Gambling addiction and its grave consequences. The article will describe the reasons for the formation of this pathological addiction and ways to help the husband-player return to a full life. The husband-gambler is a serious problem for any family, because such an addiction in most cases has very disastrous results. Gambling addiction begins to progress with an excessive passion for card games, various lotteries, slot machines or a passion for sports betting. You should consider such deviations from the norm, which can lead to divorce and the ruin of a person.
Causes of gambling addiction
Gambling addiction is a phenomenon that requires serious analysis. First of all, it is necessary to understand the origins of such a pathology in order to proceed with the elimination of the voiced problem in the future.
Experts have identified the factors provocateurs of gambling addiction as follows, making it possible for wives to understand the ongoing changes with their husbands:
- Thinking error … Some overly gambling representatives of the stronger sex believe that they can control the course of the game. In their minds the scheme “I want - I try - I win” starts to work. However, in practice, this logical chain turns out to be a myth that threatens with serious consequences in the form of financial losses up to complete ruin.
- External influences … Some parents are loyal to the fact that their beloved children can afford to organize a game of cards or start a heated discussion of new computer technology during a children's party. Social networks are full of offers of all kinds of entertainment, which in most cases are gambling in nature. As a result, a habit of such leisure develops, which can develop into gambling addiction.
- Parenting mistakes … As already mentioned, some parents are engaged in connivance towards their children. You should also voice double standards or excessive severity on the part of dad or mom. Excessive fixation on material values can also lead, over time, to the fact that the grown-up boy becomes a player.
- Envy of wealthy relatives or acquaintances … Some greedy individuals do not see the white light when contemplating financial success with people from their inner circle. Not having the opportunity or the elementary desire to earn a decent living for their family, they begin to actively visit gambling establishments.
- Bad habits … Quite often people with a voiced problem become gambling addicts. Among the frequent visitors to casinos, horse races and clandestine battles, you can find alcoholics, substance abusers and drug addicts. This is not a prerequisite for the development of gambling addiction in a person, but it often provokes the described problem.
- Depressive disorder … This phenomenon can be not only a consequence of male compulsive play, but also the reason for its introduction into the system. For some emotional problems, people may try to get rid of mental discomfort with the new thrill of gambling.
The voiced reasons for the emergence of gambling addiction should sometimes be considered as a complex phenomenon. After launching such a self-destruction mechanism, the so-called "pleasure center" begins to deform. He will no longer react to healthy emotions from eating delicious food or communicating with a loved one, but to feverish euphoria from the expected gain.
Stages of development of gambling addiction
Each problem of a psychological nature has its own stages of formation, which often lead to a critical point or point of no return. A male gambler goes through three stages of education in his gambling addiction, which are as follows:
- Winning stage … This phase begins with the occasional desire to try their luck in the gambling business. Beginners are usually lucky, so they quickly get a taste of this kind of pastime. They begin to devote all their free time to developing a strategy for their further game, while forgetting about their direct responsibilities in relation to family and loved ones. They develop a clear feeling that exclusively personal qualities of a person help to win and the inconstancy of capricious fortune does not affect the course of the game.
- Losing stage … The white streak of success cannot continue indefinitely, bringing systematically large winnings. After joyful minutes of triumph, the first losses of start-up capital come. The once respectable father of the family then turns into a nervous person who literally annoys everything. He begins a frantic search for funds to recoup and consolidate past success.
- Disappointment stage … In the third phase of gambling addiction, an adrenaline-dependent object and a lover of easy money has a significant deterioration in social adaptation. A person becomes a 100% slave to the game and can lose everything that he has at this stage. Statistics say that about 14% of gambling addicts attempt suicide at the announced stage of personality degradation.
Psychological portrait of a male gambler
In the early stages of the described problem, it is rather difficult to identify a person with a similar addiction. However, it is easier to identify a gambling addict when he has already become completely dependent on the desire to get easy money.
The psychological portrait of a gambling addict is usually described as follows:
- Praising any gambling addiction … A person with this life concept will rarely be able to remain silent about his addiction. All his conversations will concern the possibility of hitting the jackpot in the races, casinos or when buying a lottery ticket. He can talk about such a tempting prospect for hours, completely without thinking that such a topic will be completely uninteresting to the interlocutor.
- Systematic requests to lend … In this case, people with bad habits can rarely satisfy their appetites on their own. Alcoholics are looking for funds for the next portion of the intoxicating drink, resorting to financial assistance from the immediate environment. Dose addicts are capable of literally anything, and players sometimes behave the same way. For them, another reason to try again their hand at gambling is literally a fix idea.
