Andy Gallie became a gambler at just nine years old when he won his first slot machine jackpot. What started out as a “harmless” game of Donkey Kong (a slot machine found in UK arcades back in the 80s and 90s) quickly became a decades long gambling addiction for Andy. He continued to play slot machines at the arcade after school for the next few years until one day the school headmaster contacted Andy’s mum about it.

Andy recalls: “By age thirteen, she had actually called Gambler’s Anonymous to try to stage an intervention or ask for support.”

Unfortunately, the help wasn’t forthcoming, and Andy’s gambling addiction continued to escalate. He started working at a job in a hotel after school which gave him money to further his gambling habit. When he was in his late teens, Andy started working at the bar in the hotel and that was when he committed fraud for the first time to feed his addiction.

In the mid-1990s, cash registers were not the sophisticated electronic devices that they are today, and Andy found a way to cash up a round of drinks as zero and effectively pocket the actual bill amount. It started as a single round of drinks but soon increased to about UK300 pounds ($375) a night to put towards his gambling habit.

Access to more money just meant more gambling. Andy spent all day in the arcades playing slot machines when he should have been in college. Then he went to work at the hotel in the evening. He says, “I [was] angry I had to go to work or angry that I’d lost everything…by the time I was reaching that age I was raging.”

On an impulse, at the age of eighteen, he decided to join the navy. He admits it was “very impulsive” and adds “When you look at that kind of behavior, everything in my life was impulsive.” In a few short months, he was employed in the navy.

From Navy to Marriage

Andy reflects on the early years of his life through to when he started recovery three years ago and admits that his “whole life has just been lies.”

He had agreed to get married around the same time as he joined the Navy. There was additional pressure and stress to complete his Navy training due to his marriage. In the place where they socialized, he found a “real atmosphere of fun.” He thought, “I’ve found my people.” But it only escalated his gambling even more because there were 30 to 40 slot machines in place.

To feed his constant urge for gambling, Andy continued to gamble throughout the day, even when he was supposed to be working. “There were problems even in those early days. I would sneak out of the office to go and play the machines. I would say that I was delivering something down to one of the ships and that would take me about two hours to do a ten-minute trip.” He continues: “People were already aware and a little concerned but didn’t know how to approach it. That’s part of the problem, the stigma around it, the worry around it.”

By the age of twenty-three, Andy was married, had two children, and lived in married quarters which were heavily subsidized financially. This left quite a bit of disposable income. But he wasn’t paying the bills or paying off debt with that money. He was gambling.

Family Life

Andy talks about the harm that this has had on his home life and his family. “I was effectively a domestic abuser for twenty or twenty-five years…that is very much the reality of what gambling harms are for a partner. The financial abuse, the emotional abuse.” Physical abuse would come later.

The conflicting moods of a gambler who is up one minute and down the next is extremely confusing for the gambler’s family. He expands, “One day we’ve got UK2000 pounds [$2,500]. The following day you can’t even afford milk and nappies [diapers] for the baby. How do you live with somebody like that?”

Andy also talks about the “legacy harms” that his gambling has had on his children all these years later. He feels that his eldest daughter suffered with self-confidence issues due to his gambling. His youngest daughter witnessed the most of his domestic abuse and financial abuse and has been left “very damaged by it.” However, Andy feels that his relationship with his son is now growing.

Andy admits that “The biggest loss in my life is the missed time with my children. The ability to have a normal family life is completely lost forever.”

Thoughts of Suicide

At twenty-seven years old Andy had three children when he won UK127,000 pounds ($158,500) on a virtual slot machine. As Andy puts it, “Life was sorted.” He thought he could pay off all their debts, buy not one but two married quarters, have vacations and buy cars. The only problem was that he couldn’t tell his wife straightaway as she had threatened to end their marriage if he gambled again.

So, he went to bed and decided that he would tell her the next day that he’d bought a lottery ticket and won “as the lottery is very acceptable. It’s not dangerous. It’s safe.” But Andy couldn’t sleep and got up again at midnight. By 3am he’d gambled away all of his winnings and everything they had had in their bank account.

Andy had grown up with a “normalization around suicide” as his mother had had suicide idealization when he was a child. He says, “It’s always been a case of when, and not if, for me. Suicide is the way I am going to go. It’s just a matter of what year and what age I get to.”

He despaired, “I couldn’t take another day gambling and had got to that point in my life.” This was his first suicide attempt. “I didn’t know where to turn. I felt physically sick. I wasn’t able to talk to my wife about it, I wasn’t able to talk to family about it because of the issues.”

When asked what was troubling him at work, Andy answered honestly. Gambling. However, he said that they failed to see the seriousness of it and said, “Well, you need to stop then.” When he explained further that it was a problem and an addiction, the advice he got was “You need to keep that to yourself because otherwise you’ll be discharged for financial irresponsibility.”

The result was that Andy made sure that his gambling problem was kept even more hidden. He admits that he was committing fraud all the way through his naval career to feed his addiction.

