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The Beast

Last updated: 4 September 2024

For many, Gambling is a way to escape. It's way to cope through trauma, past and present. This is a story comes from someone who knows joys that escape brings, but the burden it can become.


I have always called it the Beast.  Lurking in the shadows waiting with an iron will of patience until you have that dollar again.  Never letting you go, you are always in its grasp…until you are not anymore. 

I wanted to tell my story because I believe it is one many people will relate to.  Those people will come from all walks of life, they will be old and young, they will be male and female, rich and poor, but they will share one thing in common, they will all be slaves to its pull. 

Gambling started for me as a way to escape some things in my life I wasn’t ready to deal with.  The problem is I didn’t know that at the time, nor did I know that the gambling would become bigger and more damaging than any of the traumas I was running from.  Being able to escape into the dark narrow room with the blinking lights, 17 other people desperately hoping that jackpot would go off on their machine.  Inside that room we were all the same, none of the things which normally separate us in life mattered in there.  The room made us equals.  

I used to love going to the pokie lounge, looking forward to it with anticipation and excitement. Yet once I had lost it all and more, I would vow never to go back again…until the following payday when it started all over again.  

Covid 19 changed the game for many pokie players as they discovered online casinos.  This is when it got really bad for me, you could sit on the couch with your family around you watching a family movie and no one needed to know what you were really doing, like a silent assassin, watching it drain your bank account and continuing to plough more in with hope fading you would be able to pay the bills that week.  

I used to love going to the pokie lounge, looking forward to it with anticipation and excitement. Yet once I had lost it all and more, I would vow never to go back again…until the following payday when it started all over again. 

We talk so much in society about cheating and the deceit that goes with it.  The covert nature of online gambling is cheating, and it can seep into every part of your life including your bedroom.  I tried so hard to work out why gambling had such a hold one me.  I like to drink alcohol but I can stop just like that and I have never smoked.  But the Beast was something different, it had a lure which common sense would not understand.  A level of excitement in the hope of that big win.  

For me, the desire to stop came gradually, being tired of being broke all the time yet earning really good money.  The worst part came when I started to borrow off family, and lie about why I needed the money. My partner left me to manage the finances and because the fridge was always full and there never seemed to be issues with the bills, they never asked any questions and I was free to spend it all. 

I started to notice I was borrowing more and more and yet spending thousands to win a few hundred.  I would say to myself, I could have those thousands in my bank account if I didn’t gamble and I always wanted that one last play.  I ended up borrowing a lot of money off my adult children and I felt really guilty about it.  They worked hard and I was financially starting to impact their lives.  

I made the decision to tell them everything.  In doing so, I told my partner and then reached out for help with PGF.  Sharing the problem made it real and it weakened the Beast’s hold on me.  It is has been a journey and one I am still on. I am still playing the pokies on occasion however the extensive amount of online gambling is now a thing of the past.  

Online gambling made an already hidden addiction even more hidden and what scares me the most is how easy it will be for our children to start, given gaming is such an insidious part of modern life.  Gaming will likely become the gateway to online gambling for many, given they are already enticed to buy trinkets, weapons and add Ons etc.  People will always find a way around rules and regulations.  What I believe would really help is arming entities like banks to reach out to their customers without prejudice and offer them ways to protect their money with judgement.  Even offer incentives if they don’t gamble it all away.  

Online gambling made an already hidden addiction even more hidden and what scares me the most is how easy it will be for our children to start, given gaming is such an insidious part of modern life.

I guess at the end of the day, as hard as it is to admit, the gambling should not be the focus, it should be finding out what you are escaping from.  Unpacking the trauma and trying to find other things that create a feel good vibe.  I have started to find other things I am really excited about to fill up my time so I don’t gamble and have realised how much I have missed out on.  If I could say one thing to someone in the grip of the Beast it would be this - how the Beast makes you feel isn’t real, and like all make believe worlds, it will come crashing down.  You have to believe you will find joy in other things, you will have to go through the pain of withdrawal like any other addiction but the positive is, you will have the money to rebuild your life and the Beast will hold you no more.

If you feel you have your own beast causing you issue, call us today or click the 'get help now' button.

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