A favour to ask....

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D Mitchell

Premiership Player
Jul 28, 2006
4,720
2,093
Melbourne
AFL Club
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Footscray Football Club
Right. The article I was referring to is this one: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...illion-each-year-by-2021-20180712-p4zr5m.html

What you say about younger types preferring online makes sense, but I suspect we have a generation to get through before that becomes commonplace....State Governments have few sources of revenue. Take out land tax and stamp duty and there's not much left. DargaI'd love for a level of legislative reform but don't expect to see it anytime soon.

This isn't the study I read and it's limited in its scope but it adds that overall the rate of gambling is declining and pokies remain the source of over half the income of the industry. On legislation, I can't see the state government legislating against gambling in any significant way, it's a source of income, state governments have few others. Andrews is a big spender, including on his own salary, his government needs income.

 
I graduated from the ReSpin program today. https://bchs.org.au/services/gambling-support/respin/the-respin-program/

R U OK? I hope you are all Ok.




---------------------
Hi, I’m Stuart, I’m someone who has spent a long but successful battle against poker machine addiction. Here’s my story:
As you can tell from my accent, I’m not from Australia. I grew up in a town in Northern Ireland called Bangor. Gambling wasn’t in any way a major part of life growing up. My dad didn’t gamble at all and my mum had a yearly bet on the Grand National, the equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. Bookmakers shops, SP offices, our TABS, were unwelcoming, seedy dark places tucked away in side streets and alleyways. Pubs often had a ‘fruit machine,’ a very basic version of a poker machine in the corner. They took low denomination coins & had low payouts. My brother was fond of these but I never bothered with them…..
I emigrated to Australia in 1999. I initially came for a year long backpacking holiday but as often happens I met a girl, fell in love and our daughter came along shortly afterwards. We settled in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I knew nothing of the pokies until one fateful afternoon when I was out with a group of friends at a pub in the city. It must have been around 2003. We were having a few drinks when someone said “lets play the pokies!” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about but I was intrigued. I followed her into a separate room of the pub. It felt like going into a completely different establishment; a dark secret world, a private club.


She put $5 into a machine and much to her excitement she won $300. We took her jackpot back to our party in the pub where she shared her good news. I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t won the jackpot….would my story have taken a much different turn….. I was later to learn that winning $300 with a $5 bet was a real fluke. A statistical outlier. A lucky win for her - but an unlucky one for me.
I didn’t play the pokies that day but shortly afterwards I was walking past the St Albans Hotel. This was on the walk back from my daughter’s childcare centre. I hadn’t paid any attention to the venue previously and hadn’t consciously meant to gamble after my recent day at the pub, but something drew me in. I stuck $50 a machine called 3 Dragons. I played for just a few minutes and suddenly the machine rocketed up to payout $800. Excitedly I took the jackpot and walked out, my feet in the clouds. My wife was a student and I was working in a call centre so $800 was a lot of money. I didn’t tell my wife about the jackpot; gambling was to remain something I’d try to keep hidden over the ensuing years.
I started gambling regularly at the St Albans Hotel on the way home from childcare. Not every day, and not in huge amounts. I’ve always been pretty careful with money and I didn’t want to put a dent in our meagre bank account, so it was just a $20 here or a $50. I can’t honestly remember if I won much but if I did I probably put it back in the machine.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to Cobram in Northern Victoria, on the banks of the Murray River so I could complete a teaching degree in Shepparton. Cobram didn’t have any pokies hotels but across the river there was a large establishment called “Barooga Sports Complex’ known as the Sporties. Back in the day Victoria didn’t have pokies, so many little towns in NSW along the Murray have these big casino-like pokies barns to lure Victorians across. I didn’t have a car so I stayed away from the place most days. However, on Friday night they offered a big raffle to lure in the punters, and a courtesy bus every half hour took people from Cobram over the border. I continued to play weekly , telling myself I was just there for the raffle. Still small amounts but enough to keep the addiction smouldering…..

After I completed my degree our young family moved back to the Western Suburbs, in Sunshine. Until now, I hadn’t consciously realised that my gambling was a problem. I was annoyed when I lost money, but that annoyance was turn to bouts of shame and anger as I played the machines more and more. I had a bit more money now as I was teaching. I was also drinking heavily and taking amphetimines as my marriage began to fail. Alcohol and drug use have always fuelled my pokies use. There isn’t much to do in Sunshine; all the pubs are pokies joints. I started gambling more frequently at the Sunshine Hotel, a dangerous place where wild men swore and kicked machines and people hung around the machines begging for coins if you had a win. I also started playing when I went to the footy; I was an remain a big fan of the Western Bulldogs. Back then the Docklands venue had a big venue on Level 2.
I still rarely gambled huge amounts and was mostly able to hide my gambling from my wife. One exception to this was when I got blind drunk at the footy and completely emptied our bank account into the machines. I had to shamefacedly confess my sins; my father-in-law lent us some money for groceries and rent.

Shortly after this I went on a speed binge and went the Sunshine Hotel. Speed has a hypnotic effect on the pokies; it dials the addictive quality right up to 12. I gambled big and won big, racking up thousands of dollars on the machine in credits. I wanted to cash in and leave but I was like a zombie, pushing the buttons as my thousands of dollars trickled down to a few hundred. Eventually my wife arrived with our infant daughter and had to literally push me off the machines. The security guards chucked us all out as kids aren’t allowed in the pokies rooms. I went home with my couple of hundred bucks and a very angry partner.

I was gambling on the horses too, I'd put a bet on each of the races at Melbourne every Saturday. It was only small amounts, but when I realised I wasn't winning but doubling up to chase my losses on the last race, I quit. I don't why the horses were so much easier to toss than the pokies......
Shortly after this my marriage ended & I returned to Ireland. I ditched the speed habit and the pokies; as I said there are no machines back home. I missed my daughter terribly and returned to Melbourne after a few years in the wilderness. I moved to Brunswick and then after I met Alice, my wife, we settled in Preston where I currently live. I didn’t mean to start playing the pokies again but their hold on me was still strong. I have 3 venues within an easy five minute walk from my house, so I didn’t have to search for them. Soon I was sneaking out of the house late at night to gamble.
Although I wasn’t taking (illegal) drugs, my wife & I were heavy drinkers. I’d tell myself that I was just leaving the house for a sneaky late night beer, but I’d always head to one of the nearby pubs and play in the wee hours.
I’d try to keep this hidden from Alice but my shame meant I’d confess to her, often a few days later. She was bemused but supportive; she’s never been a gambler.

I admitted I had a serious addiction and started attending weekly meetings with Gamblers Help.I went into alcohol rehab and gave up drinking for a year. I banned myself from all the local venues with the Hotel Association’s self-exclusion scheme. This worked for a year from the thought of the shame from being found out by venue staff. But one day I wandered in on my way home from shopping, expecting to be caught…..but I wasn’t. I started sneaking out of the house in the wee hours. My wife had a furious row with the manager of the Darebin RSL asking why they kept letting me in when I was excluded….but he said they had too many self-excluders on the books and couldn’t monitor us all.

I started gambling on the way home from work on a Friday or after a doctor’s appointment. I don’t really gamble when I’m miserable or depressed; my mind seems to use it as a reward. I continued losing small amounts and felt awful afterwards, guilty and ashamed at my inability to stop. But I kept trying. Sometimes I’d stop more months at a time, then let my guard down and start again. I was attending weekly sessions with my Gambler’s Help counsellor and at one meeting we both agreed that we’d come as far as could on the journey. We’d done a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and examined my childhood and talked about the reasons I might gamble but I was still doing it. Sporadically. Then and there I decided we had done all the talking and I needed to stop. So I did. I walked out of the session and didn’t play the pokies again…..


That could have been the end of the story, but then the major event of my life happened. This is another story in itself. Years passed by and I stayed away from the venues. I went on to have two more kids, Arlo and Josie. When Josie was two weeks old she had a massive heart attack and nearly died. She spent a long time recovering in the Children’s Hospital and was very, very seriously ill. I turned to alcohol and prescribed tranquilizers to cope with this event, and yes I did start gambling at the pokies again. But only a few times, and I lost only a little money, and when she recovered I stopped. I suppose I’d put in all the yard hards recovering for years myself, and I wasn’t going to go down that path again.