Leaving the Navy

The extent of Andy’s gambling addiction meant that he missed out on a commissioned officer promotion. Drinking and gambling one evening in the ship’s mess, while the ship was in Antarctica, led to a confrontation with an officer. He was disciplined, lost the promotion and given a fine. When the ship was sailing back from Antarctica it endured a flooded engine room where it was touch-and-go for the whole crew for a while. Andy decided that this was the time to change his life around.

He left the navy and started working at a Rugby Club, becoming general manager.

Prison

However, Andy hadn’t changed his way of thinking or his habits. He continued to gamble at the bookmakers during the day (when his wife thought he was at work) and worked at the Rugby Club in the evening. The abuse continued at home.

Not long after his marriage ended but he immediately went into another relationship in what was to become his second marriage. Andy says that he managed to hide his gambling habit at first, but it wasn’t long before the same toxic cycle began again. He deflected any accusations of gambling with counter accusations of infidelity. “It was the best way to get them off the subject to purely protect my one true love which was gambling.”

“It’s an ongoing life-long change.” Regarding the damage his gambling has had on those around him he ends with: “Even when it’s better, those harms are still visible.”He then moved from Cornwall (where he had grown up) to London. But a change of location wasn’t enough to escape his habit. While working in a job at Buckingham Palace, he couldn’t wait to leave to go down to the bookmakers to place a bet. By now he was gambling 24/7, using his phone at work, and travelling to and from work, while he placed bets online. Eventually he was convicted of fraud to the amount of UK47600 ($59,400) for funding his lifestyle.

Andy escaped with a two-year suspended sentence. He reflects, “I would always advocate for a judge to understand and to give leniency for someone with a gambling addiction, but we also need to feel the consequences.” He was straight back to gambling and with it the end of his second marriage. He moved back to Cornwall with his youngest daughter, found another job where he was eventually able to commit fraud again and was back to gambling, lying, and he had a new partner. The same toxic patterns were repeated yet again.

This time Andy went into counselling with his partner and for nine weeks he didn’t drink, there was no abuse at home, and he says that he managed to “think clearly” when gambling, falsely believing that he had it “under control.”

After nine weeks, Andy had his first drink which ended up in an assault charge and prison. He got belligerent with a taxi driver, his partner intervened, and he ended up assaulting her. “That will probably always remain my lowest point ever. Never did I think that I would raise my hands to anybody.”

Andy stopped drinking that night. And when he was in prison, he asked for help with his gambling problem. But he was told that it was a secondary addiction and that they only dealt with substances. Andy believed that alcohol was his secondary addiction (not gambling) and said that they were only interested in addressing alcohol issues because it was a factor in the domestic assault charge. His despair in being unable to fight this mindset led him to his second attempt at suicide.

After that, Andy decided to help himself and took a distance learning addiction counselling skills course while in prison. He also read every self-help book that he could find. He convinced himself that he wasn’t gambling as he was only spending the equivalent of a few dollars on his habit in prison. When he was released seventeen months later, he thought that he was “fixed.”

Breaking Point

Others weren’t so convinced, and he struggled to get a job. Even though he took his addiction counselling studies further, he was unable to secure a job in the area due to his domestic assault charge. Eventually, he secured a job as a farm secretary. Within five months he’d committed fraud of UK198,00 pounds ($247,000) due to the need to continue gambling. Andy was waiting every day to get caught. But it never happened.

Eventually, he confessed everything to his partner. Andy planned to tell his family as well, while formulating his third suicide attempt. His family, instead of turning him away, surprised him by stating they understood and that “We just need you to get some help.”

He drove home and resolved to go to Gordon Moody Residential Rehab Center where he spent fourteen weeks residential rehab for his gambling addiction. “He [the therapist] could spot an addict a mile off, he could spot lies before I even said them, and he called me out on it.” Andy attributed this to the fact that his therapist had “lived experience.”

Life Today

Andy went on to use his own lived experience in the work that he does today. He started volunteering. He worked for a company that used lived experience to provide treatment providers with recommendations for areas of improvement. He now delivers training through Beacon Counselling Trust Armed Forces Gambling Support Network Program, “Battling the Odds,” available to armed forces veterans, their families, and anybody connected to the armed forces. He facilitates a peer school group and is involved in criminal justice system work.

Andy’s lived experience has led him to be invited to talk at Exeter Cathedral next year at the High Sheriff for Devon’s inauguration. A former independent monitoring board employee, the soon-to-be high sheriff took an interest in Andy’s gambling issues while he was in prison.

Andy has also published a book, HMS to HMP: 33 Years of Gambling Addiction. It started as a personal reflective memoir which he wrote while in prison. Originally meant for his own use, he was encouraged to publish it by family and friends who read it.

In closing, Andy stressed the importance of the “power of peer support” and “lived experience.” He reiterates that “It’s an ongoing life-long change.” Regarding the damage his gambling has had on those around him he ends with: “Even when it’s better, those harms are still visible.”

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Sharon Chapman is a published author and editor with over fifteen years’ experience. She is the published author of Authentic Aromatherapy (New York: Skyhorse Publishing) and editor in chief for the NAHA Aromatherapy Journal and The Phoenix Spirit. She is also a writing coach. Learn more about her freelance writing, editing, and publishing services.