‘People believe they can turn €500 into €5,000'
With such a history of pain and pestilence, it may be fitting that the house is now the base for one of the many treatment centres dealing with a rise in gambling addiction.
Aiséirí was set up in the house outside Cahir by Sr Eileen Fahey in 1983. It has gained a reputation for providing an in-house treatment programme and an extensive aftercare facility with centres throughout the country.
“People coming here sometimes expect grey walls and dungeons,” says director Willie Collins.
“We like to provide them with a comfortable experience, a proper place in which to get well.”
While alcohol and drug abuse constitute the main problems of clients, Collins has noted a marked increase in those seeking help for gambling. About 25% of clients now deal with gambling as their primary problem.
“They can be of all ages are the rise is definitely as a direct result of the internet,” he says. “The accessibility to online sites is a major problem. People put €400 to €500 into accounts and don’t take it out because they believe they can turn it into €5,000.”
One recent client who undertook the recovering programme at Aiséirí is Pat, who comes from within Tipperary. Pat is in his early 50s and looks to be the picture of health, but when this is remarked upon, he grins and says: “You should have seen me when I was in full flow.”
He began gambling at 14 and continued for the next 35 years. At first, all his gambling experience was face to face. Poker was his game. The rise in recent decades of the Texas Hold ’Em game was like a whole, new exciting world for him. For a while.
“Yeah, then the online stuff started and that was the newest thing for me,” he says.
“I’d play poker all night, go home when the sun was coming up and go online to keep it going. You might start off at €50 for a session, but then when you get successful you start to get in heavy, and then the losses mount up and you want to get it back.
“There were times when I was playing face to face with people, and none of these people would be wealthy, and there would be €5,000 in the pot.
“But all the while, it isn’t so much the amount as what it’s doing to your brain. I was shattered by the end of it.”
He found his experience online to be particularly insidious.
“If you’re playing face to face there is some amount of skill involved, the whole psychology, the other fella’s body language, all those things that you think make you a better player.
“Online there’s none of that. Whatever skill there is in the game is taken away. I know people who play online and they wouldn’t even be capable of communicating with others at a table.”
Pat says he began living a fantasy life. Everything else was pushed to the back of his mind, while his head was full of either the next game or the last one.
“With live poker, you’d be talking about people from 35 plus on up,” he says.
“There are younger poker players who never played in a live setting. The thing is available to them 24/7. When I was online I thought I was controlling it, but that’s part of the fantasy. Lots of people start into it for a bit of fun, and then €50 flashes up on the screen and you think you’re away on a hack.
“If you’re playing somebody in China, there’s really nobody out there in any real sense. You’re doing some serious damage to yourself.”
Pat’s problem grew to the point where, for the last 18 months while he was at it, he was gambling seven nights a week. “It got such that I told my wife I had a job in a casino. I half believed that myself.”
Eventually, as his losses began to crystallise, he sought help in Aiséirí. “This place saved my life. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for what I went through here in recovery.”
Like many in the same boat, Pat experienced notions of taking his own life. Willie Collins says this is something which he has frequently encountered working with recovering compulsive gamblers.
“Up to 90% of people in that category would have thoughts that their predicament is such that suicide would be a great idea. Eventually, some actually get the courage to follow through on it,” he says.
The centre provides a 28-day residential programme. Clients are housed in double bedrooms and spend their days attending meetings, and lectures, and carving out room for reflection and resolution. Families are an integral part of the programme.
The house’s gate lodge was refurbished in recent years and now acts as a lodging post for families coming to visit. “Those who go out of here and don’t make it don’t live,” says Collins. Despite the rising prevalence of gambling-related problems, there is no specific funding from the HSE, unlike in the areas of alcohol or drug misuse.
The HSE confirmed it doesn’t provide direct funding but says those who present with gambling addictions receive the same range of treatment as those with substance abuse. However, this does not extend to referring compulsive gamblers for residential treatment.
According to Collins, the lack of funding is threatening the viability of treatment facilities at a time when addiction problems are on the increase. “We ran this place at a loss of about €200,000 last year. We could manage that, but it’s difficult to know how long we can sustain that level of losses.”
As for the programme, Pat makes a point of expressing his gratitude for encountering something which saved his life.
“When I came out of this place, it rubbed off on my family that I had got well. I’ll always be compulsive, but that compulsion won’t kick in until I take that first bet,”
For more on this special investigation, click here.
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