Recovery is like strength training for the mind. The more you resist temptation, the more you add meaning & richness to your life, the easier it is to resist the pernicious machines. One of the ways I’ve found this meaning is by using my story to fight back against the gambling industry. I’ve joined a wonderful organisation called the Alliance for Gambling Reform where we campaign for better regulation of machines & venues. I’ve successfully campaigned for the Western Bulldogs to rid themselves of pokies, and I helped stop the Darebin RSL from adding extra machines to their venue. Giving you this story helps me to fight back.

And I’m free -free from the shame, and self-loathing, and guilt that comes with gambling. It’s been a hard won freedom but I draw meaning and purpose from it, and will use my story to campaign for what’s true, right and fair.
 
R U OK Day: Facebook isn't reality, it's not your authentic self. It's a projection of your ideal self; or what you believe others want to see in you.
Every time you get a 'like' you get a little hit of dopamine deep inside your brain. It's like gambling. Every time you don't get a like, you feel a bit sad and left out. So unconsciously you start sharing stories you think others will like, just for that hit. Facebook utilises the same brain receptors fired up by a line cocaine. You're on a drug up to 12 hours a day. Maybe more.

I have made a conscious decision to only log in once a week, and that's mainly to share Josie's jokes. That's not because I want you to think how great my daughter is amazing (OK There's a bit of that because she is AMAZING) ..... but because Josie & I want to cheer you up in a tough year. I still check for weekly 'likes' from her jokes. Because that's what I'm programmed to do.

Because I'm a FB addict like you, I change my password to something I can't remember. It's easy to hit the 'forgot password' button on your account. But I remain strong. I've beaten other addictions.

Facebook is increasingly run by artificial intelligence bots. Computer algorithms. These choose what you see and what you don't. It's based on your previous story shares. It relies on what your friends share, and even from word frequency tallies in your status updates.

My news feed is often full of stories about climate change. These stories don't make me feel happy. Climate change is real, but a constant stream of negative climate news is overwhelming and anxiety provoking. I prefer to get my climate change info once a day from Radio National on the ABC. It's more nuanced. That way I'm more in control of the media and its intrusiveness.

Facebook is making you unhappy. And disconnected. It adds little meaning

to your life. I'm not anti-internet. What happened to email? Human connection can be achieved through other means.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

I graduated from the ReSpin program today. https://bchs.org.au/services/gambling-support/respin/the-respin-program/

R U OK? I hope you are all Ok.




---------------------
Hi, I’m Stuart, I’m someone who has spent a long but successful battle against poker machine addiction. Here’s my story:
As you can tell from my accent, I’m not from Australia. I grew up in a town in Northern Ireland called Bangor. Gambling wasn’t in any way a major part of life growing up. My dad didn’t gamble at all and my mum had a yearly bet on the Grand National, the equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. Bookmakers shops, SP offices, our TABS, were unwelcoming, seedy dark places tucked away in side streets and alleyways. Pubs often had a ‘fruit machine,’ a very basic version of a poker machine in the corner. They took low denomination coins & had low payouts. My brother was fond of these but I never bothered with them…..
I emigrated to Australia in 1999. I initially came for a year long backpacking holiday but as often happens I met a girl, fell in love and our daughter came along shortly afterwards. We settled in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I knew nothing of the pokies until one fateful afternoon when I was out with a group of friends at a pub in the city. It must have been around 2003. We were having a few drinks when someone said “lets play the pokies!” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about but I was intrigued. I followed her into a separate room of the pub. It felt like going into a completely different establishment; a dark secret world, a private club.


She put $5 into a machine and much to her excitement she won $300. We took her jackpot back to our party in the pub where she shared her good news. I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t won the jackpot….would my story have taken a much different turn….. I was later to learn that winning $300 with a $5 bet was a real fluke. A statistical outlier. A lucky win for her - but an unlucky one for me.
I didn’t play the pokies that day but shortly afterwards I was walking past the St Albans Hotel. This was on the walk back from my daughter’s childcare centre. I hadn’t paid any attention to the venue previously and hadn’t consciously meant to gamble after my recent day at the pub, but something drew me in. I stuck $50 a machine called 3 Dragons. I played for just a few minutes and suddenly the machine rocketed up to payout $800. Excitedly I took the jackpot and walked out, my feet in the clouds. My wife was a student and I was working in a call centre so $800 was a lot of money. I didn’t tell my wife about the jackpot; gambling was to remain something I’d try to keep hidden over the ensuing years.
I started gambling regularly at the St Albans Hotel on the way home from childcare. Not every day, and not in huge amounts. I’ve always been pretty careful with money and I didn’t want to put a dent in our meagre bank account, so it was just a $20 here or a $50. I can’t honestly remember if I won much but if I did I probably put it back in the machine.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to Cobram in Northern Victoria, on the banks of the Murray River so I could complete a teaching degree in Shepparton. Cobram didn’t have any pokies hotels but across the river there was a large establishment called “Barooga Sports Complex’ known as the Sporties. Back in the day Victoria didn’t have pokies, so many little towns in NSW along the Murray have these big casino-like pokies barns to lure Victorians across. I didn’t have a car so I stayed away from the place most days. However, on Friday night they offered a big raffle to lure in the punters, and a courtesy bus every half hour took people from Cobram over the border. I continued to play weekly , telling myself I was just there for the raffle. Still small amounts but enough to keep the addiction smouldering…..

After I completed my degree our young family moved back to the Western Suburbs, in Sunshine. Until now, I hadn’t consciously realised that my gambling was a problem. I was annoyed when I lost money, but that annoyance was turn to bouts of shame and anger as I played the machines more and more. I had a bit more money now as I was teaching. I was also drinking heavily and taking amphetimines as my marriage began to fail. Alcohol and drug use have always fuelled my pokies use. There isn’t much to do in Sunshine; all the pubs are pokies joints. I started gambling more frequently at the Sunshine Hotel, a dangerous place where wild men swore and kicked machines and people hung around the machines begging for coins if you had a win. I also started playing when I went to the footy; I was an remain a big fan of the Western Bulldogs. Back then the Docklands venue had a big venue on Level 2.
I still rarely gambled huge amounts and was mostly able to hide my gambling from my wife. One exception to this was when I got blind drunk at the footy and completely emptied our bank account into the machines. I had to shamefacedly confess my sins; my father-in-law lent us some money for groceries and rent.

Shortly after this I went on a speed binge and went the Sunshine Hotel. Speed has a hypnotic effect on the pokies; it dials the addictive quality right up to 12. I gambled big and won big, racking up thousands of dollars on the machine in credits. I wanted to cash in and leave but I was like a zombie, pushing the buttons as my thousands of dollars trickled down to a few hundred. Eventually my wife arrived with our infant daughter and had to literally push me off the machines. The security guards chucked us all out as kids aren’t allowed in the pokies rooms. I went home with my couple of hundred bucks and a very angry partner.

I was gambling on the horses too, I'd put a bet on each of the races at Melbourne every Saturday. It was only small amounts, but when I realised I wasn't winning but doubling up to chase my losses on the last race, I quit. I don't why the horses were so much easier to toss than the pokies......
Shortly after this my marriage ended & I returned to Ireland. I ditched the speed habit and the pokies; as I said there are no machines back home. I missed my daughter terribly and returned to Melbourne after a few years in the wilderness. I moved to Brunswick and then after I met Alice, my wife, we settled in Preston where I currently live. I didn’t mean to start playing the pokies again but their hold on me was still strong. I have 3 venues within an easy five minute walk from my house, so I didn’t have to search for them. Soon I was sneaking out of the house late at night to gamble.
Although I wasn’t taking (illegal) drugs, my wife & I were heavy drinkers. I’d tell myself that I was just leaving the house for a sneaky late night beer, but I’d always head to one of the nearby pubs and play in the wee hours.
I’d try to keep this hidden from Alice but my shame meant I’d confess to her, often a few days later. She was bemused but supportive; she’s never been a gambler.

I admitted I had a serious addiction and started attending weekly meetings with Gamblers Help.I went into alcohol rehab and gave up drinking for a year. I banned myself from all the local venues with the Hotel Association’s self-exclusion scheme. This worked for a year from the thought of the shame from being found out by venue staff. But one day I wandered in on my way home from shopping, expecting to be caught…..but I wasn’t. I started sneaking out of the house in the wee hours. My wife had a furious row with the manager of the Darebin RSL asking why they kept letting me in when I was excluded….but he said they had too many self-excluders on the books and couldn’t monitor us all.

