I had spent over a decade wishing I could go back to eighteen year old me and never have walked into a club, and I couldn't do that, and I hated every moment since because of how it made me hate myself of the lack of control.

I felt in that environment that this is unique to this addiction, because it wasn't driven like I've spent so long trying to think is what is driving me?

And it was actually this feeling like I wanted to go back and to have never ever gambled, and I couldn't.

What's happening?

Thank you so much for listening to the show.

This is better than yesterday.

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Thanks for coming, see your first time here.

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Not that you out anywhere.

You're listening to this on the same phone you listen to the last one unless you've got a new one for Christmas.

Question how does a bit of harmless fun turn into a crisis?

Hiding in plain sight?

And what does the gambling industry not want you to know about the way it works, the games they design.

Not only that, How do we reclaim our lives from a system, in this case, the gambling industry system.

How do we reclaim our lives from a system which is designed to take everything from us?

We've all seen the very bright and shiny gambling ads on TV.

They come up on your phone all the time.

There's celebrities that can involved.

Shacks there, Drake's there, what could be wrong?

Come on, Punt punt.

Today's guest says, it's not harmless entertainment, it is a public health crisis hiding plain sight.

Kate Ccelgia is a national advocate for gambling reform.

She speaks from personal experience.

She had a twelve year gambling addiction that cost her more than half a million dollars, almost cost her her life.

This conversation does delve into that, so look after yourself if you need to.

Kate's now spent more than a decade fighting to change a system that profits from addiction.

In this conversation, we unpack how shame over addiction can keep a person silent for years, keep them from getting help, and why gambling harm is often invisible all the way to the point where it is catastrophic.

We're also going to have a look at how the gambling industry is designed, from grooming behaviors that start in childhood as losses disguised as wins, to ways to keep people coming back.

And then we're going to get into what real reform could actually look like lost limits, advertising bands, accountability for banks, for betting apps, and why movements like Lost Limits not Lost Lives are pushing for changes that could save families, finances and the lives of Australians.

This is a difficult conversation to hear, but it is incredibly hopeful because once you understand the system, you can clearly see why it's not a personal failure.

It's not and that's the really most powerful thing I think I got out of this.

Change is not only possible once you understand this, but well lever adere enjoy.

How are you today, I'm good?

How are you I'm good?

Thank you, Kate, it's lovely to see you again.

We met in camera at the Punter's Politics thing, which was a fundraiser to raise money for a lobbyist, which I do.

I do like the concept of that if don't know politics is he's a I guess what do you call him?

A YouTube?

He's a political commentator.

His name's Conrad and he has rightly come to the conclusion that if you want change to happen those country, what you really need is a lobbyistn't.

Yes, you can hire, you can get someone to be voted into a seat, but that's one vote eventually in the Senate or their House of Reps.

You need a lobbyist to go door to door and say, hey, how you going.

So man, I was asked Tom see it at a great night.

I met you there with one of Senator Pocock's team.

What work are you doing with David.

Well, I've been a national advocate for gambling reform for a decade and so you know, I work with him and his team on trying to further gambling reform.

It's just absolutely despicable that we are the nation experiencing the highest levels of gambling harm in the world.

Gambling harm.

It's that's impossible, mate.

People are clearly doing it responsibly, and they are and they are really thinking about what they're losing.

Yeah, all thirty two billion dollars of them.

Hey, responsible money.

That is responsible, as I always say, Like back when I was drinking on the side of the can it said drink responsible.

It's like a fucking am it's out of the ski and warming.

This is being responsible, which is and for a lot of people they might not understand.

I think it's hilarious that helps available.

At the end of the one minute long ad, people think, if they've never had a problem with addiction, oh, they're doing the right thing.

Yeah.

It's like an out on a smoking pack of cigarette packet.

It's like, oh, that's the right thing.

By the time you get to an ad, by the time you get to the label, it's way too fucking late.

Yes, you're so disregulated.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

The industry is so disregulated.

Well, as we have discovered in recent times.

I'm sure there's restaurants up in Darwin.

They have really great, really great turnover for lunches.

We'll get to that.

I've got my own history with addiction, you know, I've talked a lot about on the shows, mostly alcohol and various other pharmaceuticals.

But that was just one of the avoidant behaviors that shows up.

Avoided behaviors can take many forms, mostly things that end in ing, drinking, smoking, shopping, fucking, gambling.

All get in there to try to make the bad feelings stop, and at first they work with then they don't, and they're sold to us through whatever ads we have on our televisions or in our radios, or in our feeds, or on the jerseys of the players that we watch playing the games.

We love that it's fun, it's fun, and it's fine.

I have a flutter minimalizing words these Harma's words.

It's a flutter, it's fine, it's a multi it's fine, gonna win with my mates.

Yeah, but that's not the reality of it.

When did you first ever know what gambling was.

I remember being taken to a tab with my mum before a Melbourne Cup when I was about eleven.

I think she told me to pick some numbers.

I was like, yeah, did it?

Yes?

That was that well.

In kindergarten I was exposed to Melbourne Cup for the first time and that was the beginning of having this feeling that I need to put a bet on Melbourne Cup or orse I missing out on something.

So that grooming happened very early.

But as far as poker machines which ended up, you know, almost taking my life.

That was at eighteen with my boyfriend who had been using them for about two years before.

I want to just join him at the local RSL, and that pressing the buttons a few times and getting an early win was this gateway into a relationship with the machine that I didn't see coming at all.

So two things I just noticed.

And I'm sure you're very careful about your language, but I noticed that you used the word grooming just then, and you weren't playing the machine you're using, and it's I'm sure you're being quite deliberate about that language, but could you explain why you've chosen that way to describe it.

It's really important to frame this landscape correctly because the gambling industry has essentially controlled the narrative for seventy years in New South Wales around marketing products that are harmful and built for addiction, but making them widely accessible without consumer protections in place, and making them seem like they're just harmless fun.

And the words on the machine say play, You're not playing, you are gambling, and the fact that they are in all of our social spaces gives this perception that they are just a benign thing to engage with, but that's not the case.

They are intentionally built for addiction.

