overview
Compulsive gambling, also known as a gambling disorder, is the uncontrollable urge to keep gambling despite the harmful consequences it has in your life. Gambling means that you are ready to risk something you enjoy in the hopes of obtaining something of even greater value.
- Gambling can stimulate the brain’s reward system just like drugs or alcohol, which leads to addiction. If you have a problem with compulsive gambling, you can continuously track bets that result in losses, hide your behavior, deplete your savings, accumulate debt, or even resort to theft or fraud to aid your addiction.
- Problem gambling is a serious illness that can destroy lives. Although problem gambling can be difficult to deal with, many people struggling with problem gambling have found help through professional treatment.
symptom
The signs and symptoms of compulsive gambling (gambling disorder) include:
Are you worried about gambling, e.g. B. To constantly plan how to make more gambling money
You have to play with more and more money to get the same thrill
Trying to control, reduce or stop the game to no avail
Feel restless or irritable trying to cut down on your gambling
Gambling to escape problems or to relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression
Trying to win back lost money by playing more (chasing losses)
Lie to family members or others to hide the extent of your gambling
Do you endanger or lose important relationships, a job, school or job opportunities through gambling
Using theft or scam to get play money
Ask others to get you out of financial trouble for playing
The reasons
- What compels someone to compulsively gamble is not well understood. Like many problems, compulsive gambling can result from a combination of biological, genetic, and environmental factors.
Risk factors
Although most people who play or bet cards never develop a gambling problem, certain factors are more commonly associated with gambling problems:
- Mental disorders. People who play compulsively often have drug problems, personality disorders, depression, or anxiety. Compulsive gambling can also be linked to bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), or attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
- Age. Problem gambling is more common among younger and middle-aged people. Gambling in childhood or adolescence increases the risk of developing problem gambling. However, compulsive gaming in older adults can also be a problem.
- Sex. Problem gambling is more common in men than women. Women who gamble usually start later in life and can get addicted faster. But the gaming habits of men and women are becoming more and more similar.
- Influence from family or friends. If your family or friends have a gambling problem, the better chances are you will too.
- Medicines used to treat Parkinson’s disease and restless leg syndrome. Drugs called dopamine agonists have a rare side effect that can lead to compulsive behaviors, including gambling, in some people.
- Certain personality traits. If you are very competitive, workaholic, impulsive, restless, or easily bored, it can increase your risk of problem gambling.
Prevention
While there is no proven way to prevent a gambling problem, educational programs can be helpful for individuals and groups at higher risk.- If you have risk factors for problem gambling, avoid gambling in any form, people who gamble and places where gambling is played. Get treatment at the first sign of a problem to keep your gambling from worsening.