Addiction to gambling is a mental illness and is manifested by frequent and repetitive episodes of gambling that dominate the life of the individual, resulting in adverse social, professional, material and family values as well as his daily obligations.
Gambling addicts can:
- to jeopardize their profession
- to create excessive debts
- lying or violating the law (trying to get money to play or pay the debts they create by playing)
Dependent individuals have an intense impulse for gambling, which is difficult to control. This is accompanied by over-employment with ideas and pictures of the act of the game and the conditions that are in connection with this act.
Over-employment and impulse often increase during their lifetimes, when they experience intense stress.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has the following characteristics as the main diagnostic features of gambling addiction:
- continuous and recurring gambling.
- continuous and often heightened play despite the negative consequences such as loss of property, family disturbance and personal status.
Diagnosis of this pathological condition requires five or more of the following symptoms:
- The person is constantly engaged in gambling or by finding ways to fund his passion.
- The person always in need of playing with increasing amounts.
- The person has repeatedly tried to reduce or stop gambling without success.
- The person is anxious or in tension when he tries to stop his gambling job.
- Maybe the person plays to get away from his problems or the discomfort that holds him.
- The person returns the next day in the hope of winning the losers.
- The person constantly lied to his family or others, concealing the extent of the problem.
It endangers or loses its profession or opportunities, e.g. to make a career.- Makes illegal, eg. thefts, forgery, frauds, abuses.
- The person is dependent on third parties to lend him money to improve his desperate financial position due to gambling.
Diagnostic criteria for gambling addiction:
- Two game episodes over a period of at least one year.
- These episodes did not have a profit for the individual, but they continued, despite personal psychological pressure and involvement with its functionality.
- The man describes a strong tendency to play, which is difficult to control, and states that it is impossible to stop playing despite his desire for it.
- The person deals with thoughts or fantasies about the gaming process or the conditions around it.
It is associated with other disorders such as: mood disorder in which gambling is exacerbated, personality disorder, psychosomatic disorder (hypertension, migraine).
Treatment
For the treatment of gambling dependence at the Veresies Clinic, the following are offered:
- Individual, Family and Group Psychotherapy
- Drug treatment in cases where there is a need for anxiety, depression, insomnia, self-destructive thoughts etc.