And when I finally realized that I actually used the machine exactly how it had been designed for me to use, it was such a relief because for a decade and a half I kept asking myself what's wrong with me?

And I couldn't arrive at any you know, anything that may sense.

No services that I accessed offered any insight.

The services back in the early two thousands were they really didn't exist.

It was so.

Not prioritized and it still isn't as the public health issue that it is.

New South Wales lost over eight billion dollars last year on poke machines alone.

How can a state with eight million people lose eight billion dollars on poker machines?

That's wild.

That's a thousand bucks each at least eight yeah, eight thousand million, yeah, eight billion, one thousand bucks each.

So you mentioned that it started to get using these machines, started to get caught up in a relationship.

And when you're eighteen and hormones of firing those relationships, you know, you don't talk much.

So when you do leave ours, you're going to a social space, which in you said.

I grew up in Queensland.

We didn't have pokenuntil the early nineties.

It's a tricky thing.

Pokey is are the reason we have state of origin.

But we could talk about that la.

Yeah.

So having it as a part of your relationship and your entry way to being an adult and socializing and stuff like that, it is very normalized.

But when did you start to notice that it was you were doing what other people weren't doing.

Well, I was doing what other people were doing, but nobody talked about it.

You know, there were plenty of people at that time experiencing harm same, just the same as I was, but it's so hidden.

It wasn't spoken about.

There was nobody publicly talking about gambling harm.

So I was to think, it's just me.

I don't know what's going on.

I don't know why.

Once I'm there, I can't stop accessing as much money as I can get my hands on.

And that overwhelming desire to just the next press, the next press, the next press.

It's just conditioning like no other, and in such a hijacking way that we are simply not built for as human beings one industry inside it said we built a machine that overrides human instincts.

And I just burst into tears when he said those words of truth, because when I was experiencing it, you know, the only narrative, as I said, was what's wrong with me?

A shame, I'm a piece of shit.

I can't stop I've got a problem, Yes, I've got I should be able to stop this.

I can stop other things for people who may have not who may not you know, kind of understand exactly what we're talking about.

What is the what's the habit loop and the exploits of that habit loop that these machines.

So when we talk about the way the human behavior happens, there's a habit loop.

Like I have a cup of tea in my head, I feel a thirst so there's hormones gone from whatever, go a bit thirsty, had my meds today?

Okay, here's a drink.

Feeling a bit tired, so it's black tea.

Here we go.

There's a relief, and then there's a feeling of relief which will last probably for a few minutes until our earth gets dry again.

And then I'll get the feeling and I will do that again, and there is a sense of satisfaction.

There is a build of a pretension and there a sense of satisfaction once I have you know, had the craving for the thing.

And this is how we feed ourselves.

This is how we find love, This is how we do work that's meaningful.

This is why if we've had a good workout, we'll get this feeling afterwards we go I'm tired now, but quite looking forward to tomorrow's class because I like this feeling.

But that has been hacked by the companies, the billion dollar companies that make these machines.

Can you explain how that works in the shape of a poker machine place.

It works in a couple of different ways.

So you're getting positively rewarded through sounds and lights, and that may not actually equate to winning.

So they have a built in feature called losses disguised as wins.

So say you bet five dollars and the lights and sounds will go off like you've won, but it's only two dollars, so it celebrates you losing three dollars in a way that's actually registered in your brain as a win that you know keeps you thinking okay and then there's loss near misses.

So this is where it'll have like one symbol symbol.

Ah, there's just one above or one below those occurrences because they are not actual reels going around in a machine anymore.

It's all actually an Excel spreadsheet of math have been programmed in to appear like fifty percent more than they would statistically if if there were actual reels spinning around.

But even in their most primitive state, you know, they used to be called the one arm bandit.

Do you know why they were called that?

Oh?

Because you know, it was like it had in the gun Slinger movies.

There was a person with a gun that would give me all your money, So you pull this lever and it'd set up a clockwork kind of reel and little tic tick tick tick together.

But the phrase I love best from one of the mob bosses that set up Vegas is he said, we wanted to be able to take people's money without having to stick a gun in their face.

There you go.

So you know, it's just been so deliberate and intentional.

But from you know, the consumer perspective, you walk in with hopes you might see big dollar amounts up.

You know that you could possibly win.

So it's like electronic heroin selling hope as an outcome.

It plays on a few other things that we're terrible at as humans.

One of them is understanding probabilities of any number that is quite literally really bigger than fifty.

You ask someone to really give them, give you an idea of what's one in fifty one chance this is going to happen, they will think, oh, it's probably not going to happen.

Yeah, No, it's one in fifty one chance it's going to happen.

Softy days, it's going to happen once.

People are terrible at working out ratios and odds and things like that as we go, And even though they've got the sign right there, your odds of winning max payout on this are less than it's some ratio that is just gobbledygook, doesn't make sense to antibody.

So it really plays on people's inability to do the kind of statistics that they need to make a rational choice.

Absolutely, And the way that as I said, you're getting this reward you in such high speed that the reels have sped up now to being less than three seconds a spin.

And in New South Wales and act.

You can bet ten dollars a spin, so that's over six thousand dollars in a half an hour.

You can lose I you know, it's it's so far from harmless fun, but yeah, you know, here we are, decades later trying to get reforms.

And that's why I partnered with change dot org to do lost limits not lost lives, because if someone's experiencing gambling harm, they're actually four or five times more likely to take their life than they are from any other.

Form of addiction.

Just taking a moment because we do have to pay the bills here very quickly.

If you're interested in, I don't know, taking in something that is kind of fun in the middle of all this conversation, have you one, But there's a always a fun story for you waiting at story Club.

You can find the link for the YouTube show right there in the show notes, or that's also where you can buy my book, So what now?

What?

Also back after the break is in the show notes as well.

You can jump in there and get tickets for the next story Club show, which is in February.

Come and see it's we're in Sydney.

If you can't make to the show, what's the YouTube we're back with katinasing.

What I'd love to see in Australia is legislation to decuver pull profit from addiction, because right now we have industries like the alcohol industry and the gambling industry and as a result, largely the sport industry.

And this is trust me.

