A TYRONE GAA footballer has described how he "went down the wrong path" after becoming addicted to gambling from the age of just 15.
Conn Kilpatrick, a 2021 All-Ireland winner, said "gambling took over my life" as he detailed how he was in "£15,000-£20,000 of debt" within just a few years.
"It wasn't nice, but I am big enough to know that I put myself in that position," he said.
"No-one asked me to do a bet, I only have myself to blame."
Speaking on The GAA Social podcast, the Edendork club-man (24) also told how he received help from Armagh GAA stalwart Oisin McConville, himself a former gambling addict.
"Gambling took over my life from a young age, probably from 15 or 16 whenever I started, maybe a bit before," he said.
"It started as a simple as a couple of pound bet with my father and brother, it was just a bit of craic. There was no malice in it, it was just a bit of bonding probably more than anything else. As I got older, it got more apparent, I was going into the bookies myself and then it did get a real hold of me where I was gambling every penny that I had, I was stealing money, I was borrowing money.
"I just went down the wrong path. It all came to a halt when three of my friends called over to my house and told my dad everything that they knew. Basically I had borrowed that much money from that many people that it got back to them and they just had had enough."
He said following the intervention from friends and family in 2018 he went for more than a year without betting. But the Tyrone midfielder relapsed in 2019, spiralling down the same path again, but through online betting.
"The lowest point was getting caught again, it was the friends that heard the first time and they rang my dad again," he said.
"My mother wasn't in the house at the time and I begged him not to tell her, that me and him could do this, but he couldn't keep that from her. Seeing the hurt again was the main thing when they thought everything wasn't that bad. My dad was just like 'how could you let this happen again, how could you put us through this again?'.
"I was just thinking everyone is going to see my mum and dad and think, 'their son is the gambling addict', which hurt as it was nothing to do with them, they didn't lead me down that path. I brought shame onto the family and that was the thing that I was most wary of."
Mr Kilpatrick said his eventual recovery came with the support of former Armagh footballer McConville, who encouraged him to attend Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meetings.
"Oisin had advised me to go to the GA and I didn't want to go. I didn't want people in the local area to see me going in and that is the truth, I was too embarrassed at the time.
"That was the wrong decision, as I genuinely believe if I had gone to them from the start I would have stuck to it and not relapsed, it would have been a great help."
