Gambling Addiction / Compulsive Gambling

Compulsive gambling--driven by the action, the high of winning, --is like alcoholism. It takes over your life. It controls everything about you. Your family, your job, your money.

Perhaps you are not yet at the stage where the urge to gamble has become stronger than the desire for food, sex, or social esteem, but you can see the problem increasing. This is the time to take action. Addictions are progressive disorders--they will become worse if you do not seek treatment.

Not everyone can walk away from the tables, the computer, or the machines. For some, gambling takes over their lives and becomes the only thing for which they live. Compulsive gambling addiction leaves behind a trail of crime and tragedy. Problems include substantial financial debts and withdrawal from work activities and from family and social life. As relationships and activities deteriorate, guilt, shame, helplessness and depression increase.

Various studies have put suicide attempts at between 13% and 27% for the deeply involved gambler, with limited available data for partner and children. Stress related ailments such as heart disease; ulcers and high blood pressure are also common. There is a high cost to the family in terms of domestic violence, child abuse and mental disorders, and to society, as the gambler turns to embezzlement, fraud, theft and other crimes to pay for the habit.

Culture plays a role in this addiction. Archaeological evidence indicates that human beings have wagered on the outcome of chance events for at least the past 6000 years. Dice have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs, and dicing is mentioned in the Rig-Veda, the sacred writing of the Hindus. The Mahabahrata, another ancient Hindu text, tells the tale of a great and good king who gambled away his kingdom, his brothers, his wife and himself into slavery. It is claimed that Julius Caesar invaded Gaul to pay his gambling debts. Saint John describes soldiers casting lots for Christ’s clothes. In the 1700’s, Yale, Columbia, Harvard and Princeton Universities relied on lotteries for construction funds. Today, in some countries, gambling is a part of the national fabric (e.g. Las Vegas, Epson Downs, Kentucky Derby).

Two distinct motivational gambling typologies can be distinguished:

• Those who gamble on money games such as computer poker (and the variety of new computer gambling games that have recently hit the net) or lotteries who want to win a large sum of money.
  
• Those who gamble on horses, dogs, casinos, or slot machines who are more likely to describe both the excitement (the rush of winning) and having a good time.

While gambling addictions differ from alcohol, drug, or nicotine addictions in not involving an external mind-altering chemical substance, the issues are the same. The problem is in the mind, as is the answer. Often, there is an association with alcohol misuse as well.

"Sarah helped me to get balance back into my life. While I will probably always have to be really careful, I can at least now live and work in the 21st century without being afraid that online poker is going to swallow me. It's not that I can't gamble, it's that I don't gamble. Big difference."

You have made the first move to work on your possible gambling issues. The next step is to seek an experienced addictions counselor such as myself with whom you can work.

My office is in downtown Vancouver. My phone number is 604.836.6840 or e-mail me for an initial appointment

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