I fucking love watching footy and I would hate to see what would happen to footy if all that advertising revenue went away.

Yet, the amount of profit that comes from addiction, directly from addiction in our country is repugnant and it is morally reprehensible, and we cannot call ourselves good human beings for allowing this to go on.

Like we get really upset and rightly so about other legislative things in our country that have really let us down.

We're trying really hard with ages of age verification on mobile apps, in social media and things, which is really important and really good.

And yet when you think about how much harm is being caused by these industries that are so profitable and just reap billions and billions of dollars off of misery, we're fine with it because that's oh like this, that is the guy where he rides a racehorse through his living room.

Oh I love this ad.

He's got good mates.

I wish I had mates like that.

I should get on the app.

Yeah, well, I think that we are actually not fine with it.

As you know, there is overwhelming support for an advertising band.

It's like eighty five percent of Australians don't want to see gambling ads because it's been so bombarding.

To the remaining fifteen percent on broadcast in NURL franchises.

Okay, correct, Okay, so it's just this morning.

It's only people that are actually profiting from this that are jumping up and down.

The rest of Australians are not okay with seeing their best mate lose his house, losey's wife, kill himself, you know, see his business go under go to jail.

They're the outcome that are happening like in our suburbs to people we know.

But we just haven't been putting enough pressure on the decision makers to pull the trigger on it.

And people that have got the ear of the politicians are making it seem like, you know, the sky will fall if these things come to pass.

That advertising money will go elsewhere, it will You know that that is a lot of that is a lot of money that other markets and other products could do a lot with.

Yes, I guess yeah.

There's another thing that these industries really pray on, and much like fossil fuels the way that they have cigarettes, they've done the very similar thing cigarettes that kind of started and fossil fuel industry followed, is make it the end user's fault.

It's the end users fault.

You're the reason that you're you're in a fucking holy You're the reason why you can't get back in the black by Monday because you're a shit better.

You should bed better?

What mats bad.

The other thing that we do as addicts is the number one symptom of addiction is convincing you that you don't have it, and the number two symptom is that it will defend itself.

It'll defend itself by isolating you from people that point out there might be something going on and it or protect itself at all costs by trying to justify, justify, justify, and normalized, normalized, normalized before you realize that things were really bad.

Is there a day that you look back on and I go, I just thought that was normal.

There was so much that I look back now and reflect on and just I was in existence mode.

I was not living.

I was just not okay.

But there was no answers that made any sense to how I went from being a normal eighteen year old to all of a sudden just not being able to be in a social environment without being drawn to a machine.

It absolutely blindsides people in a way that is unparalleled.

Let me give you an example what I'm asking about.

Often talk about this when I'm on stage and talking about mental health in the workplace and stuff about avoidant behavior and how normalized it can feel.

And that when I was still drinking and using at one point in an afternoon on a Tuesday, for example, by two thirdy the afternoon, I'll be day drinking in my house.

I was fancy.

I had two monitors in two thousand and six, and so on this.

You know, I'm gambling two separate I'm played two separate incidet poker tournaments, gabbing away hundreds of US dollars an hour because it's not cash, it's just those noises.

And on this one, just like increasingly reprehensible porn, just feverishly masturbating and just for hours and that if you call me, so what are you doing, I'm saying it out home because that was just Tuesday.

It wasn't I didn't feel disgusting.

I didn't feel horrible.

It's just, oh, got a couple hours, that's what I'm just after lunch.

What I'm gonna do.

I don't know what I'm gonna do.

That's what I'll do.

That was just, it was just it.

It wasn't like a I can't wait.

It wasn't weird.

It wasn't odd.

And after that I would go across the street to the tire takeaway shop and grab a pad tie and then you know, watch DVD, go to bed.

That was just it.

It was completely fine.

I didn't think anything of it.

Yeah, but I look back now and go that, yes, sometimes it be like ten straight hours and there's a lord of sawble In and Europine required like, but that's what it was.

Yeah, Yeah, I didn't think.

Anything of it.

I think walking out of a club like I couldn't even tell you how many times.

But on the worst day, I accessed twelve thousand dollars straight out of our mortgage, just going straight out the front, going to the bank, coming back in nobody said anything.

And do you know I was trying to win ten thousand dollars?

Like that's how you It doesn't make any sense.

Hang on, so you're at a pokey and why did you get this thing in the head that I got to win ten thousand dollars today?

Because the number at the top was about to click over to ten thousand, and so I just decided that that's what I'm going to win.

And so I start, you know, you start with one hundred.

Okay, that's gone in like ten presses, so okay, go access ATMs, can't access any more cash out of the ATMs in the venue, I'll go across the road to the bank just withdraw crack cash over the counter, you know, six thousand dollars in and it's clicked over to the ten and it hasn't paid it.

And I was like, what do I do here?

You know, like I've got to keep going to try and get that money back.

So I keep going out, come back in, keep feeding.

Anyone at the bank saying anything to you.

No one, no one's anyone.

At the venue saying anything to you.

Zero, absolutely aside from would you luck another drink?

Not a word, nothing, and I sat there after I'd finished the twelve it's still on ten thousand now and five dollars, you know.

And I that day I ran out of time, not out of money.

I had to go, Oh my god.

And it was so hard to leave knowing that someone could just walk in and sit down and take what I would call at that time my money, my money, my money, that's my money, that's my money.

Yeah, how like?

And so then you've got to run out of table to leave.

And what's the next thing that shows up?

It is that you know, it's, oh my god, I'm deleting all of those follos on my computer.

I'm disgusting.

It's I'm burning the bank statements.

And no one I could see it.

I had to talk myself out and not driving into a tree wow on the way home.

It was hands down one of the worst days of my life.

You have a family at this point, I have five five keys at this point, my god, And is your partner aware of what's going on?

He knew at times?

You know, it's the invisible addiction.

You can't smell it on somebody's breath, you can't see it in the way that they walk.

It's just something that you think you've you've got a hold of, you know, like you'll have these periods where you won't gamble and I can do this, but without unlocking that shame, and that shame is put there, as you said, it's on the label.

Gambled responsibly.

It's your fault.

