Progression (2009) Starring Chris Sharma

Reflecting back on my time on this planet, my gambling addiction isn't something that has grown with me consistently since my early-teen years to adulthood. My addiction pretty much went from a small sapling to fully fledged tree over the course of a year. 

Before the age of 23 I had experienced times and instances of gambling throughout my life, but don't recall feeling more and more hooked each time:

- I too remember playing New Market as a 11 year old and I loved the game, my family bet using a pack of sweets. We would play a game of NM on holiday nearly every night, and I loved the competition of it.

- I also remember a ping ball type machine at our local pub at the end of the street, you would put 10p in and then fire the ball and hope it would land in the slot to win a packet of sweets. I would be given a £1 to go and play on this for a short time, whilst my family talked adult stuff.

- When we very occasionally went to visit my auntie, my older cousin would sometimes take me to play on the fruit machine whilst our family met at the local pub, I never found these machines interesting at the time and would generally just stand and watch or hit the buttons for them. I'd quickly forget about them after we left. 

- I was bought a lottery ticket when I turned 16 and had a smallish but notable win at that age, yet I still don't recall an urge to go and buy another lottery ticket following that. I took my win and the story of having got lucky on my first ever lottery ticket. I think my family probably asked me to pick the numbers for them a few times after that, but again it's not a big memory that sticks in my head. 

What I do recall is that I have always been obsessed with money and the dopamine from it. I've pretty much had a job since I was 13 years old, and the idea of having money and being able to buy nice things has constantly been something that I've found really difficult. My parents struggled financially for many years into my early teens. I was bullied on and off in primary school, and one of the things I was bullied for was not having branded clothing (e.g. wearing knock off brand trainers). One particular kid would tell others that my family were poor, and make fun of me for it. I had a pretty terrible time at primary school. 

As soon as I could earn money, I would blow this and any pocket money on items and this would make me feel good for a short amount of time and forget about whatever it was I had on my mind at that time. So, when I got to university and living away from parents, I now had access to a student loan payment and then also money from a 20ish hour part time job, and the money would constantly burn a hole in my pocket. I wanted to go and buy all the nice things, go out with my friends, go on holidays, but the income couldn't keep up with my spending. I took out credit as a means to keep up with the addiction to spending. I also had developed an eating disorder by the time I was 17 years old, binge eating & bulimia. I struggled with bulimia in silence for around 8 years. The problem, for me, with binge eating & bulimia is it came with huge overwhelming urges similar to gambling. There is a drive to find as much bad food as possible, eat all of it for comfort reasons and no control to stop, and then feel absolutely ashamed and fearful afterwards, so all that food would be brought back up again. This type of regular behaviour (3 times+ a week) contributed quite significantly to my financial state, in addition to everything else. 

Now I've left university as a young adult and I have an addiction to spending, and a really embedded eating disorder, debt from student loan and other forms of credit. My first full time job paid near enough minimum wage at the time, but I kept on outspending myself and living with a horrible eating disorder. I then made the decision to move cities, which came with much higher living expenses and my friend who I moved in with was unemployed. It was shortly after moving, and trying to make all the ends and demands meet that I discovered online bingo. I found myself added to some marketing email to join a site and get rewarded with a match of my deposit up to X amount. For three weeks or so, I played bingo regularly and had an okay win, and I instantly thought that it could be a way to support my income, pay off my existing debt and maybe even win some crazy jackpot. After the first few weeks of playing bingo and signing up to new sites, I quickly then found the online slots section. This was much quicker than playing bingo, and I wasn't up against all these other people buying bingo tickets - I was surely going to be able to win enough to do XYZ by doing this. Does anyone else even know about these sites, I've never heard anyone really talk about them before. That was the point at which my addiction went from 0 to 100 by the end of the same month. For nearly 10 years consistently after that, I couldn't stay off those sites. I took out new credit and loans to keep feeding the addiction, replaced my bulimia addiction with gambling, I just could not get enough. Constantly chasing loss after loss after loss. Paid myself out of a DMP whilst the gambling addiction had full *** over me. Self excluded site after site, but finding new ones to keep feeding the addiction. And still maintaining a belief that these awful operators were somehow going to pay out big and I could have a brand new slate and a margin of comfort to put me where I should be, had I not had such a lack of control of spending and myself for so long. But what I started to notice much more clearly 4 years ago is that part of my mind maintained those thoughts, but another part of my mind knew that as soon as I was depositing I was saying goodbye to that money and almost that I was intentionally trying to damage myself financially, mentally and physically every time I did it. I would NEVER and will NEVER let myself win whilst ever I am gambling and whilst ever I am spending.

After a GamStop registration 2 years ago, I have been fighting with my desire to put the fire out on this addiction. I've managed stints of 4-6 months during this time of not playing online slots, but because of GamStop restrictions, I found offshore operators and other ways of feeding the addiction, and the week-month of binge gambling i've been doing each time has set me back further and further and taken a piece of my wellbeing and soul each time. The worst of the worst. The pattern that has emerged for me during the last two years is: months 1-2 cold turkey abstinence; months 2-4 finding ways to gamble through buying scratch cards and lottery and raffle tickets (start with £10 one week, then £40 the next, £100 the next, £150 the next); then months 4 onwards I'm back looking for a new offshore operator or resigned up to one I previously self excluded from. 

This is the first time I haven't chosen cold turkey and complacency with no support, It's the first time I've reached 4+ months without a single bet on lottery and scratch cards, I want this to be my first, last and best progression story which doesn't end up back at gambling.