I started gambling on the way home from work on a Friday or after a doctor’s appointment. I don’t really gamble when I’m miserable or depressed; my mind seems to use it as a reward. I continued losing small amounts and felt awful afterwards, guilty and ashamed at my inability to stop. But I kept trying. Sometimes I’d stop more months at a time, then let my guard down and start again. I was attending weekly sessions with my Gambler’s Help counsellor and at one meeting we both agreed that we’d come as far as could on the journey. We’d done a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and examined my childhood and talked about the reasons I might gamble but I was still doing it. Sporadically. Then and there I decided we had done all the talking and I needed to stop. So I did. I walked out of the session and didn’t play the pokies again…..


That could have been the end of the story, but then the major event of my life happened. This is another story in itself. Years passed by and I stayed away from the venues. I went on to have two more kids, Arlo and Josie. When Josie was two weeks old she had a massive heart attack and nearly died. She spent a long time recovering in the Children’s Hospital and was very, very seriously ill. I turned to alcohol and prescribed tranquilizers to cope with this event, and yes I did start gambling at the pokies again. But only a few times, and I lost only a little money, and when she recovered I stopped. I suppose I’d put in all the yard hards recovering for years myself, and I wasn’t going to go down that path again.

Recovery is like strength training for the mind. The more you resist temptation, the more you add meaning & richness to your life, the easier it is to resist the pernicious machines. One of the ways I’ve found this meaning is by using my story to fight back against the gambling industry. I’ve joined a wonderful organisation called the Alliance for Gambling Reform where we campaign for better regulation of machines & venues. I’ve successfully campaigned for the Western Bulldogs to rid themselves of pokies, and I helped stop the Darebin RSL from adding extra machines to their venue. Giving you this story helps me to fight back.

And I’m free -free from the shame, and self-loathing, and guilt that comes with gambling. It’s been a hard won freedom but I draw meaning and purpose from it, and will use my story to campaign for what’s true, right and fair.
Powerful and gutsy stuff. Thanks for posting.

This is uplifting.
 

PickenAWinner

Draftee
Apr 13, 2019
13
13
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Great Post!

As a pokie Addict who has self excluded (and also snuck in a couple of times), I know how hard it is.

lost my partner of 12 1/2 years because of it.

I love that they’re not open now due to Covid. About the only good thing about this time in Melb.

also, just watching a show on Netflix about Social media and what it really is about.

it’s shocking!

I recommend anyone to watch it.

It’s new. It’s called “The Social Dilemma”.

take care, and congrats on graduating from the course.

Go Doggies!!
 
I graduated from the ReSpin program today. https://bchs.org.au/services/gambling-support/respin/the-respin-program/

R U OK? I hope you are all Ok.




---------------------
Hi, I’m Stuart, I’m someone who has spent a long but successful battle against poker machine addiction. Here’s my story:
As you can tell from my accent, I’m not from Australia. I grew up in a town in Northern Ireland called Bangor. Gambling wasn’t in any way a major part of life growing up. My dad didn’t gamble at all and my mum had a yearly bet on the Grand National, the equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. Bookmakers shops, SP offices, our TABS, were unwelcoming, seedy dark places tucked away in side streets and alleyways. Pubs often had a ‘fruit machine,’ a very basic version of a poker machine in the corner. They took low denomination coins & had low payouts. My brother was fond of these but I never bothered with them…..
I emigrated to Australia in 1999. I initially came for a year long backpacking holiday but as often happens I met a girl, fell in love and our daughter came along shortly afterwards. We settled in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I knew nothing of the pokies until one fateful afternoon when I was out with a group of friends at a pub in the city. It must have been around 2003. We were having a few drinks when someone said “lets play the pokies!” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about but I was intrigued. I followed her into a separate room of the pub. It felt like going into a completely different establishment; a dark secret world, a private club.


She put $5 into a machine and much to her excitement she won $300. We took her jackpot back to our party in the pub where she shared her good news. I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t won the jackpot….would my story have taken a much different turn….. I was later to learn that winning $300 with a $5 bet was a real fluke. A statistical outlier. A lucky win for her - but an unlucky one for me.
I didn’t play the pokies that day but shortly afterwards I was walking past the St Albans Hotel. This was on the walk back from my daughter’s childcare centre. I hadn’t paid any attention to the venue previously and hadn’t consciously meant to gamble after my recent day at the pub, but something drew me in. I stuck $50 a machine called 3 Dragons. I played for just a few minutes and suddenly the machine rocketed up to payout $800. Excitedly I took the jackpot and walked out, my feet in the clouds. My wife was a student and I was working in a call centre so $800 was a lot of money. I didn’t tell my wife about the jackpot; gambling was to remain something I’d try to keep hidden over the ensuing years.
I started gambling regularly at the St Albans Hotel on the way home from childcare. Not every day, and not in huge amounts. I’ve always been pretty careful with money and I didn’t want to put a dent in our meagre bank account, so it was just a $20 here or a $50. I can’t honestly remember if I won much but if I did I probably put it back in the machine.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to Cobram in Northern Victoria, on the banks of the Murray River so I could complete a teaching degree in Shepparton. Cobram didn’t have any pokies hotels but across the river there was a large establishment called “Barooga Sports Complex’ known as the Sporties. Back in the day Victoria didn’t have pokies, so many little towns in NSW along the Murray have these big casino-like pokies barns to lure Victorians across. I didn’t have a car so I stayed away from the place most days. However, on Friday night they offered a big raffle to lure in the punters, and a courtesy bus every half hour took people from Cobram over the border. I continued to play weekly , telling myself I was just there for the raffle. Still small amounts but enough to keep the addiction smouldering…..

After I completed my degree our young family moved back to the Western Suburbs, in Sunshine. Until now, I hadn’t consciously realised that my gambling was a problem. I was annoyed when I lost money, but that annoyance was turn to bouts of shame and anger as I played the machines more and more. I had a bit more money now as I was teaching. I was also drinking heavily and taking amphetimines as my marriage began to fail. Alcohol and drug use have always fuelled my pokies use. There isn’t much to do in Sunshine; all the pubs are pokies joints. I started gambling more frequently at the Sunshine Hotel, a dangerous place where wild men swore and kicked machines and people hung around the machines begging for coins if you had a win. I also started playing when I went to the footy; I was an remain a big fan of the Western Bulldogs. Back then the Docklands venue had a big venue on Level 2.
I still rarely gambled huge amounts and was mostly able to hide my gambling from my wife. One exception to this was when I got blind drunk at the footy and completely emptied our bank account into the machines. I had to shamefacedly confess my sins; my father-in-law lent us some money for groceries and rent.

Shortly after this I went on a speed binge and went the Sunshine Hotel. Speed has a hypnotic effect on the pokies; it dials the addictive quality right up to 12. I gambled big and won big, racking up thousands of dollars on the machine in credits. I wanted to cash in and leave but I was like a zombie, pushing the buttons as my thousands of dollars trickled down to a few hundred. Eventually my wife arrived with our infant daughter and had to literally push me off the machines. The security guards chucked us all out as kids aren’t allowed in the pokies rooms. I went home with my couple of hundred bucks and a very angry partner.

I was gambling on the horses too, I'd put a bet on each of the races at Melbourne every Saturday. It was only small amounts, but when I realised I wasn't winning but doubling up to chase my losses on the last race, I quit. I don't why the horses were so much easier to toss than the pokies......
Shortly after this my marriage ended & I returned to Ireland. I ditched the speed habit and the pokies; as I said there are no machines back home. I missed my daughter terribly and returned to Melbourne after a few years in the wilderness. I moved to Brunswick and then after I met Alice, my wife, we settled in Preston where I currently live. I didn’t mean to start playing the pokies again but their hold on me was still strong. I have 3 venues within an easy five minute walk from my house, so I didn’t have to search for them. Soon I was sneaking out of the house late at night to gamble.
Although I wasn’t taking (illegal) drugs, my wife & I were heavy drinkers. I’d tell myself that I was just leaving the house for a sneaky late night beer, but I’d always head to one of the nearby pubs and play in the wee hours.
I’d try to keep this hidden from Alice but my shame meant I’d confess to her, often a few days later. She was bemused but supportive; she’s never been a gambler.

