Gambling Help Testimonials

I've been gambling for a long, long time. Probably 20 years. I got myself in a real pickle the last few years with a stealing offense, and we were really desperate.

I'm married with a family and got myself into a real mess - owing a lot of money. Went into Centrecare, saw a counsellor, and we’re desperate, really desperate.

We're in panic. She was really calm, and we sat down in our initial conversation. I was facing jail time, and it was scary, because we were really, really desperate.

And she taught me how to deal with things one step at a time and not look at the worst-case scenario, but dealing with day by day and minute by minute, she was unreal.

First impression was, I'm very open minded, so I had no preconceived, no negative ideas about counselling.

I've always been pro counselling, so it's good to talk to people.

So, it was quite easy for me to step into it, but I can see that it would be confrontational for some people and frightening.

But it's not, you know. You’re just talking to another person.

Because I was in such dire straits, I think it really made a difference initially, into just calming the situation down and helping me deal with what I had to deal with.

So, it was life changing in that way… put a halt on my desperation, I suppose, for a minute. But then it becomes a process and how to deal with, you know, not just the situation I'm in, but teaches (you) how to deal with life in general.

So, any other problems that come up as well, I could go into my counsellor and tell her anything you know, whether it was even about gambling, after a while, it became about anything.

So, any problems I had, I could get it off my chest. And from the counselling, its taught me to better talk to anyone.

So, I've now approached all my friends and told them what's happened. And my family now know what's happened, whereas in the past it was very secretive, and gambling, for instance, is a really secretive problem.

You don't tell people because you're really embarrassed, and that's with a lot of other issues too.

So, you know, that's probably what I got out of it, is that I can tell people now, I can face people now, and they know things about me, and there's no secrets anymore, so I feel really at ease.

(My) advice would be to not be frightened and just to say whatever you want to say, with that, you're not going to get judged.

You might get advice, but it's not a judgment. So just go in there with an open mind and relax really, you know, don't, don't stress about it.

My dad died three years ago, and I got left quite a bit of money.

And for some reason I just thought, ‘oh, you know, I could do what I want, when I want, and spend a lot of time in pubs’, and that just sort of just progressively turned into, ‘I've got nothing better to do. I'm going to put it on a sports betting’ and then it just went from there…

I've never been one to sit in the casino. It’s just the sports betting. At one point… I was betting on Russian table tennis believing I could make $10,000. Like, ‘I'm gonna do it. This is the one. I've got 80 cents left’.

You genuinely believe that you can do it this time, and it took such a slap in the face for me to understand that I couldn't, and I never will.

I did the completely wrong thing in terms of taking money that wasn't mine, and that was when it came to head. That's when I understood that it was actually a problem, like a huge problem, because I'm not the type to get into trouble.

But I got myself into a whole heap of it. It was just pathological. By that point, it didn't matter whether I was losing money or winning money.

It was just that feeling… you’re detached from who you are.

I guess it was a sense of control, because I didn't feel like I had control anywhere else.

I've had quite a lot of childhood trauma. I've lost both parents. I lost mum when I was really young and lost grandparents. Essentially, I've sort of been a lone wolf.

I wouldn't say I'm a thrill seeker, but I just didn't really have any regard for anybody else. I didn't have anybody to hold me accountable, and nobody to say, ‘no that's wrong’.

So, it has taken the last three years, especially the last 12 months, to really dissect what's right and wrong and like, what my values are.

And that's what Centrecare helped me with. It helped me understand who I am as a person, because I had never addressed anything other than the present.

We heard about a group session that they were running, and I decided to go along. It was nice to be in a room with people who knew what you were going through. To a certain degree, everyone has a different story. But the common denominators were there, and it was nice because we had the counsellor I had previously spoken to.

I finally just laid my cards on the table, and I told them. And they invite partners along, which was a huge moment for me, because it meant that I had to listen to how it affected the person next to me.

And I think that was probably a big turning point for me. The worst thing in the world you can ever do is hurt the one person who stood by you. So, allowing that to happen and allowing that group session, yeah it completely blew me away.

And then I came back to the next one.

There's a lot of people out there with these issues. It's just not many of them are ready to accept that there's an issue.

So yeah, just have a look online. Reach out, there is help.

I'm going to move forward with plans that I had that were cancelled. I'll get married.

There is help and things will get better. So don't think that it won't, because I used to think like that. I used to think it was the end of the world, it was the end of my life, it was the worst, but it's not. There is help. I plan on being happy and healthy

for as long as I can. I have accepted that I’m allowed to be happy.

My gambling started when I turned 18. Not on a big scale, a very small scale, you know, the odd trip to the races. I lived in the country, so the trips to the races and Ascot wasn't something that was common. Maybe once a year around Perth Cup. When the betting apps came on board with smartphones, it made it a lot more accessible.

I started to do things majorly out of character. When you start chasing losses, hiding money from your partner, people that you love, lying to the people that you love, even to the point of taking money and stealing money from your partner. Yep, some pretty horrible things came about.

It was only when my partner found out that things came to light, which I'm glad they did, because who knows how big the problem could have got if it didn't.

I had days I wouldn't recognise who I was. You'd be moody. It wasn't so much anger, it was shame. You're constantly lying or constantly hiding something…

Everything that was important - work, family, became a background thought, and it was all about trying to hide or try to recover losses or chase losses. How am I going to fix this? Just a constant 24/7 stressful period.

I actually found out about Centrecare through my partner. She came across the flyer… about Gambling Help.

So I made contact with Centrecare, and from that, also found out about the one-on-one counselling as well.

I came in for an appraisal with one of the counsellors here, just to see if I was a fit for the group. I found that really helpful and then from there, basically had a couple more appointments with him (the counsellor) and then the group started.

I believe that you need to understand why to fix it. It was probably more of an escape than anything. So, I've done a fair bit of reflecting on how it happened, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to go to the group, was to understand why.

I think speaking to a counsellor helped unpack the reasons why, which I believe can make sense of it all, and kick the addiction and just start enjoying life again and not being too consumed by the addiction of gambling.

So yeah, that would be my advice is, is seek help. Talk to someone, talk to a family member, talk to someone that you believe potentially won't judge. It's going to be hard. The conversation you're going to have is going to be a real tough one. You don't know how the person is going to react. Don't go into the conversation or what you're about to tell them like you're hiding something. Don’t go in there thinking about how they are going to act, what their response will be. The response might surprise you. You know they might go ‘it's okay. I want to help you’.

I just want to be the best version of myself. That would be step number one is to do that. I believe if I can be the better version of myself and put in some goals, both in a workspace and personal space, then the outcomes will look after themselves…

So I think financial security is definitely a goal there, to climb in a workspace, and to tie the knot with my partner.