Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter

It started as a hobby. It was nothing serious when he began playing a few games on the boxes at the bars that he visited on Friday nights after work.

"It was just a fun thing, I was young and enjoying myself with friends," relates Gambler, a 47-year-old recovering addict who asked The Sunday Gleaner not to use his real name because of his participation in Gamblers Anonymous (GA).

His hobby soon became a lifestyle. And then a necessity, "like a need", Gambler relates. He says his 25-year 'affair' with gambling began in 1983 when he was just 22 years old. Introduced to the habit by a co-worker, he would spend most of his salary on a few games just on weekends. It was his first job, he was young, and he had nothing to lose. At least that's what he thought.

Going to the track

However, Gambler says the real danger began when he discovered horse racing.

"We started going to the track on Saturdays, until I started going by myself," he recounts.

He eventually started skipping work on Wednesdays to visit the track. "No race meet couldn't miss me, but even then, I didn't see it as a problem," he relates. "Then I found out about the foreign races and that was disaster, because now it wasn't just two days a week, it was every day."

For days, Gambler would go missing from work. His boss thought he was sick at home. And he had the doctor's certificates to prove it. He could no longer afford to pay his bills - including rent - buy food, or even find bus fare.

Leading double life

Having been brought up in a Christian home, in 1994, Gambler decided to go back to church. Two years later, he got married, but even then, the gambling didn't stop. He struggled to keep his double life a secret. But when the water supply was disconnected and the electricity bills were not paid and there was no food in the house. His wife knew something was wrong.

"Initially she thought I was keeping another woman," he recalls, "and accused me on several occasions of having outside children taking care of why there was no money coming in."

The couple and their young daughter were soon evicted from their home. This occurred five times or more during a period of almost six years. Gambler says he was brought before the courts on several occasions by angry landlords he owed rent.

And then he started borrowing. "I borrowed from every financial institution you can think of; I borrowed from friends and from family," he recounts. Even his wife was forced to resort to borrowing to pay the bills. "I was no help, and we had become destitute," Gambler states.

His redundancy cheque and pension benefits all went into gambling. Still he just couldn't kick the habit. He would experience mood swings and depressive bouts if he could not visit the race track.

"I would get irritable or angry at the least little thing. I thought I couldn't survive without gambling," Gambler recalls.

Confessed to wife

With nowhere to turn, he finally confessed to his wife about his deadly addiction.

"She stood by me. Everywhere she could seek help for me, she would bring me," he says. "I went to the sessions but deep down I wasn't ready to quit. Because I had lost so much money, I wanted to win it back before I stopped," Gambler confesses.

After a quarter century, Gambler is unable to put a figure on all the money he lost to the habit.

His wife for 10 long years, and two children, finally decided to pack their bags and move out.

That was when Gambler hit rock bottom. He stopped going to church because he "felt guilty, like a fraud".

People would turn up at his work place asking him for money. He could no longer answer his phone and he was always in hiding. Evicted again from his home, he was forced to live on the streets. "No one at work knew that I had nowhere to live," he relates. He would shower at work in the evenings and spend his nights hanging out at the gambling shops in Half-Way Tree. In the morning, he would go back to work and pretend everything was fine.

"People knew that something was wrong, but they didn't know what it was," he says.

He no longer shaved or got his hair cut and he had no desire for food.

Got help

Gambler says he finally decided he had a problem, but he knew he couldn't fight it on his own. He found the number to Rise Life Management Services in the directory and gave the organisation a call. For the past three months, Gambler has been attending GA meetings.

It has been 48 days since he has felt the urge to gamble. "I didn't know I could go eight hours, much more 48 days," he tells The Sunday Gleaner. "I feel free.

"It has been a rough and rocky road. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy," he comments.

His message to those who may think they have a problem is to seek help as soon as possible. "You can't do it on your own," he advises.

He warns non-gamblers: "Stay away from the practice. Don't even have the thought because the thought alone is disastrous. And don't think it can't happen to you because anybody can become prey," he counsels.

Gambler sends an apology to his wife: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for all the pain and embarrassment I have caused you."

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com

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