Topic: Recognizing Gambling Disorders, Symptoms of Severe Gambling Addiction - page 4. (Read 897 times)

If the gambling-addicted person is your friend or the one you care about, then, without doubt, you should tell him/her and not just watch. If you watch him, its not far different from watching how your friend dies and not trying anything to escape him/her. That's why I think: Together we stand - Divided we fall.

I know how that feels, people in my area think that only Schizophrenics, psychopaths, Insanes and the people in similar mental disorder list goes to the psychiatrist while it's not true in reality.
In the USA, if your child has an attention deficit, you should visit a psychiatrist. In my country, if you have attention deficit, that means you are just lazy, untalented, useless. 90% of doctors have no idea what is ADD/ADHD and the rest of 10% think it exists but you have to change your behavior, non medical support available.

So yeah, people lack education and that's why they think so... It's a shame in society... Ahh, that's so bad!

Without a doubt, you should do everything to help him/her and what doesn't depend on you, it won't be your fault.

Btw right now, there are free online resources that can help gambling-addicted persons. There are even Facebook groups where some certified psychologists give a free help hand to similar people.
Betsson even pays some money out of it's pocket to help gambling addicted people. Sounds crazy from casino but yeah, they really do!

Some disorders and symptoms of severe gambling addiction includes restlessness and the desire to borrow money when there is no money to play.others include imagining how much profit you would have made when you place huge amount of money on a particular game. Gambling addiction is a strong spirit that one cannot control.It is advisable to see a councellor.

It also depends on which symptoms exist to determine whether a gambler is severely addicted or not.

I guess someone who feels the urge to gambling in his free time cannot be classified as an addicted gambler because we all have an interest towards a particular activity and gambling might be one of them especially for someone who is sort of an introvert. There is no problem in gambling when you are bored, in fact gambling is basically meant to be a time killer and a fun activity.

Some symptoms like cheating others to gamble might be a warning indeed and one needs to visit a psychologist if they are actually cheating or stealing money to gamble, whatever their intention might be.

^ This is the problem of the gamblers get worst in addiction because they don't open their problem to their family or to their close ones.
If you have a sign of addiction, much better to cure yourself of it rather than it's too late and probably you will be killed by so many people before you will realize that you are in the stage of addiction. Just the same as what I have read long time ago, a gambling addict kill many people in the casino, fire a high powered gun through casino staff and gamblers because he was lost everything, that is worst if you did not cure in addiction.

You really need to rescue him before it is too late for him to realize. I think he will not realize his gambling addiction itself because he can not see clear about himself. Maybe you can distract his mind from thinking about gambling by doing something else such as ask him to join you to do work together or other things. But you do not need to force him to follow you and you can do that slowly without being suspicious about what you will do to him. If you need help from other people or his family, that will be great as more people can get more solutions.

Basically I have seen some signs on him, so I decided if he is indeed suffering from gambling addiction now, at first I also did not realize it was him but after I read the article and tried to match the symptoms mentioned in the article with his behavior so far, and that makes me very sure if he is currently headed for a slump regardless of whether he admits it or not, someone who is addicted will not admit their behavior is bad and usually they will continue to be stuck in that bad if we as family or friends do not try to remind and help him out of this behavior.

a person involved must have at least 4-6 of those behavior before categorizing as having a gambling disorder .

because all of those are normal attitude of gambler if they only have 1 o- 3 of those.

i admit that some of the mentioned i have in gambling but not literally mean that i will admit having disorder because i can still manage to control myself when it comes to gambling.

Oh, it's amazing of you to really be concerned of him. I guess talking to the family about his situation with his friends would help. Many of them might have not understood how things are turning worse. But I guess it would be awkward if you're the one who will try to represent the family and gather his friends and discuss his gambling situation on his behalf. It would be best if a family member would do that.

It sounds as if the situation really calls for it, before things would grow even worse that a professional's intervention is necessary.

How so?
The point is that any psychological addiction is a deeply emotional problem, we can see it all over: fear, anger, thrill, frustration, etc. People with severe addiction get very cranky and easily annoyed, especially when all this is supplemented with financial problems.

So direct approach is not an option here, the same as trying to reach through the family. As it often happens (and the OP just said it somewhere in this thread), when there's a gambling addict in a family they just turn their backs and never try to really understand and be supportive, they think of such a person as of disgrace and nothing more.

So the closest will likely only make things worse by putting additional pressure and not being very helpful. Thus, for a friend to listen to you one needs to be first and foremost on his side.

