Brendan talks to Pat Sheedy, gambling addict and convicted conman about his book A Hundred to One: A Hundred Convictions, One Million Euro, the True Story of a Compulsive Gambler. Listen back above.
Pat Sheedy spoke to Brendan O'Connor about his gambling addiction, the impact it's had on his family and the people he conned to fuel his compulsive gambling.
Pat lays bare his lifelong struggle with the disease of gambling addiction; how he spent years avoiding gambling only to relapse and serve time in prison. Pat has written a book about his life A Hundred to One: A Hundred Convictions, One Million Euro, the True Story of a Compulsive Gambler.
Sheedy recalls his first big win at the bookies. He was 15 years old and he picked four horses at random in an accumulator bet. All four horses won, at odds of a hundred to one. Pat says he was treated like a hero by his fellow gamblers:
"I was being hoisted up in the air. There was roars and shouts and screams."
Looking back, Pat says this early win set him on a path of self-deception which lasted for decades:
"You become totally deluded. I became completely deluded, in so far as I started to believe that I knew what I was doing. I started to believe that I could read form; I believed I could understand sports in a way that I'd be able to; I genuinely believed for a long time that I wasn’t going to lose with any bet I put on."
Story after story in Pat's book details the money, bank cards and cheques he stole, the bailouts he got from family, the loans taken out under false pretences and the conning of total strangers - all of which went to service his gambling addiction. Pat says he is owning up to the harm he caused:
"It’s despicable. There’s no other way of describing it."
Over the years Pat was treated for gambling addiction and part of the treatment was to hear directly from loved ones how his behaviour affected their lives.
He says his mother didn't hold back, she took the opportunity to tell him how she and his father felt about people calling their house constantly looking for money owed to them. Pat says he moved into legitimate employment for a time, but even when he wasn't gambling, he says he was still in the grip of the addiction:
"I was still behaving in a way that was kind of addictive behaviour, if you can understand. Like a dry drunk, I suppose. Like an alcoholic that is behaving like an alcoholic without taking the drink. I was still had all the desires to be something, to be a Flash Harry, to be the man that can get this, get that, get the other thing."
After a 12 year break from gambling, Pat relapsed and began betting again. At the time, he says he didn't appreciate just how hard it would be to stay away; and he was tripped up by his own complacency.
He thought he had beaten his addiction, but it had just been growing inside him:
"I remember being told that an addiction grows in you and it keeps growing in you, no matter how long you are around."
The savings he built up over years of a successful career in sales were gone in a matter of months. Pat slipped back into his old habits to find money and he says he always knew that he would end up in prison:
"It was a day that I knew was coming for the bones of 30 years. One way or the other, I knew I was always going to end up there. You can’t live your life the way I lived mine and you can’t behave the way I behaved without expecting it."
Pat began writing his book A Hundred to One: A Hundred Convictions, One Million Euro, the True Story of a Compulsive Gambler when he was in prison. He was released last August.
Brendan asked him how sure can he be that he will never offend again? Pat says he’s not sure at all:
"I’m not. And that’s being perfectly honest with you. I did it twice where I said I’ve got this thing beaten. I will never say never again. I just can’t do it."
Listeners texted in to see if Pat had any advice for people dealing with a loved one living with a gambling addiction. Pat says if he had to give advice, his instinct would be to tell people to avoid having a relationship with a compulsive gambler:
"I’ll put it to you this way: if I had a daughter who brought home somebody like me, I’d probably be telling her to get rid of him. That’s the reality of it."
Pat says there are many people who can gamble safely, but for those who can't, it needs to be treated as the disease it is:
"Gambling is an insidious disease. What people need to realise is that it is a disease. It’s every bit as dangerous, if not worse, than alcoholism or drug addiction or any other form of an addiction."
Pat says there is help out there for addicts and for their families. The only advice he can offer is to avail of as much of it as possible:
"There is help there, I suppose really just try and encourage them to get as much help as you can encourage them with is my advice."
If you've been affected by any of the issues raised here, you can find information on helplines here.
A Hundred to One: 100 convictions, One Million Euro - The Devastating True Story of a Compulsive Gambler by Pat Sheedy is published by Gill Books.
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If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.