West Belfast teens hear from those whose addiction had them ‘gambling with their lives’ – Belfast Live

A charity is hoping to prevent teenagers from becoming hooked on gambling by bringing them the stories of people who have lived through the addiction experience.

Gambling With Lives has been working with the Lagmore Youth Project for the past three weeks, trying to prepare them to make informed choices about gambling products they may be confronted with.

The program finished on Monday night, with a specially commissioned film and a talk from a local man who is recovering from his own gambling addiction.

Read more: West Belfast man's mission to educate young people about dangers of gambling addiction

Declan said he had been through extreme periods of gambling in his life but was in recovery now and determined to help others getting hooked the way he was.

At one point, he had lost 30,000 in just days, saying that he would have bet anything between 100 and 1,000 on any race, such was the hold his addiction had on him.

He said: "I started gambling when I was around 16, I started gambling when I was in school.

"Of course it started small and gradually it gets a lot worse and more out of control.

"Throughout the years, throughout the gambling, it took its toll on me.

"I started to lose a lot of money and I was completely invested and addiction completely took over my life.

"I'm now in recovery, I haven't had a bet in 1,005 days, so things are going well.

"Of course I always have to keep my guard up as well, just so I don't slip down that path again because it's very easily done.

"It's been amazing to be honest to be able to share my story and I think if I can even help one of the kids out there, it'll be absolutely brilliant."

The young people involved in the program told Belfast Live they had found it useful and an eye-opener.

"Even if you're just playing bingo once a week, just to know everything that can happen," Saorse Hannaway said.

"I just think it's better to know it now, so that obviously when you get older you know and you're more aware and understand the consequences that go along with gambling."

"I think it was really educational," Caoimhe Denver added .

"I think it taught us a lot about the dangers of it, to be cautious of it and if there's anyone that has this addiction, to tell them to get the help and offer them the help that's needed."

Aron Hughes is a youth support worker with the Lagmore Youth Project and said the program's message was something that resonated with the local community.

"I think especially here in West Belfast, it is a prevalent issue, a lot of people don't see that - it may be a very underlying issue, but it is present, it is there," he said.

"A lot of these people in this room might have had family members or friends who have had issues with gambling.

"Being able to have this awareness-raising, being able for them ones to engage with this organisation, to understand what this can do, allows them to go and spread that word with their other friends, with their peers, so that the awareness is constantly like a ripple effect.

"With that hopefully, maybe it can help save someone's life or it can help prevent one of these young people from going down that route of spending money they don't need to spend, or getting into that bad habit cycle."

Barry Fennell is the Program Manager for Gambling With lives in Northern Ireland and said they focus on challenging the young people to think about potential harms.

He said they provided information on the types of gambling products young people might see and how they might trigger addictive behaviour.

"There's a lot of focus around drugs and alcohol awareness, we feel as an organisation that this (gambling awareness) is important as well.

"For me, it's very much about allowing and providing the opportunity for young people to unpack all of this information and I think that's the most important thing as well.

"We're very keen to have that lived experience voice and input, I do feel that young people can relate to that lived experience or story, whatever you want to call it.

"I do think that Declan's input and there's another guy I work with, I think that input is invaluable to what we're doing.

"Our approach would be 'we will give you as much information as we can and we hope that further down the line you can make a decision that's based on an informed choice.'"

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If you or someone you know would like help with a gambling problem, Gambling With Lives has resources here.

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West Belfast teens hear from those whose addiction had them 'gambling with their lives' - Belfast Live