John Robins has talked frankly about gambling and addiction as well as his comedy career and his appearance on Taskmaster in a new podcast.
The Prison Radio Association (PRA), the organisation behind the award-winning Life After Prison podcast and National Prison Radio, is launching of a new series of Hold or Fold, a hard-hitting podcast exploring the devastating impact of problem gambling. Sponsored by GambleAware, the new series premieres today and is available on all major podcast providers.
Presented by Ben Jones and Steve Girling - both of whom have first-hand experience of gambling addiction and imprisonment - Hold or Fold is a vital resource offering expert advice, support, and service signposting. Through candid conversations, personal testimonies, and expert insights, the podcast aims to dismantle the stigma surrounding gambling disorder and raise awareness of its far-reaching consequences.
Each episode delves into key themes such as the science behind gambling disorder, and the impact of gambling harm on individuals, families, and communities. Packed with inspirational stories, Hold or Fold sheds light on the experiences of those who have struggled with gambling addiction, hit rock bottom, and fought their way to recovery.
The new series opens with comedian John Robins who shares with personal battle with gambling, its effects, hiding his addiction, recovery and his advice to those struggling. Other episodes will cover women and gambling, the impact on loved ones, gambling among young people, and practical strategies for managing cravings and addiction recovery.
Host Ben Jones says: "Connecting with other people is a cornerstone of Recovery. Hold Or Fold brings inspiring stories to you, wherever you are!"
"Hold or Fold is a must listen for anyone who wants to understand more about Gambling and the Criminal Justice System. From lived experience stories to professionals sharing the support that’s available,” co-host Steve Girling adds.
Robns talked at length about how he got into gambling and how he hid his addiction: "I would have been about 16, not hugely happy in my life. I know now looking back, I've always been desperate to change the way I feel to, someone described it recently like as being allergic to yourself. So, anything that gives me a chance to just switch my head off or to escape or to feel different is very, very attractive. I mean, obviously I knew as a teenager that alcohol changed the way you felt, but I was just bored in a pub and I put a quid in a fruit machine. And someone explained to me what the different buttons did and said, oh, you want to press that one now because you've got this thing.
Instantly, I had found something that just switched off my head. It stopped me thinking about anything else. It consumed me. And 18 months later, I was in the car park at that same pub, sat outside smashing a pint glass, cutting my wrists because it got so desperate. It was such an acute, such a sudden, all-encompassing problem that I don't really have a great deal of memories from that time aside from gambling. One of the awful things about gambling is I think more than almost any other addiction, it's isolating because you're so ashamed to tell anyone else what you're doing and what you've done. You're too embarrassed to face up yourself to the amount of money you've lost.
You're desperately trying to solve the situation. Just get back to zero. You never get back to zero because it's not actually about money, even though money is the sort of form it takes. It's about switching your head off and that comes at a cost. If I win, I want to carry on switching my head off. So winning money just buys me more time to do that. So it's all going to go, you know, I'm going to spend everything I've got on everything I win. It tells you if you could just get this amount back, if you could just put this on at these odds, you'll get it all back and it'll be fine and you'll stop. It's like I'm never ever, ever going to stop until I seek help. My mum sorted out when I admitted my problem to her. My mum sorted out some counselling and whilst that was useful, it didn't stop me gambling. I went to a Gambler's Anonymous meeting and then I went to university and I was away from Gambler's Anonymous.
I relapsed at university, started going back again. It was not a huge period in my life in terms of time. It was probably from my first bet to my last bet. It was probably only three or four years, but that's the terrifying thing about gambling. You can spend all the money you got in a day, let alone three or four years. I feel enormously grateful to Gambler's Anonymous. I feel enormously grateful to those other Gamblers who shared their experience, strength and hope with me. But for the grace of God, I've not had a bet in probably 20 years, but not long after that alcohol took over. Only looking back now do I realise they were performing the same function. But alcohol is so much more socially acceptable that it took a lot longer to see the damage alcohol was doing to me physically and mentally.”
“Every addict, regardless of the addiction, becomes an expert in hiding it, whether that's drinking, drugs, gambling, sex, spending money, food, whatever it is. People who haven’t experienced addiction might think people who have addictions are weak willed. Nothing could be further from the case. The amount of effort, the amount of concentration and management it takes to live in addiction is off the scale. You know, if you think about a gambler maybe managing 10, 20 online accounts, the cards, the lying, the compartmentalization of their life, making sure no one finds out, it's a full-time job. And on top of that, you might have a family, you might have a job, you might have other responsibilities.
Robins on the pressures of addiction
It takes an incredible effort just to keep an addiction up. Do you know what I mean? Even though the compulsion to do it is not necessarily conscious, the stuff you have to do, if you were to sort of talk about transferable skills, it would be quite an incredible CV. Hiding it becomes part of the course, that's part of the territory. And it means that when you finally have to share that with someone, the shock of them finding out. You know, it could be your partner, it could be someone you've been married to for 20 years. You suddenly say, I don't own the house anymore, I'm 100 grand in debt, whatever it is. I mean, imagine dropping out on someone's doorsteps and no wonder people keep it to themselves. But the problem will only go away when you start to bring people in to your head and into the situation you're in. It's not going to get better by keeping it to yourself. You're not going to solve this problem alone. Addiction wants you alone. Doesn't matter whether it's drugs, alcohol or gambling.
Tthe first bet I ever laid, a pound in a fruit machine, you used to get five spins for a pound. So, the first bet I ever laid was 20p. That ended up with me sitting in a car park with blood all over my wrists. There is no harmless bet because 20p got me to my lowest ebb.”
Robins on Taskmaster
He also talked about taking part in Taskmaster in 2024 (pictured below, picture credit: Avalon): "It was a record point score. Very important to mention that. It was the highest score ever achieved on Taskmaster. There's two types of contestants on Taskmaster. There's funny ones and ones who win. And I definitely fall into the category of the ones who win. And I make no apologies for that.”
“In all honesty, it's pretty much exactly as it seems. However, what they might do, say the task is something like, I think one of the ones I did was create the most incredible in-air photo, mid-air photo. I wanted fire to be involved. So, what they might do is just say, OK, let's pause just for two minutes to get our heads around what it is you're trying to do. Because obviously you can't say, right, I'm going to light a fire and then just rush off and start setting fire to things. And one of them was do the most dangerous thing involving an egg.
And I wanted the egg to drive the car. The only way we could do that was have me in the passenger seat, someone steering the car from outside of it. And me have my hand on the handbrake. So they needed to call the insurance company and say, can we have an egg drive the car? So, stuff like that, they might pause, I mean, literally for two minutes and then they start the clock again once they've given you the all clear. Or they've said, yes, you can light a fire, but you need to be wearing goggles and gloves. So there's no trickery, there's no cheating. That probably happened four times over the course of, I don't know how many tasks we did, 60 tasks.”
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