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 Casinoslots South Africa.
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, teammates, 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.
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