BM
This is a West Wimmera Health Service podcast. Presented by me Brigitte Muir.
This series focuses around stories and issues related to health and wellbeing. Some of the people we hear from are sharing their stories, hoping that their experiences will help us with our own health and wellbeing. Please be aware that some of their life experiences may touch on issues that are sensitive to some. Please listen with care. You will find information on seeking help if you need it in the notes attached to each episode.
Jan Brunswick lived an outwardly happy life. She grew up in the Sunraysia, got married, raised a healthy family and had a good job, but nothing was as it seemed…
JB
My first husband was a gambler. He liked to bet on the horses, but I had no idea that… he liked it as much as he did. And it went on to become a problem. In the early years of our marriage… once, it was established as a problem, it became a secret and all his gambling went underground.
BM
But, there must have been a cost financially and he managed to hide that as well. Did he?
JB
Yes… definitely. The things like bank lines that you didn't know, and phone calls with people that you didn't know, I guess living up that way too there was a lot of cash around and being in a grape growing area. So it was easy to hide it as well. But it was never hidden forever.
BM
When did you first become aware of the problem?
JB
Well, in our early days, when we had… a trouble with banks that was probably the main… scare. But there was also little things like … he didn't have money or you get paid Wednesday and by Friday… he was asking for a loan sort of thing, or just didn't have enough money as he should have. So, in the early days, that was an alarm bell.
BM
You were working as well, weren’t you?
JB
Yes, I was a school teacher and I was working …full time. And I did over the years work full time for a long time. By the time I retired I clocked up 36 years full time in the classroom.
BM
Were you supporting the family?
JB
Yes, definitely. And when we moved… to central Victoria, so mid 90s… Even more so because… his gambling went off the rails, there were periods of time where he did just… didn't have any income at all.
BM
How did that affect the children? I mean, not just the lack of money, but the atmosphere in the house and everything else.
JB
We were walking in eggshells a lot of the time. It did…it did affect my kids even though today… if you ask them… like back in the day where I was having some professional counselling and I said this is available for you too, ‘oh no we’re right’. But it did, they were very open to the mood swings of their father and the big knee jerk reactions from their mother. They knew when to… get… out of it themselves. When the going got tough, they could just remove themselves from the situation.
BM
Uh huh
JB
Yeah, they …they dealt with a lot… and even today, it's still the elephant in the room. We all dance around it.
BM
Really
JB
It's not… not something that’s openly spoken about.
The shame and stigma of the gambling problem is huge… for the gamer, as well as the affected others, who was inside your four walls, and it didn't go outside of that, unless it really, really had to. You know in terms of today…. there wasn't as much help back then. And my biggest help was when I got involved with the 12 step program. I went to Al-Anon and I… initially I went to Gam-Anon, which is the flip side… of gamblers anonymous. Those meetings were in Melbourne… and it was very difficult for me to get there. So when I went back to Bendigo, I thought…well 12 step program I’ll try Al-Anon. Initially I was really worried that they would say ‘oh no, you can't come if it's for gambling’, but they just said, ‘Look… this is a program. If you can get something out of it. You're welcome to stay’ and …that's 20 years ago and it was still there.
BM
Really?
JB
Yeah. He also had an alcohol component as well
BM
Oh… the two seem to go hand in hand.
JB
Yeah. So the 12 step program for me has been very beneficial… and has allowed a lot of… yelling for myself.
BM
Is that who you turned to first? or did you talk to other people first?
JB
Didn't speak to …lots of people… but people knew. You live in a small country town, it's a grapevine isn't it? And often is the last to know.
BM
How did the gamble happen in those days?
JB
The gambling was… racehorses…felt… it was before the online gambling… thank goodness for me. Poker machines too, but that wasn't the number one, racehorses was.
BM
So, when people around you know… it's hard to put up with, isn't it? ….You were mentioning shame and…
JB
Yeah… yes. Sometimes family and friends are not the right people to deal with it, because they're very close to the situation or very close… to the people that are involved. Because of the shame and stigma and you were not wanting to tell the world anyway. You're just hoping… I was always hoping that I can fix it… before the rest of the world needed to know. So that created problems too. I didn't, I didn’t realise probably until I got into the 12 step programs and the professional help… that what I thought was helping… was actually… hindering any recovery on his part. Because I became… the rescuer.
