The modern round of market relations has developed a completely new level of living conditions, changed requirements and changed the worldview. However, the change in concept revealed completely new psychological dependencies for the post-Soviet space. To some, slot machines, casinos and sweepstakes seemed just simple entertainment, a non-committal way of spending time, where if you were lucky, you could win a little. Gradually, such “innocent” entertainment and leisure to relieve stress began to attract people en masse. Once a person gets hooked on the game, he becomes addicted to the sensations and the desire to win. And this gradually develops into a certain mania, leading to a destructive effect on the psyche, and subsequently to social degradation. It has been scientifically proven that gambling addiction is comparable to drug addiction, where bets and minimal winnings become doping for euphoria. Losing doesn’t stop some people; they constantly console themselves with the thought that next time he will be lucky, today is simply not his day.
If you or your loved ones place bets non-stop, participate in various sweepstakes, spend nights in casinos, slot machines or online games, then this is a problem that urgently needs to be solved. If you do not pay attention to this dependence in time, then a person gradually loses everything that he has achieved. Relationships with family deteriorate, there is a hubbub at work, friends turn away every time money is brought up. Gradually, this position leads to financial collapse.
Maybe you have already given up on yourself, you think that your problem cannot be solved and your life is almost over. But that's not true! Everything can be corrected, the main thing is to contact a specialist in time, who will select an individual method of treating addiction. This is the only way you can return to normal life and regain the affection of your family and friends. By controlling the situation, you can overcome your unhealthy craving for gambling.
Treatment of addiction to slot machines and casinos
First of all, you need to understand your problem, determine the symptoms and signs. This will help you choose the right specialist who will identify the fundamentally correct methods for combating addiction to a particular gambling game.
How to get rid of or treat addiction to slot machines and gambling? Gambling addiction or gambling addiction is an addiction that controls a person’s feelings, it directs him only to satisfy gambling needs. Everything else becomes unimportant, practically unnecessary. The greater and stronger the addiction to the game, the lower the control over this addiction. A person, even realizing the impartiality of the situation, will not be able to stop. Even with the threat of harm to their loved ones, a person will not make the right and informed choice in favor of treatment. He will always assure that he can handle it himself until the situation becomes threatening. Knowing that the odds are against him, he will still bet and lose.
A specialized rehabilitation center will help you get rid of or treat addiction to slot machines, casinos, and gambling. Only specialists will be able to examine the individual situation and prescribe a personal program that can, if not cure, then dull the pathological addiction to gambling. Thanks to treatment, a person becomes adequate, realistically assesses his capabilities and strengths, which means he can return to a full life and develop as a person.
What is gambling addiction and how does addiction to betting appear?
Betting addiction manifests itself in different ways among people. Often the player does not even realize that he is already sick - he simply continues to bet, increasing the bet amounts or the number of sporting events in the bets.
Usually, gambling addiction has a psychological basis. The risk group includes lonely people, dissatisfied with their living situation or place at work, and predisposed to mental illness. Gambling addiction often coexists with other bad habits, such as drug addiction or alcoholism.
A separate reason for the occurrence of gambling addiction is the desire to get rich quickly without doing anything for it. According to some psychiatrists, bookmakers often take advantage of their clients’ thirst for easy money, luring them with high (or low) odds and offering them to win “easy money.” This is perhaps the most common reason for addiction to sports betting.
So why are we drawn to play? The answer is simple, and it lies inside the human body. As soon as a bet is made and the game begins, adrenaline enters the blood and the brain produces the hormone endorphin. It gives a person several minutes/hours of happiness and pleasure. In fact, it is a type of drug. Some players get used to the dose instantly, others drag out the process.
The very first successful bet can take you into a dream world of a quick, comfortable existence, and you won’t be able to get out of there on your own. Or a month, a year, five years will pass before the player begins to realize that he is no longer just winning, but seeking adrenaline.
Recovery and treatment of gambling addiction
Stress, depression, loneliness and fear are quite unpleasant sensations and each person tries to cope with them in his own way. A restless feeling of loneliness and misunderstanding provokes one to satisfy one’s addiction to gambling. A person follows the lead of his painful feelings, and in order to get rid of them he “relaxes” by playing. Any stress, be it a rush at work, a quarrel with a spouse, or even a negative statement, can lead to the development of addiction to slot machines or casinos.