I admitted I had a serious addiction and started attending weekly meetings with Gamblers Help.I went into alcohol rehab and gave up drinking for a year. I banned myself from all the local venues with the Hotel Association’s self-exclusion scheme. This worked for a year from the thought of the shame from being found out by venue staff. But one day I wandered in on my way home from shopping, expecting to be caught…..but I wasn’t. I started sneaking out of the house in the wee hours. My wife had a furious row with the manager of the Darebin RSL asking why they kept letting me in when I was excluded….but he said they had too many self-excluders on the books and couldn’t monitor us all.

I started gambling on the way home from work on a Friday or after a doctor’s appointment. I don’t really gamble when I’m miserable or depressed; my mind seems to use it as a reward. I continued losing small amounts and felt awful afterwards, guilty and ashamed at my inability to stop. But I kept trying. Sometimes I’d stop more months at a time, then let my guard down and start again. I was attending weekly sessions with my Gambler’s Help counsellor and at one meeting we both agreed that we’d come as far as could on the journey. We’d done a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and examined my childhood and talked about the reasons I might gamble but I was still doing it. Sporadically. Then and there I decided we had done all the talking and I needed to stop. So I did. I walked out of the session and didn’t play the pokies again…..


That could have been the end of the story, but then the major event of my life happened. This is another story in itself. Years passed by and I stayed away from the venues. I went on to have two more kids, Arlo and Josie. When Josie was two weeks old she had a massive heart attack and nearly died. She spent a long time recovering in the Children’s Hospital and was very, very seriously ill. I turned to alcohol and prescribed tranquilizers to cope with this event, and yes I did start gambling at the pokies again. But only a few times, and I lost only a little money, and when she recovered I stopped. I suppose I’d put in all the yard hards recovering for years myself, and I wasn’t going to go down that path again.

Recovery is like strength training for the mind. The more you resist temptation, the more you add meaning & richness to your life, the easier it is to resist the pernicious machines. One of the ways I’ve found this meaning is by using my story to fight back against the gambling industry. I’ve joined a wonderful organisation called the Alliance for Gambling Reform where we campaign for better regulation of machines & venues. I’ve successfully campaigned for the Western Bulldogs to rid themselves of pokies, and I helped stop the Darebin RSL from adding extra machines to their venue. Giving you this story helps me to fight back.

And I’m free -free from the shame, and self-loathing, and guilt that comes with gambling. It’s been a hard won freedom but I draw meaning and purpose from it, and will use my story to campaign for what’s true, right and fair.
Hey mate, not the sort of thing I'd normally read but that was great. Thanks for sharing.
One question though, you said that you had gone as far as you could with the gamblers help then just decided to stop.
What was the difference between being able to make that decision then and not being able to do it much earlier in your story.. What changed in your mindset.
 
I graduated from the ReSpin program today. https://bchs.org.au/services/gambling-support/respin/the-respin-program/

R U OK? I hope you are all Ok.




---------------------
Hi, I’m Stuart, I’m someone who has spent a long but successful battle against poker machine addiction. Here’s my story:
As you can tell from my accent, I’m not from Australia. I grew up in a town in Northern Ireland called Bangor. Gambling wasn’t in any way a major part of life growing up. My dad didn’t gamble at all and my mum had a yearly bet on the Grand National, the equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. Bookmakers shops, SP offices, our TABS, were unwelcoming, seedy dark places tucked away in side streets and alleyways. Pubs often had a ‘fruit machine,’ a very basic version of a poker machine in the corner. They took low denomination coins & had low payouts. My brother was fond of these but I never bothered with them…..
I emigrated to Australia in 1999. I initially came for a year long backpacking holiday but as often happens I met a girl, fell in love and our daughter came along shortly afterwards. We settled in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I knew nothing of the pokies until one fateful afternoon when I was out with a group of friends at a pub in the city. It must have been around 2003. We were having a few drinks when someone said “lets play the pokies!” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about but I was intrigued. I followed her into a separate room of the pub. It felt like going into a completely different establishment; a dark secret world, a private club.


She put $5 into a machine and much to her excitement she won $300. We took her jackpot back to our party in the pub where she shared her good news. I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t won the jackpot….would my story have taken a much different turn….. I was later to learn that winning $300 with a $5 bet was a real fluke. A statistical outlier. A lucky win for her - but an unlucky one for me.
I didn’t play the pokies that day but shortly afterwards I was walking past the St Albans Hotel. This was on the walk back from my daughter’s childcare centre. I hadn’t paid any attention to the venue previously and hadn’t consciously meant to gamble after my recent day at the pub, but something drew me in. I stuck $50 a machine called 3 Dragons. I played for just a few minutes and suddenly the machine rocketed up to payout $800. Excitedly I took the jackpot and walked out, my feet in the clouds. My wife was a student and I was working in a call centre so $800 was a lot of money. I didn’t tell my wife about the jackpot; gambling was to remain something I’d try to keep hidden over the ensuing years.
I started gambling regularly at the St Albans Hotel on the way home from childcare. Not every day, and not in huge amounts. I’ve always been pretty careful with money and I didn’t want to put a dent in our meagre bank account, so it was just a $20 here or a $50. I can’t honestly remember if I won much but if I did I probably put it back in the machine.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to Cobram in Northern Victoria, on the banks of the Murray River so I could complete a teaching degree in Shepparton. Cobram didn’t have any pokies hotels but across the river there was a large establishment called “Barooga Sports Complex’ known as the Sporties. Back in the day Victoria didn’t have pokies, so many little towns in NSW along the Murray have these big casino-like pokies barns to lure Victorians across. I didn’t have a car so I stayed away from the place most days. However, on Friday night they offered a big raffle to lure in the punters, and a courtesy bus every half hour took people from Cobram over the border. I continued to play weekly , telling myself I was just there for the raffle. Still small amounts but enough to keep the addiction smouldering…..

After I completed my degree our young family moved back to the Western Suburbs, in Sunshine. Until now, I hadn’t consciously realised that my gambling was a problem. I was annoyed when I lost money, but that annoyance was turn to bouts of shame and anger as I played the machines more and more. I had a bit more money now as I was teaching. I was also drinking heavily and taking amphetimines as my marriage began to fail. Alcohol and drug use have always fuelled my pokies use. There isn’t much to do in Sunshine; all the pubs are pokies joints. I started gambling more frequently at the Sunshine Hotel, a dangerous place where wild men swore and kicked machines and people hung around the machines begging for coins if you had a win. I also started playing when I went to the footy; I was an remain a big fan of the Western Bulldogs. Back then the Docklands venue had a big venue on Level 2.
I still rarely gambled huge amounts and was mostly able to hide my gambling from my wife. One exception to this was when I got blind drunk at the footy and completely emptied our bank account into the machines. I had to shamefacedly confess my sins; my father-in-law lent us some money for groceries and rent.

Shortly after this I went on a speed binge and went the Sunshine Hotel. Speed has a hypnotic effect on the pokies; it dials the addictive quality right up to 12. I gambled big and won big, racking up thousands of dollars on the machine in credits. I wanted to cash in and leave but I was like a zombie, pushing the buttons as my thousands of dollars trickled down to a few hundred. Eventually my wife arrived with our infant daughter and had to literally push me off the machines. The security guards chucked us all out as kids aren’t allowed in the pokies rooms. I went home with my couple of hundred bucks and a very angry partner.

I was gambling on the horses too, I'd put a bet on each of the races at Melbourne every Saturday. It was only small amounts, but when I realised I wasn't winning but doubling up to chase my losses on the last race, I quit. I don't why the horses were so much easier to toss than the pokies......
Shortly after this my marriage ended & I returned to Ireland. I ditched the speed habit and the pokies; as I said there are no machines back home. I missed my daughter terribly and returned to Melbourne after a few years in the wilderness. I moved to Brunswick and then after I met Alice, my wife, we settled in Preston where I currently live. I didn’t mean to start playing the pokies again but their hold on me was still strong. I have 3 venues within an easy five minute walk from my house, so I didn’t have to search for them. Soon I was sneaking out of the house late at night to gamble.
Although I wasn’t taking (illegal) drugs, my wife & I were heavy drinkers. I’d tell myself that I was just leaving the house for a sneaky late night beer, but I’d always head to one of the nearby pubs and play in the wee hours.
I’d try to keep this hidden from Alice but my shame meant I’d confess to her, often a few days later. She was bemused but supportive; she’s never been a gambler.

