Javier continues to rehabilitate from an addiction, which experts see fed by the messages of the industry
NEWSPAPER: Caught in the game ‘online’
“I used the card of my mother, I have stolen jewelry at the home of friends, I’ve removed money from the card to my grandmother, I have spent the salary in two days… I became an expert in lying, and no longer knew when she was telling the truth and when to lie. I became someone I did not expect. I have 22 months without playing and I start to remember who he was. Today my life does not depend on the game and I appreciate my family. But I am a ludópata and I will die being a ludópata”.
Javier, 27 years. Today you can study a higher degree and see tennis without play of the payroll. But his past is another thing, nine years of addiction, a diary of deception, stress, and ruins. In this story of debts with anxiety and dry eyes before the mobile there are nights that ended up in a portal and days that lasted 18 hours playing.
“I Started gambling at the age of 16 in the roulette salons. Or not they asked me for the ID or faked. I started stealing 20 euros and a month I took 1,500 to my mother. I was hooked to sports betting. I know football and tennis, but game not. That know them. The reward is immediate, but the pace is impossible. I spent all the salaries of all the months for seven or eight years.”
No one as the sufferer understood one day as well: “I got into a room at 10 in the morning, I went when they closed at 11 pm and was still in the casinos until 6 in the morning. When I lost everything, it was still in the room watching others play.”
Javier speaks of himself with rawness. Or the other Javier. “My life no longer had a reason to. I lost my personality, opportunities, social life… I can forgive the damage that I’ve done, but I have done others, how do I forgive him? how do I get back to being what they were?”.
we Talked with Javier at the Association for the Prevention and Assistance to the Ludópata (Salw), 10 years, sheltering desperate people. Victorian Dolado, president: “I Played 35 years ago. The money I didn’t care, I just wanted to play. For me, there were chips. Damn fun. My two daughters grew up without their father. What son of a bitch I was. Until I came here I didn’t know that was a sick one”. Dolado has seen guys of 19 years with a debt of 60,000 euros, people that bet on Canada in sports that do not even know, guys who spent the payroll in two hours… “The rooms have an area of slots that you enter without ID card and another betting. And not all control”.
The Salw has detected a resurgence. “Every time there are more players and more youth. Already we see people with debts up by video games. Be ludópata is not a shame, another thing is what you’ve done to play, such as stick a knife in the moneybox of your child,” says psychologist Diana Alonso. “There is depression, anxiety, personality disorders… and suicide for not being able to stop playing. We teach them how to assimilate the debt, to have a healthy relationship with money and to recover bonds. Do therapy of trench. Rehabilitation is for life, but it is possible.” Stops on things that seem innocent but they are not: “There is a message of lottery which says that to be happy you have that touch: ‘And if you touch…’. That kills them”.
– And what’s Christmas, Javier?
– A bombing of a lottery. The advertising will generate a need. If you don’t play, you’re not. It’s like the 11 ELEVEN. There is that detox.
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