However, there are healthier and more fulfilling options that can curb the discomfort. Methodological methods imply not just a therapeutic course of treatment; various programs are used for mental health:
- Special exercises;
- Meditation and yoga;
- Strategic relaxants;
- Exercises for deep and shallow breathing.
The most important and significant aspect for getting rid of and treating addiction to slot machines and gambling is to identify an alternatively beneficial and acceptable way to satisfy these needs. Even if a person has already gotten rid of gambling addiction, negative emotions can remain in his life, so to avoid relapses, it is important to find an alternative activity that can fill the remaining voids after giving up gambling. Experienced specialists will help you cope with this task. You will be given a variety of activity options to help you deal with the stressful situations that previously led to gambling on a daily basis.
Prevention
The most vulnerable category of people who become addicted to gambling are children and adolescents. To prevent the development of addiction, it is necessary to organize free time, engage young people in interesting activities: sports, active recreation, tourism. In this kind of event, children get a full opportunity for normal human communication. They develop responsibility and care not only for themselves, but also for their neighbors. Collective forms of pastime increase social significance, contribute to the formation of willpower, and normalize the emotional background. It is much easier to prevent the development of a disease than to treat it later.
The text was checked by expert doctors:
Head of the socio-psychological service of the Alkoklinik MC, psychologist Yu.P. Baranova, L.A. Serova, a psychiatrist-narcologist.
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How to get rid of gambling addiction from slot machines
Gambling addiction is not such an obvious manifestation of pathology; it is more often called “hidden”, since it does not cause physical disabilities, such as drug addiction or alcoholism. A gambling addict always denies this fact. They play on the sly, may steal, lie to family and at work, do not indicate their location, and so on. How to determine if you have a gambling addiction?
- If a person is secretive, he hides the obvious. He does not explain the size of the loss, believing that no one will understand it. And he confidently awaits the day when he can surprise his loved ones with a win;
- A person loses control of himself as soon as he starts playing. Test yourself whether you can stop before you have spent all the money, expecting that you will recoup and return what you spent;
- If you go to play, even without funds. When you reach despair in an attempt to regain what you have lost.
Gradually, a person begins to play in debt, he already understands that he has no money left to pay bills, loans or collateral. This develops into a desire to compensate for everything, aggravating the situation over and over again. The player is always sure that the more money he finds for the game, the more chances he has to compensate for what he lost. This is a non-stop circle that pushes you deeper and deeper into the pool of illness.
Your family and friends love you, they are worried about your mental state. Listen to them before it's too late, you can get everything back. But not money, not gambling, but treatment and giving up gambling. You will bring back your family, children and friends. You can restore your working relationship and everything will work out, the main thing is not to delay. Contact a rehabilitation center, they will help you.
How to get rid of gambling addiction is a question that every sufferer asks when contacting our clinic. Few people think about the need for drug treatment.
We answer how to get rid of gambling addiction - undergo treatment in a rehabilitation center, that’s all that is required of you. All players are unique in their own way, which means an individually selected treatment program is always necessary. The specialist adapts methodological standards to personal needs and capabilities. What works great for one addict may not have any effect on another. The most important and main step in the treatment of pathological addiction to the game is its recognition by the player himself. To do this, it is necessary to show considerable strength and courage, especially if there have been considerable losses, and a large crack has already formed in relationships with loved ones.
Symptoms of gambling addiction
We have found that often a gambling addict is not even aware of his problem, so it is important to know how this disease manifests itself in order to quickly discern the first symptoms:
- Obsessive thoughts and fantasies about the game. A person’s thoughts more and more often return to the possibility of future winnings, to thinking about bets and various strategies.
- Loss of concentration. It is difficult for a person to concentrate on specific tasks that are important to him, which do not relate to gambling.
- Increased irritability. A person begins to feel that those around him are deliberately provoking him. Calm comes only at the moment of play.
- Obsessive desire to play. A person spends more and more of his free time on bets. If previously a player visited a casino or bookmaker’s website once every few months, now he spends several hours every day betting.
- Increased spending on bets. The bet amount increases every day, because the player is haunted by an obsessive feeling of an approaching jackpot. The money that you used to be sorry to lose now seems like the minimum possible bet.
- Constant game. Previously, a person could only play in his free time, but now he cannot imagine his life without bets.
- Relapses. A person tries to limit himself in betting, but all attempts end in another visit to a casino or bookmaker.
- Euphoria. During the game, a person begins to feel an improvement in his mood, a feeling appears similar to mild alcohol or drug intoxication. Outside the casino or outside the online bookmaker, the player feels depressed, irritable and anxious.
