News: EPIC duo appear on LifeStyled Club Podcast
EPIC Risk Management’s Patrick Foster and Scott Davies recently appeared on Maggie Devine and Helen Drury’s LifeStyled Club Podcast to chat about the importance of education and awareness surrounding gambling harm.
The LifeStyled Club Podcast is the first and only wellbeing website exclusively created for wives and partners of professional footballers.
Former professional sportsmen, Patrick Foster, Director of UK and Rest of the World at EPIC Risk Management, and Scott Davies, Pro Sport Facilitator at EPIC Risk Management, have a heightened understanding of how particularly vulnerable sportsmen and women are to addiction and gambling harm.
Wives of former professional footballers, Maggie and Helen understand first-hand the devastating impact that addiction can also have on significant others. Helen comments: “Gambling is a huge topic in football and it’s very stigmatised. We strongly believe this subject has to be spoken about and the awareness has to be raised for this community.”
This episode aims “to give a voice to a community that often doesn’t get heard because of a stereotype put in front of them that people don’t always look beyond”, adds Maggie.
Throughout the podcast, in which conversation broadly ranges from dealing with addiction and mental health to supporting partners, significant others and breaking down stereotypes, Patrick and Scott open up about their lived experiences with addiction. They speak about turning their lives around and their current work at EPIC Risk Management, a globally leading gambling harm minimisation consultancy.
Patrick’s role involves sharing his inspiring journey with young people and parents who may be experiencing similar struggles, encouraging them to ask for help. Scott also shares his incredible story with countless professional sports teams throughout the UK to educate, raise awareness and help others avoid the same path.
A few stand-out quotes from the conversation are as shown below: “If it helps one person, it’ll be worth it”, says Patrick Foster. “We’re obviously so passionate about doing what we do, not because we think we’re heroes who are going to change the world but actually we just want to hope that we’ll help other people not to go through what we did.”
Speaking about his position as EPIC Risk Management, Scott Davies adds, “it has been the best medicine that I can ever take or receive because I speak about it every single day. It reminds me why I don’t do it; it reminds me how I can try and help other people.”
“I wasn’t educated around it and that’s why I run the programme that I do now in professional football, going around to all the clubs. I guess, telling my story for people to get help and so far, has been great. It has been brilliant!”
“Breaking that stigma, talking, reaching out, normalising conversation, is so, so important and we’re massive advocates of that. We try and do it every day in the work that we do.”
Visit https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lifestyled-club-the-podcast/id1450991955?mt=2… to listen to the full podcast, available now.
