Gambling is a disease that has already destroyed many destinies. However, there is still an opinion that the addiction to gambling is just a hobby that unjustifiably attracts such close attention from psychologists and psychiatrists. It is adhered to by those who do not know that in the ICD-10 disease coding system, gambling (aka ludomania) has the code F63.0, which implies a pathological attraction to gambling. Thus, official medicine recognizes that gambling is a disease.
In this article we will understand the reasons for the development of this pathology, its treatment, as well as the prospects for recovery, because, as you know, mental disorders quite often are subject only to maintenance therapy and do not imply 100% recovery.
Causes of the disease
The disease “gambling” develops as a result of various motivational programs that arise in the mind of a person, depending on his personality set of characteristics. Therefore, now we will consider common causes that most often turn into a gambling addiction.
- Loneliness. A person who feels alone is looking for ways to socially realize himself. The game is most often a communicative process, so it is possible to compensate for the lack of communication by interacting with other players.
- Greed. If we talk exclusively about gambling, which implies a monetary reward in case of a win, then the thirst for relatively easy money will motivate a person to play constantly, even if there is no win.
- Laziness. Again, this disease may be the result of unwillingness to hard work. Such a person refuses to go to real work, because it implies responsibility and the contribution of physical or intellectual forces. It is easier for an individual to put the probability of his income “for good luck” than to receive a stable salary, and at the same time regularly engage in labor activities.
- Infantilism. The infantile personality is not ready for responsible tasks, has an illusory idea of reality, and therefore chooses the same “unstable” methods of earning, if we are talking about games with a monetary reward. The extreme degree of naivety in this case causes large monetary losses, because systematic losses do not tell the infante anything, and he believes that he will one day win.
- Feeling of dissatisfaction. It forces a person to prove himself in the game, if he can not do it in real life. This is especially evident depending on online games, where a person makes friends, finds a circle of people with whom he can discuss something or demonstrate his gaming abilities.
- Addiction tendency. In most cases, this is a congenital trait that most likely manifests itself in drug addictions: smoking, alcoholism. This is not a decisive factor in the formation of gambling, but one of those that implies a likely addiction to gambling.
- Mental pathology. The inharmonious psyche is manifested in various rash acts of a person, his falling into dependence on people, things, phenomena.
Signs of the disease
Gambling is a disease that has a number of symptoms:
- At the initial stage, a person has a strong desire to play. There is no pronounced dependence yet, but the frequency and duration of entertainment increases.
- At the second stage, it is difficult for a person to resist the desire to spend time at the computer, but he is still conscious about it, because may wonder: "play or not play?".
- At the last stage, a person does not have a struggle of motives, a person plays, if possible. He is socialized, and if he participates in gambling with the demand for cash deposits, then most often, he becomes very poor. No threats from relatives and life problems (for example, deprivation of housing due to debts) can stop him.
Therapy and prospects for recovery
Gambling is a disease whose treatment is hampered by the fact that there are no medicines for it. The decision to stop the game (and, accordingly, the possibility of release from addiction) depends only on the patient and his attending psychotherapist, whose tasks are to help people realize the destructive influence of the game.
However, each person has his own characteristics, and, for example, the pitiful position of a gamer with a tendency to psychological masochism with beliefs about the destructive influence of this lesson will further stimulate him to it as a method of self-destruction.
Replacing the area of obtaining the necessary sensations obtained during the game process can also contribute to the disappearance of gambling. Despite this, such people rarely manage to get rid of their dependence, and medical consultations can only reduce the severity of the manifestation of the disease for some period, which implies only periodic relief without 100% cure.
So, in this article we realized that gambling is a disease that cannot be cured without the patient's conscious and realized desire to get rid of this type of addiction.