An ex-Marine has opened up about how a simple horse race flutter in his teens spiralled into a decades-long gambling addiction.

Craig Clements, 47, once spent every penny he earned in pursuit of a big win, and spent years blowing hundreds of pounds at a time on roulette in betting shops. But 2024 marks a turning point for Craig, from Chesterfield, who has managed to kick the habit for the first time after seeking professional help.

He sought assistance from NHS-run East Midlands Gambling Harms Service after initially planning to “just try to cut down and get it under control”. He said: “The team asked me to give up gambling but I was determined I just wanted to reduce it. Then, within a few weeks of being on the programme, I realised that I needed to give it up completely.”

Craig’s gambling started innocently with bets on horse races for his uncle when he was in his late teens. Craig said: “I would have been about 18, and I’d see him win £20 here and there, and then the odd big win of a couple of hundred. I started to think, maybe I could win like that.”

The former Marine confessed to spending all his money at the bookies, a habit that persisted throughout his military career. After leaving the Forces, he turned to alcohol and gambling as a coping mechanism for resurfacing childhood trauma. Even after starting a family and working as a care assistant in Derby, Craig’s mind was never far from gambling. He admitted: “It’s so easy to hide a gambling habit. With drugs or alcohol there are physical signs, but you can hide gambling, and mine was getting really bad. I was getting loans out and putting it all on another bet.”

“In 2006 my wife and I split up because of my gambling we had to sell the house and I was about £80,000 in debt. I was working all the hours I could, doing as much overtime as I could but it just spiralled out of control. I did stop for about eight months but that was purely because I just didn’t have the funds to do it. I’d been gambling away the money before putting milk and bread on the table.”

However, the allure of gambling proved too strong for Craig. He revealed: “The biggest win I ever had was £19,500. It was on a seven-horse accumulator and I was buzzing. I bought a car, got my new partner a £2,500 engagement ring… it was a great feeling at the time, but it just encouraged me to gamble more.”

Craig, who faced down a gambling habit after grappling with mental health issues including PTSD, revealed: “I did a lot of therapy and realised that, because I had a difficult childhood which didn’t have a lot of love and affection, my subconscious didn’t know how to do ‘normal’. My subconscious was trying to sabotage my relationships and I was in destructive mode, but having realised that, I’ve addressed it.”

He found support at the East Midlands Gambling Harms Service, an NHS-run programme. Craig praised the course, saying, “It was brilliant and really helped me to change my life,” He added: “I realised that it’s a journey you have to go on and that if you have a blip, it’s ok, it’s not the end of the world. I just had to think, right, I’ve been a naughty lad but it is out of the way now, let’s start again.”