What is gambling addiction, who is susceptible to it, how addiction to gambling develops and affects life. Signs of a personality disorder, how to deal with and how to treat this mental illness.
Signs of an addicted person
There are many of them, they overlap with the symptoms of alcoholism and drug addiction.
Among the most notable are:
- Pointless irritability and nervousness;
- Increased excitability;
- Hot temper when taken away from the game;
- Narrowing the circle of interests - a young man, if he studies, can skip classes;
- Indifference to the requests of loved ones is due to the inability to tear yourself away from the computer;
- Doesn't look after himself, is casually dressed;
- Eternal debts leading to conflicts in the family;
- Lying money from relatives and friends;
- Often things are taken out of the house, waste is committed at work, which leads to a conflict with the law;
- Adventurism, when a rash decision is made;
- Insidiousness, for the sake of achieving its goal, does not stop at anything, hiding its bad deeds under the guise of benevolence.
Consider the degree of obsession with the addict's symptoms:
- Initial stage. The person plays periodically and does not get hung up on the game.
- The emergence of addiction. Play becomes the meaning of life. Big losses start, big unpaid debts appear.
- Depression. At this stage, ties with family and friends are severed. The reputation is completely spoiled, the job is lost. A person is not able to adequately assess his actions, he shifts his blame for what happened to others. Panic builds up, frequent bouts of remorse begin, but end in vain.
- Hopelessness. The last, most dangerous stage, when the addict begins to drink heavily and suicide attempts are possible. The personality degrades, attacks of insanity occur, as a result - a psychiatric hospital.
Important! When the first external signs appear that a person is mindlessly playing, relatives should immediately persuade him to contact a psychologist.
Ways to combat gambling addiction
A gambling addict is just as difficult to treat as a patient with alcoholism and drug addiction. It is not easy to persuade him to seek help from a specialist, but it is worth fighting for. And here the support of the family is extremely important. Not a harsh shout and schadenfreude, so, they say, I played it out, but I told you that your games will not lead to good, but only an unobtrusive, gentle and attentive attitude will help a loved one get rid of a bad habit. You can try to do without medical help. However, an attempt to give some soothing herbal infusions to drink will not be successful, since you need to fight not with the consequences, but with the cause. It also lies in a weakened body and an undermined psyche.
Consider truly effective ways to help get rid of gambling addiction:
- Anonymous Players Group … If a pathological form of addiction has not come, a person can go to such a society. Such communities have long existed alongside Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. They work with problem people according to the American twelve-step program. The main thing in it is to be able to rise above your false pride, to face the truth in order to confess to yourself, and in a circle of those like yourself, to say loudly: "Yes, I am addicted to gambling addiction." Thousands of those subject to their vices passed through such groups, and many returned to normal life. However, if there is no hard work on yourself according to the proposed program, you should not hope for a miracle. Only constant exercise and communication with those on the way of recovery can lead to a positive result.
- Drug treatment … In pathological forms of gambling addiction, the addict is placed in a hospital. Medication is prescribed. To alleviate the patient's condition, he is prescribed antidepressants, tranquilizers and antipsychotics. The main task is to bring the patient into an adequate state by means of drugs, when he comes to his senses, a psychotherapist is connected and all mental processes of the patient are corrected according to the schemes already considered.
- Psychotherapy … If the disease has gone far, only a psychologist or psychiatrist can advise how to treat gambling addiction. After conducting a comprehensive study, they will prescribe a special course of treatment. It consists in conducting special sessions.
The following methods of psychotherapy will help in the fight against gambling addiction:
- Gestalt therapy … The focus of psychotherapeutic procedures is on the patient's immediate experiences. With the help of a psychologist, he gets the opportunity to become aware of his thoughts and feelings. This helps to find peace of mind and harmony with the surrounding world. A person comes to understand that he used to profess false values that made his life problematic.
- Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy … Emphasizes the analysis of real problems arising from the way of thinking of a person. What thoughts he has, such he winds up problems for himself. To avoid negativity, the psychotherapist seeks to consolidate a new center of positive images in the patient's mind. Schematically, this can be shown as follows: the study of the brightest thoughts of the past, why they arose, getting rid of old stereotypes of thinking and consolidating new ones, setting that they can lead to inner harmony and success, fixing the results achieved.
- Hypnosuggestational therapy … This is a hypnosis treatment, when a hypnotist introduces a person or a group of people into a trance state, and then instills the necessary attitudes. This method works well for various mental disorders, for example, reduces the level of anxiety in depression.
Important! For any of the psychotherapeutic methods to be successful, first of all, the desire of the person himself is necessary. How to deal with gambling addiction - watch the video:
Addiction to gambling addiction has social roots, but internal motivations and attitudes, as well as personality traits, lead to it. There are many reasons why a person is addicted to gambling, but they all ultimately end in a severe form of regression, which has a distinct pathology. The harm of gambling addiction is that it causes enormous damage to health, so that an individual can return to a normal lifestyle, he needs to undergo a long course of rehabilitation, which can only be successful with the effective support of his family and loved ones.
