Sport

Talking helped me beat gambling addiction: Paddy Barnes

Boxer Paddy Barnes talks at Sport NI on World Mental Health Day. Picture by Hugh Russell.
Boxer Paddy Barnes talks at Sport NI on World Mental Health Day. Picture by Hugh Russell. Boxer Paddy Barnes talks at Sport NI on World Mental Health Day. Picture by Hugh Russell.

BOXER Paddy Barnes has spoken of the “frustration” of a gambling addiction that he was only able to beat after revealing the depths of it to his fiancée at the time, and now wife, Mari.

Flyweight Barnes, who was beaten in his first WBC world title fight by Cristofer Rosales in August, was yesterday announced as a Wellbeing Ambassador for Sport NI as they unveiled their five-year action plan for mental health and wellbeing in sport.

He revealed that he became addicted to the rush of gambling and struggled to beat his addiction over “two or three years”.

At one stage he had told Mari that he had quit but he continued to gamble until he eventually stopped two years ago.

Barnes said that his close friends would have been aware of his problem when they saw him going in and out of bookmakers’ shops, but that he brushed it off at the time.

“People were saying to me: ‘Are you serious, gambling all the time?’ It wasn’t really big to me.

“I wasn’t feeling depressed over it or anything, it was more just frustration that I was addicted to something and I hated it.

“I’d say I wasn’t gambling again because I lost something, and the next day I was doing it again.

“I was always chasing. It was the thrill of it, the rush, more than the money.”

The 31-year-old says he doesn’t know how much money he lost from his gambling addiction, and of how he felt an overwhelming sense of relief when he opened up to his wife about his problem.

“£100 is enough. It doesn’t matter whether it’s £1 or £100,000, it’s not yours any more, you’ve lost it.

“I was gambling and I talked to my wife, and then I stopped, but I started again. I knew I shouldn’t have been doing it.

“I was able to tell her I had a problem and once I did, I felt really relieved.

“I’ve stopped gambling for that long now that I never thought about going back, because I wasn’t enticed.

“It wasn’t in my thought process any more, it had just gone out of my head. I didn’t care about it any more,” said Barnes, who said he hasn’t gambled in two years.

He also spoke about the impact that the death of his former Olympic team-mate Darren Sutherland in 2009 had on him.

The 27-year-old boxer, who also won bronze in Beijing in 2008, was found dead at his flat in southeast London by his manager Frank Maloney.

“The personality he had, he was very outspoken, a great guy, very talented, very smart and that just shows it can strike down anyone.

“Sometimes there are no signs whatsoever, and it’s hard to read people to know if they have problems and they won’t talk about them. People won’t show their problems. You really don’t know what’s going in someone’s background.

“I’m going to use this position to help get rid of the stigma that if you’re seen to be tough or masculine, that you can’t talk to anyone.

“It’s ok not to be ok. Just talk. Because as soon as you talk to someone about your problems, it takes a weight off your shoulders.

“It [depression] doesn’t discriminate whether you’re upper class, middle class or working class. It’s an illness that can strike anyone at any time, and people need to be aware of that fact.”