My name is Niall McNamee, I'm 32 years of age and I'm from a place in County
Offaly called Rhode. When I was 17 I went to UCD. I was studying an arts degree in UCD
and I was on a sports scholarship, I was getting a grant from the government, and
I was working part-time over the weekends so financially I was fairly okay in terms
of - I had a bit of money to play around with so I used to go to the bookies
every Saturday with about 50 euros. And in the early days more often than not I won
on more occasions than I lost. And I suppose that would have planted a seed in
my head of, you know, I can...this can be a way for me to make money and I suppose
the buzz of the gambling then kind of got me into this mindset of "Well, Jesus,
I won this amount now, this larger amount, and I need to be winning this amount
all the time. I need to be earning larger amounts all the time." So as a result of that I
started to gamble in higher amounts of money and also the frequency of the bets
got more, became more frequent as well, as it used to be just a Saturday and
then that turned into a Saturday and a Sunday until eventually when I stopped in
2011 I was gambling like seven days a week basically 24 hours a day. If I wasn't
gambling 24 hours a day I was thinking about gambling 24 hours a day. Often if
I lost money I'd be going "right I'm never going back in there again" but like 20
minutes later I'd be craving that buzz again and then that would start the
process of "okay well where am I gonna get money" or" when can I, when am I
getting paid again" or "can I borrow money off somebody to go back" and either win
back the money I'd lost or just replicate that buzz and keep it going because life
outside gambling for me was very very boring and I couldn't really find joy in
like the normal mundane things so for me to go in to have a bet was... It was I suppose
my way of kind of stimulating myself on a 24-hour basis. Yeah it was,
it had a very negative impact on a lot of people I suppose. The key thing
for me when I was in addiction was I never really realized the impact it was
having on everybody else. I suppose I was so closed off with my own self and
I suppose if it was destructive gambling I was losing my money and I was hurting
myself and I was destroying my life - it didn't really have an impact, in my mind,
on anybody else. I suppose it wasn't really until I stopped gambling that I
noticed the impact it had on everyone around me. So, friends, family
and relationships over the years, team mates, all these people were suffering
either directly or indirectly from me gambling because my mood would be
very very different. There could be a lot of mood swings and say
someone could meet me in the morning time and I'd be in great
form and then they could meet me in the afternoon and I'd be a totally different person
because I would have lost money. There was a bit of an understanding out there
that people would have known that I was gambling but probably wouldn't have
known the extent of it and also, and this is a big thing with gambling addiction,
is it's very very secretive. So I could walk down the street after losing
maybe the price of a car and meet you on the street and you'd say well now how's
things and I tell you everything that's great in my life you know but I wouldn't
mention a thing about the money that I just lost, or I suppose the devastation
the gambling was causing for me. I know when I would have told my father in
2011 I suppose that was kind of the moment where I put my hands up and said
look I can't control this anymore. As I said, the weeks, it was 2011 and
a lot of... I had been gambling and I just my mood was very very bad and I was
living on my own at the time and I was very closed off from the rest of the
world. There was a lot of isolation there. But my father called down to me
host then one Monday night and it was half an hour of him probing and probing a probing
until eventually I just, you know what, hands up, this is what I'm doing said I'm
gambling, I have been for the last number of years. I can't stop it. I have no control
over myself when I'm gambling. So that was on a Monday night and then the very
next day I met a counselor from the Rutland Centre in Knocklyon called
Gerry Cooney and me and Gerry sat down read Co hotel and had a conversation about
my gambling and Gerry then brought me to my first Gamblers Anonymous meeting in Knocklyon
in the Rutland Centre that Tuesday night. The following Friday I went and had
an assessment in the Rutland Centre with one of the counselors up there. They
recommended that I go in for treatment and then the very next
Wednesday I went in for the five week program. Tough, tough few weeks in terms of, you
know, emotionally trying to deal with a lot of the wreckage that have been
caused and stuff like that and the hurt you've caused other people but it was, I
will hands up and say it's definitely the best five weeks of my life. The toughest,
but in hindsight the best five weeks of my life in terms of giving me a better
understanding of addiction and also I suppose giving me the ability now to
open my mouth and speak about things that were affecting me,
financially and emotionally, because I suppose that was where the recovery started then,
and the healing process started from there. The biggest thing for me when I
was gambling was I thought I was the only person in the world that gambled
the way I gambled. I didn't think anyone else had the same issues. It wasn't until I
told my father on that Monday night, and I went to my first Gamblers Anonymous
meeting the next night that I started to see another group of people that were the exact
same as me. Now the stories were a little bit different, the location might have
been different, maybe the sums of money were a bit
different, but ultimately the underlying theme was the exact same for me and
for them. It was similar across the board. So usually when I meet someone maybe if
I'm having a conversation or if I'm in a school I'm talking about my addiction
and someone says... you'll see someone...or someone will come up to me
afterwards and say "I'm doing the very same thing!" or if I meet someone that
maybe a family member has contacted me would you mind meeting up with somebody,
they're under pressure, and they'll start telling me this mad story about them
gambling and I know by looking at them that they're like they're waiting for me
to fall off the chair and say "oh my god I've never heard anything like that that before" but the stories
are all the same. And the sums of money don't even matter and I often say this as well
I've lost X amount of money but if I had access to ten million I would've lost
that as well. It wasn't about the money it was about
what was the bet doing for me, what was the impact it was having on my life, what
was I trying to escape from, what was the adrenaline rush I was getting from it, why
did I need that adrenaline rush. And I suppose I always bring it back to that night
when I told me father and it felt like the weight of the world
was lifted off my shoulders. Really it's an indescribable feeling
that I got that night when I told him.
And I'd always encourage someone, if its in a school or if it's a family
member or somebody - just making that commitment or being brave enough to say,
This is where I'm at. This is exactly what's going on for me.
And the person that they're telling might not have the answers at all and that's fine too.
But it opens that door for the right people to show up and in my case as I
said it was counselor and then the Rutland Centre and then that process that
followed on from that. So the person that they're telling might not necessarily have the
answers but the answers are out there. I never even heard a gambler's anonymous
until I went to me first meeting. Never even knew it existed, didn't know what it was.
And next thing here this whole new world was opened up to me. Even if
someone thinks they have a problem with gambling, they have a problem with gambling. Because
that thought hasn't come into their head you know for the fun of it.
It's there because it's having a negative impact in their life. Their life has
become some way unmanageable because their gambling. And that might mean they're
telling lies and they're being dishonest to family members, to boyfriend/girlfriend,
husband/wife whatever it might be. They could be stealing money, they could be making
up excuses, they could be minimizing it then as well, and saying now I'm only,
I've only had three bets today when I might have had six bets you know all those
things you know are I suppose signs that the person themselves know that it's the
wrong thing to be doing and that they shouldn't be doing it.
And yet something within them just can't stop them doing it. I suppose the reason I'm
here is that I can be proof that there is recovery out there for people if
they're stuck in the middle of the gambling addiction - it's not easy.
That's one thing I will say. A lot of people stop gambling
and go back gambling and reason they go back is because they don't deal with the other
stuff that's coming up emotionally. So it is, it takes a lot
of work a lot of effort but, I suppose the life that I would have now, while
it's difficult at times, it's a far cry from the life of living day to day,
not knowing, you know, what the next day is going to bring and carry around a lot
of hurt and a lot of, I suppose, and shame and guilt around things you would do to
place a bet and people that you've hurt in order to place a bet.
There definitely is a lot of difficult sides to recovery but ultimately it's you know
it's a it's a very rewarding choice I think for people.