Patrick Foster

I walked upstairs.

I started getting drunk with my mates.

Didn't really think anything of it.

And that night, 500 pounds became 34,967 pounds.

Which obviously sounds like the best thing that could happen to anyone, let alone a 22-year-old living in London who liked gambling.

But actually looking back, it was obviously the worst thing that happened to me because now I just thought I was even more invincible.

You thought you knew what you were doing?

Yeah, every time I put a bet on, I thought it might happen.

When it doesn't, well, it doesn't matter.

It'll happen again.

In the short term, I don't even need 35 grand at the moment.

But actually, the worst thing about it, which I never understood, is now it became just like a drug.

Because now, if I didn't win that amount of money, it didn't give me the same feeling, same rush, the same buzz, the same hit.

I didn't tell anyone that I won 35 grand that night.

I lost it in a few weeks.

When it was gone, I wanted it back.

And that's when the spiral started to just descend into chaos because I was constantly trying to win that money back as quickly as possible.

My stakes started to increase.

And then reality set in, I started to lose.

And then everything that came with that was sort of feeling stupid, guilty, embarrassed, ashamed.