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Jan 02, 2018 Instead, it’s about the underlying core issues that drive the drug use. Underlying core issues include hopelessness, despair, depression, anxiety, trauma, and other mental and emotional concerns. Phenomenon of Gaming and It’s Relationship to Anxiety and Depression Watch a presentation on the Phenomenon of Gaming and It’s Relationship to Anxiety and Depression presentation by Carolyn Rubenstein, Ph.D. And Gabrielle Avery-Peck, Ph.D. From the Center for Treatment of Anxiety and Mood Disorders at the ADAA Conference 2019.
A gambling addiction or problem is often associated with other behavior or mood disorders. Many problem gamblers also suffer with substance abuse issues, unmanaged ADHD, stress, depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder. To overcome your gambling problems, you’ll also need to address these and any other underlying causes as well. Gambling and anxiety Many people gamble as a way of managing anxiety. As they gamble, people often report being separated from their anxious feelings or projecting their feelings of anxiety onto the excitement they feel when they partake in their gambling activity of choice. The report, prepared by the Problem Gambling Research and Treatment Centre a joint venture between Melbourne and Monash universities and the Victorian Government found that more than 70% of problem gamblers were at risk of depression, half used alcohol at hazardous levels and more than a third had a 'severe mental disorder'.
Do you know what it’s like to look down at a stack of cards and think, Just one more hand … even though that’s what you told yourself an hour ago?
If so, then you probably already know the truth of John Milton Hay’s observation:
“True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home.”
The problem for people with gambling addiction is that they lose that ability to know when to quit. They’ve lost the “off” switch for their behavior, and they don’t know how to get it back.
What is Gambling Addiction?
Gambling addiction is part of a broader category of behavioral addiction or process addiction. In basic terms, behavioral addiction means that you’re bound to a particular rewarding behavior (such as gambling), and you persist in that behavior regardless of harmful consequences.
Compulsive gambling involves an uncontrollable urge to continue rolling dice and placing bets despite the toll it takes on your life.
Gambling itself can take many different forms, including:
- Purchasing lottery tickets
- Playing card games
- Playing electronic games (such as online slots or poker)
- Playing other casino games such as roulette, dice games, or slot machines
- Placing bets on various sporting events
Many of these behaviors are no problem in moderation, but when they become compulsive, they are major roadblocks to health and happiness.
Types of Gamblers
Furthermore, gambling addiction itself can be subdivided into distinct categories. According to Dr. Robert Custer, there are six distinct types of gamblers:
- Professional gamblers
- Antisocial gamblers
- Casual social gamblers
- Serious social gamblers
- Relief and escape gamblers
- Compulsive gamblers
For the purposes of this article, we’re focusing in on relief and escape gamblers, as well as compulsive gamblers. These are the people who are trying to use gambling to keep a lid on feelings that seem unmanageable.
What Drives Gambling Addiction?
As the co-founder of a non 12-step rehab specializing in dual diagnosis, I work with people with addictive behaviors all of the time. Often our participants come to us with both substance abuse and process addictions; there is significant overlap.
That said, I can also sum up everything I know about addiction in five words: It isn’t about the substances! Instead, it’s about the underlying core issues that drive the drug use.
Underlying core issues include hopelessness, despair, depression, anxiety, trauma, and other mental and emotional concerns that fuel addictive behavior.
From my perspective, the major mental and emotional health issues driving gambling addiction are as follows:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Low self-esteem
Let’s unpack each one of those in detail, as they’ll give us a road map for recovery.
How to Heal from Gambling Addiction
Depression
What is depression? Depression is anger turned inward.
That’s right: what you think of as stifling hopelessness, ennui, or despair is actually the result of anger turned against yourself.
We begin to work with depression by addressing the anger that precipitates it. One great way to do this is with a technique called “Free Form Writing.”
This is an accessible exercise, one that you can do anywhere that you have about 10 to 15 minutes of privacy. Just grab a pen and paper and begin to write.
If you want a prompt, try this: “I’m angry about …”
Then fill in the blank.
You can say anything you like, just keep your pen moving for at least 10 minutes. Don’t censor yourself or hold back; these words are for you alone.
At the end of the allotted time, don’t pause to reread; instead destroy the paper. Burning it is best, but you can also shred it. You’ll be surprised by how much this straightforward exercise can free you up to feel what you feel.
Anxiety
Anxiety is the ungrounded feeling of your energy bouncing off of the internal walls you’ve set up around your emotions.
When you refuse to feel your hurt and anger, your energy gets blocked, and that ping-pong feeling is what we call anxiety. (Panic is simply amped-up anxiety, an acceleration of the ping-pong!)
Anxiety And Depression Symptoms
As such, we work with anxiety by dismantling those internal walls around your emotions. One great way to do this is to start expressing your “forbidden” feelings.
You can use the free-form writing technique described above, or find a safe person such as a therapist and start to express the off-limits parts of your psyche. This is an opportunity to share deep emotions and to begin healing.
For a more detailed explanation of how depression and anxiety interact and feed into one another, check out our post on anger and addiction.
