Moving on from gambling addiction. The importance of love and support.

Patrick Chester started gambling in his late 20s. It was something he grew up with and it was portrayed as something that was commonplace. Initially it was a fun activity, something he did with his with friends. He was in his early 30’s when he got married to Erica in 2006 and it was after this that his gambling led him to start making bad choices, hide things from Erica and lie to cover up his gambling.

Over the first nine years of their marriage there was a slow progression of the lies and deception. Patrick was working for himself as a contractor and he started using the money he made and also borrowed more money to feed his gambling habit. In 2015 Erica’s family found out what was going on and got involved by arranging an intervention with a moderator. Patrick then went into treatment for a month and shortly afterwards had to go to jail for some crimes he had committed to feed his addiction.

Erica feels she has learned a lot the last six years. She had no idea gambling was an addiction and was not willing to give up when she learned how sick Patrick was and how he wanted to get better. She couldn't throw the towel in knowing it was addiction that was causing him to be sick and not reckless behaviour.

Often it is not just the addict who carries guilt or shame. It is only recently that Erica learnt to let go of a lot of this – should she have asked more questions, investigated more or not believed his stories. When they first met they had a lot of things in common - sports and the outdoors and she had no reason not to trust him. When she found out about the gambling she felt duped and angry but when she looked back she realised there were some missed red flags – some times her debit card didn’t work but Patrick would always have a reason for it and she believed him. The problem would be fixed but should she have demanded proof or better answers?

Patrick never came clean with Erica, rather he sent an email to another family member. Erica had a call from her Dad saying he needed to see her urgently because he had found out that Patrick had a really bad gambling addiction, they weren’t sure how bad it was but they were leaving now and meeting an interventionist. Erica had no control over anything as everything she knew came from a third party.

Her family put an intervention in place in 24 hours and the family met with the interventionist the day prior to the intervention. Erica doesn’t remember very much about it. She was in complete shock and very emotional. The interventionist explained about addictions, what it does to the body and brain and what would happen the next day. They all had to write a letter to Patrick saying that if you don't choose this lifeline, there is no place for you. It was a massive ultimatum. When he arrived Patrick realised what was going to happen. Once he got over his initial reaction he felt a huge sense of relief that things where coming to a head – he was ready for it.

Erica is indebted to her family. It was very surreal with everyone coming together. They were angry but they put that to one side and focused on fixing Patrick even without knowing the full extent of the problem. The focus was ‘lets get this figured out and get him fixed’. Once he had gone into treatment everything started to come out which for Erica was terrifying. She didn’t know the extent of what Patrick had done and he had used her social security number for fraudulent purposes and she was left to deal with everything. All her family were involved along with three different lawyers but it still took weeks to sort things out.

It has taken a very long time for Erica to forgive Patrick. Through counselling, Gam anon and researching the subject she managed to separate the person from the addiction – the person she married was not the person who did those things – but there was so much anger and hurt sometimes she thought it was all too difficult.

In the beginning she was very vigilant and almost paranoid but the more Patrick showed he was on the right path the more trust there was. They improved their communication style and she took charge of all their finances. Now she thinks that Patrick has done so many good things through his recovery that there is too much to risk. Patrick felt that the first couple of years were very difficult and frustrating at times but if he took a step back he realised that he had a chance to regain Erica’s trust. Now he feels they have built trust and transparency in life.

Erica feels that Gam anon was really helpful. She needed to know she was not the only one and relate to people going through the same things. This along with the specialist addiction therapist she worked with formed the basis of the team she built around her. She feels the most important ways of supporting someone with a gambling addiction is to educate yourself, don’t give up, to surround yourself with people who love and support you and not to make judgments. Patrick feels that when someone is in a gambling frenzy the most important thing is to tell someone that you are struggling - the disease will progress and won’t go away on its own. You need help and talking about it is the first step.

He also recommends that anyone who feels they has a problem gets in touch with Gamblers Anonymous and the National Suicide Prevention line in US or the Samaritans in UK.

You may also be able to access help in the UK at https://www.okrehab.org/

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Erica and Patrick here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.