This is an AI transcription, apologies for any typos.

They all fall asleep. I go to my bed and I pretend to fall asleep. So the cogs are turning in my mind as I was laying there. Because I'd remember the bit the lie that I told that day.

That first summer holiday after you finished high school is a rite of passage for so many young people. For a lot of us, it was the first time pushing off the training wheels of young life and jumping into the unknown of adulthood. It was the mid 90s. And Alan and his mates had booked two weeks of sun in Spain. He felt excited, but at the same time, he knew that he was going to struggle with this holiday.

00:35

We were all there on the box. I was there with a large zoom my friends, what could possibly go wrong? I mean, it was a boy's holiday to Michael if it's everything you ever wanted. They were all talking about how much money that they had. And, you know, Gordon had money. Robert had 3000 pesetas. Because this was pre euros, Gordon had maybe 4000 procedures. I said that I had 5000 procedures. We were set. We were locked. We were loaded about ready to go. Britpop was in full swing, we had left that other plane in the background. The bus was jumping man, I feel quite vulnerable. When I was on that bus as well. I felt quite I guess you might call it social anxiety. These days, I felt that and abundance. And I felt like there was some just offseason. And it wasn't quite me. So a lot of the stuff that was doing join in. And it was really just a bit of a mask, if I'm being completely honest now. So the lads wanted to book some jet skiing and stuff, they wanted to pack a few different pubs and when to go to things you would pay for in advance. And I wasn't really up for that, that kind of scared me. And it just moved the conversation on from that because I was going to take this holiday at the time, and just see how it went. So we've had a great night. And Michael, if we get back to the apartment, everybody's pretty much smashed Roberts line in a corner. And he snow on the way those piers are smelly socks laying all over their apartment. And everybody's pretty much over the count. They all fall asleep. I go to my bed and I pretend to fall asleep. So the cogs are tumbling in my mind as I was laying there. Because I'd remember the bit the lie that I told that day that I had 5000 PCs, when in actual fact, I had no money whatsoever. I came here for a fortnight all day with no money. So I'm laying there and the chance that that if everybody was was smashed, they were sleeping. I got up as soon as my foot on the cold tails of the apartment floor a tap toward over to the large white pew my bag that was in the corner. And I unzipped it really slowly. And I'm thinking where does it where does it It must be in here I unzip the side pocket and then it was after a to what I thought was enough that bag and then seen a pair of shorts laying on the ground I think that were robots and up to the shorts are held them up. And again I'm thinking we there's it must be here the shorts are kind of heavy, check the left pocket and often the check the right pocket. Bangle, enter go take what's main, and just leave enough. So not to be suspicious. But those shorts don't keep over to the other side that there was another pair of shorts there. Again, same thing, check the FOSS pocket. Nothing. Next pocket. Again, Bengal take out what thanks right and leave enough just to just so not to raise suspicion at that point. I've got enough. I've got enough to see me for the next day. So then go back to my bed feeling like at least I'm here for at least one more day.

So Alan, things must have been so extreme in your mind and in your life for you to have to steal from friends. How did that feel?

03:42

It felt really low. It felt like I was doing something they shouldn't be doing because deep down when you're an addict, specifically a gambling addict, you know what you're doing is wrong. But you carry on because you have to keep up that pretence. You know, I felt I felt low almost all of the times at any other time was just a mask. I was just masking the smile. I painted the smile on every single day without knowing if I was actually going to survive that day. And say that was just crushed. And that's you know that that's, I guess that is the lesson. You know, you're in that place where it's so extreme that you feel as though you have to keep up that addiction to get through the next day.

But stealing from your friends on that particular part of the trip. That was about financing the rest of your trip right as opposed to gambling

04:36

Correct? Yeah, so it was all there to to finance a truck to keep the shutter adopter to make sure that I was never discovered and also to make sure that I feel inclusive I feel included unless gang of me it's because if if that if the game was up if they'd known what was in my head where it was at that time, I would have been excluded from that grip. So I was I was stealing to finance my sort of inclusion, almost stealing to be a mate if you like, and that, you know, a second but it No, it felt absolutely awful the thing to have to do that, but it felt justified because that's illness this is where this illness can take you. Whether you're good for that you feel happy, sad or indifferent. You feel happy you feel good will come and celebrate other fields gambling you feel you feel on your ass, you know, this illness will come put its arm around you and say, Well, let me come in coming up a few hours gambling you feel better. Or if you just feel like normal, whatever that what means. It was you know, you still felt like gambling this illness was always there for me, whatever. It's simplified my life, those tiny decisions that we have to make every single day but your family about your your career, but your house, the car, but you know, shopping you have to buy. I didn't have to think about any of that. Because gambling simplified my life. It was either did you gamble today? Or do you not? And it was always inevitably, at that simplified life, suddenly, I couldn't face all of those other micro decisions that we make every other day, sort of normal human beings.

