Gambling support services

Speaker – Gabriela Byrne

[I believe it doesn't matter what you take into a gaming room, if it's loneliness, if it's boredom, if it's unresolved grief, if it's anything, if your senses are distracted, it gives you the illusion that for that time, nothing matters and people refer very often to that they’re in a zone and that's what they are after that was what I was after, while I was there, my issues didn't matter. It was just me and the machine. I was there every day, sometimes three to five times a day, basically, as often as I could get money, or time to go there. 

Now, from a very responsible mother, wife, work colleague and friend, you can imagine my behaviour started to change, there were endless lies about where I was, why I never was where I was, why I was always late, why specifically money was always an issue for us. I often refer to it as a love affair, right? 

So at the height of my addiction, my family didn't matter, my children didn't matter. I remember taking money out of my daughter's money box, and I came home that night and she had found the note that I've taken the money, I remember sitting at her bedside and tears running down my face when my little girl said, Mommy, can't daddy buy you a poker machine. So you and the money can just stay at home, you know, that hurt, but at that moment, I would have done anything to stop but when the beast talked to me and said, let's just go and play $10 and this time, you can control it. I wasn't strong enough and I switched from the Jekyll into Hyde and all I wanted was to feed the beast. 

So they had trouble dealing with me, as a Mother that wasn't the loving and caring person that I should have been. Going back looking at my affair with the pokies the consequences of my behaviour for this over this four years as something that I have to live with. They're all forgiven me, I have forgiven myself but nobody can give me the time back. 

There's lots of indications that more and more gambling, the gambling beasts became stronger and I became weaker, I would see this ugly thing talking to me and I'd talk back to it like I would talk to my worst enemy and say, hey, you would like to go and spend $10, I don't. So you just get lost. So it's just one of the strategies that that helped and I put all those in a program called it the Free Yourself program. And I've been teaching it to many people over the last probably 10 years and what I found is it gives people, besides the hope that they can make it, actually something hands on to do. Peter, my husband always says if you go to a gaming room every day, and you sit in front of a poker machine, everybody gets hooked, because that's the way they're designed and I agree. 

I went to gamblers anonymous, I went to psychologists psychotherapists and I learned a lot about myself. When I relapsed after a prolonged period of not going, I started to research brain chemistry. You know, I understood that I was a drug addict. I didn't have to push a needle in my arm I produced my own drugs, walking into gaming room, adrenaline was pumping. When I look at a gaming machine, it's like, you know, looking at the old flame and thinking god, what on earth did I ever see in them? So I know that you know I've been changed to a point where they won't be an issue for me anymore.]

Speaker – Peter Byrne

We started to have a lot more fights about money, and we hardly ever had fights previously. She was more standoffish, didn't want to be near me, didn't want to talk, which made it rather unpleasant and I suppose that was what she was trying to do. She didn't want to talk about the money and we discussed it and eventually she came and told me that she had a problem with the poker machines. And my simple solution was, well, just don't go but of course, it's not that simple. I mean, the money is important. 

But that wasn't the biggest issue because it was our relationship and who she became when she was gambling, destroyed our relationship. She was just changing as a person, she wasn't the person I met and fell in love with and married. I was very close to going for, getting a divorce. Because it's not only the person with the addiction, who has the problem, it was me, it was our kids was our local hairdresser. It was the small businesses that Gabby normally would have gone to delicatessen where we used to spend a lot of money instead of spending money there on some German

sausages or whatever it would go into the machines instead of having a nice haircut, it would go into the machines. 

I think once the problem had been recognised, and that I'd understood it was more serious and I thought the fact that we're able to talk about it then and together to work on it. And I could see that there was some progress being made and I found that as long as there was, you know, two or three steps forward and then occasionally one step back that I could live with that. 

Other people did help us but it was mainly, well, mainly Gabby's efforts, and I just assisted where I could, as far as helping her to make the jump and to make the change and it was a slow process it didn't happen overnight. I'm extremely proud of what she's been able to achieve and it hasn't always been easy, and it's been a long journey, but it's not over yet. There's so many people affected by one person's addiction and that's what we're trying to reduce and trying to help as much as we can.

Speaker – Elizabeth

I'm in the Wesley counselling support services, which has financial counselling, gambling counselling in that service and we see many people with a lot of financial and gambling problems. 

When they get to the stage where the credit cards are maxed out, they've got too many credit cards to get any more, that's when they come to us. We don't actually give advice, we look at options.

First of all, we make them feel comfortable and ensure that they know by the way we speak that we're not going to judge how they got to the situation they are. Then we have to have a look at their financial situation. Then we have a look at how far behind they are, then we do an assets and liability statement, then we look at income and expenditure. So we can see is there any possibility to put in some repayment arrangement that will fit into that money plan? 