I admitted I had a serious addiction and started attending weekly meetings with Gamblers Help.I went into alcohol rehab and gave up drinking for a year. I banned myself from all the local venues with the Hotel Association’s self-exclusion scheme. This worked for a year from the thought of the shame from being found out by venue staff. But one day I wandered in on my way home from shopping, expecting to be caught…..but I wasn’t. I started sneaking out of the house in the wee hours. My wife had a furious row with the manager of the Darebin RSL asking why they kept letting me in when I was excluded….but he said they had too many self-excluders on the books and couldn’t monitor us all.

I started gambling on the way home from work on a Friday or after a doctor’s appointment. I don’t really gamble when I’m miserable or depressed; my mind seems to use it as a reward. I continued losing small amounts and felt awful afterwards, guilty and ashamed at my inability to stop. But I kept trying. Sometimes I’d stop more months at a time, then let my guard down and start again. I was attending weekly sessions with my Gambler’s Help counsellor and at one meeting we both agreed that we’d come as far as could on the journey. We’d done a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and examined my childhood and talked about the reasons I might gamble but I was still doing it. Sporadically. Then and there I decided we had done all the talking and I needed to stop. So I did. I walked out of the session and didn’t play the pokies again…..


That could have been the end of the story, but then the major event of my life happened. This is another story in itself. Years passed by and I stayed away from the venues. I went on to have two more kids, Arlo and Josie. When Josie was two weeks old she had a massive heart attack and nearly died. She spent a long time recovering in the Children’s Hospital and was very, very seriously ill. I turned to alcohol and prescribed tranquilizers to cope with this event, and yes I did start gambling at the pokies again. But only a few times, and I lost only a little money, and when she recovered I stopped. I suppose I’d put in all the yard hards recovering for years myself, and I wasn’t going to go down that path again.

Recovery is like strength training for the mind. The more you resist temptation, the more you add meaning & richness to your life, the easier it is to resist the pernicious machines. One of the ways I’ve found this meaning is by using my story to fight back against the gambling industry. I’ve joined a wonderful organisation called the Alliance for Gambling Reform where we campaign for better regulation of machines & venues. I’ve successfully campaigned for the Western Bulldogs to rid themselves of pokies, and I helped stop the Darebin RSL from adding extra machines to their venue. Giving you this story helps me to fight back.

And I’m free -free from the shame, and self-loathing, and guilt that comes with gambling. It’s been a hard won freedom but I draw meaning and purpose from it, and will use my story to campaign for what’s true, right and fair.
Wow that's an amazing journey. Thank you for sharing. I'm happy for you to have kicked the gambling addiction. Hope same is true for the substance addiction? Good on you for helping prevent others from being sucked into gambling and for your work in getting our club to end their association with gambling machines.
I think I told you before but we lived in Dunmurry, just out of Belfast. My Gran came over by herself to visit us in Australia in 1973 when she would have been 76. Dad always marvelled at that and said the furthest she had ever been from home in Dunmurry was to visit Bangor :)
 
I’m more a libertarian type but I bloody hate gambling. The fact that people who own the firms (online, pokies, crown, Star) make millions of dollars through other people’s misery makes me very angry. They are no different to drug dealers other than they wear suits, live in Brighton while drug dealers go to jail. I’ve never gambled as I don’t like the mathematical return and I don’t see the joy in it but I understand it doesn’t work that way for everyone.

The fact that you can’t watch or listen to any extended discussion of the footy without the odds being rammed down your throat is so disheartening. There is so much money for the clubs and AFL to make that I doubt they’ll ever turn away from it.

Thanks for your post. I hope people can find the strength to kick the habit. It’s so destructive to ordinary peoples lives.
 
I graduated from the ReSpin program today. https://bchs.org.au/services/gambling-support/respin/the-respin-program/

R U OK? I hope you are all Ok.




---------------------
Hi, I’m Stuart, I’m someone who has spent a long but successful battle against poker machine addiction. Here’s my story:
As you can tell from my accent, I’m not from Australia. I grew up in a town in Northern Ireland called Bangor. Gambling wasn’t in any way a major part of life growing up. My dad didn’t gamble at all and my mum had a yearly bet on the Grand National, the equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. Bookmakers shops, SP offices, our TABS, were unwelcoming, seedy dark places tucked away in side streets and alleyways. Pubs often had a ‘fruit machine,’ a very basic version of a poker machine in the corner. They took low denomination coins & had low payouts. My brother was fond of these but I never bothered with them…..
I emigrated to Australia in 1999. I initially came for a year long backpacking holiday but as often happens I met a girl, fell in love and our daughter came along shortly afterwards. We settled in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I knew nothing of the pokies until one fateful afternoon when I was out with a group of friends at a pub in the city. It must have been around 2003. We were having a few drinks when someone said “lets play the pokies!” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about but I was intrigued. I followed her into a separate room of the pub. It felt like going into a completely different establishment; a dark secret world, a private club.


She put $5 into a machine and much to her excitement she won $300. We took her jackpot back to our party in the pub where she shared her good news. I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t won the jackpot….would my story have taken a much different turn….. I was later to learn that winning $300 with a $5 bet was a real fluke. A statistical outlier. A lucky win for her - but an unlucky one for me.
I didn’t play the pokies that day but shortly afterwards I was walking past the St Albans Hotel. This was on the walk back from my daughter’s childcare centre. I hadn’t paid any attention to the venue previously and hadn’t consciously meant to gamble after my recent day at the pub, but something drew me in. I stuck $50 a machine called 3 Dragons. I played for just a few minutes and suddenly the machine rocketed up to payout $800. Excitedly I took the jackpot and walked out, my feet in the clouds. My wife was a student and I was working in a call centre so $800 was a lot of money. I didn’t tell my wife about the jackpot; gambling was to remain something I’d try to keep hidden over the ensuing years.
I started gambling regularly at the St Albans Hotel on the way home from childcare. Not every day, and not in huge amounts. I’ve always been pretty careful with money and I didn’t want to put a dent in our meagre bank account, so it was just a $20 here or a $50. I can’t honestly remember if I won much but if I did I probably put it back in the machine.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to Cobram in Northern Victoria, on the banks of the Murray River so I could complete a teaching degree in Shepparton. Cobram didn’t have any pokies hotels but across the river there was a large establishment called “Barooga Sports Complex’ known as the Sporties. Back in the day Victoria didn’t have pokies, so many little towns in NSW along the Murray have these big casino-like pokies barns to lure Victorians across. I didn’t have a car so I stayed away from the place most days. However, on Friday night they offered a big raffle to lure in the punters, and a courtesy bus every half hour took people from Cobram over the border. I continued to play weekly , telling myself I was just there for the raffle. Still small amounts but enough to keep the addiction smouldering…..

After I completed my degree our young family moved back to the Western Suburbs, in Sunshine. Until now, I hadn’t consciously realised that my gambling was a problem. I was annoyed when I lost money, but that annoyance was turn to bouts of shame and anger as I played the machines more and more. I had a bit more money now as I was teaching. I was also drinking heavily and taking amphetimines as my marriage began to fail. Alcohol and drug use have always fuelled my pokies use. There isn’t much to do in Sunshine; all the pubs are pokies joints. I started gambling more frequently at the Sunshine Hotel, a dangerous place where wild men swore and kicked machines and people hung around the machines begging for coins if you had a win. I also started playing when I went to the footy; I was an remain a big fan of the Western Bulldogs. Back then the Docklands venue had a big venue on Level 2.
I still rarely gambled huge amounts and was mostly able to hide my gambling from my wife. One exception to this was when I got blind drunk at the footy and completely emptied our bank account into the machines. I had to shamefacedly confess my sins; my father-in-law lent us some money for groceries and rent.

Shortly after this I went on a speed binge and went the Sunshine Hotel. Speed has a hypnotic effect on the pokies; it dials the addictive quality right up to 12. I gambled big and won big, racking up thousands of dollars on the machine in credits. I wanted to cash in and leave but I was like a zombie, pushing the buttons as my thousands of dollars trickled down to a few hundred. Eventually my wife arrived with our infant daughter and had to literally push me off the machines. The security guards chucked us all out as kids aren’t allowed in the pokies rooms. I went home with my couple of hundred bucks and a very angry partner.