Just do what you said about fitting in because think about the lads holidays, I went on when I was younger, when I was 18, I went to mallia there was about 10 of us who went on that, and it's all about fitting in, you don't want to be different. So when you're on that minibus and Robert saying he's got a few 1000 procedures and David's saying this and you're saying I've got 5000 procedures or whatever it was, you don't want to tell them obviously that I've got no money you want to feel like I've got a similar kind of amount of money to them. And we're going to have a similar kind of trip right everyone's going to get smashed, Chase women and and whatever goes on in the sun. You don't want to be different, you're spot

06:59

on. And you know, it came as quick as a flash and you know, Robert asked me how much have you got straight up my mouth? Complete lies. And at that point, you know what at the height of excitement going this holiday? If I dropped that bombshell then you know what would have happened? You know what, that again that weight of judgement would have given and smashed me and reality. I think my mates would probably club together and see me through the holiday but that was that was now an option to me. That just worked because I needed the feeling of stealing if you like I needed to finance it myself because that we kept it kept things and I kept things to myself and I didn't need to reveal and you know you believe your own lace. I thought I wasn't that bad of a gambler. I thought well there's people out there do i do i mean they'll get through they'll get a low enough whatever. But I'm not I'm not compulsive gambler, not an addict. She's come on and I'm not an addict that's for other people lower than lower class than me I'm an addict. We talking

about when you think about gambling addicts, you think about middle aged men who are going on their lunch breaks into different bookmakers. You're not thinking about yourself as a 24 year old in Magaluf

08:19

no you don't and that's that's the thing with this this illness this addiction it can anybody is vulnerable anybody can be addicted to gambling you only need to look at Tech these days kids are glued to phones, games like Roblox and other things like that where it's almost conditioning kids you've got FIFA packs, conditioning kids to sort of risk and reward and it's there's no typical sort of gambler you're absolutely right though the stereotypical as a couple of middle aged guys standing the bookies spending too much he needs to go home for his dinner. He's messy, he's going to you know, she's going to be on the phone soon. It's it's everything

that I thought to myself as well about strategizing, was it weirdly satisfying for you to be able to do that, because that's the sort of thing that you're doing when you're when you're betting on horses and, and football, but you're doing this with your mates and with stealing money from them. That was highly

09:13

exhilarating. Was it was something that a chest and the high that I felt when I took that money, and you know, I tucked it in my own shots was almost like relief. You know, didn't really think about it anymore. And you know, the old habits die hard that all addictions day hard sorting. And even to this day, you know, I'm in recovery these days. But there was an instance last year where I got on a train and I bought a ticket. The train guard was coming through the train. The train was pulling into the station, and I got up and my mission was to was to get off that train without him seen. And it's I felt that rush. I felt that little slice of that thing. Again, I paid for it It was, you know, there was no and always would pay for a ticket. No, but it felt good. I was cheap because what I realised was I was never chasing money. I was chasing feelings. When I was gambling, that was never about money. Money was looking back now, money was way down the list of things that I was after. I was chasing feelings. I was chasing a feelings of being enough. Because when I was younger, I never felt enough and tolerant and Bootmakers my first two beats one. And at that point, I felt enough, I felt as though I had something in my life that I was good at and UBM and my ego went with that it went through the roof. And I chased those feelings, and I chased them all my life

was really interesting. And the fact that you had beginner's luck as well made it worse for you. Yeah, it

10:47

was, I was convinced that I had some sort of superpower, you know, I could predict the outcome of dog races don't come off of horse races and all those gaps that were in Malaysia up to that time, you know, emotionally, academically, physically, spiritually, when those first couple of dates when all those gaps just get levelled up, there was no gaps there were synthetically sort of made up, you know, all those voids are filled by by the gambling, and I truly felt that I was I was good enough.

Well, when you initially told me about stealing from all your friends, I didn't think I will Alan's a terrible guy. I just thought clearly he's been so taken in by the addiction that you are willing to go to those extreme measures because of the predicament that you're in.