It's weaponized shame, and it's so despicable in the way that, as I said, I it was after I almost took my life that I arrived at Hold on a minute, I actually used the machine exactly how it was designed.

I didn't there was nothing wrong.

I am the ideal customer, not the exception to the rule.

I am who they hope walks in and sits down and plows twelve grand to win ten, but walks out with none, Like, how is that legal?

How is that legal?

There's shame involved, but it's not on the end user.

It's on up until you're pushing that button from that machine back.

There's an entire, entire just ladder of accountability of humans who have gone yes yes, yes, yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

There is where the shame belongs.

Yes, not upon you sitting in that stool.

But that's the way that we have seen it, and I think we're starting as a society understand that these things are well beyond because we all I have the experience of like I can't put my fucking phone down.

Yes, I can't put my phone down, or you can't put your phone out, because the smartest psychologists in the world and the most powerful algorithms ever have figured out exactly how to keep you there as long as they need to correct.

And unless you put a physical barrier between you and it, like literally putting it in another room, you're going to be unable to not do it because you are You are a biological organism that has needs and wants form another sip of my tea for example, Yes it's good, and you can't ever write it conditioning you operately conditioned precisely when what does treatment look like?

I mean this is you can't As you mentioned, you can't just stop.

And as someone who's tried to stop drinking a few times, I tried to stop a bunch of times, couldn't do it by myself.

It wasn't until I realized, and it wasn't until I started working on the reasons that I was doing it, that I was able to stay not doing it.

If I just tried to stop doing it, I can only do that for six weeks at a time.

Maybe that was that, and then I was banged uck to water back into it.

It wasn'tuntil I started to work on the reasons, like it is avoided behavior.

Looking at what the addiction is a response to is kind of where you have to start, isn't it Definitely?

But you have to help liberate a person from shame.

That's not theirs, And that's where you know, sometimes when people access services like the therapists will be like digging away trying to find some trauma.

You know, if you look hard enough, you'll find trauma in everybody's life.

But gambling harm is a unique addiction as far as the experience of gambling can create trauma that you know, I think is unique in this space.

When you are absolutely blindsided by an engagement with a product that you perceived as harm less.

You know, like if I walked up to you and said you're going to have to do that bag of coke or you know, you would know that that is going to cause you harm.

But if something's like this is just this is just a plaything, This is just a toy.

This is just fun.

Games for growing up.

Yes, then you don't see it as the threat that it is to your well being.

So that's really key to unlocking that and putting shame where it belongs, as you said, on the creators of these products and those in positions of power who have not only just enabled it, but they've facilitated the growth of this industry.

Up until last year, the industry could claim tax payer money to do research and development on new ways of exploiting people.

Fantastic, How that's lobbying.

How fantastic, that's a lobby that's a win.

That's a lobbying win.

Let's go, let's go have a n and ninety eight dollars lunch.

Yep, that's bloody good.

I mean, it's just so wild.

I didn't understand any of this.

Of course when I'm experiencing it, I'm just thinking, well, it's me, it's me.

I'm absolutely screwed.

And the thing that people so let's just take a step back onto it.

When you were trying to stop by yourself before you got treatment.

A lot of people don't understand about addiction that the addict knows how bad it is.

The addict is well aware of how much damage they're causing.

It is, however, the best option they've got, because if they don't do it, the pain and discomfort is just catastrophic.

What were the days like when you were white knuckling, when you were trying to stop without any help?

Yet it was so many meally overwhelming.

I was either stressed out about how I'm going to pay bills or just absolutely guilt ridden about what had happened.

The first time I called Lifeline in two thousand and three, I got told, just don't wear shoes.

If you don't wear shoes, you won't be able to get into a venue, so you won't be able to gamble.

And I was like, what, look.

I like what they're talking about.

At least it's an end.

And I said, if I was addicted to drugs, there would be a rehab, Like why where can I go?

I need a rehab?

That's I just could recognize that I needed to not be in that environment anymore.

I needed to be surrounded by support.

And they go, oh, no, there's no rehabs for gambling.

That's not true.

And if there was, they'd be for men.

That's what I was told in two thousand and three.

Well, I doubt that was true at the time.

I'm sorry you got told that, because I know there's rehabits around longer than that, but it was not very well known, so they were probably operating on the best knowledge they had.

I was horrified, horrified, And to this day there isn't a residential rehab in Canberra for gambling.

Fuck mete, that is so gnarly, that is so so gnarly.

So here we are and I'm calling in New South Wales at that time in two thousand and three, nothing, no rehab, nothing.

Oh man.

And then when I did, years later reach out for help a second time, they had a face to face counselor opposite a club.

Look, I understand that the probably the best sobriety meeting that I went to ever that got me really really sober was in a bar the middle of the day and it was actually pretty good.

It was actually really really good, to be honest.

But the bar wasn't open upstairs.

The downstairs one was, so you'd have to walk through an open bar to get to this meeting.

It was actually it was actually a good exercise.

But the opposite across the road from a When you say club, you mean you're talking like a league's club, which would ever really had in Brisbane.

It's a place that has a license to sell booze and also run these machines.

Yes, and like in the hundreds.

Yeah, this is why when you see player salaries for footballers they are in the multimillions, because I love football, I really do.

And the money that they get paid is probably gambling profits.

Yeah yeah, but so sit.

There is another way of doing it, and there are other advertisers that could fill in the gap.

But what they don't want to give up is the fact that they actually get a cut of how much people lose on games as well.

Like, that's so despicable and predatory that you're willing to, like just absolutely ignore the harm for the sake of your bottom line.

What did it help eventually look like for you?

The morning after I almost took my life in twenty twelve, my husband drove me to see a new counselor and I remember being in the car thinking I'll go and see this counselor.

I had no hope at that point left in me.

The only reason I'm talking to you right now was I was pregnant with our six child, and I couldn't figure out how to take my life and not harm her.

And so my plan was go to to counseling until the baby's born, and then all check out.

Back at it, Yeah, get back at it.

And what was it that?

I mean, that's a I can understand that because it was when I met Audrey and Georgia.

I now had a different reason to do the work.

And I think the other five kids weren't a great reason.

You know, they're a great reason, but it's an opportunity to have a slightly fresher look at what's happening here.