BM
Codependent
JB
Yeah, Mrs. Fix it assumed responsibility for issues that weren't mine to fix… had a lack of boundaries. Just thought I could fix it for both of us. And just came… to realise that I couldn't, it didn't matter. What energy I spent on our relationship, I could not make it work for both of us. And honestly I couldn’t stop the gambling. Believe me I tried. People have said to me ‘now why did you stay so long?’. That's hard to answer, but it was never all good, it was never all bad. Life was a roller coaster… a lot of the time, but you hung onto the good stuff. This person was very likeable. I didn't dislike him. He is the father of my three kids. Basically, he’s a really… really good person and you wanted to hang on to that. So, it was hard to just… let all that go. And at the same time… that was my comfort zone… whether it be good or whether it be bad, I was in it. That was that was my comfort zone and stepping outside of that was huge. And brought a lot of fear. It was much much easier to stay, than leave
BM
You talking about you trying to change the situation. What about your ex-husband? Did he actually try… to change as well?
JB
Yes, he did. He has sought help from gamblers anonymous. And he had some professional counselling. He went to some… AA meetings, but he openly came out and said to me, ‘I will never stop the drinking. I just won’t.’ So he made that pretty clear.
BM
Was the drinking a big problem?
JB
It got bigger. Yes. What comes first chicken or the egg? Does the drinking drive the gambling, or does the gambling drive the drinking? I don't know the answer to that.
BM
So, that didn't change. How much time after he told you that he wasn't going to stop drinking but would do his best to stop gambling, did you decide that enough was enough?
JB
Well, that was in the latter part of our relationship, I guess. We had some temporary splits… but we'd always got back together. But it was towards the end when he had said that and… I…I was getting stronger because I've been getting some help. I will say things for rose coloured glasses a lot too, I was seeing things the way I wanted them to be and not how they actually were. So, when I stripped back my own bit of wrong, and had a look at how things really were I started to see the big picture. And the big picture was… if nothing changes, nothing changes. You just…you can't repeat the same behaviour… and expect a different outcome. For instance, when a gambling bust happened… there'd be the gambling and then there'd be the anger and the conflict… from me mainly… then there'd be the remorse, and then there would be the promises, and then be the fixing up and then it would all happen again. It was just quite a destructive cycle of behaviour, which was never ever going to change …I could never change him, as I've tried for many years. Our [inaudible] in the 12 steps says the only person I could change was myself. So, I had to start making some… some changes and let him go, and whether he found his own path to recovery or not was his journey, not mine.
BM
It's a big step isn't it?
JB
It's huge. The day that we finally parted company… I'll never forget it… his bags were packed, he was ready to go and not much was said there was certainly no animosity. There was just a very deep feeling of sadness in both of us. He left and I thought ‘oh …well …there you goes thirty years of my life’. He left, the door closed and I sat on the couch and cried and cried and cried for the afternoon. That's how it went. For too many years I reward my gut feeling and this time, I got it right. My gut feeling said this is right. Even though I was in a world of pain. And then the next 12 months was pretty ordinary. I was… living by myself and…. the kids mostly young adults by then and they were coming and going. We did hook up at times and it was just… sometimes he would come to the house and he would be his normal nice self, or sometimes he'd get really angry and other times he'd be just absolutely distraught. The old Jan would have just jumped back in there to help… but I just had… to learn to take more hands off… and let him work it out for himself. That was really tough.
BM
Do you still see him?
JB
Well… weddings and funerals? Yes. Family… events… but otherwise…no
BM
And the children I suppose still see their father?
JB
Yes, yes they do. I don't really know how much contact they have with him… because… that's not really my business anymore. They do have relationship with their dad and I think that's great. But I don't go asking questions.
BM
What would… you tell people… partners of people who are gamblers, and who find themselves in a situation where they just don't know what to do about it? What would be the first port of call?
