Thread by @MetroUK

Imagine becoming a millionaire overnight, all the things you could buy and do!

Although it seems as though winning a huge sum of cash could change your life for the better, that’s not always the case.

As they say, be careful what you wish for….

[A THREAD]

One minute, Ben was a normal family man with a successful career.

Next, he was leaving the National Lottery office in Aintree with an envelope stuffed full of cash and an overflowing bank account.

‘My life changed overnight,’ he recalls.

‘There was so much adrenaline and excitement. But then I was suddenly exhausted and my mind was racing. I was thinking “What am I going to do with all this cash?”’

Ben won a seven-figure sum in the National Lottery a decade ago, but the life-changing amount of money destroyed the world as he knew it.

He did what many of us would do in his situation; went on holiday and started spending.

He brought cars, trips, nice clothes and gadgets. He put his three kids in private school, got a cleaning lady and gave up his job.

Ben was flying high. And then he crashed.

‘The problem for me was that I wasn’t happy with my life when I won. So instead of improving things, the cash just exacerbated the problems I already had,’ he admits.

‘If you have a bit of a drink problem, and you booze at home quite aggressively, if you’ve decided you’re not going to work any more, you’re going to drink every day. I just became quite lazy. I wasn’t looking after myself.’

‘I didn’t set myself up properly,’ he admits. ‘I didn’t feel like I needed to earn a load of money as I already had so much in the bank, so I didn’t.'

'And then suddenly it was too late and the money was gone. What a waste of time.’

With over 4000 millionaires made since the National Lottery began in 1994, the ongoing debate on whether winning the big cash prize can actually bring you happiness is a complicated one.

A recent study by three Swedish economists – Erik Lindqvist, Robert Östling, and David Cesarini – looked at the long term psychological effects of big lottery wins.

Their findings revealed that the overall life satisfaction of those who won over £75,000 was significantly higher than that of small winners.

Let’s look at some of the moments when winning big only made life worse…

One of the most tragic cases is that of 56-year-old Margaret Loughrey, who was found dead in her bungalow in Strabane, Northern Ireland, in September.

She had won nearly £27,000,000 in the EuroMillions in 2013, but suffered dreadfully after the jackpot win brought her ‘nothing but grief’.

She gave much of the cash away before cutting herself off from her family and refusing medical help in the weeks before her death.

In 2003, Callie Rogers was the youngest lottery winner when she took home £1.8 million at just 16.

She gave a lot of the cash away and was taken advantage of by so-called friends, while also spending thousands on drugs and alcohol.

In the end, Callie, who suffered with depression for years and made two attempts on her life, was left with very little. Now, 33, she works as a carer in Workington, Cumbria, and has described herself as the happiest she has ever been.

Professor Paul McGee is one of the UK’s leading speakers on the subject of change and says lottery winners are sold a dream that becoming a millionaire will solve all their problems, but the reality is much more complicated.

‘A lot of us have a view that if we get a lot of money, then it will solve all our problems. But the reality is that it can create a lot more problems in your life.’

Paul, co-author of The Happiness Revolution, adds: ‘A lot of lottery winners believe that if you get the car, and you get the house, then you will be happy. And yet all the research says that one of the keys to your happiness is relationships.’

‘It is our relationships which are crucial to our wellbeing, not money. There are people who are relatively poor but they have good family and good friendship networks and they are far more fulfilled.’

Do you think money can buy you happiness?

There are, of course, cases where becoming a millionaire overnight has led to happiness and financial stability.

For example, Sharon and Nigel Mather from Manchester won over £12 million in 2010 and regularly donate to charity and took care not to blow all their winnings.

Meanwhile, Bev Middleton said that winning over £14 million on the Euromillions in 2017 afforded her the opportunity to send her son, who struggled socially, to private school – which saw an end to the bullying he’d previously suffered.

Content with his lot now, Ben admits that he does have some happy memories of spending the money – along with a number of regrets.

‘I was taking too much money out of the pot. It wasn’t sustainable over a long period of time. That is when you realise what you’ve had.'

‘Having that much cash definitely brings out your demons. They say money can’t buy happiness and I don’t think it does.'

'It can help you be more happy if you are already. But if you’re unhappy, it won’t – it will just paper over the cracks.’

Read more here:
metro.co.uk/2021/12/11/in-…