Abbie Harvey’s gambling addiction was so severe that she could not drive for 20 minutes without pulling over to bet – and felt the urge became worse just before and during her period.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0To get over being emotional, I would use gambling as a coping strategy,\u00a0\u00bb said Abbie, who lost more than \u00a320,000 during her decade-long struggle with the addiction.<\/p>\n
Abbie is not alone. Kiki Marriott, also a former gambling addict, noticed an increase in her gambling habits during the week before her period.<\/p>\n
Both women have received treatment at the Parkland Place Rehabilitation Centre in north Wales, where clinical staff say they believe the menstrual cycle can have an impact on gambling behaviours.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the University of Birmingham are now working with the Gordon Moody gambling harms charity to establish whether there is a link between hormonal fluctuations – caused by periods, ovulation, menopause and childbirth – and gambling addiction.<\/p>\n
Warning: This article contains references to suicide<\/p>\n
Abbie would predominantly gamble on her phone using online slots.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0The scheming, the lying, it just took over my whole life,\u00a0\u00bb the 34-year-old from Barry in south Wales said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I would do it at four o’clock in the morning, I would do it at two o’clock in the afternoon. I would wake up in the middle of the night and all I wanted to do was gamble online.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I’d be driving home from my sister’s, which is like 20 minutes away from me, and I couldn’t even wait 20 minutes before pulling over and doing online slots.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Like Abbie, Kiki would also gamble on her phone, often for more than 24 hours until she ran out of money.<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old said her gambling addiction made her feel suicidal.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I didn’t care whether I lived or died. It was like a slow and painful death,\u00a0\u00bb Kiki told the BBC.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I used to pray to die and just think ‘I can’t wait for this to be over’.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Your mindset was just to do anything that you needed to do to still enable you to gamble.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I was going without food shopping, I didn’t have gas, the only reason why I had electric and wi-fi is because I needed that to gamble.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Kiki noticed her gambling habit became worse during the week before her period.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Impulsivity and compulsive behaviours are more likely to shine bright in the week before my period – and that’s when I’d make even worse decisions around that week,\u00a0\u00bb said Kiki from Woolwich in south-east London.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I think there is a big connection between poor decision-making and impulsive behaviour during your menstrual cycle.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Kiki said she reached her \u00ab\u00a0catastrophic point and rock bottom\u00a0\u00bb when she stole a considerable amount of money from her former partner’s bank account to gamble with.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I wrote letters to the train driver, to the passengers, and apologised for the trauma that I was about to cause them by ending my life at the train station,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
Instead, Kiki called the GamCare National Helpline – an organisation that provides free support for anyone affected by gambling harms.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I knew that my death would have caused more trauma on other people and I just couldn’t do it,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
The BBC has been given rare access to Parkland Place, a rehabilitation centre in Colwyn Bay, Conwy county, where Abbie and Kiki both received treatment for their addictions.<\/p>\n
Run by the Adferiad gambling charity, it is a 16-bed unit which focuses on gambling, alcoholism and drug addiction through group sessions and one to one counselling.<\/p>\n
Despite being mixed gender, only 25% of people arriving for treatment are women.<\/p>\n
Cheryl Williams, manager of the centre, acknowledged the challenges women could face while attending a six-week programme.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0It could be that they’re the main caregivers for the children,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0There’s the stigma because they’re also seen as the homemakers so they can’t then necessarily afford the time for them to come into rehab.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0But actually, that’s a fraction of their life really, compared to what they’ve missed out on while they’ve been gambling.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Cheryl said the team at Parkland Place recognised the impact of the menstrual cycle on gambling behaviours.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0We’ve noticed the females who are due on their menstrual cycle, gambling increases before the cycle has kicked in,\u00a0\u00bb she said. \u00ab\u00a0We take that into consideration while they’re here.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
The Gordon Moody gambling harms charity, which has residential treatment centres across the country, said the number of women gambling in the UK – and the number of women with gambling addictions – was at an all-time high.<\/p>\n
Dr Rosalind Baker-Frampton, clinical director of the charity, said she had noticed women were more likely to gamble in a harmful way during a hormonal fluctuation.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0You’re more likely to engage in risky behaviours around the time of ovulation, so that’s when an egg is released,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0That’s the time you’re most fertile. We also know of that before a women’s period, when she’s had a drop in progesterone.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0That includes things like chasing losses, spending more money than they want to spend, staying longer than they’d otherwise decide to stay.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0They end up spending more money and making more risky choices around gambling and not stopping at other points in their cycle.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
The charity said its research project with the University of Birmingham would take about four years to complete.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0We’re going to be looking at women who come into our treatment centre in Wolverhampton, so everyone who comes in will have the option to participate in the research,\u00a0\u00bb said Rosalind.<\/p>\n
The Gambling Commission, which licences and regulates commercial gambling, has said they are \u00ab\u00a0always interested in new research\u00a0\u00bb to \u00ab\u00a0help inform our ongoing drive to make gambling safer\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Researchers will also explore whether hormone-regulating medication could help with addiction.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0We have a theory that women who are on the pill or who are on hormone replacement therapy, because their hormones are at a more stable level throughout the month, may be less likely to experience these severe gambling cravings,\u00a0\u00bb Rosalind added.<\/p>\n
Kiki said she now recognised her triggers and her likelihood to gamble during certain points of her menstrual cycle, and has a strategy for tackling them.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0For me, it’s made a massive difference in how I handle situations in those particular weeks of my cycle,\u00a0\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I know I need to pour love into myself the week before my period, I know I have to use my tools more, I have to be around other women in recovery, I have to lean on my group.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
She is encouraging further research into women’s health and addiction.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I think there’s a hell of a lot more work to be done when it comes to your menstrual cycle and addiction and how that can correlate to making those bad decisions.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
If you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, the BBC’s Action Line contains a list of organisations who can provide support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abbie Harvey’s gambling addiction was so severe that she could not drive for 20 minutes without pulling over to bet – and felt the urge became worse just before and during her period. \u00ab\u00a0To get over being emotional, I would use gambling as a coping strategy,\u00a0\u00bb said Abbie, who lost more than \u00a320,000 during her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}