I was gambling on the horses too, I'd put a bet on each of the races at Melbourne every Saturday. It was only small amounts, but when I realised I wasn't winning but doubling up to chase my losses on the last race, I quit. I don't why the horses were so much easier to toss than the pokies......
Shortly after this my marriage ended & I returned to Ireland. I ditched the speed habit and the pokies; as I said there are no machines back home. I missed my daughter terribly and returned to Melbourne after a few years in the wilderness. I moved to Brunswick and then after I met Alice, my wife, we settled in Preston where I currently live. I didn’t mean to start playing the pokies again but their hold on me was still strong. I have 3 venues within an easy five minute walk from my house, so I didn’t have to search for them. Soon I was sneaking out of the house late at night to gamble.
Although I wasn’t taking (illegal) drugs, my wife & I were heavy drinkers. I’d tell myself that I was just leaving the house for a sneaky late night beer, but I’d always head to one of the nearby pubs and play in the wee hours.
I’d try to keep this hidden from Alice but my shame meant I’d confess to her, often a few days later. She was bemused but supportive; she’s never been a gambler.

I admitted I had a serious addiction and started attending weekly meetings with Gamblers Help.I went into alcohol rehab and gave up drinking for a year. I banned myself from all the local venues with the Hotel Association’s self-exclusion scheme. This worked for a year from the thought of the shame from being found out by venue staff. But one day I wandered in on my way home from shopping, expecting to be caught…..but I wasn’t. I started sneaking out of the house in the wee hours. My wife had a furious row with the manager of the Darebin RSL asking why they kept letting me in when I was excluded….but he said they had too many self-excluders on the books and couldn’t monitor us all.

I started gambling on the way home from work on a Friday or after a doctor’s appointment. I don’t really gamble when I’m miserable or depressed; my mind seems to use it as a reward. I continued losing small amounts and felt awful afterwards, guilty and ashamed at my inability to stop. But I kept trying. Sometimes I’d stop more months at a time, then let my guard down and start again. I was attending weekly sessions with my Gambler’s Help counsellor and at one meeting we both agreed that we’d come as far as could on the journey. We’d done a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and examined my childhood and talked about the reasons I might gamble but I was still doing it. Sporadically. Then and there I decided we had done all the talking and I needed to stop. So I did. I walked out of the session and didn’t play the pokies again…..


That could have been the end of the story, but then the major event of my life happened. This is another story in itself. Years passed by and I stayed away from the venues. I went on to have two more kids, Arlo and Josie. When Josie was two weeks old she had a massive heart attack and nearly died. She spent a long time recovering in the Children’s Hospital and was very, very seriously ill. I turned to alcohol and prescribed tranquilizers to cope with this event, and yes I did start gambling at the pokies again. But only a few times, and I lost only a little money, and when she recovered I stopped. I suppose I’d put in all the yard hards recovering for years myself, and I wasn’t going to go down that path again.

Recovery is like strength training for the mind. The more you resist temptation, the more you add meaning & richness to your life, the easier it is to resist the pernicious machines. One of the ways I’ve found this meaning is by using my story to fight back against the gambling industry. I’ve joined a wonderful organisation called the Alliance for Gambling Reform where we campaign for better regulation of machines & venues. I’ve successfully campaigned for the Western Bulldogs to rid themselves of pokies, and I helped stop the Darebin RSL from adding extra machines to their venue. Giving you this story helps me to fight back.

And I’m free -free from the shame, and self-loathing, and guilt that comes with gambling. It’s been a hard won freedom but I draw meaning and purpose from it, and will use my story to campaign for what’s true, right and fair.
Massive props for sharing mate. Epic journey you've been on. Well done for kicking it, takes a massive strength.
Josie, lovely name. Glad she's now OK.
 
R U OK Day: Facebook isn't reality, it's not your authentic self. It's a projection of your ideal self; or what you believe others want to see in you.
Every time you get a 'like' you get a little hit of dopamine deep inside your brain. It's like gambling. Every time you don't get a like, you feel a bit sad and left out. So unconsciously you start sharing stories you think others will like, just for that hit. Facebook utilises the same brain receptors fired up by a line cocaine. You're on a drug up to 12 hours a day. Maybe more.

I have made a conscious decision to only log in once a week, and that's mainly to share Josie's jokes. That's not because I want you to think how great my daughter is amazing (OK There's a bit of that because she is AMAZING) ..... but because Josie & I want to cheer you up in a tough year. I still check for weekly 'likes' from her jokes. Because that's what I'm programmed to do.

Because I'm a FB addict like you, I change my password to something I can't remember. It's easy to hit the 'forgot password' button on your account. But I remain strong. I've beaten other addictions.

Facebook is increasingly run by artificial intelligence bots. Computer algorithms. These choose what you see and what you don't. It's based on your previous story shares. It relies on what your friends share, and even from word frequency tallies in your status updates.

My news feed is often full of stories about climate change. These stories don't make me feel happy. Climate change is real, but a constant stream of negative climate news is overwhelming and anxiety provoking. I prefer to get my climate change info once a day from Radio National on the ABC. It's more nuanced. That way I'm more in control of the media and its intrusiveness.

Facebook is making you unhappy. And disconnected. It adds little meaning

to your life. I'm not anti-internet. What happened to email? Human connection can be achieved through other means.
Agreed. Facebook is absolute trash. Got off it about 10 years ago, never looked back.

So many better ways to keep in touch with your friends and family.
 
Jun 19, 2016
20,757
39,618
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
I graduated from the ReSpin program today. https://bchs.org.au/services/gambling-support/respin/the-respin-program/

R U OK? I hope you are all Ok.




---------------------
Hi, I’m Stuart, I’m someone who has spent a long but successful battle against poker machine addiction. Here’s my story:
As you can tell from my accent, I’m not from Australia. I grew up in a town in Northern Ireland called Bangor. Gambling wasn’t in any way a major part of life growing up. My dad didn’t gamble at all and my mum had a yearly bet on the Grand National, the equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. Bookmakers shops, SP offices, our TABS, were unwelcoming, seedy dark places tucked away in side streets and alleyways. Pubs often had a ‘fruit machine,’ a very basic version of a poker machine in the corner. They took low denomination coins & had low payouts. My brother was fond of these but I never bothered with them…..
I emigrated to Australia in 1999. I initially came for a year long backpacking holiday but as often happens I met a girl, fell in love and our daughter came along shortly afterwards. We settled in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I knew nothing of the pokies until one fateful afternoon when I was out with a group of friends at a pub in the city. It must have been around 2003. We were having a few drinks when someone said “lets play the pokies!” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about but I was intrigued. I followed her into a separate room of the pub. It felt like going into a completely different establishment; a dark secret world, a private club.


She put $5 into a machine and much to her excitement she won $300. We took her jackpot back to our party in the pub where she shared her good news. I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t won the jackpot….would my story have taken a much different turn….. I was later to learn that winning $300 with a $5 bet was a real fluke. A statistical outlier. A lucky win for her - but an unlucky one for me.
I didn’t play the pokies that day but shortly afterwards I was walking past the St Albans Hotel. This was on the walk back from my daughter’s childcare centre. I hadn’t paid any attention to the venue previously and hadn’t consciously meant to gamble after my recent day at the pub, but something drew me in. I stuck $50 a machine called 3 Dragons. I played for just a few minutes and suddenly the machine rocketed up to payout $800. Excitedly I took the jackpot and walked out, my feet in the clouds. My wife was a student and I was working in a call centre so $800 was a lot of money. I didn’t tell my wife about the jackpot; gambling was to remain something I’d try to keep hidden over the ensuing years.
I started gambling regularly at the St Albans Hotel on the way home from childcare. Not every day, and not in huge amounts. I’ve always been pretty careful with money and I didn’t want to put a dent in our meagre bank account, so it was just a $20 here or a $50. I can’t honestly remember if I won much but if I did I probably put it back in the machine.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to Cobram in Northern Victoria, on the banks of the Murray River so I could complete a teaching degree in Shepparton. Cobram didn’t have any pokies hotels but across the river there was a large establishment called “Barooga Sports Complex’ known as the Sporties. Back in the day Victoria didn’t have pokies, so many little towns in NSW along the Murray have these big casino-like pokies barns to lure Victorians across. I didn’t have a car so I stayed away from the place most days. However, on Friday night they offered a big raffle to lure in the punters, and a courtesy bus every half hour took people from Cobram over the border. I continued to play weekly , telling myself I was just there for the raffle. Still small amounts but enough to keep the addiction smouldering…..