What was it?

It wasn't that I didn't It was that I didn't feel worthy of them.

I had convinced myself that they'd be better off without me.

Oh man.

And that's the you know, we talk about the gambler's fallacy, which is what you were stuck in chasing that ten thousand, But that's the other great fallacy that our brain tricks on us when we're in those really dark moments.

I've been there.

I was like, everyone will be better off, but that's actually not true at all.

You think about it, think about the funerals you've been to everyone's fucked.

It's terrible.

No, they're not better off with that too, it's really bad.

And then they play the Jeff Buckley song and it gets really sad.

It's horrible, It's terrible.

That's why I fight so hard for people who have still stuck there, because too many people in Australia are losing their lives.

This is unparalleled public health crisis that we are willfully ignoring in favor of a few people earning billions of dollars.

What was it about that rounder treatment that worked or started to work for you?

She said to me, what do you like about you?

And boy did that hit me between the eyes at that point.

And I couldn't come up with an answer.

And she said, come on, you need to tell me ten things.

And I said, well, can I list my children individually?

You know, like there's half the list.

She said, no, it has to be something that you like about you.

Ah, And I was like radio.

But that made me connect to compliments that people had actually paid me that I'd never let you know in because I thought, yeah, but if you really knew me, you wouldn't say that.

So anytime somebody said, gee, you're a great mum, or you know, your husband's so lucky to have you, Or you're a beautiful friend, you're very hospitable, you're you know, such a caring person, you're so generous.

None of that I believed was true of me.

But I thought, maybe people do know me.

Maybe I just don't know me.

That's the trick, isn't it.

We have these ideas and what we what we think of ourselves, but they're based on an incomplete set of information.

As my friend Charlie once said to me, he said, you don't understand.

You've never been in a room before you walk into it.

You don't know what you don't know what effects you have on other people.

So if it doesn't fit with how you feel about yourself, you can write it all off.

There's me talking all.

If I feel about myself doesn't fit with what people are telling me, I can write it off as like all you're lying.

I legitimately believe that they gave me the Australian Idol job as a favor I was.

I had such low self esteemed crazy, low self esteem crazy.

It took me years to go oh no, hang on.

This is a multi multi million dollar television format and they're not going to roll the dice on it.

Unknown factor.

They gave it to me, well, one of the two jobs they gave to me because I was the best option they had.

Oh, don't forget that.

So whatever, the other brain shadow goes, oh yeah, but you repeat that in a second.

I'm going to trust those people because they have shareholders at stake, so I'm going to trust them over me, and I'll just go with that for now.

And that's when things started to shift.

It's when you start to go, I might just go with that idea for now because it's a bit better than one I've got.

Yes, And that's where like that phrase know thyself, you know crept In and I googled it and I was like, who said that?

Where did that come from?

And it was Socrates and so great and he the one of his quotes that I just love was people make themselves appear ridiculous when they try to know obscure things before they know themselves.

That's true.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I have spent my whole life learning all of these obscure things about the world and neglected me right and didn't know anything about myself.

But I also didn't know anything about the environment that I walked into as an eighteen year old, and that fired up curiosity.

Oh, once your dope mean system gets this regulator, that's the reward chemical.

There's a fantastic book I've talked about here before.

It's called The Molecule of More.

It's very very clever book.

Dopamine is basically anything that I can reach, isn't dope mean anything that's out of my reach.

Dope means involved, Like if I want to go over and adjust that monitor, dope mean it plays a role in me giving a shit enough to stand up and go over and do it, and that's it.

We get rewarded then with the you know, the Fieldberg chemicals after that, and then we go we go around write that once a dope me system gets this regulated and you start wanting more and more and more of this thing, your ability to actually make a rational choice no longer plays a part.

And that's I think what people don't really understand about addiction is that it's no, it's not rational.

It's not.

But there has been a dysregulation in the way the neural pathways are wired up, and even the smartest person cannot outthink their way from it.

What are the practical ways that you start to keep yourself safe when you're still on your training wheels of trying not to use again?

Because I think about I'll give you an example.

I got told.

Well, so the first thing that happens is, well, I can't go out with those guys anymore because those guys are really only in my life to drink and use.

So I won't call those people who also have in my life.

So, oh, that's right, nobody gives My life has just become okay.

Right, Well now I'm a bit lonely.

I'm sober and lonely.

I'm boring.

Ah, it's a bit sad, It's okay.

So I went to these meetings.

I knew people to talk to, people that align with me, and there's nice new bank, new social scene, lovely, So that was number one.

Things like meeting somebody for brunch, all right, sometimes people will cave a glass or to a brunch, but then I can just go Yeah, I never meet anyone for dinner, and if I still do it to this day.

When I check it out hotel, I'm nearly sixteen years I make sure they get the mini bar out of the room.

And so these are small things that I use use, these small things that I do in place, I put in place just to just just kind of bolster up, you know, make things a little safer.

Not that I'm not going to start to drink or use again, I'm not, but it's it's just less cognitive load.

I don't have to think about it.

It's being intentional.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What are the things that when you're first starting to avoid those places you went to and things that they tell gambling addicts to to put around themselves to keep themselves a bit safer?

Well, I call them people experiencing gambling harm, not a gambling addicts, but I feel that that's a game just giving the industry a free kick.

You know, they gambling, They created the addiction.

It's addiction by design.

This is true.

Nobody you know, that's an interesting people.

Okay, so what is it the people experiencing gambling harm like yourself?

Yes, what are things they put in place to keep themselves safe?

In the early days, it's really important that there is free financial counseling, you know, so just getting somebody to help support you financially navigate that world.

That's become very disregulated, and they do that, as I said, for free, for as long as you need.

And they can really step in as advocates for you to you know, negotiate debt settlements or you know, just make that less overwhelming.

At this point, I'm pretty sure what you're doing is the way that I used to do is kind of stuff, which is, go from the letterbox to the recycling bin.

See, I don't need to worry about these unpaid bills if I just put them straight in the blue bin.

Yes, that's fine.

Yeah, eventually a bloke turns up.

That's when it gets tricky.

Correct, But that's literally what I would do.

