[Music] [Applause] [Music] on the 17th of August 2013 5 million people woke up and bought a copy of the Daily Mail some of them may have opened it up and on the inside seen a story about how an ex- Army Major squandered 3/4 of a million pound losing his home his job his family and his children that person was me I I want to ask why I've asked myself that question so many times was there a time bomb inside me just ticking away was it something that happened because of the circumstances well I want to share my story with you and I'll let you decide 3 years after that day in August sorry 3 years before that day in August this Photograph was taken and I'm showing you that because I've got a horrible smug smile on my face and just behind me is Mount vvus can you see it there above across the Bay of Naples you see in my head I had a mount vvus that volcano that erupted in ad79 destroying Pompei the volcano in my head was about to erupt and catastrophically destroy my life and my life was good I joined the army um I spent 8 and a half years there um I I went to Sandhurst and was awarded the queen sword of Honor for for graduating top of my intake for two years I was the youngest major in the British army I I did the all I Commando course so I was parat trained I did all the fun and exciting things and maybe there's a bit of a theme there but I was always restless and when someone said to me I wouldn't be promoted for another 6 years I left the Army age 30 and I went off to seek my fortune in the city and I left the Army having LED 460 men on a high press operational tour to being the junior t- boy in a small Insurance Brokerage in in hartfordshire but I was ambitious and I'd stay in the office sometimes for hours after everyone else had left and I'd get my study out and i' I'd sit with my books and I'd I'd try and teach myself what I knew nothing about and the managing director came over sometimes at 9:00 when he was leaving and he'd say what are you doing and I'd say I want to get on I want to catch up 2 years later I had been promoted to one of the youngest managing directors of a division of a Global Financial Services Company working in the city of London I had a six- figure salary I had nice holidays I've married the girl of my dreams we drove nice cars we we had our own house together we had a lovely son called Matthew and another one on the way but everything was not well on the inside a few things began to happen around about the time when I'd kind of thought I'd got everything that I could ever want in life I had a six-hour commute we'd moved up to darbishire I traveled three hours down to London and three hours back every day 5 days a week but I thought that was okay cuz I was making money and I felt that that was important in life but I've been passed over for a promotion and I remember thinking how angry I felt at that so I've reached a plateau at work something else happened our lovely son Matthew um he's the eldest one there at 11 months old I noticed he wasn't really using his right hand at all and I said to my wife Emma don't you think it's hard he doesn't use his right hand she said oh no we've got left-handed people in our family He he'll just be left-handed and then I heard a radio interview about someone who'd noticed that their daughter age 11 months didn't use her right hand they'd taken her and got a diagnosis so that's what we did with Matthew we took him to see a consultant and within a few minutes the consultant said I believe your son has right side hemiplegia he's got stiffness all down his right side and in his right arm and he's got no dexterity in his hand we had a scan and I walked into the consultant's office and saw a picture of my son's brain with a great big scar on it I said what does this mean she said your son has a form of cerebal py he had a stroke when he was was born a bleed into his brain and he'll always have limited movement down his right side and as we got up to leave she said oh by the way I think maybe he's going to be susceptible to epilepsy just one week later I was at home it was a hot day Matthew was in my arms and his his right arm started to jerk I knew immediately what was happening I just didn't know what to do I did everything wrong I should have just loosened off his clothing and let him come out of the fit took 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive and by then Matthew had turned blue his lips were a dark shade of purple I was breathing for my son giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation the ambulance came took Matthew away and that was fine he was okay but I wasn't I was completely not for six I totally went into denial and I handled it really badly just one week later I was at home doing something I'd done a thousand times before I was watching a game of rugby but this time for the first time I noticed one of those adverts for a 5 free bed 18% of every advert on TV is gambling related now and for the first time I saw it I got a five got my laptop and put the 5S on I needed for my free BET and I won and I've asked myself so many times what would have happened if ID lost that bet I'm pretty sure I'd have closed my laptop down thought what a waste of time but I didn't and you know what I didn't tell my wife when she came home there was something not quite right about it I began to be engaged I began to watch sport a bit more I began to read the papers try and understand it and at first I stuck to the things I knew just small bets I even worked from home and told my boss I'd just come into the office one day a week and then boredom hit me because I'd finish my work in the morning and the rest of the day would stretch out I began to withdraw as a husband as I gambled more I began to withdraw as a dad and then one day I worked out I was losing more often than I was winning that made me cross because I'm a bad loser but I'm competitive I'm also very optimistic I'm expecting to win so I took £1,000 £1,000 I'd never been anything like that much money before and I place start on the outcome of a tennis match thinking if I won I'd win all my money back that I'd lost and then it would be okay I lost that bet first thing I did is phon my bank I got an overdraft for another ,000 I lost those two bets and now there was a hole in our finances Emma trusted me completely with our money but rather than talk about it tell her or or change our habits slightly just tighten our belts on the budget I carried on living like we always lived spending I didn't want people to know about my habit I didn't want a difficult conversation I felt