I haven't got any pleasure out of gambling, all that I've experienced out of gambling is shivering. Myself had the fear of losing money. Once after losing my mind keeps thinking about the loss I've experienced. This keeps me tempted to gamble and recover the losses. This is the reason why I keep on gambling and there is nothing as pleasure, maybe other gamblers have experienced it.

The person who has an addiction or compulsive behavior through gambling won't listen because their body like the feeling of winning or the feeling of if I win which is not a healthy thinking anymore. They need to control their own feeling towards things that is temporary. And making money shouldn't be the first goal by risking it through gambling and I think they were fully aware the risk already but they still continue despite of warning and signs showing to them.

Any form of addiction whether in gambling or other means like drugs or anything in life would really be ending up unfortunate for you if you do really tolerate that one and its true that majority of gamblers doesnt really accept that theyre addicted and do still continue to play despite of the situation they are into.Of course the primary target or aim in life is to make more money via gambling which is the only fastest way to do so but also the fastest
way on losing your money in a short span of time.Lots would really get compromised if you do let that addiction control ones self.

On what particular category your friend falls under the listed symptoms you have mentioned?

Not because they are eager to continue gambling despite having a bad effect on them, doesn't mean they now completely fall to the worst effect of doing gambling. There are lots of gamblers who are behaving that way but still responsible for the other part of their life.

We can just do something depends on what level of addiction that your friend is currently in.

releasing someone from gambling addiction is not an easy thing and of course it takes quite a bit of extra patience to do it, moreover the desire to change this bad thing comes from one party (op) and not from the addict himself, so in my opinion it will be impossible to do if it is true the addict doesn't want to change himself right now.

This is a good list of symptoms of being addicted to gambling, I myself even experienced or has some of it when I was still an addict. It would be a good thing to show these symptoms to an addict and make him realize that he need help to slow down or to remove his gambling addiction. Fixing these symptoms one at a time could help the gambler to remove his addiction since I cured myself by doing small things.

Interesting points presented by this article. And it's important to note the individual can be considered an addicted one only if he shows at least 4 of the symptoms from the list. Sometimes we see someone very agitated, what lead us to conclude this person is an addicted gambler, but it may not be the case, so we have to be cautious to not judge people wrongly. Even because these analysis can be only accurately made by professionals, in this case psychiatrists. On the other hand, I think it worths to advise friends or relatives to seek for professional help if you are in doubt about them suffering from gambling addiction, doesn't matter if they will like your advice or not.

Pretty solid list of symptoms you have gathered here op. Now coming back to your question, you must try to help your family or friend who are ahowing such symptoms. Definitely you will risk the friendship, but eventually you will help a life to get back on track.

If gambling is legal in your country, you must have a national helpline number to help fight gambling addiction. If not legal, then try to find some NGOs who work on such addiction. I understand the social taboo you are referring, so try to find the help which is not closer to your area. But the help must be provided.

• The individual with the disorder feels the desire to gamble and uses more and more money to get the pleasure he craves.

• Finds himself agitated and annoyed when he tries to gamble less or halt altogether.

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This two got my attention most because many atimes when I go to a local gambling hall I tend to see some specific set of persons who are always at the hall. Most times I wonder how the cope without a job to backup their losses and also how the get constant funds to keep gambling over and over again even when the can barely feed themselves. It would really take a whole lot of effort to convince such persons because talking them into seeing a phychiatrist might some how sound rude except a more deplomatic approach is used to convince them against their wish.

as friends, of course it is not wrong if we try to change the bad nature of our friends and make them better, after all his family has asked me for help several times to advise him because his relationship with his family is a little less harmonious and as a friend of course I have done it but still his attitude changed only in a matter of days and then he returned to the bad habit.


someone who is addicted certainly has a hard heart like a stone, so when we advise him hard of course he will fight back, but when we advise him gently of course it will take a long time for him to accept the advice and even as humans we will feel bored to constantly advise others (whoever it is).
Right now I'm thinking if I will try to keep him away from some other friends who have a gambling habit, so that at least it can minimize his desire to continue gambling.

There are polite manner to talking a Friend who is addicted to gambling into seeing a phychiatrist without having to hurt anyone's feelings. You can invite him or her for a drink or even a gambling tournament something you feel could entice him then you go ahead to invite a phychiatrist as well to the meeting venue. Most phychiatrist know how to engage them in discussions that would warrant them to seek for help. Going to as him to see a phychiatrist might cost you a whole lot even to the point of loosing him as a friend