Paul Fung says:

 

"Gambling has played a prevalent part in my life. I watched my parents gamble when I was a child and learnt to do the same when I was 7 years old.  I had learnt to gamble on horse racing, sports and casino games all before the legal age of gambling of 18. I had a fake id so that I could gamble.  

 

I lost many years of my life to gambling. I lost money, time, relationships, my self worth, self esteem and self belief.

 

I started my recovery journey by attending 12 step meetings, which then led to getting more therapy, counselling and support groups.

 

I started to share my story to media, community organisations and other interested parties. I have performed my story, made videos, recorded podcasts and interviews.

 

After a period of time I felt that I was getting used like an “exhibit”, 'let's just roll out the gambler, let them tell their story, pat them on the back and tell how great they are'. Then I realised there wasn’t enough support, there wasn’t enough debriefing and following up, there was no duty of care (with a few exceptions). I thought I was the only one thinking and feeling this way, until I was sharing this with others. This gave us the idea that people advocating and working in the gambling harm space needed to be with each other, our peers to support one another in our work.

 

We put together our networks and started trying to connect one another. Then GHLEE was born."