I often say to people, when you get your ATM slip, you might see $1,000 there, that money's waiting till the bill comes in and you have to learn that that is not your money. Quite often the person with a gambling problem has hidden it from the family. They often have a post office box so that the statements for credit cards and things don't come. 

It's quite often that the gambling person is the one who's managing the household money. The partner trusts that to happen when it's found out that there is a gambling problem, the shattering of the trust is absolutely devastating for that partner. Because you can hide gambling, I mean, if you've got a drinking problem or a drug problem, you're not going to hide it as much as you can hide gambling, you can hide gambling. 

I believe in financial counselling, I really do. I've been doing it for 15 years now and I really, really believe it's a very, very good service, especially as it's free and people can come along and we're not trying to sell them anything or put them into any product and we trained so well to know these options to people. It makes me feel good that that service exists and I'm a part of it.

Speaker – Peter

When you're dealing with people with drinking problems or drug problems, there's always a visible sign that there’s been a problem with a substance. With gambling, it's silent.

The truth is, is that when most people come to see me, they're sick and tired of being sick and tired, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're ready to stop gambling. Most people who come to see me, come to see me to get some knowledge about how to control this problem and as a gambling counsellor, I accept that. So I don’t say to them, I need you to stop or I need you to go away and change your whole life and all the rest of it. I'll say to them, alright, so let's we will start. 

So limit the amount of money that you take with you when you go and gamble. Don't take your plastic cards with you when you go. Go with friends and tell your friends, I'm only going to gamble this amount tonight. Choose to go to venues where you know you're not going to stay all night.

Gambling is about telling lies, scamming, scheming, coming up with 1000 excuses to get money, to explain away money. Gambling is about isolating, it's about shutting down feelings so there needs to be talking needs to be this communication of identifying that there is a problem and preparedness to do something about it. So there's a need from the family and friends to not turn this into a yelling, screaming match, to talk about this and that can be extremely difficult, particularly when issues of trust have been broken so many times.

Most of us human beings are very logical people. We say to ourselves, I would never be in that situation, I wouldn't allow never allow myself to gamble to such a degree that I would risk my relationship, my family, my financial wellbeing, my career. Yet, time and time again, for these people who have a problem with gambling, that's what they do.

A number of weeks ago, I received a phone call from a recruiting agency who was trying to find work for a man and I was asked if I could see that person because that person had expressed that they had a gambling problem. He had gambled away the family home.

A great component of the money that went into that house was actually the partner’s. So that just defies logic. How would you do that to somebody that you love? It can go on for a number of years and even though the partner will say, I didn't know it was happening, there's always been this element of I knew there was something there I just couldn't put my finger on it.

This is an extremely powerful addiction and the people that it affects who come and see people like me, in the most cases are very, very sick and I encourage family members to love the gambler and not necessarily trust them and to be aware that that’s okay. For the gambler, I encourage them to realise that they're being loved and that the trust will come back]

Speaker – Julia

Well, I had a house, a freehold house, and I sold it and with the intentions of buying another house, but most of it when in the pokies, so I put a minimum deposit on another house and lost that as well. 

At its most extreme, it was all about the pokies, my morals went out the door. I didn’t even think about looking after my children properly, I couldn't think about paying bills, I couldn't think about anything, but the pokies so they just took over my whole mind and I lost everything and I couldn't help myself. I just didn't want to leave if I could or would have been there all day all night. 

I know they're very addictive and I know they’ve got a very strong hold on people and I hear it in the groups that I run. I hear people that don't have problems, like divorces and things like that going in with friends after work, playing a little bit and then leaving and then going back the next week playing another $5 and before they know it they're in there all the time with a fully blown addiction. 

I am an artist before this life, and it was a way of expressing myself in another way of healing as well and remembering quotes and feelings through the artwork. I would never have seen myself in that position ever, ever. I can't believe that's me even, I'm even embarrassed today and sometimes still ashamed that I did that for 10 years. I was ready to stop from the beginning but I couldn't stop. I remember saying today no not gonna go not gonna go on in my car not gonna go I'm not gonna go I'm in the car park. No, no, no, not gonna go and I've got the coins in front of me. I'm playing. And I was too embarrassed to tell anyone, too ashamed to tell anyone. It was a nightmare. 

When I stopped playing the pokies I came to a group called pokies anonymous, which was still a 12 step program and I just stopped because I was ready. Don't ever go there. Don't even put $1 in, they're not fun, they'll become your worst enemy. It took me ages to understand that I can't win because I thought I was a winner. Even in that delusional, knowing full well, I've lost everything but I really understand it now. You just can't win, you'll never win. 

It's been nearly seven years since I've stopped and sometimes I look back and you think why did I do that? Why me? What happened? How come, you know? But the fact that I've stopped playing and helping others is a miracle anyway, is the best thing that's ever happened so and I'm completely there for all my family.