Yeah, absolutely, So they are just absolute angels and a really vital part of support.

The way I describe it to people is if you broke your arm, no one would expect that your arm would heal all by itself.

You would go into a hospital, they would put plaster around it, and you would need to be supported for a period of time.

So you have to think about it like that and using intentional tools like the way the industry frames self exclusion is you are the problem.

You can't control yourself in this environment.

You need to be excluded.

And that is basically how they you know, put that like kind of final nail in the coffin for people to make them feel like they are now socially excluded from a place where often they're being treated like a VIP up until they ran out of money.

And so I frame self exclusion as an empowered choice that you are taking to protect your well being, not you can't go there anymore, Like no, you need to recognize that this is an unsafe environment period, not just for you, for everybody, you know, Like, it isn't okay that we've allowed these places to be you know, mega casinos.

What was someone who wat say, Oh, it's you know, Grandma's birthday, were taking down to Sharky's.

Yeah, Like.

I'm not going to be there.

Yeah it's okay, I'll catch with grandma later.

Yeah, you know, it's not You're making an empowered choice, not one from a place of you know, there's something wrong with you.

Just like if you discovered your gluten intolerant, you don't you just go, Okay, I'm going to decide not to have gluten anymore because it doesn't do anything positive for my body.

I still I'm Cellia.

I still miss our like I really do, but I'm not going to eat because I want stomach cancer.

Correct, Yeah, like you're making an empowered choice.

What about the And this was the thing that was a bit difficult for me to deal with.

When I first started getting healthy, I was experienced.

I went through some periods of hypermatic states.

There's a period of what's called herdonic recall where you remember, Ah, that awesome man, that was amazing that you never forget how and for anybody that's had gastro on a trip to Thailand or lost the luggage or whatever, they will forget all of that.

They just tell you about that sunset that they saw, Yes, and it was unbelievable at the temple, it was incredible.

They won't tell you that they know shout through the eye of a needle and never saw the outside of the hotel in four straight days.

Right, It's called hordonic recall.

So yeah, and the world, because it wasn't that abnormal super super high, started to feel a bit boring.

But I struggled with that.

But I had to remind myself that's completely unsustainable.

And when I'm in those states, I say and do things that are dangerous for me and people around me, and I can't allow myself to get a bout that.

Yes, it's exciting, but so I was driving one hundred and eighty through a school line right, Oh my gosh.

Absolutely, your brain will always try and you know, go back to that pathway because it's you know, been reinforced often for decades with gambling harm because it's invisible and no one knows, but it does.

The way I frame it for people is it doesn't matter how long, how much time and space you have away from it.

This machine is built to addict you.

It's going to have the same outcome.

And it's not that you're broken, it's that it will do exactly what it's been designed to do.

And unfortunately, with people experiencing like betting like online, they'll get calls from VP managers offering you know, incentives to come back.

Even if you self exclude online, they'll they'll go, hey, we haven't seen you in a while, how about you, you know, reactivate your account like they are predators period.

That is so nuh so, what does life begin to look like once you get you know, you've got six kids boy this stage, and I'm guessing now hours of your day back, what does life start to look like?

Well, I wasn't ever expecting to be an advocate.

I promise you that.

It just sort of happened.

I was going along to a smart Recovery meeting on a Monday night.

Which is AA without the God part.

Yeah yep.

And then they with the service provider got switched out for another and I was furious.

I was like, what the fuck, Like, you don't even respect our continuity of care, Like you haven't even stopped the landscape from happening, and you just think our care is interchangeable.

And it just fired me up, like to just recognize how broken this actual system is.

And then there was this opportunity to be trained to be a lived experience speaker, and that felt like the most empowering thing for me to do.

At that point, I had almost let shame put me in the ground, and I thought, nah, I'm going to completely be okay with the fact that people know that I struggled with gambling, because if it happened to me, it was happening to others and enough's enough.

And that was just this beginning of I trained to take over that group.

Then every Monday night I'm sitting there waiting for people whose lives had already imploded to walk through the door, and I thought, nah, I gotta go back upstream and try and stop it from happening.

How do you talk to your kids about the way mum was then and the way mom is now.

With honesty and transparency.

You know, I have apologized for the way that I wasn't able to show up as the mum that I wanted to be in those moments of being so overwhelmed and so stressed out about money and what I'd done.

But I knew if I stayed in that place of hating myself, it would never bring about positive outcomes for their life.

And so you know, I said, I'm going to try and forgive myself.

Is that something that we can move forward with as a family?

And they were like, of course, like they didn't even they weren't aware really, other than my husband and I fighting about money from time to time, they didn't know what I was dealing with until after I went public with it.

The addiction, like we mentioned before, is an avoidant behavior, and it's something that can show up when there's something else going on that's too hard to deal with.

Did you ever?

Did you When did you start to work on the thing that was getting that was the like?

When did you start to work on the like?

I said, I was only able to keep sober once I started to work on the things, the reasons that I was drinking what I was drinking away.

Then I was able to stay sober once I sorted those things out.

And I don't worry.

It's not lifelong thing.

I keep sorting them as I which is nice.

When did you start to understand that this is a reaction to something.

My addiction is reaction to something.

If it was in yours case it was poke machines, it could have been something else.

What was life like when you started to work on that.

The reaction it was to self loathing and shame.

And understand that existed before the gambling.

That existed because of the gambling.

Oh wow, that like.

I had spent over a decade wishing I could go back to eighteen year old me and never have walked into a club.

And I couldn't.

I couldn't do that, and I hated every moment since because of how it made me hate myself, of the lack of control I felt in that environment, that that's as I said, like, this is unique to this addiction because it's it wasn't driven like I spent so long trying to think what is what is driving me?

And it was actually this feeling like I wanted to go back and to have never ever gambled, and I couldn't change that.

And I thought that I'd dis counted, like my ability to ever live a normal life, Like I thought that that pathway's gone now.

I burnt that years ago.

So the cycle looks like I've you know, done a couple of grand I feel terrible that I've done a couple of grand This is awful.

I hate myself.

I can't stand this.

I'm a horrible piece of shit.

This I hate.

