A businesswoman and mother of three reveals her secret struggle with a gambling addiction, which left her £40,000 in debt in just 15 months.
The day my husband asked if I was having an affair nearly broke my heart. Sitting in the garden on a beautiful early summer's evening, Gareth very calmly came out with it: 'Are you seeing someone else?
You're always on your phone and seem really disconnected. I can't think of anything else it could be... Don't be daft,' I replied.
'I'm just really busy with work and emails. I have to reply to all of them immediately.
' As the co-founder of a business that was taking off in a major way, my answer was entirely plausible. And yet it was a lie. Because, while I made light of his comment, I was leading a double life, although I wasn't cheating on him.
The truth was that, aged 41, I was in the grip of a secret gambling addiction, one that saw me blow £40,000 in 15 months, spending up to eight hours a day on gambling apps on my phone. Yet to the outside world I had it all: A loving husband, three perfect children, not to mention a career many people only dream of.
Before having children, I'd worked as a civil servant, but then my friend Kelli - who I'd met through our children's nursery - and I came up with the idea for Solar Buddies, which we launched in 2015. We created a child-friendly suncream applicator that meant kids could apply it themselves at school, as teachers have 'no-touch' policies for safeguarding reasons.
The day my husband asked if I was having an affair nearly broke my heart, writes businesswoman and mother Laura Waters In April 2023 we'd appeared on Dragon's Den and successfully secured an £80,000 investment in the business from Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden. In return, each had a 10 per cent stake. It was a pinch-me moment. But a month later I started using gambling apps.
And three months after that I was addicted. Amid all the success, the spring of 2023 was a stressful time. One of my children was having difficulties at school and Solar Buddies was growing so fast it was overwhelming. Overnight, we went from being a team of four to needing 16 staff to meet demand.
It was amazing to have that level of success, but also daunting in its suddenness. The first sign I was struggling came in May that year, when Gareth and I went to a charity fundraising event for Cardiff University Hospital. Wanting to take my mind off everything, by the end of the evening I'd drunk nearly three bottles of wine, where normally I'd only share one with him.
After dinner, the charity auction began - and there was no stopping me. Usually I'm extremely careful with money, but I kept sticking my hand up, half-joking, compulsively bidding more and more. I ended up paying £13,000 for a two-day holiday to St Tropez that didn't even include flights. Worse, when I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, I had no memory of bidding.
When Gareth told me I'd blown £13,000, I was horrified. But my son, then 12, had been looked after by the hospital when he was ten days old and seriously ill with bronchial pneumonia so I tried to convince myself that the donation was a small price to pay for saving his life. Deep down though I knew it was a sign that I was spiralling out of control.
And as successful as the business was, I couldn't afford to do that again. It was later that month, feeling bored one evening, that I downloaded a gambling app on my phone after seeing an advert on Facebook. Sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate, I thought, 'This is fun!
' It cost me just £10 and seemed to be a harmless distraction. Ironically, a friend's partner had been addicted to gambling and I once made the flippant comment to her: 'I don't understand why he can't just stop.
' Well, that throwaway remark came back to haunt me. I'd never had any issues with addiction previously. But the gambling apps gave me a mental release. Like the casino slot machines you find in a pub, you hit the spin button and hope for a row of symbols to line up.
It's tantalising because you can see if just one cherry or bell is out of line, which encourages you to try again. And the thrill you get when you have a little win sets off a dopamine hit in your brain. I remember thinking: 'This is great because it's the only thing I'm focusing on now, so it's stopped me being consumed by all the other noise in my head.
' I downloaded two apps to start with and decided on a spend limit of £20 on each, which seemed sensible. And at first, when I reached my limit, I could easily stop playing. But then I began to increase my limits to £200 on some apps and 'unlimited' on others for short bursts of 24 hours at a time.
It was like I was trying to get a handle on my addiction, but in reality, I was just digging myself deeper into a hole. I'd spend hours on these apps, completely absorbed in the game. And the more I played, the more I needed to play. It was like I was chasing a high, and the more I chased it, the more I needed it.
I was in a vicious cycle, and I didn't know how to escape. The more I played, the more I lost. And the more I lost, the more I wanted to play. It was a never-ending cycle of addiction and despair.
I was trapped in a world of my own making, and I didn't know how to get out
Gambling Addiction Businesswoman Mother Of Three Secret Struggle Debt Addiction
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