Hyno-crit

	Now, I've known girls who like being pulled, held, and nudged…but I can never recall any wanting to be a fruit machine

They say that if the first bet of your life is a winner, then you’ll be a gambler for life. If the first bet of your life is a loser, then you’ll always regard gamblers as mugs. And if the first bet of your life is a loser, but you just know it was the value, then you’ll be a professional gambler.

Ryan Hancox is a compulsive gambler and, like most compulsive gamblers, a mug.

His vehicle of choice is the slot machine, those evil money-eaters given a fluffy name, such as ‘amusement with prizes’ machines, by those who rake in the money and the more realistic description ‘one-armed bandits’ by those whose money is raked in.

When Hancox was 12, he won £70 on a slot machine – his first-ever bet – and was instantly hooked. Within ten years, he had amassed debts of £24,000, which he is still paying off. Now 26, he reckons to have done £40,000 on those twinkly-eyed life-wreckers.

His biggest worry, though – as told to hypnotist Paul McKenna on I Can Change Your Life (Sky One) – is losing his girlfriend Lisa. Boy that would have to be one hell of a card game.

‘Ryan is completely in love with bandits,’ Lisa simpered to the camera. ‘Sometimes I wish I was a fruit machine.’ Now, I’ve known girls who like being pulled, held, and nudged. Some, I’m told, even enjoy being banged. But, in my memory, I can never recall any wanting to be a fruit machine.

He’s got high hopes

Enter McKenna with the brief to cure Ryan of his gambling addiction. ‘Gambling gives him a serotonin high: the happy brain pill,’ he said, stating the bleedin’ obvious. ‘That big win at a formative age set him on a pattern and he’s chasing that high.

‘I’m going to take him into the future and show him what will happen if he doesn’t change,’ said the hypnotist. For a fleeting moment, you had visions of Ryan coming home from work five years later to be greeted, in the kitchen wearing an apron and cooking dinner, by a one-armed bandit.

As it turned out, and just as I suspected, McKenna did nothing of the sort. Hypnotists are great at taking you back in time, but taking you into the future is a trick I suspect they’ll take a while longer to master.

Instead his treatment focused on ‘rewiring Ryan’s mind’. A better bet would have been rewiring the one-armed bandit to pay out more, but that never occurred to him. ‘Think about a really big win,’ he commanded Ryan. ‘Remember like you’re back there now. Can you hear it, like the machine won’t stop paying out? Now I want you to float out of yourself so you can see the back of your head. Shrink the whole thing into a picture and throw it out of the window, as if the experience is happening to someone else. Now give me a code word for one of your worst times gambling ever.’

Coventry-based Ryan’s answer was, ‘Liverpool.’ What? Had he backed AC Milan heavily in the European Cup Final? Or laid the Scousers to win Capital of Culture? No, the answer was 100% stereotypical. ‘Not only did I lose all the money I had there, my bike was stolen the same night. I had to go back to the casino to ask for money for a taxi home.’

It became clear what we were dealing with: a man who goes to the casino on his bike. He might as well tattoo the word ‘loser’ on his forehead. Ryan confessed also to a humiliating night in Coventry, in which he was convinced fellow gamblers were pointing at him and sniggering. They probably were.

McKenna’s plan, the voiceover told us, was to overload Ryan’s brain with negativity. I’m tempted to say his experiences in Liverpool and Coventry made it a double negative but that’s a complete no-no.

We can rebuild him

‘Paul is trying to ruin Ryan’s association of gambling with good times,’ the voiceover said. ‘To reinforce the reprogramming, Ryan has to feel a massive repulsion for gambling by associating it with something he detests.’ And what did he detest? ‘Vegetables.’

Of course. This is a man who deals only with cherries and lemons and oranges. Of course he hates veg.

McKenna asked him to imagine eating a plateful of broccoli and green beans. ‘Think of every machine button you’ve ever touched and when you touch that button you have to swallow another mouthful.’

Next, he had to think of his greatest feeling outside gambling – in this case, his first kiss with Lisa. ‘Now make it bigger and brighter, let those good feelings wash over you like waves on a sea shore. How do you feel about gambling now?’ asked McKenna.

‘The thrill… isn’t the same,’ replied Ryan.

‘The thrill will never be the same again,’ said McKenna, sounding very much like a man who’s never had a bet. ‘Pain is now associated with gambling, pleasure is associated with a better life. I’ve wired you up differently. You get a feeling of pleasure from every other area of your life so you don’t need to gamble to feel good.’

One month later, Ryan had still not touched a fruit machine and Lisa still resembled human form. ‘I don’t wish I was a fruit machine any more because Ryan doesn’t look at them any more,’ she said.

Aah, yes, but does he still push the right buttons, love?