From £40k gambling debt to hope and recovery

A recovering gambling addict has shared her story of hope.

Rachel, 41, from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, told the BBC how she reached “breaking point” after hiding her addiction from friends and family for years.

She eventually opened up to loved ones about her struggles and they supported her in trying to overcome her addiction. Rachel subsequently started a business reselling clothes to pay back her debts. She now helps others struggling with addiction to see a “way out”.

Broken

Rachel explained how, in 2020 during Covid, she was increasingly using gambling sites to boost her mood. She would claim that she was sending texts when she was actually “putting money into the bingo sites”. Hiding it was easy, she said, as “We’re always on our phones”.

She continued: “You don’t realise you’ve become so addicted until you’re in it and you always try to convince yourself that you’re not.”

Four years later, she had maxed out multiple credit cards and was struggling to keep up with the repayments: “I was just completely broken as a person.”

In recovery

After she confessed her situation to her family, she said “My children were there and they listened to it and they were like ‘you can do this mam’. I think that’s what gave me more fire in the belly to know that these children are literally backing me now.”

Rachel blocked her access to gambling sites and turned her hobby of reselling clothes online into a job. She went on TikTok to further promote her business while being open about her struggles.

She shared: “I wouldn’t say I’m ever recovered because I’m not. But I always think to myself, ‘remember your story, remember what you’ve done’.”

Addictive

Pollsters More in Common have found that 62 per cent of respondents to its survey believe gambling is very or somewhat harmful, and one in five reported that someone close to them had been affected by problem gambling.

It reported that Britons considered online gambling to be the most harmful, “as it is too accessible, too easy to hide from those trying to help you, and too addictive”. It noted particular worries “about the speed at which people can bet – and lose – their money online” with 53 per cent in support of “slowing the speed of online slots or roulette to reduce harm and addictiveness”.

Writing a foreword to the report, Sir Iain Duncan Smith hailed its findings as “a powerful account of the British Public’s attitudes towards the gambling sector”.

It shows, he continued, “that tougher regulation of the gambling sector would not only be uncontroversial but would carry strong public support from voters across the political spectrum”.