James, a competitive young man, he felt driven to ‘win’ against the machines, but eventually realised that was impossible. Here is his story:
"I was 18 years old, it was on my 18th birthday I went with a few friends to Star City and I remember my friend putting in $20 into a slot machine – I had no idea how to play – it was all just lights, it was like a game to me. I then pressed a few buttons and ten minutes later I had no money left in my machine. I was really confused, I had no idea what I was doing and I thought what a waste of money. It must have been a couple of weeks later and I was out partying again, being an 18 year old, fresh off the scene and started drinking and I was hanging around with a few blokes a bit older than me so they had been in the pub/club scene a bit longer and basically they started playing the pokies. So I thought, hey why not my friends are playing, we’re all drinking having a good time so I put 5, 10 bucks in just as a bit of a game, no problem in it and I had a win and I remember thinking, okay I can win at this, and that’s basically when the problem started, definitely.
I’ve got two friends at the moment who are pretty bad addicts I’d say. One of them is a compulsive liar, he just lies, lies, lies about how much money he’s got, what he’s done with his money and it makes me wonder, you know he’s 18, I’m 21, and when I was his age I wasn’t half as bad as he was, um, makes me wonder what he’s going to be like when he’s my age, so, there are a lot of people my age out there.
Yeah, what happens is you get a win and um you get a high on that win, like any other high it’s a good feeling, makes you feel like you’ve achieved something when really you’re just basically winning back your losses. But at that moment, at that time that you actually win um, nothing else really matters, nothing else is of importance at all, it’s just that moment in time, you’re there, you’ve achieved something, you’ve won and that draws you back again and again and again until finally you realise that you can’t win every time and you’re not going to win every time.
For me personally, I’m very competitive, I’ve been involved in a lot of sport. When I first started playing the pokies, for example, um I’d lose and I’d wanna win that money back because I’d wanna beat the machine. Um, that’s where the bulk of my problem started, um, just wanting to win the money back that I’d already put in. That high you get when you do win is only for a moment and then it grows worse as you get more addicted and more addicted. You start winning and thinking about all that you’ve lost and winning doesn’t seem as good any more and the depression starts because you are only winning to pay back your debts. And so the feeling of winning completely changes.
The biggest loss was about a year ago – I went out one night, just got paid, bought a packet of smokes, had a few drinks, ended up doubling my money for the night. So I had about $800 I think in my wallet at the time, I got a bit greedy, my bets started getting a bit higher and its basically all gone a couple of hours later. And I felt like crap basically, cause felt like a loser, went home, had a sob, woke up the next morning, miserable, forgot about everything. Next week lost the same amount of money, exactly the same thing happened, pretty much.
I started off winning, my bets got higher, I got greedy, it wasn’t enough and I lost everything.
For the last year it’s probably the worst it’s ever been, um in this period of time, basically been lying about a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally lie about.
I noticed I felt really bad about that, I noticed myself getting really aggressive, which isn’t in my nature or wasn’t before I had a gambling problem. I even stole from people close to me. All these things were happening. I wouldn’t think about the consequences until afterwards. But like a drug, if I got my hit, I didn’t really care. And then came the aftermath and the guilts, the bad feelings, the depression, and it just seemed like it wasn’t worth it. I came out with everything, I came out clean with the lot, I told my family what was going on in my head, that I did have a problem, I wanted to solve it, I didn’t want to end up like other people I knew that I’d seen that have ended up sort of ruining their life through this. I wanted to get help fast.
A friend of mine told me about a few places I could go to do this, to get help. My family was all for it, they respected me, they made me feel good about it. So as soon as I came out basically I seeked help and I got the help I needed.
I remember my mum saying, I was a bit shaky at the time, I think I just lost quite a lot of money [well, quite a lot of money for me, anyway] and she just sat me down at the table, she was very angry, she was trying to hide it, she was in tears because she’d had people in the past that had had the same thing happen to them and they’d sort of destroyed their lives, so she was very scared for me. And I remember talking to her and we were writing things down, sort of setting goals and yeah it was really hard but in the end sat down, had a couple of cigarettes, had a coffee with her, and it was really good in the end. She developed more of an understanding of the way I was thinking and I think she appreciated me just coming out and saying it so early. She thought it was, you know, a really big step to take. I did know about help at the time but I was just scared to take action and it wasn’t until a friend of mine told me about a certain place I could go to seek help that I decided to do it and a few weeks later I started seeing someone, seeing a counsellor and it helped me a lot.
First few weeks it wasn’t much of a difference but then I progressed and 3 or 4 weeks after that I was really back on my feet. The things that meant the most to me were definitely coming back to me again and nothing else mattered. The gambling started slipping away a bit, it was still there to an extent but it wasn’t a huge feature of my life.
My family became more important to me, I was more motivated, I wanted to get out of bed in the morning and I was a lot happier. So I’ve got a lot of thankfulness you know to give out for those people who did understand and did help me so.
Well, basically now I’ve got a steady job, a steady income, I’m a lot happier. I wake up in the morning, I want to get out of bed, I want to go to work, I’ve got a lot more to live for, I’ve got a lot more responsibility, these responsibilities I really want to fulfil. They make me feel good about myself. The gambling’s still there, however, it hasn’t taken over my life and it’s a little thing in the back of my head compared to my full brain, if you know what I mean. It’s there but it’s not there and it’s not so much of a problem any more. I can go out and have a good time without it, I don’t need it and basically, basically a lot happier. Did notice when I first quit there were a lot of other addictions that I brought up, I started to smoke a few more cigarettes than I usually would, started drinking a fair bit more, but that sort of slowed down as well now, so.
My advice to other guys my age that have a problem, if you have a problem, focus on the people around you. That’s the hardest part and once you’ve done that there’s a lot of help out there. There’s Mission Australia, there’s places like Wesley, there’s a lot of great counsellors out there that can help, G-line. These are all things that can help you and um it won’t happen over night but you will make progress over weeks and I’m living proof of that so."