I need some relief from this horrible feeling.

I know what I'll do.

Remember that time you pushed the button and you won this much, That can happen again.

That can happen, Amy bang ah relief.

But from the moment after that first lap, it's back.

Yes.

And it's the same with alcohol and any other drinking or any other using it's the same.

That with gambling.

It represents hope.

Oh don't get me wrong, Everything's always going to be better.

Once I start having a beer, Yes, I love a things go so much better one to have this beer, all right, and that first sip, man, everything starts getting better straight away and they're within a matter of hours.

Everything is terrible, probably more terrible than it was before you open the first one.

It, you know, and it would often says that, like the best way to get rid of the terrible feelings of all that drinking and using is more drinking and using.

That's it.

But that's it.

It's it creates its own cycle, yeah, which is is reprehensible.

What what needs to happen?

I mean, but you add that layer then of like nobody's like the bottlow isn't coming and knocking on your door.

That's the thing.

Well, Jimmy does bring.

They do deliver, but they don't come for you and tap on that, you know.

And this is a thing like with a drug lock alcohol, there is a there is a certain dosage which will kill you.

All right.

I can walk down the street to the bottle and for less than twenty bucks, I could buy enough alcohol to kill me.

And I'm an eighty kilogram man.

For twenty dollars, I can I will like an overdose all right, but you can't test a pillo at a festival.

Yet with something like mobile app gaming, you can within less than forty five minutes do your entire net worth at two in the morning, with nobody going hey, bro, you okay?

Yeah, And that is so terrifying for someone who doesn't realize what a pun intended is at stake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I spoke to a guy the other day who talks about it publicly, and he he still hadn't joined the dots about how he was actually being groomed.

In his addiction.

He'd taken on this, you know, personal responsibility mantra of you know, I did this, I did this, I did this, And I was like, yeah, when when you're in it, were you getting calls from a VP manager?

And he goes yeah, And I was like okay.

And then when you did have breaks and you pulled back, what happened?

He goes, yeah, Actually I was getting texts and getting offered bets, and I'm like, so, even though you were trying to be responsible, you were getting preyed upon.

And he was just like, oh my gosh.

I hadn't ever realized that because you're so conditioned to in this personal responsibility model that, as I said, takes people to their grave, and that's their intention.

They use people to extinction.

Oh I knew a guy that worked at one of the apps.

I won't say the name of the app.

Well I knew him, and I said, so I was on in front of he goes, Oh I'd use it.

No way, I never use it all right, So even the people that work there, it's like that you know documentary also about the Instagram and Mata and all that.

Yeah, my kids touch it.

No, even the people who work are like, no way, I'm not touching it exactly.

That's like all the club bosses wouldn't have their family and their love nor money, you know.

Like that's the reality is they know what they're doing and they do it intentionally.

We're talking billions of dollars.

And if there's one thing we know about power in our democracy is that when power and money collide, it's very difficult to change the rules because billions of dollars is billions of dollars no matter which way you slice it, people are going to be reluctant to give up their free cash fountain.

So what has to change in our country?

What does it need to start.

I mean, I know no gambling anywhere that could happen, but I don't know how if we have to be realistic, what what is it?

What is what is a change that people might go, oh, that's way too much, but you think is like probably a feasible first step.

I've been in gambling reform for a decade.

I've not been in gambling prohibition.

Like that's that's not something you know.

All we're asking for is for it to be reasonable, and there isn't any appetite for it because the industry is always at the table.

You know, we didn't sit down with big Tobacco and go, so we're going to actually stop smoking in public places because it's a public health crisis.

What do you think about that?

But that's what we do in gambling.

Guess what they're there at the table going, look, you know, no, we couldn't be sustainable if and it's like, oh, they're claiming hardship.

They claim hardship.

That's why they're allowed to open till two three am in the morning.

They've claimed hardship.

Amazing, what would they know about hardship?

So what do you think what needs to what's the first steps we need to take here.

That's why, you know, get on and leave your story, your lived experience on the change dot org petition lost limits not lost lives.

And he told me about what a lost limit is.

We're putting forward the public health model that was put forward.

It was almost got stood up in Tasmania.

It's just been shelved at the moment, not destroyed.

But one hundred dollars a day, five hundred a month, five thousand a year is what public health experts agree is a reasonable parameters to build on poke machines.

When as I said right now, you can lose six thousand dollars in a half an hour.

So a loss them it means that.

And I'm guessing this s means you can't put cash in it anymore.

So it would be a card of some description.

Yes, and that's linked to you and in your pop and slapstaps happening, that's your hundred for the day.

No matter where you go in the state.

You will not then be able to play.

Sorry, you will not be able to use again.

Yes, And how much was it a month?

Five hundred a month?

Ye?

Okay, So if you go back that week and then you're blowing it.

So for three weeks you can't go back, and then five thousand a year.

That's a lot of money.

Five thousand is a lot of money.

But if you say you could do you know, six and a half an hour, they're probably not a lot.

And so that's not saying don't have a punt.

There's just Pokey's.

This is not even talking about taking multis of Singapore and badminton or anything like that.

Yeah, that's just a start.

It needs national regulation.

You know, I wish this was just one product in one environment, but it's not.

It's multiple products across multiple environments.

And the blurring of gaming and gambling, like pretty much every kid's app now has some level of gamblification, either overt or covert.

It's the stuff I teach in schools, highlighting the grooming that is happening in children to point them towards being future users, you know, once they hit eighteen, and you know that's so called Australian right of passage to go have a drink and a slap.

You know, it's like what culture have we been sold as a normal way of being?

And that's something you know, I think deserves a little attention.

So that's a lost limits on poker machines, But what about mobile gaming?

What about that sort of thing?

Oh, this is something we've been arguing with AKMA.

I mean, what's the Australian Media Communications Authority Australian Communications.

Yes, correct, you put it in the right order.

So that's the federal body that looks after is claiming to be policing the online gambling space.

What that looks like is they play whack a mole with gambling companies that pop up here.

Because we're open for business, we're already primed for addiction because of all the grooming that we've had, and so they'll get an alert from the customer saying I've just lost six hundred grand on this lotto Mania whatever it's called.