- Increase in debts, loans, credits. A person tries to find money for gambling in various ways, most often by borrowing money from other people or turning to banks or microfinance organizations.
- The goal is not to win, but to play. When the thirst for the betting process itself prevails even over the healthy desire to win.
- Financial problems fade into the background. Debt and losses are no longer something depressing.
- Hostility. All people who try to help a gambling addict become enemies for him.
- Deterioration in appearance. Appearance and presentability fade into the background, a person stops taking care of himself and his appearance.
- Anxious sleep, insomnia. Even at night, a person is haunted by thoughts about the game, and it becomes quite difficult to relax and fall asleep.
- Loss of life values. The player is ready to give up everything that interferes with his game - family, work, study, etc.
- Constant lies. A person begins to lie about the number of his losses, about debts, about the time spent in a gambling establishment, etc.
These signs alone are not dangerous, but if there is a coincidence on 4 or more points from this list, then the person should think about whether he is developing gambling addiction.
A person does not want to get rid of addiction to slot machines and gambling
Your loved one is a gambling addict and is under the power of slot machines. You came here for a reason, you came to this page with a question and are looking for information about how it all happened and what to do now?
Next there will be detailed instructions on what to do if you find yourself in such a situation; if you strictly follow it, you will forever save your loved one and everyone around him from the suffering!
- First, calm down, sit down, throw away all thoughts, all futile attempts to correct the situation on your own.
- Take the next step - pick up the phone and call us, after which we will give detailed instructions on your general future behavior with the addict.
- ATTENTION, this point is extremely important - don’t even try to talk about anything with the patient, in general it’s better to keep our conversation secret!!! As experience and practice show, when relatives start talking about treatment, the chances that “he” will go to rehabilitation drop to zero! There is no point in communicating with an addict, and there is also no point in convincing him of anything - remember this.
So the first thing we will do is give precise instructions on your behavior with your loved one. Everything should be under our complete control: every conversation you have with him, every conversation. No amateur activity is allowed; we move strictly according to the agreed instructions.
And then in 1-2 weeks your loved one will have a 90% chance of coming to us for treatment!
Why are bets more dangerous than slot machines and roulette?
Let's start with the last question. Sports betting gives players the illusion that they can beat the bookmaker with their intelligence, analysis of a sporting event. Most casino players understand that there is a certain probability of winning, and they are either lucky or not. But betting on sports, from the point of view of most players, is not luck, but an accurate, correct calculation.
It is precisely this feeling that attracts: you understand something better than the bookmaker, you caught him on it, you managed to hit a good jackpot. This feeling is much more difficult to fight than the usual addiction to roulette and slot machines.
Here you can object: there are players who really consistently win money at bookmakers by conducting good analysis. Yes, there are such people, but there are only a few of them. And for them, betting is an ordinary job, which is devoid of emotions of joy and disappointment. Most often, such analysts do not even follow sporting events - they simply find out the results later.
If you place a new bet in full confidence that you have found the bookmaker’s weak point, then perhaps this is the first sign of gambling addiction.
Factors influencing the development of gambling addiction
Partial "reinforcement"
Reinforcement strengthens behavior. It can be done on a permanent or partial basis. A player's illogical behavior persists longer with partial rather than continuous reinforcement.
It is a known fact that a player does not expect victory from every bet, therefore, when faced with a loss or even a series of defeats, he does not perceive it in a global sense. Players actually expect "reinforcements" from time to time, and this expectation motivates them to continue.
Availability heuristic
Cases where people won the jackpot receive wide publicity, thanks to which they remain firmly in the minds of their target audience. Therefore, players may overestimate the likelihood that they too can get a similar win, since they still have vivid memories of those rare success stories. Even when the advantage is not on their side, their faulty thinking leads to the belief that they have a good chance of winning.
Gambler's Fallacy
People often mistakenly believe that future events that occur in a random sequence are influenced by past events. This mistake in thinking is extremely common among players, which explains the origin of the name of this phenomenon. The gambler's fallacy can cause people to continue to invest in gambling even after huge losses because they believe they are "just about" to get lucky.