After I completed my degree our young family moved back to the Western Suburbs, in Sunshine. Until now, I hadn’t consciously realised that my gambling was a problem. I was annoyed when I lost money, but that annoyance was turn to bouts of shame and anger as I played the machines more and more. I had a bit more money now as I was teaching. I was also drinking heavily and taking amphetimines as my marriage began to fail. Alcohol and drug use have always fuelled my pokies use. There isn’t much to do in Sunshine; all the pubs are pokies joints. I started gambling more frequently at the Sunshine Hotel, a dangerous place where wild men swore and kicked machines and people hung around the machines begging for coins if you had a win. I also started playing when I went to the footy; I was an remain a big fan of the Western Bulldogs. Back then the Docklands venue had a big venue on Level 2.
I still rarely gambled huge amounts and was mostly able to hide my gambling from my wife. One exception to this was when I got blind drunk at the footy and completely emptied our bank account into the machines. I had to shamefacedly confess my sins; my father-in-law lent us some money for groceries and rent.

Shortly after this I went on a speed binge and went the Sunshine Hotel. Speed has a hypnotic effect on the pokies; it dials the addictive quality right up to 12. I gambled big and won big, racking up thousands of dollars on the machine in credits. I wanted to cash in and leave but I was like a zombie, pushing the buttons as my thousands of dollars trickled down to a few hundred. Eventually my wife arrived with our infant daughter and had to literally push me off the machines. The security guards chucked us all out as kids aren’t allowed in the pokies rooms. I went home with my couple of hundred bucks and a very angry partner.

I was gambling on the horses too, I'd put a bet on each of the races at Melbourne every Saturday. It was only small amounts, but when I realised I wasn't winning but doubling up to chase my losses on the last race, I quit. I don't why the horses were so much easier to toss than the pokies......
Shortly after this my marriage ended & I returned to Ireland. I ditched the speed habit and the pokies; as I said there are no machines back home. I missed my daughter terribly and returned to Melbourne after a few years in the wilderness. I moved to Brunswick and then after I met Alice, my wife, we settled in Preston where I currently live. I didn’t mean to start playing the pokies again but their hold on me was still strong. I have 3 venues within an easy five minute walk from my house, so I didn’t have to search for them. Soon I was sneaking out of the house late at night to gamble.
Although I wasn’t taking (illegal) drugs, my wife & I were heavy drinkers. I’d tell myself that I was just leaving the house for a sneaky late night beer, but I’d always head to one of the nearby pubs and play in the wee hours.
I’d try to keep this hidden from Alice but my shame meant I’d confess to her, often a few days later. She was bemused but supportive; she’s never been a gambler.

I admitted I had a serious addiction and started attending weekly meetings with Gamblers Help.I went into alcohol rehab and gave up drinking for a year. I banned myself from all the local venues with the Hotel Association’s self-exclusion scheme. This worked for a year from the thought of the shame from being found out by venue staff. But one day I wandered in on my way home from shopping, expecting to be caught…..but I wasn’t. I started sneaking out of the house in the wee hours. My wife had a furious row with the manager of the Darebin RSL asking why they kept letting me in when I was excluded….but he said they had too many self-excluders on the books and couldn’t monitor us all.

I started gambling on the way home from work on a Friday or after a doctor’s appointment. I don’t really gamble when I’m miserable or depressed; my mind seems to use it as a reward. I continued losing small amounts and felt awful afterwards, guilty and ashamed at my inability to stop. But I kept trying. Sometimes I’d stop more months at a time, then let my guard down and start again. I was attending weekly sessions with my Gambler’s Help counsellor and at one meeting we both agreed that we’d come as far as could on the journey. We’d done a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and examined my childhood and talked about the reasons I might gamble but I was still doing it. Sporadically. Then and there I decided we had done all the talking and I needed to stop. So I did. I walked out of the session and didn’t play the pokies again…..


That could have been the end of the story, but then the major event of my life happened. This is another story in itself. Years passed by and I stayed away from the venues. I went on to have two more kids, Arlo and Josie. When Josie was two weeks old she had a massive heart attack and nearly died. She spent a long time recovering in the Children’s Hospital and was very, very seriously ill. I turned to alcohol and prescribed tranquilizers to cope with this event, and yes I did start gambling at the pokies again. But only a few times, and I lost only a little money, and when she recovered I stopped. I suppose I’d put in all the yard hards recovering for years myself, and I wasn’t going to go down that path again.

Recovery is like strength training for the mind. The more you resist temptation, the more you add meaning & richness to your life, the easier it is to resist the pernicious machines. One of the ways I’ve found this meaning is by using my story to fight back against the gambling industry. I’ve joined a wonderful organisation called the Alliance for Gambling Reform where we campaign for better regulation of machines & venues. I’ve successfully campaigned for the Western Bulldogs to rid themselves of pokies, and I helped stop the Darebin RSL from adding extra machines to their venue. Giving you this story helps me to fight back.

And I’m free -free from the shame, and self-loathing, and guilt that comes with gambling. It’s been a hard won freedom but I draw meaning and purpose from it, and will use my story to campaign for what’s true, right and fair.
Well done. An incredibly strong man to share this and to have fought it for so long. Good luck for the future.
 
Hey mate, not the sort of thing I'd normally read but that was great. Thanks for sharing.
One question though, you said that you had gone as far as you could with the gamblers help then just decided to stop.
What was the difference between being able to make that decision then and not being able to do it much earlier in your story.. What changed in your mindset.

Thanks for the question.....I think it's like quitting smoking. i used to smoke a pack a day, I quit ten times and started and then I just realised how ridiculous it was.

Also from a sense of embarrassment with my counsellor, she'd done all she could & we couldn't take it any further. She was frustrated with me.

And then....this sounds insensitive to people still suffering from gambling addiction or other addictions but it's a hard truth...

You just have to stop being a child and be the adult. Not quite "harden the * up" but at some point you have to realise you're the driver of the car. I realise that some people might read my story and think there's a "poor me" element. Yeah there is....

But the gambling industry puts everything onto the gambler and washes their hands of any responsibilty. We just want some accountability on their part. I'm happy to admit my errors and my dumb choices, I just want them to admit that they're ****ed up
 

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I graduated from the ReSpin program today. https://bchs.org.au/services/gambling-support/respin/the-respin-program/

R U OK? I hope you are all Ok.




---------------------
Hi, I’m Stuart, I’m someone who has spent a long but successful battle against poker machine addiction. Here’s my story:
As you can tell from my accent, I’m not from Australia. I grew up in a town in Northern Ireland called Bangor. Gambling wasn’t in any way a major part of life growing up. My dad didn’t gamble at all and my mum had a yearly bet on the Grand National, the equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. Bookmakers shops, SP offices, our TABS, were unwelcoming, seedy dark places tucked away in side streets and alleyways. Pubs often had a ‘fruit machine,’ a very basic version of a poker machine in the corner. They took low denomination coins & had low payouts. My brother was fond of these but I never bothered with them…..
I emigrated to Australia in 1999. I initially came for a year long backpacking holiday but as often happens I met a girl, fell in love and our daughter came along shortly afterwards. We settled in the western suburbs of Melbourne. I knew nothing of the pokies until one fateful afternoon when I was out with a group of friends at a pub in the city. It must have been around 2003. We were having a few drinks when someone said “lets play the pokies!” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about but I was intrigued. I followed her into a separate room of the pub. It felt like going into a completely different establishment; a dark secret world, a private club.


She put $5 into a machine and much to her excitement she won $300. We took her jackpot back to our party in the pub where she shared her good news. I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t won the jackpot….would my story have taken a much different turn….. I was later to learn that winning $300 with a $5 bet was a real fluke. A statistical outlier. A lucky win for her - but an unlucky one for me.
I didn’t play the pokies that day but shortly afterwards I was walking past the St Albans Hotel. This was on the walk back from my daughter’s childcare centre. I hadn’t paid any attention to the venue previously and hadn’t consciously meant to gamble after my recent day at the pub, but something drew me in. I stuck $50 a machine called 3 Dragons. I played for just a few minutes and suddenly the machine rocketed up to payout $800. Excitedly I took the jackpot and walked out, my feet in the clouds. My wife was a student and I was working in a call centre so $800 was a lot of money. I didn’t tell my wife about the jackpot; gambling was to remain something I’d try to keep hidden over the ensuing years.
I started gambling regularly at the St Albans Hotel on the way home from childcare. Not every day, and not in huge amounts. I’ve always been pretty careful with money and I didn’t want to put a dent in our meagre bank account, so it was just a $20 here or a $50. I can’t honestly remember if I won much but if I did I probably put it back in the machine.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to Cobram in Northern Victoria, on the banks of the Murray River so I could complete a teaching degree in Shepparton. Cobram didn’t have any pokies hotels but across the river there was a large establishment called “Barooga Sports Complex’ known as the Sporties. Back in the day Victoria didn’t have pokies, so many little towns in NSW along the Murray have these big casino-like pokies barns to lure Victorians across. I didn’t have a car so I stayed away from the place most days. However, on Friday night they offered a big raffle to lure in the punters, and a courtesy bus every half hour took people from Cobram over the border. I continued to play weekly , telling myself I was just there for the raffle. Still small amounts but enough to keep the addiction smouldering…..

