The Little Blue Book

Are you on the path? So, is any of this you? If your life is gripped by gambling – you skate from pay-cheque to pay-cheque, you wish you didn’t gamble as much, and things at home are under pressure – you may be well-advanced on the path to gambling addiction. If you can recognise yourself and your behaviours in the following, then maybe it’s time to look around for help. • You spend more money on gambling than you’d like • You spend more time in gambling venues than you’d like (sometimes staying till late at night) • You keep trying to cut back your gambling, but you can’t • You gamble most when you’re feeling anxious or stressed • When you’re gambling, you find it difficult to stop spending and will look for an ATM to keep playing • If you’ve got money in your pockets, you’ll gamble • You often think about gambling, even when at work • You spend more time gambling than most other things you do • When you gamble, you ‘zone out’ and feel you’re in your own bubble- wrapped world • You find yourself borrowing money from family, pay day lenders and sometimes even from friends • You keep making larger bets to try to cover money you’ve lost • Your gambling is affecting your family and life at home • Your credit cards are ‘maxed’ and you’ve had debt collectors calling because of your gambling What is ‘Gambling Disorder’? Neuroscientific studies into brain activity and the biology of addiction show that chronic gambling and drug use share similar neurological and behavioural characteristics – in other words, what happens in the brain is similar for both activities. Gambling disorder, once thought to simply be a failure of impulse control, is now accepted as a mental health disorder and classified as an addiction. And, like other addictions, is typified by changes in brain chemistry and loss of control. 1 Like the neurochemical response to chronic drug and alcohol use, chronic gambling alters the reward circuits in the brain by triggering an oversupply of the chemical neurotransmitters dopamine and adrenalin. This rush of ‘feel good’ chemicals in the brain is at the root of addiction. Eventually, however, repeatedly overstimulated, the brain responds to the oversupply of dopamine by producing less. The result for the addict is ‘tolerance’ and the need to use increasing amounts to get the same result, to feel the same euphoria. Once addicted, the chronic gambler craves gambling – taking larger risks to repeat the ‘high’ – in the same way a dependent drug user craves the drug-induced high. And they will continue to do this, making increasingly rash decisions, despite the negative consequences to their lives from this behaviour and despite the recognition that repeating the behaviour is ‘a bad idea’. Chronic gambling, like chronic drinking, is not a failure of reason; it’s that the power of the addiction overrides reason. RECOGNISING DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND OTHER DISORDERS 80