Living Free

At the time of this interview Ryan had been off the punt for 85 days. He had friends at school who had gambling accounts, but it wasn’t until he turned 18 that he had his own betting account and started gambling in earnest.  His first big win gave him a real buzz and he realized “how easy was that”. It also stroked his ego and set him up for social gambling with his friends. Ryan started off as an...

The youngest of five children, Teresa's spent her childhood moving several times between England and Australia. She found it difficult to make friends and did not enjoy school. Because of this, in an effort to protect her, Teresa's mother allowed her to stay home from school whenever she wanted to. Teresa felt that she was overprotected in other ways during her childhood and younger adulthood, not...

Tami identifies as a binge eater and was greatly relieved to find, at her first Overeaters Anonymous meeting, that she was not the only one. Coming out of isolation into the company of friendly people who had faced the problems that she thought were unique to her, was the first step on Tami's recovery from her disordered thinking about food and life. She tells the story of how each of the 12 Steps...

Carol grew up with an alcoholic father and became an alcoholic herself. She describes starting drinking at 12 years old with her father, escaping the alcoholic home in her mid-teens and how alcohol became part of her social fabric. Carol went on to marry an alcoholic and when they separated her drinking took her and her young daughter on an alcohol fuelled journey to despair. After hospitalization...

Gerard started underage betting on horseracing as a 14-year-old and as his gambling passion increased his school performance suffered. Form-guide betting on the horses with friends as a 17-year-old was a weekly event and he used part-time jobs to cover his losses.  It wasn’t until a traffic accident as a 19-year-old that Gerard started isolating and using gambling a s a means to forget.  Lying cam...

Andrea was born in the early 1960's in a traditional family with an authoritarian father who believed that sons should have preferential treatment over daughters. Both her parents were addicted to alcohol and she learned not to talk too much to avoid her parents' anger. When Andrea left the family home she fell in love with a man who did not drink but who used drugs. She did not realise that this...

This is the second of two discussions with Richard about the practice of the 12 Steps. Richard is a member of AA, Al-Anon and, more recently, Nicotine Anonymous. In this episode we discuss Steps 6-12. Discussion of the first 5 Steps can be found in the episode on 7 September 23. If you think that Al-Anon could help you cope with someone else’s problem drinking then you can phone 1300 252 666 or go...

Rod talks about the effects of alcoholism on his life and the benefits of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.  He was labelled a “good kid” which he didn’t like and found that alcohol gave him the freedom to muck up a bit on weekends. Rod started underage drinking in high school and was able to appear normal most of the time, but no-one saw his drinking in private. Rod married young and as his drink...

Michael shares his gambling journey and how his pokies addiction eventually meant that he would gamble even though he knew he would get found out. He had to get help to save his marriage and Michael found Gamblers Anonymous and that enabled him to break the isolation, understand his addiction and address his real gambling problems. Michael also shares on what works for him in recovery: 12 Steps, s...

Richard is returning to Living Free to discuss in detail the practice of the 12 Steps that are the foundation of many recovery programs. The 12 Steps were conceived by founding members of AA, Bill W and Dr Bob, in the USA in 1935 as a spiritually-based (but non-religious) pathway out of alcoholism. In this episode, Richard and Ann discuss how they practise the first 5 of the 12 Steps. If you think...

Ben talks about the impact sobriety had on his career as a bar manager and as a musician. Sobriety can be difficult to commit to at any stage in life, but can be even more difficult going into your early twenties due to social stigma and other factors. Ben had people in his extended family who experiemented with drug use, and started experimenting with drugs and alcohol in his early teens. Followi...

Stuart talks about the effects of alcoholism on his life and the benefits of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.  His dad left the family early and his family was poor, so he felt these effects during his early schooling. Stuart formed friendships with kids in similar positions and started drinking around 16 years old and using marijuana when he was about 18.  Money was an ongoing problem though, ev...

