any self-esteem I may have had before gambling has slowly evaporated in equal measure to my ever-dwindling funds.

Once I run out of money on a spree, if there’s even the slightest hope of finding more, I’ll go and hunt it out, no matter what the overall cost, only to return and lose the lot. It will never stop unless I stop it.
But I don’t stop until I have exhausted all funds, however unscrupulous.
Although I was blessed with a cast-iron will, I have smashed its beauty by denying its true value.

When I look back, I don’t think I ever stood a chance against gambling. The lights, the allure, the sounds, the looks on people’s faces when they won; it was all too much for me to resist.