- Irrational beliefs … The already voiced errors of thinking trigger the mechanism of gambling addiction. In its process, two forms of pathology can develop: strategic and tactical deviations from the norm. The difference between these concepts is quite significant. In the first case, we are talking about a positive attitude towards their addiction, when the player clearly forms a belief that money is an almighty weapon. Therefore, it is necessary to achieve them in any way, and ideally - due to easy profit in the form of a win. With tactical mistakes, the situation is much worse, because the man falls into a certain trance. At the same time, a person is firmly confident in his ability to win back over time, paying off accumulated debts with the return of fortune.
- Selective memory … The player perceives everything that happens to him in a rather peculiar way. The ironic expression “I remember here, but I don’t remember here” ceases to be a joke when it comes to gambling addicts. They trace in their memory only moments of triumph, when fate favors them. However, in most cases, the loss is completely erased in their minds, and they quite sincerely tell their acquaintances exclusively about the positive aspects of their gambling hobby.
- Deceit in sayings and actions … Gambling addicts are constantly in a state of justifying their actions. A once honest person, under the influence of his pathological passion, turns into the writer of all sorts of incredible stories and incredible tales. At the same time, he easily takes his words and promises back, without experiencing any remorse.
- Attempts to manipulate people … Each player is a potential "puppeteer", because he needs to find financial resources for his pernicious passion at any cost. He will try to put pressure on the immediate environment in order to achieve what he wants and be able to get a new portion of adrenaline from gambling.
- Paranoid type character … Psychotherapists quite often notice this deviation from the norm in their patients. Their visitors consider themselves super-people with all the ensuing consequences. They overestimate their creative, physical, intellectual and commercial abilities, which is not true.
- Ignoring generally accepted ethical standards … The society often seems hostile to the players, because it prevents them from completely immersing themselves in such a process as gambling addiction. In especially severe cases of the described dependence, the once adequate person turns into an outspoken cynic who perceives the people around him as an aggressive substance towards him.
- Frequent mood swings … Ups from getting a big jackpot to a significant loss in the future cannot pass without a trace even for a person with a strong psyche. Nerve cells are a fragile material that should not be experimented on. The player can very often be calculated by nervous movements, running gaze and regular outbursts of irritation.
The described psychological portrait of a gambling addict looks unattractive for a person with an adequate life position. Consequently, we are no longer talking about a simple fun for the sake of boredom, but about a significant pathology with serious consequences. Boomerangs can return to lovers of easy money both in the form of a loss of family and work, and in a further offense.
Features of the behavior of a male gambler
Every woman who wants to save her family should be wary of some changes in the actions of her soulmate. You cannot ignore the strange behavior of your husband, which can be expressed as follows:
- Systematic tardiness from work … The first alarm bell for any lady should be the late arrival home of her beloved. The reason for such a change in the work schedule may lie in a banal betrayal, when a man begins to devote his free time to another person. However, this is not always the only explanation for such strange behavior of the spouse. If the wife is clearly convinced that she has no rival, then she can assume that her other half has gambling addiction.
- Absence from home … A gambler will look for any excuse to visit a casino, horse race or slot machine. At the same time, he begins to come up with the most incredible reasons for his next flight from his native walls. Friends will always have a car breakdown, and from time to time their wife will take the children away from them. Ludoman is also able to paint his wife in all colors about an extraordinary call from the authorities demanding to immediately return to the workplace.
- Periodic "loss" of money … For any gambling entertainment, you need a certain starting capital. A player with great experience begins to look for all the ways to secretly save money on the family. Even with a domineering wife, he begins to periodically "lose" money for a variety of reasons. A leaky pocket, a dastardly thief in the alleyway, absent-mindedness in transport - everything is suitable for the fable provided to his wife.
- Lack of attention to family … The gambler has no time to devote his free time to his close environment because of being in a gambling establishment at every opportunity that arises. The wife begins to annoy with her "nagging", and the gambler will run from the children as fast as he can. After all, the offspring can force them to help do their homework, ask them to go to a parent meeting, or simply recommend an option for joint leisure activities. The gambler has no time to engage in such nonsense, because his day is scheduled by the minute in favor of gambling. If not in a casino, then he trains at home or reads about games, etc.
- Loss of money and things from housing … When the pursuit of winning becomes a serious problem, it signals the beginning of the end of the existing marital relationship. Not only alcohol and drug addicts try to take literally everything out of their homes and sell the stolen goods for a penny. Experienced players can no longer stop and are ready to sell the last more or less valuable thing in the house.
Important! The gambling husband is a big problem for the family. Therefore, the wife cannot be indulged in this weakness, because everything that happens will end in divorce and psychological trauma for the children. At the first alarming symptoms, it is necessary to understand the situation in order to try to save the marriage.
