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Understanding compulsive gambling |
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What is Compulsive Gambling?
South Pacific regards gambling to be an addiction when a person continues to bet
or gamble despite the mounting negative consequences of these
behaviours. These consequences might include relationship or family
breakdown, bankruptcy, criminal activity, potential imprisonment and
serious mood and or anxiety difficulties.
Compulsive gambling is characterized as a disorder of impulse control. The essential features of which are a progressive failure to stop
gambling behaviours, leading to mounting compromise and disruption in
the gambler’s life. Understandably, many problem gamblers list stress,
anxiety and depression as major symptoms; often associating these
symptoms with feelings of despair, dread and hopelessness.
Common forms of Gambling
Common forms of gambling include: betting on the horses, dogs or events, poker
machines, sports betting, repetitive high-risk business ventures and
reckless stock market transactions. Despite the known risk of these
activities, the gambler who loses large amounts of money often regards
their losses to be the results of bad luck or poor advice/tipping. The
result of this denial often forms the basis of larger risk taking
behaviours and further losses.
Causes of Gambling Addiction
We believe that Gambling Addiction (like many other "Process Addictions") is the combination of many factors including one’s family history of coping, genetic
factors, personality and underlying emotions can interact in specific
ways to produce a compulsion-prone individual. Individuals may ‘use’
gambling as a means of coping with, or managing difficult emotions. We
also look at the brain’s reward system in understanding compulsive
gambling.
If
you or a loved one is struggling from compulsive gambling, the first
step can often be the hardest. South Pacific Private provides a FREE
CONSULTATION with a qualified health professional to review your
situation and if the services of South Pacific Private do not meet your
needs, we can refer you to other resources in your area.
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