ashamed I felt guilty about what I was doing osar had been born as well and then I remembered and I desperately look for a way out there was a little pond in the corner and I said to Emma we can't live here Matthew might fall in and drown that lovely smile on her face you see I'd squandered the equity from my property there's no way I could afford the deposit in fact there's no way I would have been given a mortgage because by now to cover up the Gap I desperately tried to borrow you see I thought that I got myself into this mess I'm the one that needs to get myself out of it and and I thought that I I'd just keep gambling and that'll be the way through it my own stupid Pride stopped me from getting any help and because I kept it a secret and the problem with gambling addiction is you can keep it a secret there's no visible signs apart from my mood swings things just got worse it came to a head when one day I lost my job because I used my corporate card on my gambling account I should have gone home and told Emma everything but I didn't I told her I'd left that job and gone to another one you know the lies that I told my wife were one of the most hurtful things because that trust we had was so fragile it was so precious and she found out because we had friends to stay and they showed her a bank statement said do you know what your husband's doing even my lovely son Matthew one day he he he just wanted me to take him to the swings he said Dad please take me to the swings and the day that he walked by the way was the happiest day of our lives and now he just wanted to spend some time with his Dad we were down at my in-law's house it was raining so Emma said to me okay take him but go home first and pick up his coat so I drove back home and I put my hand on his coat Matthew was asleep in the front seat strapped in and I remembered that night I'd put a bet on I thought i' just go and check and I went upstairs and I'd lost that bet so I went to the most horrible place you end up when you're a gambling addict I went to the online casino I thought I'll just have one quick spin win that money back that I should have had in my account and then I can go and have a good time with my son two and a half hours later I'd ented out my bank account again I went downstairs and Matthew had quied himself to sleep and the te the tears that he' cried were dried on his cheeks what kind of a dad does that only one who by now is in real problems when Emma found out I self-excluded myself but there's two and a half thousand online gambling sites you could log into and I got an email from another one a few weeks later to say A50 Free Bet is yours if you sign up with us I thought free BET's okay that's not really gambling I was right right back into the way I was before this time Emma could see one morning I woke up and the house was quiet she'd left and she'd taking the children with her and do you know what she was right to leave because I was self-destructing and rather than go after her and plead with her to come back and tell her it would be okay I just got angry I sold my wedding band with a lovely verse on the inside that only we knew I sold the brightening watch he gave me one year for an anniversary and then I took the queen sword of honor the most precious thing I owned and I sold it when I'd spent the £200 in cash that IID sold it for and by the way I cried when I left that shop the next morning I woke up and I came to my senses I phoned at the shop and said I've made a terrible mistake I I need to get my sword back they said we've just sold it there's no record of who we sold it to they were Dark Times there were times when I think I would have taken one of two paths either my own life or committed a serious crime instead my mom came up my brother they knocked on the door they driven all the way up from here from Kent I grew up down here they said you're about to be evicted you can walk the streets or you can come back to Kent and try and find some recovery so I walked around the house with a plastic bin liner I put my last possessions together some clothes some pictures I say goodbye to my boys they weren't there but the rooms where they their beds were still unmade from the day they'd left I was completely broken totally humiliated but I needed to be and with my pride broken things got better that night I went back to the room I'd left 43 years old and I'd left that room when I was 18 about to go out into the world and make my fortune and now I had 43 73,000 worth of debt and a black bin liner of stuff so I got down on my knees and I prayed and I just said God I'm sorry heal me if you can that day was a day in November 2012 it's the last day I've ever gambled I don't take that lightly every single day I take one day at a time and I protect what I do it was difficult at first cuz I had no self-esteem I was a really just broken person I began to swim and I swam across the channel uh two years ago to raise money for my son's charity help me help the boys came back in fact it was an amazing year 2014 my family came back I wrote a book a bestseller on Amazon on on gambling addiction I started a charity called recovery 2 because I wanted to help other people and now this charity offers recovery courses 15 session courses completely for free and since they November last year 27 New courses have sprung up up and down the country I've got a great job now too apart from writing textbooks which actually helped me to pay all my debt back and when I paid my last penny of debt back I volunteered for the debt charity that helped me get out of debt and I see people every month now that means a lot to me that I can help I can give something back for three years I was so selfish I live for me and that's all I did I pushed everyone away and even the people I loved and I did love them I pushed them away I'd love to say that we were a family again even now but that trust I talked about that was so fragile it was lost we got divorced this year but I Emma is one of my best friends and spending time with my boys now is what matters to me even that sort of Honor came back after three years of being away someone found it online life is better now life is better with my priorities in the right order life is better when I don't gamble I had to take that newspaper and sit down with my 12-year-old son my eldest son when when he was 12 on the day it came out I get I got him to read the article and then I said to him everything that I'd done he looked me in the eyes and he said Dad you've mocked up don't do it again I don't intend to thank you very much