Patrick Foster

And of course, then things sort of started to kind of happen that meant my relationship with gambling again changed, although that was my intention.

I had...

Some relationship issues that I found very difficult to come to terms with.

I...

I had some problems at work.

I was in a very serious accident.

And my problem was always, I never ever talked about problems or addressed them.

And I guess the thing with any addiction, when you're faced with difficulty, challenge, adversity, you run away and you escape to what weirdly feels to you like a safe place, which other people don't understand.

But actually it was the most dangerous place I could be because essentially when I was gambling,

if I was drunk, if I was using, I didn't have to engage with reality.

I didn't have to think about anything else, connect to my emotions.

And that too became addictive and I started to rely on it.

And that spiral just continues and things just got worse and worse.

Yeah, I mean, I was so good at hiding it.

Like I was genuinely like a master of disguise.

And because I continued to be really high functioning, I was very well thought of as a teacher.

People liked me, they respected me.

People thought, well, you can't have that big a problem, but...

It would be mad for me to say that no one started to spot signs.

I mean, from a financial point of view, I started to have to reach out to my parents for money at times.