Over the past few months I’ve been working with the charity Betknowmore UK, presenting a podcast called ‘New Beginnings’.

The podcast explores the way gambling addiction affects women and some of the inequalities within recovery spaces.

Before I agreed to be involved with New Beginnings I knew quite a lot about addiction – I did a bulk of my mental health training in a private clinic which specialised in food, alcohol and other drug dependencies. I have also spoken openly about my own experience of bulimia nervosa, which spanned through my late teens and twenties. Bulimia is closely correlated with addiction and when I hear people in recovery speaking about alcohol and other drugs there are usually numerous parallels with my own journey.

I had never knowingly met anyone addicted to gambling, however. If I thought about who it might affect I pictured a white man, post-retirement, spending his days in the darkness of a high street betting shop. That is certainly the stereotype.

The gambling industry, however, takes many guises. It has infiltrated the online space and social media. It is often presented as inherently social – giggly, girly, the behavioural equivalent of a bottle of rosé. One can see how this would have been especially alluring during the COVID lockdowns – a way to alleviate tedium and feel part of a community.

It is little surprise, then, that over recent years the number of women experiencing harms as a result of gambling has skyrocketed. According to the charity GambleAware, a million women here in the UK are at risk. The true number could be higher than this, since the issue is shrouded in shame and stigma.

Whilst presenting New Beginnings, I spoke to women whose lives had been turned upside down by gambling. It made me question my assumptions and reassess what I believed gambling addiction to be.

For example, one contributor told me she would put a week’s wages – about £500 – into a slot machine, knowing the maximum jackpot she could win was a tenth of that – £50. For her, it wasn’t about the ‘win’, it was that gambling put her in a sort of trance, allowing her to forget everything else going on in her life.

Another woman told me how isolated she felt as a young mum. None of her friends had children at the same time as she did. Her social life disappeared overnight. Gambling gave her the illusion of connection.

Several spoke about gambling as a family activity being one of their earliest memories, whether it was getting a ‘scratchie’ inside their Christmas card or trips to the arcade during seaside holidays.

New Beginnings put gambling properly on my radar. I suddenly noticed how it is absolutely everywhere. Television, social media, bus stops, billboards, behind the till in the corner shop. It seemed to me that it would be impossible to exist in the world as a recovering gambling addict and not be constantly triggered.

Some of the details I heard about recovery services and how they are often designed in a way that discriminates against women also shocked me. My inner activist, never far from the surface, came roaring forth at several points.

The first four episodes of New Beginnings are already out and there’s a further four which will be released weekly, every Thursday.

To mark International Women’s Day on Saturday 8 March, we have recorded a special episode, featuring special guests and questions from our listeners. This bonus episode looks at the unique challenges women face in recovery, and how through the power of community women are empowered to Accelerate Action into Recovery from gambling harms. 

You can listen to the podcast on all leading platforms, including Amazon, Apple and Spotify, or watch it on the Betknowmore UK YouTube channel here.

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