They'll put a doo block and stop that site.

Guess what, it pops up two seconds later, sends out an email to their customers, Oh, sorry for the inconvenience, here's your new login and some free credits.

So that's basically the system we have in place at the moment.

So what needs to happen there when it comes to.

Looking at other countries that have actually blocked gambling online for their you know it can be done.

There's just has anyone done it and then pulled it back because it feels like.

America repealed their gambling laws.

And then they put it back in no, no, no.

That they're experiencing an absolute wave of gambling harm.

That they made a decision in twenty eighteen to pull back on outlawing online gambling.

Because they had they did outlaw online gambling.

I remember it because this was the internet, Pokelon.

I used to play it, and that I could have played any that was good for me because I couldn't do it anymore and it wasn't legal in Australia at that point.

That was nice.

So they pulled it back and it was about I think it was about ten years and now it's back.

So it is a little like to take it almost feels like if you were to say, we're going to can every mobile gambling appen to be like, and we're also going to de electrify the cities, like we've just become so accustomed to having these things and televisions in our hands as a part of going out.

But surely that there's got to be some way to have a similar kind of lost limit thing with these with these other.

Yeah, and that has to be in cooperation with banks, you know, like right now, the banks are part of the problem, right One of my clients, she was offered by one of the big banks I will not name and shame on.

Air, but there's four no.

Five increases to a personal loan in a month, charging her two hundred and fifty dollars a pop from six thousand dollars to thirty four thousand dollars, knowing she was gambling using that.

So going straight from the personal line to a gambling company, the BSB account details B pay whatever.

They're offering the increase to her five in a month because there's so many little players, and do you know what they're asking their there's an actual line they ask customers, are you going to use this for gambling?

Of course not.

So they can say, well, you can't come back at us because we asked you if you were going to use it for gambling.

Do they not see where the money then goes?

They of course know exactly where it's going.

This is the predatory landscape that we find ourselves in in Australia because we are so profoundly unprotected as consumer.

So maybe is the solution not going for the gambling apps, but this is a solution going at the banks, going this is the limit of any deposits to any kind of gambling business.

This is a whole of system.

We need a holistic approach to this, right.

You know, the way it has been set up is you know, the industry will go, oh, look there's something right and shining over there.

We'll do this, we'll tinker over here, or we'll distract you with this and everyone.

You know it's split between state powers or too federal ministers or you know, it's so complex again by design, but there is solutions and other countries have implemented safeguards and actually put the well being of their you know, people that live there as a top priority.

When it comes to gamble losses and the harm of gambling.

In Australia, we often just see the big numbers and they're terrifying numbers.

What is the overall public health cost once you factor in things like lost productivity, you know, health care costs, TV, you know, lost houses, all that kind of stuff.

The study that was done in Victoria extrapolated that four times the loss losses equals the social harm.

So if Australia is losing thirty two billion dollars in losses.

Your times out by four.

One hundred and twenty eight billion dollars cost to US as a tax payer society, as a social cost, the social harm and that includes you know, hospital admissions and you know police intervention and justice systems and you know kids getting taken away, all that kind of stuff.

A woman I advocate with she said when she was incarcerated, seventy five percent of the female population was there from gambling related Huh, just let.

That sink in magnificent.

It's up there, isn't it.

It's reeficks, the cognitive dissonance between once profit gets involved, the cognitive dissonance between actual factual science.

You know, a line that's extrapolated directly from a human harm between for example, fossil fuel use and profit and this it's just so obviously there.

And yet what is what happens in decision makers heads that goes, yeah, but like, do you have some sort of blind trust that's sending all four of your kids to some mad public school a private school and you know you're just going to go skiing an aspen and no one's gonna ask where the money came.

Like, what what is happening?

Yeah, to figure this out.

It's why you know, I'm asked to speak in workplaces, schools, you know, universities because people are experiencing harm and right now there's no nothing that makes sense that helps people make sense of why nothing is being done.

So, you know, empowering people to be able to see the landscape for what it is and make empowered choices, liberating people from shame that wasn't theirs is vital and helping to illuminate actual support systems that you know, don't don't feel bad if you need to seek help for what's happening to you, because that's exactly how it was designed for you to experience.

Yeah, it's not your fault, and if you feel powerless about it, the powerful thing you can do is to seek help.

And there is plenty of help, yes, but it's not going to go away.

And recognizing that you can no longer stop it yourself, it's probably a really it's okay to have that, to notice that because it's designed that you can't stop it yourself.

They built a system that overpowers human instincts.

That's what you've got to remember.

It's not just harmless fun.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

The change that tradition is called.

Hashtag loss limits, not lost lives.

It's a groom hashtag, but it does.

It does what it says in the box.

You know, thanks for coming in.

You made it Yes, both holistically and today.

I know it's good to have you here.

And yeah, if you if you need any help, if there's any I can do, don't hesitate the people that are empowering p obviously behind this.

Who are some other people down a camera that are working out in this.

Wilkie legris Bender, Kate Cheney.

There's so many people acting in integrity and it's disappointing when our leader isn't.

Helping the people that are trying to help.

Is a good place to start as well, if aside from sticking your name on a petition, it's having a look and seeing what people are talking about and try to fight a different narrative to the one that's being fed by vested interest vested interests.

Thanks, thanks for coming in.

No thank you.

It's been a while since I deleted the last betting up off my phone, but I got to tell you I'm glad I did.

If you recognize anything in that conversation that sunds familiar, you'll be grateful to know that help is available.

Help is free, and help us everywhere.

And the first step is to get beyond the shame.

You've got to get beyond the shame because it's designed, as you've just heard, designed to not let you get out of it.

Kat's doing some great work pushing for reform.

We can read more about that at Thehope Project now dot com.

I'll put the details in the show notes.

If this show is useful to you, if it was helpful for you, please share it with somebody like subscribe, follow, rate, review, do all those things.

These things actually help us more than buying the stuff we advertise, even though it does help us well.

But please, thanks for being a part of it.

Thank you so much for listening.

I'll put some gambling help in the show notes as well.

Thanks to Damian for producing the show.

I'll see you back here on Monday.