11:34

This illness will take you to places that you you never thought I thought when I was gambling there was a little word called yet well I've not done that yet. I've not done that yet and one by one those yet just get smashed through and told there was no more yet left. I'd done like everything on my main thought I'd done everything on the scale. And I could could do but it will convince you that you're not that bad gambler, you've just not had your tongue yet. You've just not had the big one yet. You've just and I didn't even gamble for you know, you talk about the the the dream world of the compulsive gambler. I wasn't like gambling to in with dreaming of buying your son houses. I was gambling and and for the sake of gambling. I was in the bookmakers and my my feet were nailed to the floor. I couldn't move. You know, I remember being absolutely starving, where hunger does a Greg's across the road and I cannot make the trip. I just can't make the trip. You know the virtual reasons on and betanin Tom and Jerry but they're St. Catherine dogs, you know and these kind of products are made for people like me that, you know that just I would abandon two flies. Going up a wall is a truth. We all

go through this element of comparison. We compare ourselves to other people. Did you compare yourself to people who were in much more extreme scenarios and new and go oh, well, I've not done what they've done yet.

13:05

I did a new people that I seen in the bookmakers that one of the bookmakers that I began with then there was a guy in there a guy called Bobby, and he would throw pins at the screens, he would spit at the screens, he would regularly abuse stuff. And I thought you know what? That's a proper addict. He's doing it right. He's hardcore, that that's that's not me. You know, I'm nowhere near that. If I get to that stage, I'm going to try and look for some help. So I justify the ongoing addiction that I had, by that comparison that you mentioned, and by sort of measure myself against these other people. And I think the illness made me do that. Because it kept the illness live and Malaysian it kept me gambling. Yeah,

if you think about those stages, so after you leave Magaluf, you told me before we started recording that the money that you had left from financing the rest of that trip, you exchanged it for pounds, and then you started to gamble with that money when you went back to Scotland, right? So what was the journey? Like? What sort of stages did you get to, to the point where you were at your absolute worst?

14:17

So as you see a comeback from that the first thing in my mind was was using that money, not the money at that stolen back to the foreign exchange. gambled it, and I justified gambling that money by saying, You know what, I've stolen less money. So I need to get rid of it anyway. So whether I win or whether I lose, it's not my money anyway. I'll just get rid of it. And I went from the, you know, my mid 20s up to my 30s still stealing my parents. It's weird. I became a gambling addict, where they just every single week in Mormon was like, and people ask me, I say, Well, what's it like? You know, I've been asked the question before, what's it like to be a junkie? People have actually asked me that. And, you know, the best of analogy I can give you as we all have, most of us have a mobile phone these days, you know, and from the moment you get up in the morning, that phone will ping, it will vibrate, it will both it will, it will do all sorts of things. Until you go to sleep at night, we on average, we have around 200 nodes, notifications that the triangle a whole day without looking at your phone, when it buzzes or pings. Sounds easy. It's not. And that's what it was late. For me. It was like mental notifications. And my brain telling me that I had to gamble. And I couldn't turn away from it. Because again, it was all about feeling. So humans are quite simple creatures. I mean that in the best way, thought, feeling behaviour, the thought would come in, that would create the feeling. And then that would in turn would create the behaviour of going to the bookmakers. So 30 year old, I'm a habit and gambling addict. And over the next 10 years, it would just be a slow, subtle deterioration of my life. A failed suicide attempt and then as well, until I crawled in the doors of gamblers anonymous, and thought I couldn't be helped. I just thought I was different from from everybody. You know,

you said before, I'm not a gambling addicts because he's spitting at windows and he's abusing staff. You said at 30 you are gambling addict. At what point did you admit to yourself or did you realise I'm actually a gambling addict? What sort of stage were you at then?

16:29

I was drinking a little bit. And at that time, I had my own apartment and I had the job that I'd always wanted right in the middle of Glasgow. And I worked for Yellowpages which back in the day it was you know people paid loads of money to be in that big yellow book. And I found out I was good at it. That was a good salesperson I made loads up bonus so every quarter you'd regularly get a five figure bonus and they all come crashing down was I went on my lunch break and I arranged it beforehand. I went into the Halifax and lifted 14 and a half 1000 pounds and I blew the lot in Milan Shaw everything I was standing in a boot me because suited and booted and I blew the light and at that point I thought I can't do this anymore.