JB
Get some professional help. There’s gambler helplines that you can call, there’s Anglicare and there's a whole host of people now… that really do have gambling help within their organisations. That would be my number one because… you can't fix it by yourself and you probably… suffer a fair bit of damage yourself. But your so hell bent on being focused on the gambler you don't actually realise what's happening to you. I …I had six months on antidepressants at one stage and I really fought and bucked the doctor to put me on those, and he was right, I did them. So to anybody out there who is struggling …you can't do it by yourself, get some help. Get some help. It doesn't have to be family. It doesn't have to be friends. Get some professional help.
BM
Who is …Jan today?
JB
Who is Jen today? Well… Jan is getting older, but that's okay. [chuckles] Look, I've always enjoyed working so… that's been a good diversion for me as well, as somewhere else to get my head as a primary school teacher I've worked a lot of years in the classroom still working…as a replacement teacher, CRT and still enjoy it very much. And now I'm a nana… so I've got some grandkids which is terrific and lovely. I’m… also a person who's giving back to this world of gambling. So I'm a ReSpin speaker, and I’m part of the group that… there are three other people like myself who are affected others and… and the rest of the group are… recovering gamblers, people who haven't gambled for… for some time and we just get out in the community and do… public speaking and share our own personal stories. And I've done …quite a bit of that now… over a couple of years. A lot were on Zoom, of course during COVID. More recently they are face to face. Last year I was in Ballarat… and I did a program for the sons and daughters of the West, AFL. and I spoke about the gambling… and at each session I had someone come up to me and say… ‘oh I've got a friend who’ or ‘I've got a friend who’ or ‘it's me so’, to me that's really good… in me for a long time… that… the lifestyle you're living is not normal, its not how other people live…are you sure this is the way you wanna live. I only acted when I was ready. Just because someone plants a seed doesn't mean you act on it straight away. But you do act when you're ready. So for me to get out there now and share my story. I just plant the seed and I inform the community on gambling harm and we're trying to raise… the awareness and really blow the shame and stigma right out in the water… because it's huge. It's…its enough to stop people getting help in the first place. It doesn't matter what your job is… how much money you earn. No one is protected. Often you'll hear people who …who do go on to have gambling problems say that it started in the most insidious way. I had somebody… who had never gambled anything and had to put their car into the workshop… for a couple of hours and her friend said ‘oh, let's just look over to the club and have a coffee and play the pokies’, that's how it started.
BM
Wow… anything else you would like to share… with our listeners?
JB
Just really …that it's really out there in our community… and that mental health is such a big thing these days. And gambling… is the… silent one... when it comes to addiction. If you're had too much alcohol… or affected by drugs, you'll see that physically… you won't see it in a gambler. But there will be other signs. With the gambling often goes… other mental health conditions. The person with the mental health condition… will be …wanting to keep that gambling to themselves… for as long as possible. That's what they'll disclose last. Some of my experiences… have been in the 12 step program and having spoken to some recovering gamblers and listened to their recovery… stories and it's quite inspiring. It's very powerful. So, yeah, I have a lot of time for people who are…. who are willing to share their recovery stories.
BM
That's very precious for all of us. Yes. Anything else?
JB
No, I don't think so. Just that… you know, if my… chatting can help anyone, then that makes me happy. And… just to finish with the peer connection that I just got involved with I just have a some…a few clients who…ring regularly, they are like me affected by someone else's gambling, and it's just nice… for them to have an ear. I don't counsel. I listen, because often these people are… like me, have kept it in the cupboard forever. And likewise in the program people who do have a gambling problem and they can be hooked up with… these recovering gamblers, who are going up their time now to share their story in the hope of helping someone else so… it's a win win.
BM
And the world works on volunteering and things, and people sharing their experiences, which is what this series is all about. So thank you so much Jan for sharing your… life experience with us and your time as well.
JB
Thank you Brigitte, lovely
BM
That was Jan Brunswick, former wife of a gambler, now speaker and mentor with ReSpin a statewide service funded by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation.
You will find as always contact numbers and details in the notes attached to this episode. And while you're at it, please give us a star rating. We'd also love to hear your comments and suggestions. Our Facebook and Twitter details are in the notes. Until next have a healthy life won’t you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai edited by the WWHS Health Promotion Team.