John talks about the effects of alcoholism on his life and the benefits of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.  His dad was an alcoholic who eventually found AA and although John avoided alcohol in his early teens, he could not resist it after graduating from secondary school. John frequently drank to blackout but didn’t think that his own drinking was that severe. He attended AA once with his dad i...

Todd had his first (winning) bet at 9 years old and it felt so euphoric that he can still remember all the details of the greyhound race vividly. Once he started working around 17 years old, he was hooked, became a payday gambler and his life quickly went out of control. Todd tried all other forms of gambling, but the TAB was the most convenient and anonymous.  He came into Gamblers Anonymous when...

Alateen is a fellowship of young people whose lives have been affected by someone else's drinking. The month of August is Alateen Awareness month and Mitch and I are joined in the studio by Tami and Barry. Tami is the Alateen Co-ordinator for the Victorian Southern Area of Al-Anon and Barry has lived experience growing up in a family where alcohol was abused. Both Barry and Tami are Alateen sponso...

Rhi grew up with her mother and two brothers in Melbourne. Her grandparents, who came to Australia post-war, cooked beautifully and valued food highly. But there was dysfunction in the family. In childhood, Rhi was teased by her siblings about her weight and when, at age 10, a significant adult indicated that her body size was a problem she began to run to try to change it. So began a two-decade l...

Greig is back on the show again to talk more about the effects of alcoholism on his life and the benefits of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.  He grew up underage drinking and although his dad was an alcoholic, recovering in AA, Greig didn’t think that his own drinking was that severe. It wasn’t till into his early thirties that he realized that most of his friends had settled down and were takin...

Marcus grew up in a household where alcohol was abused, suffered from social and emotional challenges at school, and began to drink and use drugs in his teenage years. It was only when Marcus visited a pokies venue for the first time that he experienced the sense of peace and enjoyment that he had always sought. He loved the experience so much that he made his way back to the venue the  next morni...

Grace grew up in a large Victorian town where drug and alcohol use and abuse were common but she experienced little of this either at home or among her school friends. When she first began to drink in her late teens, Grace's parents purchased small amounts of alcohol for her to take to parties and ensured that she came home safely at night. It was when she came to Melbourne to study that Grace's w...

Vanessa grew up in Germany in a family still affected by the trauma of WW2. Vanessa suffered some anxiety throughout her childhood and teenage years. When she went to live in the US as an exchange student, she felt abandoned and uncertain. Vanessa had always had a problematic relationship with food, eating too much even as a young child, and by her teenage years she was in a cycle of binging, diet...

Ann and Bill highlight the importance of 3CR and the Living Free show to get the recovery fellowships' message of hope out to the community. We also raised funds to keep 3CR on air for another year and mention the generous donations from the listening public. We had very generous donations and by the end of the show we had raised $1,800, just short of our target of $2,000.  Many thanks to all our...

Adrian is just over 30 years old and has been in Gamblers Anonymous for four and a half years. He discusses how his gambling progressed from sports betting with the help of older kids at 13 years old, underage horse punting at TABs with school friends to becoming a serious problem in his life before he turned 18. It affected Adrian’s school and personal life and mixing betting and drinking soon ma...

Mark grew up in a well to do family in Perth, Western Australia, at a time when the city was undergoing change. There was the mining boom, the cults that had grown out of the counter-culture, and the AIDS epidemic. Sensitive to the inequality and injustice he saw around him, Mark was attracted to the work of caring and community building and during the AIDS crisis he found himself supporting men w...

Tami has always had a problematic relationship with food, never knowing what 'normal' eating was. Despite accumulating a comprehensive knowledge of food, nutrition and dieting she was unable to contol her compulsion to binge. Diets and attempts to eat in a controlled way did not work. It was only when she went to her first meeting of Overeaters Anonymous that Tami realised that many people had exa...

Janelle’s dad died when she was six years old, and she grew up in a single parent family in New Zealand.  With her mum out working Janelle and her older sister were free to do what they wanted after school. A self-confessed naughty kid, Janelle soon found her group and was shoplifting, wagging school and drinking alcohol as a 13-year-old. When she left school Janelle worked in pubs and clubs where...