Gambling: The Addiction 🎲

Gambling?? Hmmmm, ask me again I will tell you all about it. Why?? I have been there!!!
In one way or the other we have all came across it, either with personal experience, family or friends. This has really broken a lot of homes and in the long run affect many children negatively.

Let us start with the Basics!!!

Gambling in the History of man and Civilization

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Gambling is what we can call playful activity that concerns the manipulation of random elements, ranging from numbers to symbols, represents a tradition of human beings towards which man is inclined also in virtue of the legacy, never completely abandoned, of the magical mode of thought. omnipotent, which often leads to associate the risk of their goods and money to the game. It is precisely on the basis of this natural propensity towards gambling, that in history and time have developed multiple forms of risk games associated almost always with the "case" and of which there are traces both in archaeological finds (dice and objects) similar), which in the ancient manuscripts related to the eastern peoples of ancient Egypt, China, Japan and India, but also in the ancient Greek narratives related to the fortune teller's bets on the results of the Olympic games and on ancient Rome where on the gladiator fights one could bet with the "munera" bets.

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The global spread of gambling is confirmed by the same etymology of the word"Hazard" that derives from the French "hasart" , a word in turn of Arabic origin and deriving from the term "az-zahr"which designated the "dice", one of the oldest objects to which the tradition of social gaming is linked. The social development of the problem of gambling is partly favored also by the increasing possibility of choosing among a wide range of game types, now more and more legalized, that are able to respond to the sympathies of the players with different propensities and different personalities.

So gamblers go from lovers of transgression from the grand salon, such as casino games and slot machines, to videogames enthusiasts who let themselves be conquered by the ever more popular video poker games, to the popular gambling fans, like lotteries, the game of numbers and cards, up to Bingo, the modern transformation of the game of bingo.

From the fun of it to Addiction: Characteristics of Pathological Gambling

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First let us begin to identify indicators of the pathology of gambling, it is extremely important to clarify first of all the need to make a distinction between gamblers and pathological gamblers . For many people, in fact, many games of chance among those mentioned above are pleasant hobbies, in some cases occasional and in other habitual, but even in the latter case does not mean that the game is necessarily pathological, since it is not the quantity that defines the discriminating factor of the problem.

A compulsive player, in fact, is placed along a continuum which counts several stages from often blurred boundaries ranging from casual play, to habitual play, to risky play and compulsive gambling. As a consequence, pathological gambling is a problem characterized by a gradual loss of the ability to self-limit one's game behavior, which ends up absorbing, directly or indirectly, more and more daily time, creating serious secondary problems that involve different areas of life.

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Let us look at some types of players we have

The Social Player- Who is moved by recreational participation, considers the game as an opportunity to socialize and have fun and is able to govern his destructive impulses;

The Problematic Player- In which, although there is not yet a real active pathology, there are social problems from which he escapes or to which he seeks solution through the game;

The Pathological Player- In which the dimension of the game is overturned in a destructive behavior that is fed by other series of psychic problems;

The Impulsive / Dependent Pathological Player- In whom the serious symptoms that underline the pathological relationship with gambling are sometimes more centered on impulsivity and other types on addiction.

A truly addicted player is a person in whom the impulse for the game becomes an irrepressible and uncontrollable need, which is accompanied by a strong emotional tension and a partial or total inability to resort to a thoughtful and logical thought. Self-deception and recourse to apparently rational reasoning take on the role of guilt-control tools and graft and feed a self-destructive circle in which if the addicted player loses, justifies his insistent play with the attempt to rebuild and to "at least succeed in recovering the lost money", if he wins, he justifies himself by saying that "it is his lucky day and must take advantage of it", underlining a temporary victory that supports, through a real but rather unstable and temporary reality.

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Some signals/ symptoms of addicting gambler

Excessive absorption in direct or indirect activities (game programs, thoughts on how to obtain money, etc.) related to gambling;
The need to increase the amount of money you play to achieve desired levels of excitement;
Repeated but unsuccessful attempts to interrupt, reduce or control one's gambling behavior;
Anxiety or irritability when trying to control or reduce gambling;
A tendency to use gambling to reduce negative emotional states (guilt, impotence, depression, etc.) or to escape problems;
Tendency to return to the game to recover from previous losses;
Using of illegal behavior such as theft, fraud, cheating, falsification just to gamble;
Requesting others (friends or family) of money necessary to remedy their financial situation more or less desperate because of gambling debts.

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Phases of a Gambling Addiction: As stated by Dr. Custer 1972

WINNING PHASE : Characterized by the occasional game and initial winnings that motivate to play increasingly, often thanks to the ability of the game to produce a pleasure and relieve tensions and negative emotional states;

LOSING PHASE : Connoted by the increase of the money invested in the game, by the birth of debts, by the growth of the thought related to the game and the time spent playing;

DESPERATION PHASE: In which the time dedicated to gambling and the consequent social isolation grows again, with the degeneration of work / school and family problems (divorces, separations) that sometimes has also generated desperate gestures of suicide attempts;

Other Phases (Recovery Phases) Include :

CRITICAL PHASE: In which the desire for help arises, the hope of getting out of the problem and the realistic attempt to solve it through the return to work, as well as the attempts to mend debts and socio-family problems;

RECONSTRUCTION PHASE: In which the improvements in family life begin to be seen, in the ability to plan new goals and in self-esteem;

GROWTH PHASE: In which greater introspection and a new lifestyle far from the gambling develop.

Personally with the help of my loved ones I was able to go through the recovery phases and with proper counseling I survived. Not every addicted gambler can survive the recovery phase . It was really a miracle in my part. Gambling addiction has really taken over the youth of today, proper precautions should be taken by parents if signs of gambling is been noticed before leading to addictions.