Pathological craving for gambling - gambling. It is an officially recognized disease, the same as drug addiction, alcoholism, and antisocial personality disorder. A few facts about gambling: About 15% of the world's population suffer from this disease. Men suffer more often than women, but for women this disease is much more destructive. The disease is comorbid and can accompanied by depression, alcoholism, drug addiction and other psychological diseases. Reasons for the development of gambling addiction Gambling is an easy source of vivid emotions. One of the main reasons for the development of this addiction is the search for simple ways to get pleasure. And of course, easy money without investing work. People who feel a lack of positive emotions are: People prone to infantilism People who feel lonely and misunderstood People who have lost sensitivity to ordinary moderate pleasures due to prolonged mental suffering People whose family and friends are themselves addicted or codependent People prone to magical thinking .People seeking to assert themselves in their own eyes and the eyes of others. People fixated on achieving material wealth. People who believe that money solves any problem. What does a gambler experience? Gambling addiction occurs in 3 stages: Stage one. Winning The worst thing that can happen to a gambler is winning. And 95% of the time it happens. At this stage, a person is just entering the world of gambling. It seems to him that he wins more often. But this is tunnel vision (losses are ignored) or the malicious intent of the owners of gaming establishments - after all, they need to recruit new sources of income. The game gradually takes over his consciousness. He thinks about the game constantly: thinks through winning strategies, remembers past games, anticipates future ones. Stage two. A series of losses A gambler plays so often and so much that losses become more frequent and become inevitable. He feels acute negative emotions due to winnings. His relationships with loved ones, relatives, friends, and colleagues worsen. The gamer's thoughts are completely occupied with the game. He begins to look for ways to pay off the debts incurred due to the game or find money for a new game session. Various crimes are possible, mainly for the sake of obtaining money. Stage three. Insanity: At this stage, a person begins to notice that his life has been seriously disrupted. All areas of his life suffer. His health is deteriorating, he faces unemployment, divorce, and his loved ones turn away from him. He loses all material values. Unfortunately, awareness of the scale of destruction only makes him want to plunge into the game again. The gambler believes that with the help of the money he wins he can improve the situation. Previously, he played for any winnings, now he believes that all his problems will be solved by a certain amount. Then madness begins: the addict does not have enough money to place bets or play slots; he takes out microloans, applies for loans, and, with the help of lies or manipulations, encourages him to go to bank of relatives. Out of seeming hopelessness, he borrows money from everyone. Steals from his own home, steals from friends and acquaintances (common among teenagers). Takes the path of crime. During these three stages, the gamer is either in painful anticipation of the game session, or in euphoria from the game itself. If a gambling addict is deprived of the opportunity to play, one can observe a real withdrawal syndrome: the body does not receive the usual releases of hormones and the person is physically as bad as a drug addict without a dose. Important material on this topic: Gambling addiction. How do the consequences develop? Getting rid of gambling addiction. In this article, I will write about the first step. Recognizing a problem Gambling addicts tend to deny the existence of a problem. Because their families are often codependent, gambling addicts only feel the consequences of their destructive actions when the problems become disaster-scale. After all, relatives try to the last to help and solve problems that arise due to their passion for games. Recognizing the problem entails: 8-918-253-73-83