[leonard83]

Hello everybody,
A couple of weeks ago I had to write an article for the monthly newsletter of a 12-step clinic in Holland. They asked me how I see a gambling addiction and how it develops. I wrote it in Dutch, but my mother was so kind to translate it into English! This is just my vision on a gambling addiction. I hope we can discuss it and hopefully people will learn from it. Especially Friends and family of gambling addicts.
Here it is:
Gambling Addiction
“For a lot of people, visiting a casino and placing their small bets is an innocent pastime. It is nice to win something and losses, if any, are anticipated and therefore calculable risks. In any case it is an enjoyable night out about which one can sit and talk about for hours afterwards. But there are people for whom this ’innocent pastime’ can have disastrous consequences. “
How do casinos operate?
Casinos and gambling joints were not build with the intention to function as charitable institutions. As soon as you enter a casino, every step you take, has been considered thoroughly.  Both buying a drink at the bar and going to the toilets forces you to walk past at least twenty-five fruit machines, three Blackjack tables and four roulette tables. There are no clocks and the tapestry usually is of a terribly inconspicuous kind, so that it is no surprise that all your attention is automatically being drawn to those beautiful shining little lamps of the fruit machines. The one and only aim of a casino is to let you lose money while letting you leave with a smile on your face.
The first phase of the addiction
Most future gambling addicts start gambling on a fruit machine in the pub, in an online poker tournament or at various games at tables in a casino. Easily accessible gambling is usually the start of everything. For only a few Dollar’s you can bet on the lowest possible limits that make the fruit machine apparently go on for ever. Having an ordinary job allows you to deal with the loss which enables you to go to the casino on a regular basis to get a kick out of winning a possibly huge amount of money.
The second phase of the addiction
This phase is similar to the progression an alcohol or drug addict goes through. You need more of the substance to experience the kick you had during the first phase, but with less of it. Going to a casino more frequently and increasing the stakes is the process you go through with gambling. While playing with higher limits your chance of winning larger amounts of money grows automatically. During this phase the first little white lies start coming up. Working overtime, going to the pub with friends or your martial arts classes seem to take up more of your time than before and are easy excuses to use for explaining why  you don’t spend so much time with your family anymore. This extra time can now be used to gamble.
The third phase of the addiction
In the third phase you are going to play at higher stakes and the level of the money in your purse will hit rock bottom. Now your gambling is becoming really dangerous. The purpose of going to the casino in order to win a lot of money has now been changed into the aim of winning your money back that you have lost. The financial consequences of a gambling addiction are getting noticeable and getting your priorities right is a matter of changing those priorities. More often than not the gambler leaves his bills unpaid or even unopened and hopes to pay them all in due time. He would like to pay those bills and a gambler’s way of thinking makes him believe that  a visit to the casino and winning a fortune will enable him to do so. Cancelling a night to the cinema because you could not afford it was bad enough, but there comes a time that you cannot pay your medical insurance anymore. The fruit machines and its mates the roulette table and Blackjack table have put you into a situation in which you haven been completely defeated; Checkmate!
 
Fourth phase of the addiction
All those commercials of credit companies, with the silly people who believed all their promises, were once the laughing stock of you and your gambler friends but are now becoming  ‘serious business’ for you too. You desperately need the money to pay off your debts through  debt collection agencies in order to be able to keep on gambling. You have to rob Peter to pay Paul and with the help of those companies you can hide your serious problems for your nearest and dearest. Those ridiculously high interest rates are something to worry about later. You live in the present so it is now that you need that money on your bank account to fulfill your needs.
On top of those financial consequences of gambling, other problems start entering your life such as sleepless nights, the worries  about all those debts and how to pay them off, all those appointments and less serious dates to cancel, remembering all those lies you used on previous occasions. Lying is one of a gambler’s skills he can keep on using for a long time.
The extreme exhaustion, heart palpitation , stabbing pains in your chest have become a reality on a daily basis and are all taken into the bargain. Those physical and mental  inconveniences are difficult to cope with when society keeps on demanding some sort of performances, so you will have to find other ways out. It will start with reporting sick more frequently and neglecting social life, because of which a person might get socially isolated. You will only focus on those persons who are nearest to you, not in the least because you need them financially, whether or not they are voluntarily prepared to help you out.
Fifth phase of the addiction
In the fifth and final phase of a gambling addiction you are literally put into a position of checkmate.
Any common sense of values has left you. In this final stage you usually lose  your job, your partner, relatives, friends and more often than not your home. In many cases relatives are not fully aware of the addiction . Especially parents are reluctant to admit the addiction of their child. “It will pass” they erroneously think.
Me, myself and I are the only things left.  Bailiffs are not taken seriously. Your boss means next to nothing and if your partner or members of your family do not want to give anymore money they are considered dead.
Experienced gambling addicts know how to take money off relatives or a partner by persisting in their role of a victim. Dreadful things from their childhood are being used to blackmail them in an emotional way and thus creating some empathy. Usually the gambler knows how to manipulate parents and other relatives to get his way.
As soon as those strategies fail to have their effects the gambler suffers from delusions and suicidal tendencies. Although he seems to have lost everything in life, gambling seems to remain the only way out. When every legal means of obtaining money has evaporated, entering the criminal circuit seems the only possible way out.
From the very moment that obtaining money in a legal way has become a dead-end-road, you are only one step away from criminal practices. Making objective consequence analyses is something that doesn’t work anymore and therefore the gambler seizes every opportunity to get his hands on money. Fraudulent practices and theft are seemingly logical consequences to fulfill the need of gambling. The addict has now reached the point of complete lunacy. The addict doesn’t seem to be able to understand and face the fact that the reality consists of: debts, loneliness, fear, getting in to trouble with the law and in many cases separation from your partner.
Final conclusion
Just like any other ways of addictions, gambling is a progressive disease. A significant difference between alcohol and drugs addiction and gambling addiction is that a gambler can hide his problems because people do not see physical changes. The phases mentioned above can take years to develop.
After many years, the absurd pattern of thought of the gambler are deeply rooted in the body and mind so that a sudden change appears to be impossible in many cases. It is not for nothing that the number of suicides among pathological gamblers is remarkably higher that with other addictions. This is mainly due to the huge amount of debts the gambler has built up throughout the years.
An intense treatment is needed to help a gambler to kick the habit. Before starting treatment clinically a watertight plan is needed to solve the additional problems (both financial and in the family). This will help the addict to get some rest in his body that will enable him to benefit from the treatment. Denial is a magic word for each form of addiction. A perspective and a gleam of hope means  recognition of the addiction for the gambler.
 "Keep coming back, it works if you work it, so work it, you’ll worth it"

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