After I completed my degree our young family moved back to the Western Suburbs, in Sunshine. Until now, I hadn’t consciously realised that my gambling was a problem. I was annoyed when I lost money, but that annoyance was turn to bouts of shame and anger as I played the machines more and more. I had a bit more money now as I was teaching. I was also drinking heavily and taking amphetimines as my marriage began to fail. Alcohol and drug use have always fuelled my pokies use. There isn’t much to do in Sunshine; all the pubs are pokies joints. I started gambling more frequently at the Sunshine Hotel, a dangerous place where wild men swore and kicked machines and people hung around the machines begging for coins if you had a win. I also started playing when I went to the footy; I was an remain a big fan of the Western Bulldogs. Back then the Docklands venue had a big venue on Level 2.
I still rarely gambled huge amounts and was mostly able to hide my gambling from my wife. One exception to this was when I got blind drunk at the footy and completely emptied our bank account into the machines. I had to shamefacedly confess my sins; my father-in-law lent us some money for groceries and rent.

Shortly after this I went on a speed binge and went the Sunshine Hotel. Speed has a hypnotic effect on the pokies; it dials the addictive quality right up to 12. I gambled big and won big, racking up thousands of dollars on the machine in credits. I wanted to cash in and leave but I was like a zombie, pushing the buttons as my thousands of dollars trickled down to a few hundred. Eventually my wife arrived with our infant daughter and had to literally push me off the machines. The security guards chucked us all out as kids aren’t allowed in the pokies rooms. I went home with my couple of hundred bucks and a very angry partner.

I was gambling on the horses too, I'd put a bet on each of the races at Melbourne every Saturday. It was only small amounts, but when I realised I wasn't winning but doubling up to chase my losses on the last race, I quit. I don't why the horses were so much easier to toss than the pokies......
Shortly after this my marriage ended & I returned to Ireland. I ditched the speed habit and the pokies; as I said there are no machines back home. I missed my daughter terribly and returned to Melbourne after a few years in the wilderness. I moved to Brunswick and then after I met Alice, my wife, we settled in Preston where I currently live. I didn’t mean to start playing the pokies again but their hold on me was still strong. I have 3 venues within an easy five minute walk from my house, so I didn’t have to search for them. Soon I was sneaking out of the house late at night to gamble.
Although I wasn’t taking (illegal) drugs, my wife & I were heavy drinkers. I’d tell myself that I was just leaving the house for a sneaky late night beer, but I’d always head to one of the nearby pubs and play in the wee hours.
I’d try to keep this hidden from Alice but my shame meant I’d confess to her, often a few days later. She was bemused but supportive; she’s never been a gambler.

I admitted I had a serious addiction and started attending weekly meetings with Gamblers Help.I went into alcohol rehab and gave up drinking for a year. I banned myself from all the local venues with the Hotel Association’s self-exclusion scheme. This worked for a year from the thought of the shame from being found out by venue staff. But one day I wandered in on my way home from shopping, expecting to be caught…..but I wasn’t. I started sneaking out of the house in the wee hours. My wife had a furious row with the manager of the Darebin RSL asking why they kept letting me in when I was excluded….but he said they had too many self-excluders on the books and couldn’t monitor us all.

I started gambling on the way home from work on a Friday or after a doctor’s appointment. I don’t really gamble when I’m miserable or depressed; my mind seems to use it as a reward. I continued losing small amounts and felt awful afterwards, guilty and ashamed at my inability to stop. But I kept trying. Sometimes I’d stop more months at a time, then let my guard down and start again. I was attending weekly sessions with my Gambler’s Help counsellor and at one meeting we both agreed that we’d come as far as could on the journey. We’d done a lot of cognitive behaviour therapy, and examined my childhood and talked about the reasons I might gamble but I was still doing it. Sporadically. Then and there I decided we had done all the talking and I needed to stop. So I did. I walked out of the session and didn’t play the pokies again…..


That could have been the end of the story, but then the major event of my life happened. This is another story in itself. Years passed by and I stayed away from the venues. I went on to have two more kids, Arlo and Josie. When Josie was two weeks old she had a massive heart attack and nearly died. She spent a long time recovering in the Children’s Hospital and was very, very seriously ill. I turned to alcohol and prescribed tranquilizers to cope with this event, and yes I did start gambling at the pokies again. But only a few times, and I lost only a little money, and when she recovered I stopped. I suppose I’d put in all the yard hards recovering for years myself, and I wasn’t going to go down that path again.

Recovery is like strength training for the mind. The more you resist temptation, the more you add meaning & richness to your life, the easier it is to resist the pernicious machines. One of the ways I’ve found this meaning is by using my story to fight back against the gambling industry. I’ve joined a wonderful organisation called the Alliance for Gambling Reform where we campaign for better regulation of machines & venues. I’ve successfully campaigned for the Western Bulldogs to rid themselves of pokies, and I helped stop the Darebin RSL from adding extra machines to their venue. Giving you this story helps me to fight back.

And I’m free -free from the shame, and self-loathing, and guilt that comes with gambling. It’s been a hard won freedom but I draw meaning and purpose from it, and will use my story to campaign for what’s true, right and fair.
Thank you for the courage to share your story brother. Kudos to you and all possible strength to you and yours bresker. You've done our club and all who love it a great service in your fight against our ownership of poker machines. I admire you more than you'll ever know.
 
Wow that's an amazing journey. Thank you for sharing. I'm happy for you to have kicked the gambling addiction. Hope same is true for the substance addiction? Good on you for helping prevent others from being sucked into gambling and for your work in getting our club to end their association with gambling machines.
I think I told you before but we lived in Dunmurry, just out of Belfast. My Gran came over by herself to visit us in Australia in 1973 when she would have been 76. Dad always marvelled at that and said the furthest she had ever been from home in Dunmurry was to visit Bangor :)

I've kicked all the white powders, they distort reality. I love them but what goes up must come down & I came down pretty hard. I've got a bit of heart damage too. It's difficult because most of my friends are artists and DJs and the white powders flow freely but like the pokies I can resist. I'm drinking like a fish at the moment, but every night is Saturday night eh.

Dunmurry, I'm not surprised your family emigrated. Dunmurry, Craigavon, Portadown - they make Footscray or Sunshine look like Monaco :)
 
Dunmurry, I'm not surprised your family emigrated. Dunmurry, Craigavon, Portadown - they make Footscray or Sunshine look like Monaco :)
Steady on, that's not true!
 
Mar 15, 2012
8,186
23,727
Melbourne
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere, but to cap off a monumental week (including a huge trade period and the launch of the Whitten Oval development plans), as of today we are now officially free of gaming machine ownership following a handover this morning.

Congrats again to bresker on leading the charge.

 
Thanks guys. If you are reading this Peter and Ameet, I don't know if I did the right thing. But thank you so so much. It means a lot to me.

I'll send through an email
 
If anyone here is being harmed by gambling or has a family member in the throes of addiction, some blokes in NSW have set up a group called Kickin' the Punt. https://www.facebook.com/groups/596480534256952 . They're on Insta too and maybe other platforms, I only do FB.

They're earthy and blokey and they like to stir s**t up. They're taking it up to Clubs NSW.

We have a weekly zoom meeting and Allen Christiansen, ex-Geelong and Lions player, is coming in this week to talk about life in the AFL as a gambler and how hard it is to manage addiction in an industry dominated by bookmakers.

You can PM me for the link on Tuesday if you want to attend.
 
Sep 22, 2008
25,502
34,594
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
I hate gambling and the industry... the fact the racing industry was able to continue in vic through Covid is a disgrace... but the white powders you speak of are a much bigger scourge on society as a whole, I think. Shocking stuff.
Why? Think what you like of the industry but it’s still peoples livelihoods, it was shown to be able to continue safely, who are you to say it should have been shut down?
 

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