"When I was 20 I picked up bingo. I would go to the bingo hall and I would sit with my tablet with some kind of package deal on that and I’d also be sitting with two paper books cause I could keep up with two books at a time and just press tap the tablet. So, I’d have every single game of bingo - maybe 40-50 books to play on at one time.

My first ever night in a bingo hall, beginners luck they say? I won a few hundred quid in the bingo and then I went out and there was this puggy just all lit up and shiny and beautiful and I was like - I’m going to have a go of that! 30p a spin so I stuck three quid in it, ten spins. I don’t know how the game worked but lets go for it! And, I turned that three quid into three hundred. So, I was on this MASSIVE high.

See since that night in the bingo I have never to this day, never, ever to this day, won anything, anywhere near close to what I won that day in the bingo. That set me off and I’d say for about six months to a year I was in the bingo hall every day.

The first day was the greatest amount of money I’ve ever, like the largest sum of money in one go, I’ve ever won in my life. But it spiralled. I was going up to bingo and I was having breakfast in the bingo hall and playing breakfast bingo. And then I was going down the road, to my girlfriend at the time, and then I was coming back up for lunch time bingo and having lunch in the bingo hall and then I was going and I was meeting up with my pals or whatever for a couple of hours and then I was going back up to the bingo hall at evening and playing the evening session and having my dinner in the bingo. You pay extra money for the food. It’s not a special restaurant or anything, but the wee woman that worked in the kitchen in that bingo hall made tasty food.

So, that’s how it ended up. My gambling is definitely, definitely without a doubt what ended that relationship because she never saw me. I was always in the bingo hall. And then when I wasn't in the bingo hall I would be going to buy scratch cards and all that in the shop and then, don't get me wrong, I won money at times and I would go and buy furniture for our bedroom and stuff like that, which was good but when you’re no getting to spend any time with the person it doesn’t really matter does it?"