Fear of loss
People generally react more strongly to losses than to wins. In other words, the pain a player feels from losing $100 is likely to be much greater than the joy he feels from winning the same amount. After a string of losses, a gambler may continue to invest money and time in excessive amounts, not because the potential gains look particularly attractive, but because the pain of past losses causes great suffering. Famous Russian gambler streamers also talk about this. Even when players are aware that they cannot win back all of their lost money, they often continue to make desperate attempts to win back at least some of it.
Gambling addiction - how to get rid of it
Treatment of addiction is based on methods of psychological influence. To achieve positive results and consolidate them, Verimed specialists use:
- sessions of individual and group (including family) psychotherapy;
- hypnosis;
- cognitive techniques;
- 12 step program;
- personality-oriented techniques.
If necessary, resort to the help of pharmacology. Then the addict is prescribed antidepressants, sedatives, and mild psychotropic drugs.
For the therapy to be successful, the patient must be committed to recovery and understand the need for treatment. Doctors cannot force anything to be corrected.
This does not mean that we do not work with people who suffer from gambling addiction, but do not yet realize the seriousness of their problem. We try to convince them that therapy will change their lives for the better.
Don’t fight gambling addiction on your own - enlist the support of Verimed doctors. Then your chances of a speedy recovery will increase significantly.
Can computer games be classified as gambling addiction?
World of Warcraft, Tanks, Dota2 and a number of other online games have millions of users who devote all their free time to them. It is worth understanding that gambling addiction and addiction to computer games are not the same thing. This is due to the lack of opportunity to place bets and systematically increase them. Computer games are virtual reality in which a person can realize his unfulfilled desires and needs. There is also an addiction to computer games – gambling addiction. While at the computer, users have the opportunity to build empires, destroy enemies, or increase virtual wealth. This illusion into which a person is immersed often begins to replace the real world for him and problems begin in all areas of life. A separate page on our website is dedicated to gambling addiction and computer addiction.
Gambling addiction or gambling addiction - passion for casinos
Gambling addiction is a person’s addiction to the desire to play gambling for money, be it slot machines, poker, roulette and other types of gambling. Most players lose. Nevertheless, people continue to play, convinced that the winnings will overtake them. And there is a scientific explanation for this.
One of the reasons people gamble is to feel the excitement of taking risks. On the other hand, it is escapism. The gambling atmosphere appears to players as a kind of alternative reality. At the same time, when the player is surrounded by people and sounds in an emotionally rich environment, the stimulation and stimulation of feelings and sensations occurs.
How is the rehabilitation of gambling addicts carried out in the rehabilitation center in Nikolaev?
The peculiarity of treatment of gambling addiction in a rehabilitation center is an integrated approach to the problem and the selection of a strictly individual program for each patient. We successfully apply the most effective global practices and techniques in our work. In general, the process of treating gambling addiction takes place in three stages:
- assistance from a psychologist and psychocorrection of behavior;
- conducting a complex of psychotherapy on an outpatient basis;
- social adaptation of the rehabilitator.
At the initial stage, specialists help the patient understand the depth of the problem, understand the true reasons, create a desire to end the addiction and accept qualified help. Then individual meetings with a psychologist, group classes, and trainings are held. At the third stage, advisory work is carried out with the family and periodic meetings with the former addict in order to help them adapt to society, find a job, set new goals and achieve them.
Our rehabilitation center in Nikolaev successfully treats gambling addiction, and is ready to help you, just call us!
How does addiction occur?
It is believed that there are people who are tolerant and resistant to addiction, that is, stable and susceptible. Boys get hooked on any “drug” much faster than girls, partly because for girls social communication is much more important, necessary and interesting than any game. The formation of dependence occurs the sooner the younger the child. Roughly speaking, a child who, at one and a half years old, was put in front of the TV to watch “Teletubbies” (so that his mother could take a break for at least half an hour) is more likely to become an “addicted” gambling addict than one who did not have a TV until he was three years old, and to a computer they didn’t let him near him for at least ten years. Well, in our realities this is more of a fantasy.
In the game, a child (and an adult) has a magical opportunity to feel like a lucky, invincible superhero, channels aggression, and makes his dreams come true. And all this takes away the mental energy necessary for growth, the formation of social skills, for adaptation to real life, and the realization of one’s desires in the real world. One of the main reasons for a family of a gambling addict to turn to a psychologist is: “He doesn’t want anything.” After all, desires arise from interaction with the world, and in the game the child is offered a reality that can be configured, that is, customized for himself. Yes, as a way to cope with daily stress, it probably works. But as a way to live your only life? And no one thinks about the fact that there will be no reboot.
