Women & Gambling Co-ordinator
Hi, I’m Deb. I am a Gambler in Recovery (GIR). I have been in recovery for 6 and a half years but after a relapse, I have been clear for 20 months. I have over 40 years of lived experience of gambling harms and fully understand how devastating gambling can be to you and those around you. I never thought I could be so happy and content in recovery and I am grateful to those who have supported and helped me along the way. I am mostly grateful that those I love the most never gave up on me and knew that there was a better person hidden inside.
Now that I am working within the recovery space with amazing women, I truly feel very blessed and fortunate to be able to share my lived experience with others in the hope that it will help them understand this devastating illness and assist them in finding the strength to build better and happier, gamble free lives for themselves.
I am a massive comedy fan and after entering a competition, named a local comedy business that puts on local comedy festivals and events. They are called Out for a laff! I am now very good friends with the owner.
I love dogs and have a very lovely, but very big, 5-year-old Rottweiler called Poppy that I recently rescued from a dog and cat shelter.
When I was in my early 30’s I was kissed by Prince ( the singer and musician rather than William or Harry lol).
I can’t say the word ‘phenomenon’ and can only make one hand (my right) do jazz hands while the other just shakes about and has been likened to a deformed crab.
For my professional life I would love to spend the rest of my working life helping people to first of all find the courage and strength to stop gambling and then to help them rebuild their lives and learn to cope with the legacy harm that gambling can leave us with.
For my personal life, one day I would love to tour America and Europe in a huge Motorhome with just me, my husband and our lovely girl Poppy. I would also love to hold a sloth.