Angelina Villalva, NAMI Intern
What comes to mind when I mention gambling? Is it the slot machines? Perhaps poker or blackjack? Maybe certain locations are pictured, like Atlantic City. Some people may think of mobile betting platforms like FanDuel Sportsbook or DraftKings. For others, gambling might bring to mind gacha games, such as Genshin Impact or Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket.
The point is, gambling can take multiple forms and appears more frequently in our lives than we may initially realize. In a traditional sense, gambling can be seen as a rite of passage, with friends and family taking trips to casinos for birthdays, vacations, or other various celebrations. Gambling appears in our sports, with fans oftentimes betting on their favorite teams or creating fantasy leagues to earn money from their favorite players. It also appears in video games, allowing players to spend just a little more money to earn a better item or character.
This large presence and availability is then in turn why gambling addiction is so hard to recover from. With so much exposure to gambling and having these mechanisms easily available to us both in-person and virtually, it can be quite easy to relapse and fall back into bad habits.
So what exactly is gambling addiction, and how does it begin? As defined by MayoClinic, gambling addiction is the uncontrollable urge to keep gambling despite the toll it takes on your life. Similarly to drug or alcohol addictions, partaking in gambling stimulates the brain’s reward system. Overtime, overconsumption (and additionally overstimulation of this reward system) can alter how we perceive pleasure from activities, therefore causing a positive feedback loop of needing to do more and more to achieve the same high.
Compared to casual gamblers who are able to stop when losing or be able to set limits on how much they’re willing to bet, people suffering from compulsive gambling have problems controlling their impulse to gamble, even when there are negative consequences. There are several risk factors that can contribute to individuals developing a gambling disorder, such as trauma, social inequality, low income, unemployment, poverty, and other unaddressed mental health disorders (particularly bipolar disorder or ADHD).
According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), to obtain a diagnosis of gambling disorder, a person must exhibit 4 of the following during the past year:
- Reliving past gambling or planning future gambles
- Need to gamble with increasing amounts to achieve the desired excitement
- Repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back on, or stop gambling
- Restlessness or irritability when trying to cut down or stop gambling
- Gambling when trying to escape from problems or negative mood/stress
- After losing an item or money by gambling, feeling the need to continue to get even (referred to as “chasing” one’s losses)Â
- Often gambling when feeling distressed
- Lying to hide the extent of gambling involvement
- Losing important opportunities such as a job or school achievements or close relationships due to gambling
- Relying on others to help with money problems caused by gambling
Only 1 in 10 people with gambling disorders seek treatment. Compared to other substance use or addictive disorders, gambling has shown to carry the highest risk of suicide. Roughly 1 in 2 gamblers will think about suicide, while 1 in 5 will attempt. It is imperative for individuals suffering from gambling disorders to receive proper care and support.
Depending on how gambling disorder affects the individual will influence what their recovery path will look like. For individuals who suffer from other untreated mental health disorders, medication and therapy may be used to treat those symptoms and diagnoses. In other cases, the main form of treatment may lie in therapy and support groups, with further counseling pertaining to other aspects of the individual’s problems (such as marriage, career, or credit counseling).
You are more capable than you believe, and you are more loved than you know. Remember to rely on the people around you, and to find the support you deserve. It is hard to begin recovery, but it is harder to have addiction rule your life. As novelist Charlotte Brontë has once said, “I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.”
Resources:
- NAMI Mercer Helpline Phone Number: 609-799-8994 x17
- Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Text or call 988
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 1-800-273-8255
- National Problem Gambling Helpline: 1-800-522-4700
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