Rules for helping a husband-player
Non-chemical dependence (addiction) of this kind requires immediate intervention to eliminate it from the relatives of the zombified person. The player's wife is the most interested person in the treatment of gambling addiction of her would-be husband. Consequently, it is she who, if love for her partner remains, has to take the brunt of the brunt of ridding her husband of a destructive and destructive passion.
Drug therapy in the treatment of gambling addiction
Many skeptics will be surprised to hear about the fact that it is possible to fight gambling addiction in this way. It is necessary to distinguish drugs for the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction from the sounded methods of getting rid of gambling addiction. It is unrealistic to completely eliminate this pathology solely with the help of tablets.
However, you can reduce the craving for gambling by using the following drugs:
- Antidepressants … A depressed state and constant anxiety always accompany gambling addiction. Therefore, it is necessary, under the strict supervision of a doctor, to try to get the husband out of the sounded critical state. A specialist can recommend the latest generation of gentle drugs from this pharmacological group. With strict adherence to the doctor's recommendations, they will not cause damage to the physical and mental state of the gambler. According to statistics, Fluxen, Velaxin, Duloxetine and Milnacipran have worked well in this case.
- Herbal preparations … As a sedative and relieve anxiety syndrome, folk remedies will not interfere, which should also be agreed with a specialist. In this case, all kinds of teas, decoctions and tinctures will help. You can try to steam your husband a healing drink in the form of linden, chamomile, sage and mint. However, the acquisition of Novo-Passit, Menovalen, Sedafiton and Persen will be more effective.
- The use of lithium salts … They are also called the mood regulator, which is so important for gambling addicts. They are recommended even in case of a manic state, which over time can be acquired by any gambler with a certain experience. If we take treatment with the same neuroleptics as a basis, then the use of potassium salts will be considered a much more gentle way to eliminate gambling. However, they must be taken exclusively under the supervision of a doctor, because they have a number of contraindications. Firstly, in elderly people, such a remedy can provoke a significant impetus in the progression of cataracts. Secondly, you cannot take them with significant problems with the urinary system, serious heart pathologies and pronounced allergic reactions to external and internal stimuli.
Tips from psychotherapists in the fight against gambling addiction
Some wives do not want to resort to medication for their chosen one, but dream of solving the problem in a less radical way. In this case, experts come to the aid of the unfortunate spouses, who recommend the following actions in relation to the husbands-players:
- Hiding family money … In the dwelling of a gambling addict, in no case should money be in common use. All the questions of those eager to immerse themselves in the world of chips and cards should be clearly answered that there is no money left even to feed the children. However, this tactic can have one side effect: the completely obsessed with the game, the subject is able to commit even theft to get himself start-up capital for gambling. Therefore, it is advisable to change all PIN-codes on bank cards and pick up all deposits "for a rainy day", hiding them with relatives or depositing them into a bank account.
- Refusal to repay the husband's debts … Players love to take loans and ask for financial support from their close circle. The wife of such an adrenaline lover is often not up to the last aware of such actions of her dearest half. You should immediately make it clear to your spouse in a categorical tone that the loans acquired in secret are exclusively his problem. It will not hurt to inform relatives and friends that only the unfortunate player will be able to return the money borrowed from them.
- Refusal to support the husband … The spouse is not a seriously ill person who is completely dependent on the strong and reliable shoulder of his other half. Of course, the poor fellow is in a rather dangerous situation, but he himself is to blame for what happened to him. Therefore, courageously solving his problem is not worth it, because the unfortunate player will simply refuse to draw conclusions.
- Joint visit to a psychotherapist … In this case, we will focus on both private consultations and group trainings. With an individual conversation, the specialist will help you understand the causes of the family tragedy that has arisen. During therapy in a self-help group, an understanding often arises of the entire danger of gambling addiction, which can ruin the lives of even successful people in the past.
- Filing for divorce and division of property … A gambler husband can take the last spoon out of the house, so the announced decision is not at all a categorical act. Over time, after losing a family, a person can recover and stop visiting gambling outlets. If this does not happen, then the woman made the right conclusion by leaving such an unreliable partner.
What to do if the husband is a player - watch the video:
If the husband-player does not allow his family to exist in peace, further prospects should be carefully considered. Someone can cope with their illness (a vivid example of a cure for a voiced pathology - FM Dostoevsky), but many individuals simply do not want to get out of the vicious circle themselves. A woman can try to fight for her husband, but she herself is a person who owes nothing to anyone. In addition, it is on her fragile shoulders that care often falls not only about the spouse with problems, but also about small children. And they should come first.
