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When happy and sociable teenager Stacey decided she wanted to earn some extra money, her dad helped her get a job in a booking shop in her home town of Chesterfield.

Before long, the 18 year-old began to clock how much money punters were making.

Then, she put a pound in a machine – and won. The £30 windfall felt considerable; it paid for a night with her pals.

“That very, very quickly became, ‘I want another night out,’” says Stacey.

At first, it was just spare coins, but soon she had gambled with her first note – and things began to change.

“Even if I won for a night out, I still wanted to play,” she recounts. “It was honestly almost immediate that I started to begin to chase.”

“I began very quickly to hide my gambling as much as I could,” she admits, going to to shops where no one would recognise her.

“I would time how long I was in there for, so that people wouldn’t come up and ask if I was ok.”

“I think at that point, I knew deep down – I was hooked.”

One day, going from bookie to bookie, she lost £500 in the machines. She stood outside a betting shop waiting for her payday loan to land in her account.

She thought, “If I can just get the jackpot, I’ll be OK. It will fix my rent arrears.”

By now, Stacey was incredibly isolated. She had gone from a happy and sociable teenagers, to one actively searching to be alone so that she could gamble.

Online betting was much easier to hide. And although she had changed jobs, the move to online gambling now meant that she was able to do it 24/7.

By now, Stacey could barely hold a conversation. “All I was thinking about all the time was either, 'Where am I going to get the money from for my next bet', 'How can I access gambling' or 'How the hell do I clean up this mess that I have made?'”

Unfortunately, it was her mother who bore the brunt of her addiction.

“I was so driven by the need for money that I would manipulate her, I would lie to her, and all she became at that point was an ATM.”

When Stacey gambled away her entire wage in the space of just twelve minutes, she finally told her mum the truth. “It was the hardest thing in the world to do… I was so scared that she would hate me.” Instead, she put her arm around her daughter took her to the doctor.

Going to the GP only made things worse. She was advised not to tell a counsellor that she had a gambling disorder but instead say she was struggling with low self-esteem.

It added to her sense of shame.

A couple of years later she tried again. “I was in so much debt, I was so alone and at this point, I wanted help.”

But the GP misheard her, and presumed she had a gynaecological issue. Stacey was convinced she must be the only woman in the world with a gambling addiction.

“I believed with everything in me that I was a monster,” she states.

It was then that Stacey won big - a £50,000 jackpot.

She tried to convince herself that everything was fixed, but seven days later, she had lost it all.

“I had no idea who I was with it, and so I proceeded to gamble the entire lot.”

“I knew by this point there was no amount of money that was enough to make me stop.”

Growing up, Stacey was attracted to women, but felt ashamed: “I didn't tell anyone.”

During her teens, she had anorexia, which she describes as her first addiction.

It was a way of controlling her life when she felt she couldn't control her sexuality.

Now, she had entered into a relationship with a woman, and it was a happy one.

Stacey hoped that this could be her fairytale ending; that love would be enough to stop her gambling.

But she went on to gamble away her partner’s mortgage payment. Love wasn’t the answer.

“That moment changed my life,” she states. "I decided I was either going to put myself in prison or I was going to find residential support."

"I needed to be taken away. I was absolutely out of control, and it scared me.”

She was lucky enough to find a women’s residential rehab in Hereford, run by a charity.

“I was so scared,” she admits. When her partner dropped her off, she broke down.

“I cried and I cried, like a little girl, and I rang my mum.”

“That was the first time I let my mask down in eight years,” she says. “That’s when she knew that I meant it. That I really wanted some help. She cried too. She said, ‘You’re going to be OK and I’m so proud of you.’”

“What happened next remains to this day the single most powerful moment of my life,” says Stacey. During a group session, she observed two women have a conversation about their gambling. “I watched them saying the things that they’d done, the lies that they told, how gambling got them… That was the first time I said, ‘I am not on my own.’”

“I owe my life to those two women and they have no idea to this day that they are the reason that I am where I am now.”

Stacey did everything that was asked of her. “I spoke, which was very unlike me, given the person that I'd become.” She sat with the urges to gamble, the anger and the frustration. “It was so hard, but I felt every minute of it.” She spent the majority of the time in the bath, her phone in another room. “That was where I knew that I was safe.” She returned home, no longer gambling.

Then, six months after leaving rehab, her dad had a stroke and Stacey relapsed. “I thought, I’m at a crossroads here. I either go back to that life I have tried so hard to escape, or I make a new choice.” So, she contacted her mum and counsellor and confessed. “I was incredibly disappointed and I was sad but there was also a part of me that was very, very proud… I was not that person that lied anymore.”

It gave her clarity: she finally understood why she gambled: “I didn’t cope well with being gay. I didn’t cope well with feeling like I didn’t fit in.

"I didn’t cope well with highly emotional stuff… And so I looked to turn it off.” The fastest way to do that was to gamble.

Five years have passed, and she has not had a single bet since. “It really, really worked.”

Today, if she feels an urge, Stacey will clean. Or pick up a pencil.

“Drawing is something that I love,” she says.

Her mum remains her rock, and she also has a new partner. “I absolutely adore her and I love our kids and I love my life.”

She works for a charity called the EPIC Restart Foundation, which helps recovering gamblers rebuild their lives.

“I’m lucky enough now to support other women going through the same, which I never thought I’d do.”

Her advice for others is to get the right people around them, and the right support.

“Gambling addiction wants you on your own,” she says. “Reach out, begin the conversation, and that's how we tackle this.”

You can hear Stacey's incredible story and more like this on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 4's Life Changing podcast, available now on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sounds.