Low Self-Esteem
Low self-esteem happens when you allow your negative thoughts to run rampant and unchecked through your brain. Life coach Brooke Castillo describes it in these vivid terms:
“If you aren’t aware of the 60,000 thoughts that are going through your head every day, it’s like your brain is a toddler with a knife running through there. There is nothing more frightening for a life than an unsupervised mind.”
Unless you set the intention to do otherwise, you will experience thousands of negative thoughts each day. But there is a way out!
To work with low-self esteem, you can use affirmations. These positive thoughts retrain your brain, giving you a chance to rewire your automatic negative thought patterns.
Check out The Power of Positive Affirmations for more detailed instructions on how to get started!
Conclusion: Put the Pieces Back Together
In the words of writer Hunter S. Thompson, “Gambling can turn into a dangerous two-way street when you least expect it. Weird things happen suddenly, and your life can go all to pieces.”
The good news is that when you know how to heal your underlying core issues, you can pick up those pieces and build a new – and better – life for yourself.
Why does a problem gambler continue to gamble? Why would a person choose to repeat doing something that repeatedly demonstrates that doing it is a bad idea?
As with all addictions, there are no easy answers to these questions. There is however a growing body of research indicating a link between mood affective disorders and problem gambling; such as the part played by stress, loneliness, anxiety and depression in the development of gambling disorder.
There is also, it would seem, a genetic predisposition to gamble – that a person’s genes can play a part in whether they are at elevated risk of their gambling becoming a pathological compulsion.
But for neuroscientists, those who spend their days gazing at chemical changes in the brain, there is no mystery to what feeds the loss of control. Its motivations are rooted in primitive urges, emotions and feelings fed by chemical ‘rewards’ – little waves of pleasure and heightened anticipation – released from deep within the human brain.
When we gamble the observable changes to the chemistry of the brain are as obvious to the neuroscientist as the colour changes of a sunset sky.
Gambling Anxiety And Depression Dsm 5
Under PET scans (positron emission tomography), the gambler’s brain, when gambling, ‘lights up’ with the same, or similar, chemical changes seen when people take drugs, smoke a cigarette or drink alcohol.
It’s not the winning that keeps them coming back, not even the losing, it’s “the playing” that sits behind the impulse to gamble.
Because it’s the playing that triggers the release of ‘feel good’ chemicals in the brain – like dopamine and adrenalin – and it’s these chemicals that set the waiting trap of addiction for the pathological gambler.
Some facts about gambling and gambling disorder:
- Problem gamblers are at increased risk of suicide and substance use disorders
- Up to 17.0 percent of suicidal patients seen by The Alfred hospital’s emergency department is a problem gambler (SOURCE: Kulkarni Prof. J., Director, Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, https://www.smh.com.au/national/gambling-linked-to-one-in-five-suicidal-patients-20100420-srri.html)
- Problem gambling and mental health disorders are strongly linked:
- Around 24.06 percent of moderate risk gamblers and 41.86 percent of problem gamblers had been diagnosed with depression (1)
- Around 20.0 percent of moderate risk gamblers and 39.53 percent of problem gamblers had been diagnosed with anxiety (1) (SOURCE: Victorian Department of Justice; A study of gambling in Victoria – problem gambling from a public health perspective, 2009)
- Problem gamblers are nearly 20 times more likely to display severe psychological distress (SOURCE:Thomas S.A., Jackson A.C., Risk and Protective Factors and Comorbidities in Problem Gambling. Report to beyondblue, Monash University and the University of Melbourne 2008)
- Children and siblings of pathological gamblers are eight times more likely to become problem gamblers than relatives of people without pathological gambling. (SOURCE: University of Iowa; Black Prof. D.W., 2014; https://now.uiowa.edu/2014/06/pathological-gambling-runs-families)
- Problem gamblers and drug addicts share many of the same genetic predispositions for impulsivity and reward seeking (SOURCE:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-brain-gets-addicted-to-gambling)
- A US study found that 44 percent of problem gamblers also have a lifetime history of alcohol use disorder (SOURCE: Cunningham–Williams, R.M., Cottler, L.B., et al; Taking chances: Problem gamblers and mental health disorders, American Journal of Public Health, 1998)
So how are you travelling? If your life is gripped by gambling – you skate from pay-cheque to pay-cheque, your credit cards are ‘maxed’, you find yourself borrowing from payday lenders and keep making larger bets to chase money you’ve lost – you may be well-advanced on the path to a chronic gambling problem.
And if you can’t bring it back under control, it can potentially swallow everything of value in your life.
Anxiety And Depression Medication
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There’s help out there you know. There is also help here at ADA Australia. Call our Friendly Ear service if you’d like to chat. We’ll help steer you in the right direction. Or call any of the other listed numbers following:
- ADA Australia ‘A Friendly Ear’: 1800 232 287
- Gambling Helpline: 1800 858 858
- Gamblers Anonymous: gaaustralia.org.au (for state-based phone numbers)
- Lifeline: 13 11 14
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(NOTE: Information in this news article drawn from The Little Blue Book of WORKPLACE MENTAL HEALTH.)