OFF THE POST: 'McConville spreading a message of hope for a silent but sometimes deadly matter'

This week’s Off The Post is a little bit different, but it deals with something that the GAA all over the country needs to be aware of and that is the dangers of gambling as revealed so very well by one of its victims who managed to beat his addiction.

And now, Oisin McConville is spreading a message of hope for a silent but sometimes deadly matter as a number of victims have taken their own lives due to the allied pressure.

Oisin now has spoken movingly of how he was on the brink of committing suicide on the lonely streets of London in 2003, as his gambling addiction spirralled out of control - at a moving public talk in the Wark Hall Belleek last week.

In his own frank way, the 2002 All-Ireland winner with Armagh and current GAA pundit told the crowd: “I was a compulsive gambler and a compulsive liar. It was in 1999 and I was after getting an operation done on my back over in England. I was on my own and I was staying in the hotel, and I was not allowed to fly until the next morning and two doors down was the bookies, so I thought that was a good way to spend an afternoon in London.

“I had £500 in my pocket and the first thing I did when I went into the bookies was to get it changed into tenners and fivers. And I put £15 rolled up in a tight wad in my jeans as that was the taxi money to get to the airport and I won’t gamble it.

“But I lost the rest of the money, and for the first time I physically started to shake and there were eight or nine other men in the bookies, and I knew they were laughing at me. So, there was nothing else for me to do than to get out the door.

“But I got the £15 and put it on a horse and I then thought about crawling to the door because I was not sure if my legs would move. I somehow got back to the hotel and set the alarm for 3.30am.

“I got up and walked eight and a half miles back to the airport for the flight at 7am. But on the way it was the lowest I ever felt and I felt deeply embarrassed. Every large vehicle that passed I told myself I was going to throw myself in front of it and end it all.

“Somehow, I made it to the airport because I had the thought of Gaelic football in my head, and I promised myself that I would tell my mother about how I felt. When I got back home, I felt the tears coming and I felt so low, somebody collected me at the airport, and I got home and I went into the kitchen and said please tell her and then I said I will tell her in a minute.

“But when my mum got up and left the kitchen, I took every single penny that she had in her bag and 20 minutes later I was back gambling.”

In a most eloquent and honest account, the Crossmaglen native told of how an insecure childhood full of doubt and lack of self-esteem propelled him into the world of gambling when he was just 14.

It gave a youth who never talked about his emotions a feeling of self- worth and a buzz that deteriorated into a most self- destructive compulsive illness.

And during these bleak years it was Gaelic football, the sport he loved and excelled at that was his safe haven, his sacred place and it was one of the few things that he would not bet on, in an otherwise dark world of debt, deceit and self-loathing as the illness held him in a vice like grip.

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He also explained how the last bet he made was for €20,000 on a horse that lost and how it was funded by an Armagh businessman who became guarantor for a Credit Union loan to fund the bet.

“At that time I had loans from the whole country and I had also burned a lot of bridges to feed my habit,” McConville added.

And he talked frankly about all the money he borrowed and stole from anyone around him, including his own family and he revealed that it has taken a long time for him to regain their trust.

These days the 46-year-old has a happy fulfilled life and is now involved in GAA coaching and management. But his lifelong addiction is always there, and he cannot even buy a GAA draw ticket and there are “guys who think that I am the most miserable person in the world.”

“But that is a small price for me to pay as if I won £100 it might put me back in the bookies. There is a lot more to lose than money as I could lose my family as well”.

For McConville, gambling was an outworking of emotional problems that he kept buried deep in his psyche.

“My addiction was completely hidden so I would not gamble in the same bookies and when I met people on the street when I was after losing everything I had, I would nearly be giving people a high five when I was walking down the street,” McConville added.

“In 1999 I was the only GAA player in Ireland that wore his color up and the reason I did that was to let people think I was something that I wasn’t, and I was hiding behind the show that I put on because I was really ashamed and embarrassed about what was really going on in my life. But I could not show anybody that, and that was the mask that I used.

“At one time, I had a pub in Virginia in County Cavan and I took it over on December 17 2003 - the year we won the All-Ireland title - and I did not gamble at all until February because I was too wrapped up in what was going on.

“I still had it in 2004 because I remember all the Fermanagh people coming into the pub on their way back from Croke Park after beating us in the All-Ireland Quarter Final.

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“When I had all my bills paid, I had €66,000 profit and Cheltenham started and I went back gambling again and I did not back a winner at all and I ended up €42,000 in debt just from Cheltenham. That was the time I started to chase my gambling debts hoping for the one big bet that would solve all my problems, but that never happens.

“I became totally dysfunctional, and it was 90 per cent bets on horses and soccer but I never bet on a Gaelic match. The reason I never did it was because football was a great release from all the carnage that was going on in my life.

“When I went training, I left the mobile phone in the car so nobody could contact me about a horse or just anything and I could not contact them. Football was my sanctuary from all the other madness in my life.

“I felt a huge freedom to concentrate on something that was good and pure. Sometimes I went training because there was food at the end of it and I might not have eaten for 24 hours.

“Football made me feel that I could give something good back, it made me feel that I belonged, where I could express myself and where I actually had value. And that Is why I never gambled on Gaelic football.

“Gaelic football, at that time, was the thing that was keeping me alive. Two of my Armagh team- mates knew about my addiction and gave me money and never asked for it back, all they asked for was for me to get help.

“My gambling damaged so many people and most of all my family and it was when I confided in them honestly that I started on the road to recovery. And then I went to Cuan Mhuire in Galway and Gamblers Anonymous which was the greatest help to me and it is important that you seek this help. These people help you to open up and confront your demons and they do a great job."

In October 2005 McConville went for treatment and came out in February 2006 and he has never relapsed. One thing is certain.

Oisin McConville is doing a great job in highlighting a silent deadly disease which has wreaked havoc on so many lives. He says that talking about addiction and allied mental health issues is “therapy” for him also.