Nine months ago, Pat Sheedy walked out of prison after spending more than two and a half years locked up for trying to fund his decades-long gambling addiction through various scams.

After winning his first bet as a teenager, he quickly fell into a cycle of working, borrowing and stealing to make sure he could place his next bet. Long periods of abstinence - at one point he went 12 years without gambling - followed, but it wasn't until finally being given a custodial sentence in 2020 that he began to really reflect on the damage he was doing to other people.

Pat speaks to Richie just a few hundred metres down the road from where he placed his first bet in Limerick city today and explains why prison was the best thing that ever happened to him, describes the life of a compulsive gambler and how he's tried to make amends with the victims of his scams since being released last August.

Episode is a Second Captains podcast.

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This week on Episode we're taking a mid-series break but fear not, Richie and Killian will be back on the road next week when we'll be bringing you another brilliant conversation.

Until then, a massive thank you for all the support for the show so far this series!

Episode is a Second Captains production.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Richie and Killian travelled to Phibsboro to meet James Kavanagh at the home he's just about to leave after eight years for a new life in the countryside.

Richie and James look back at James' teenage years, the earliest of which he spent locked up alone in his bedroom, his sanctuary from the homophobic bullying that dominated his time at school. He speaks about the reality of having no friends whatsoever until he was sixteen, darting from class to class to avoid other students and how he managed to start afresh and leave those days behind him.

After the chat, Killian describes an experience both he and James have had in common with last week's guest, Donie O'Sullivan: recurring panic attacks and trying to manage them before they derail your day-to-day life.

Episode is a Second Captains production.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.