And you you bought the stereotype of middle aged man maybe just wearing like a football shirt or some very bog standard clothing you're in there suited and booted professional guy clearly doing well for himself.

17:31

And I've seen it so often. Especially in retail and bookmakers. I've seen guys that are near I've seen ladies only up to a bit guys that are near that might be joining us it might be taxi drivers and they were doing the same shift as me a nine to five in the bookies other guys that are sitting with it. Go that a member and when I worked for some of the companies I worked for the works laptop the works phone but going to Cash Converters halfway through the month I customers trying to call me you know, standing up bookies every single day, my boss trying to phone me, can't get ahold of me, the phone sitting in cash gonna be at us. And I'm gonna get paid, I would go and buy the stuff back out. What's even my stuff? It was the what? At that point looking back now I was way addicted way before them what I thought was. But yeah, it's an interesting one. But you

said something interesting before about you never felt like you were enough. And I've definitely gone through those stages in my life. And the more that you open up your talks about vulnerability before the more you open up about how you felt to other men, they'll then tell you something that they wouldn't have ordinarily told you if you hadn't opened up. So it's almost like, I open up and I say how I felt or had this experience and then that gives them the permission. Well, he's not going to judge me because he's just opened up about some vulnerability in his life. So that is massive. Have you had those kinds of situations where you've opened up to a friend, and then they've opened up to you about something that they were feeling.

19:03

If I had a pound for every time that has happened, I would be sitting on a beach in some faraway place. It happens constantly. I've been in taxi taxis before and the taxi driver will ask me really going see the airport. Where's it you do? And you know, I work for a fantastic company called Epic risk management movie. No, we work in that sector. And we are the world's leading gambling harm consultancy. And they ask, Oh, how did you get into that? And then I'll tell them my story. And the first thing you'll see is a gamble. But I don't gamble that much. They almost start apologising for, you know, like they maybe do gamble too much as I'm quite a talkative person though you might pick up but I can speak to anybody now on buses, on trains on planes who argue with you do tell me about your life. You know, we're not quite as blunt as that but if somebody's that's talking to me. I'm going to I'm going to ask questions. And it's happened. So many times people have just opened up on the spot of people crying, and threatening me just from opening up. And there's a great fan gamblers anonymous Alex, and it's a bit the recovery programme, someone a 12 step recovery programme, and one other set of scenes and leaders to keep up to keep your recovery, we must give it away. And given that away, it really hits home to me, you know, giving away that vulnerable vulnerability been able to share is massive. And, you know, it changed my life, the power of opening up and speaking, it changed my life massively. I you know, I don't go to gamblers anonymous these days to stop gambling a day at a time I don't get gambling or do snow. That's, you know, I'm quite conscious of that as they are Gaudium though to top my head, no sense can happen, John my week that I might not be able to speak to other meats about, but I can go there, I can put it all out in the middle of the floor. And I'll go away with the good stuff. And it's a bit like, when you put the rubbish out the weekend, you don't bring it back in the house. And that's how it works for me.

After listening to this, it's easy to think, oh, Alan's a terrible guy for stealing from his mates. But honestly, I didn't judge him because after speaking to so many men over the years with addictions, they can make you do crazy things. The sad thing about all this that I was thinking was how it alone, Alan must have felt, couldn't tell his mate some family, plotting against his friends for his own ends. It wasn't even something that helped him either. It's like, the more the addiction takes its toll on you, the less likely you are to actually reach out for help. The crazy thing as well about all this is that they're actually doing an anniversary trip back to Magaluf for their 50th birthdays. And some of his friends still don't even know what happened. I think it takes a brave man to stand up to the ills of his past life, and face up to the fact that he didn't do great things to his mates. But he was under addiction at that time. It really wasn't the real Alan smart there. It was the addiction, talking and encouraging them to do things that others would find, well, disturbing. It was like no genuine human emotion was involved. Other than the thrill and the buzz of not getting caught. There was no empathy, no feeling for others. It was just pure addiction based behaviour. Like it somehow wipes away your ability to express human emotion and feeling for yourself and for others. Maybe you're listening to this and you feel for Alan and his actions. Or maybe you're just listening to this in horror, absolutely not comprehending how you could steal from your own friends. But imagine you were in his situation. Do you think you'd be able to tell other people about your gambling addictions? Or do you feel like the shame would keep you silently suffering? If you or someone you know is struggling with any form of gambling addiction? Then please visit epic risk management.com For more information, that's epi C risk management.com