"This is a mental health problem": the devastating impact of problem gambling | Australia news

An idyllic country lifestyle of raising children on a sheep farm ended for Michaela Settle after her husband's gambling addiction ran out of control.

He finally asked for help to settle his horse racing bets, "but it was once he hit the bottom and the damage was done," she said. Guardian Australia.

Settle, now a Victorian Labor MP, said she had been slow to understand the connection between her husband's play and mental health.

"When everything exploded and we discussed it together, I said," Why did not you think of me and the kids at the ATM? "… He then stated that it was a mental health problem," said Settle.

"Is this the chicken or the egg? Are you so depressed that you started playing or had it hurt so much that it made him depressed?

Settle is now one of the many people who claim that problem gambling is treated as a public health problem. In a submission to the Royal Commission's inquiry into the state's mental health system, Settle called on GPs to play a greater role in early intervention. She wants more training for doctors and mental health workers on treatment options and ways to identify people at risk.

Physicians should ask patients what their gambling habits are, just as they would about alcohol and drug use.

Research has shown that health professionals often find it difficult to address the subject and often do not know which services to refer people to, Settle said.

"Throughout our relationship, I knew he was betting on horses," she said. "There would be critical points all along. And these critical points have worsened. I wonder if he had been examined [by a GP] could we have had an intervention earlier?

The couple ran a family farm in Ararat, west of Victoria, at the time of the crisis. Settle is also calling for stronger counseling and support services to help families with addictions, particularly in rural areas.

According to the Victoria Responsible Gaming Foundation, 39% of Victorians with a gambling problem have a diagnosed mental illness.

"A mental health problem can interfere with impulse control and decision-making in a person," said the foundation in its brief to the royal commission.

"This lack of recognition of problem gambling as a public health and mental health issue contributes to the stigma felt by those who fight gambling and undermines efforts to prevent gambling harm and deal with problem gambling."

Compulsive gambling also has a hidden death toll. Judicial data badysis of coroners from the Victorian era identified 128 problem gambling suicides between 2000 and 2012.

Business badyst Ian, from the western suburbs of Melbourne, said he had suicidal thoughts for a decade and that he had tried three times of his life before finally being able to to make a breakthrough in 2014.

His mental health began to suffer once his play caused relationship problems and major financial difficulties. He has been betting on horses since the early 1980s, but most of his losses go back to pokies once they were introduced to Victoria in the early 1990s.

The father of three had to leave home in 2007 and had accumulated $ 100,000 in credit card debt.

"I ended up being homeless and living on the street," he told the Guardian.

"I started having panic attacks, which I had never done before. My depression was serious.

In 2010, he accounted for more than a million dollars of poker losses, then continued playing for four years and lost count.

Ian has seen eight or nine counselors for many years, but most have ignored the game as a "root cause" and have tried to solve his other problems such as homelessness, depression, financial problems and relationships.

"It's a real failure I've seen in the mental health system," he said.

"It's like an octopus, they try to cut one leg, but the octopus will always be an octopus."

Three months after starting counseling with Gamblers Help, he stopped playing pokies. He is now leading a peer support program to help others control their addiction and urges the authorities to increase funding for these groups.

"It does not help to talk to family members … it's very difficult for them to understand. They will say things like "stop". If it was so easy, I would have it. It's like you're in a dryer. You continue again and again.

A 2017 research report revealed that 70% of Victorians play, 0.8% are problem gamblers and 2.8% are at moderate risk of becoming gamblers.

For some, gambling addiction stems from the need for an evening activity, especially if they are recently divorced or widowed. Pokies clubs become a refuge because it is acceptable to go there alone. Some libraries in Melbourne remained open later as an alternative in the context of a trial.

Anna Bardsley, 70, a former pokie addict, remembers the first time she went to play poker alone. She felt safe, the staff was kind to her as a woman and she stayed longer than expected.

"The machines did what they were designed for, to calm me down and install in an area," Bardsley told Guardian Australia.

She then "shredded" every ounce of self-esteem during her decade of problem gambling and lost tens of thousands of dollars. It took years of focus groups, music, art, and theater therapy to rebuild her life.

"It was a deadly spiral in an ocean of shame," said Bardsley.

She said general practitioners should ask people what they do to relax and in their free time as part of health consultations.

The Alliance for the reform of the game has submitted to the royal commission a limit of 1 dollar, a ban on cash withdrawals in poker rooms, increased power of local councils to veto new gaming sites, reduce the number pokies and reduce club hours.

A Melbourne mother has been forced to move from one state to the next after years of struggle to help her compulsive gambler son, Ben, who is also suffering from bipolar disorder.

The mother, who does not want to be named, spent a fortune in psychiatry without any addiction specialist training. She said she met "door closed one after the other" in the mental health system.

She called it "desperate battle to save our drowning child, who is fighting you as you try to get his head out of the water".

* Help to players: 1800 858 858. Other crisis support services are available 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide recall service 1300 659 467; Child helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted at 116 123 or by email at [email protected] or [email protected]. In the United States, the national suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. You will find other hotlines about suicide at the address befrienders.org.