This year's World Suicide Prevention Day theme is "Changing the Narrative on Suicide". I see the need for that change in the work I do to prevent gambling harm, and in my own recovery.
I've spent the last six years working alongside families bereaved by gambling-related suicide. Before that, I spent twelve years addicted to gambling. In both parts of my life, the same story about gambling harm and suicide has come up again and again.
The story I was told
For most of my life the story went like this. Gambling is harmless. If it goes wrong for you, that's down to you. Everybody else is doing it "responsibly".
I believed it. I was sixteen when gambling found me. It was on shirts, on television, on my phone and in the language of the game I loved. Nobody told me that products like online slots and roulette are built to hold attention and make stopping hard. So when things went wrong, I assumed it was my fault.
That belief did more damage than the money ever did. It brought shame and a feeling of entrapment.
What bereaved families have taught us
I first met the founding families of Gambling with Lives just months into my own recovery. Meeting them reframed what I understood about my own experiences and led to the work I do now.
I never met the people who died, but I have spent a lot of time with the people who loved them. When they speak about the person they lost, the same themes come up again and again. Happy, bright, cared-for and loved people who had the same beliefs I had been given – self-blame and a sense they would never be free of gambling.
Because of the selfless advocacy of bereaved families, Gambling is now named as a risk factor in the national suicide prevention strategy for England, there are now clinical guidelines for healthcare professionals and an independent state-commissioned system of prevention, research and treatment. That did not happen on its own. It happened because those families sat through inquests, met decision-makers and shared their experiences time and time again, at real personal cost.
Chapter One was created by Gambling with Lives, with the experiences of bereaved families at its core. The work I lead now is to ensure as a society we act much earlier: by giving people the facts about gambling before harm takes hold, by training the professionals most likely to see it, and to make the route into treatment short and clear.
The old story is still the dominant one
Last month I was in Istanbul, speaking at the 11th International Conference on Behavioural Addictions about what we've learned in the UK. For all the progress here in the UK, what struck me was how familiar the old story still sounds around the world.
It was encouraging that gambling was one of the most talked-about topics at the conference, which shows how far it is now recognised as a global issue. But most presentations focused on individual behaviour or characteristics. The dominant view still seemed to be that harm from gambling mainly happens to certain kinds of people because of something about them, and that the answer is to try to change the person. How and why modern gambling products & practices are designed barely came up.
That matters for suicide prevention. If you believe harm only happens to a certain type of person, or for a certain reason, you may not look for it in the people in front of you. You may not ask the right question or give the right information. The person sitting opposite, convinced this is their own doing, is unlikely to raise it either.
What changing the narrative looks like in practice
This isn't about words for their own sake. Change the story and we change what happens next.
Treat gambling as a health issue, not a personal failing
Train the professionals most likely to meet someone being harmed
Be honest that gambling products are designed to keep people gambling
Make the route into free treatment and support short and easy to find
Put people with lived experience in the rooms where decisions get made
Prioritise people over profit - act to reduce exposure to addictive forms of gambling.
Estimates put the number of gambling-related suicides in England at between 117 and 496 each year.
The people we have lost were not statistics. They were sons and daughters, partners, parents, friends and colleagues. Many were loved, talented and coping on the outside. Many spent their last months trying to work out what had happened to them, in a country that had never told them the truth about gambling.
We can't undo that. But we can keep working for truth and justice for them and their families. We can change what the next person hears.
If gambling is affecting you, or someone you love, I want to say this plainly: it is not your fault, you are not alone, and there is help that works. That's the conversation to start on World Suicide Prevention Day, and every day after it.
If you need support now
For information on gambling harms and how to reach free NHS treatment, visit our crisis and support page.
If you need to talk, Samaritans is free and open day or night on 116 123. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 999.
