Lifestyle

Gambling has become part of our lifestyle. We all take risks, and gambling is a kind of risk that's fun and exciting. Gambling makes you feel good, but it can be harmful. If you let it get out of control, it can take over your life. The urge to gamble can take over and become an addiction that can destroy the gambler and their family. The group most vulnerable to developing a gambling problem is 16-24 year old males, with 4% of those who have gambled in the last year developing a gambling problem. The same age group for women also had the largest prevalence of all age groups at 1%. Gambling among young people is a real problem, yet there is still a great lack of education within schools and colleges regarding the impact of gambling. There is a great need for education within this area, especially as the gambling opportunities available for today's generation are continuously expanding.

Gamblers Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who have joined together to do something about their own gambling problem and to help other compulsive gamblers do the same.

Most compulsive gamblers will answer YES to at least SEVEN of these questions:

1. Do you lose time from work due to gambling?
2. Is gambling making your home life unhappy?
3. Is gambling affecting your reputation?
4. Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?
5. Do you ever gamble to get money with which to pay debts or to otherwise solve financial difficulties?
6. Does gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
7. After losing, do you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?
8. After a win do you have a strong urge to return and win more?
9. Do you often gamble until your last pound is gone?
10. Do you ever borrow to finance your gambling?
11. Have you ever sold anything to finance gambling?
12. Are you reluctant to use gambling money for normal expenditures?
13. Does gambling make you careless of the welfare of your family?
14. Do you gamble longer than you planned?
15. Do you ever gamble to escape worry or trouble?
16. Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance gambling?
17. Does gambling cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
18. Do arguments, disappointments, or frustrations create an urge within you to gamble?
19. Do you have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours gambling?
20. Have you ever considered self-destruction as a result of your gambling?

There are many and varying interpretations of compulsive gambling. The explanation that seems most acceptable to G.A. members is that compulsive gambling is an illness, progressive in its nature, which can never be cured, but can be arrested.

Before coming to G.A, many compulsive gamblers thought of themselves as morally weak or just "no good". The G.A. concept is that the compulsive gambler is a very sick person who can recover by following a very simple programme, to the best of his or her own ability, that has proved successful for hundreds of other men and women with a similar problem.

To accept the fact that compulsive gambling is a progressive illness and to have the desire to get well. GA's experience has shown that the programme will always work for anyone who wants to stop gambling. It will seldom work for the man or woman who cannot, or will not, face the facts about this illness.

Only you can make that decision. Most people turn to G.A. when they become willing to admit that gambling has them hooked. Also, in G.A. a compulsive gambler is described as a person whose gambling has caused growing and continuing problems in many areas of life. Many G.A. members went through terrifying experiences before they were ready to accept help.

Others were faced with a slow, subtle deterioration that finally brought them to the point of admitting defeat.

No. The first small bet to a problem gambler is like the first small drink to an alcoholic. Sooner or later comes the fall back into the old destructive pattern.

Once a person has crossed the invisible line into irresponsible gambling, then it seems to be impossible to regain control. After abstaining a few months, some GA members have tried some small bet experiments, always with disastrous results. The old obsession inevitably returned.

G.A. experience seems to point to these alternatives; to gamble, risking progressive deterioration, or not to gamble, and develop a spiritual way of life.

G.A. members, in considering this perplexing question, feel these are some of the possible reasons:

The escape into the dream world of gambling.

Here a compulsive gambler finds emotional comfort only when "in action". It is not uncommon to hear a G.A. member say, "The only place I really felt like I belonged was when I was in a gambling environment. There I felt secure and comfortable. No great demands were made upon me. I knew I was destroying myself yet, at the same time, I had a certain sense of security."

A desire to have all the good things in life without any great effort seems the common character pattern of the problem gambler. Many G.A. members accept the fact that they were unwilling to grow up. Subconsciously they felt they could avoid mature responsibility through wagering on the spin of a wheel or the turn of a card and so the struggle to escape responsibility finally became a subconscious obsession.

Also, a compulsive gambler seems to have a strong inner urge to be a "big shot" and needs to have a feeling of being all-powerful. There is a willingness to do anything (often of an antisocial nature) to maintain a personal image for others to see.

Then, too, there is the theory that compulsive gamblers subconsciously want to lose to punish themselves. There is evidence among G.A. members to support this theory.

In many cases, the gambling addiction is hidden until the gambler can no longer function without gambling, then the gambler begins to exclude all other activities. Not all addictive gamblers show the same signs and symptoms of addiction because of the differences in gender, age or cultural backgrounds, but most will:

• Use gambling as a coping strategy called Escape/Relief to mask other symptoms.
• Rely on the excitement to make themselves feel good.
• Bet higher amounts to win back their losses.
• Believe they can get out of debt with a big win.
• Hide their gambling from family and friends and lie about money.
• Find the financial problem becomes an emotional one.
• Eventually become emotionally, mentally and physically distressed.

• Family disruption, neglect or abused children, divorce, impoverishment and/or mental breakdown.
• Millions of pounds worth of productivity lost by business and industry through poor work performance, absenteeism, wasted time dreaming about gambling, theft of materials and accidents.
• Criminal acts committed to raise money in order to continue gambling after heavy losses and mounting debts. The longer the gambling problem continues untreated, the greater the probability of arrest and imprisonment.
• The misery of being in the grips of an uncontrollable illness, without even knowing it - thus permitting the illness to wreck family, career and even life which, in most cases, ends in suicide.

In order to combat the gambling addiction here are some guidelines that need to be followed by a gambler:

• Desire to STOP gambling.
• Develop skills to "stay stopped".
• Understand that gambling is not a "moral weakness", but a treatable disorder.
• Deal with the financial pressures that usually accompany addiction to gambling.
• Get started, with the family, on the road to recovery and positive living.

• GamCare
• Gambling Anonymous

Useful telephone numbers
London & South	08700 50 88 80
North East	0114 262 0026
North West	0161 976 5000
Midlands	0121 233 1335
Scotland	0141 630 1033
Ulster	028 7135 1329