Jackies Story

I am a single mum and I have 3 children. I left Tasmania in 1988 after being married to a problem gambler for 18 years. We’d married very young because I was pregnant. I was 16 years old and he was 20. It seemed the right thing to do because I could not expect help from my parents. Being alcoholics they had their own problems and didn’t really care about us children. Because of my husbands gambling addiction I finally couldn’t take any more and I left him and our marriage to make a fresh start in Melbourne.

I’d met someone else that I trusted and had a child with him but this relationship failed also. In 1993-94 I found the pokies. I was introduced to them by work friends and I’ve got addicted very quickly. They helped me to forget my failed life and at the beginning they made me feel like a real winner. I liked that feeling. I had a very close friend who was also hooked and we would sometimes go together and spend hours at a Pokie Venue. It was very acceptable for women to go there, even on their own and I felt very safe and looked after.

The first time I played the Pokies I won $25 and it was such a wonderful feeling that I tried to get that feeling back again. So I continued to play for a number of years. It took over my life and nothing or anybody else mattered to me anymore. I started to neglect the people that I loved the most – my children in particular. My sons were in their early 20s, and my daughter was still very young, only 4 years old.

Many nights I played all night, sometimes until 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning, leaving my daughter in bed and not telling her where I was going.

In the morning I was extremely tired, and very often called in sick for work because I just couldn’t get myself to work. I had a job at St. Georges Hospital where I worked as a Kitchen assistant. If I did go to work I didn’t do my job right because I was so tired. I became very forgetful and intolerant of my work colleagues.

Money also was a major problem and I had to cut back on essentials like buying food and also everyday expenses like clothes and other social activities, just normal things that families do. We never went to the pictures or out for meals. I was incredible moody from one day to the next. My moods were completely unpredictable and I was snappy to everyone around me. I was afraid to answer phone calls because they were mainly companies and people that I owed money to.

Things got really bad and I decided to go to a GA meeting. This didn’t work for me. So I went back gambling until I heard Gabi on the radio talking about the Free Yourself Program and I was impressed. I called Gabi and started the program. 6 months later I’d stopped gambling. That was 3 ½ years ago. I am just not interested in Gambling at all and my whole attitude to life has changed.

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