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Well, it may be a mental disorder but it is not a disease like flu or whatever
Personally, I'm not even sure if the term "cured" is quite applicable or suitable here. Honestly, I don't even think that this kind of addiction can be called a mental disorder in the first place.
Imo, since we are not clinical psychologists, it's not up to us to decide how it should be called. Below is the definition American Psychiatric Association came up with:
Pathological gambling, also known as compulsive gambling or disordered gambling, is a recognized mental disorder characterized by a pattern of continued gambling despite negative physical, psychological, and social consequences.
I personally think that if we want to move forward in our research, we shouldn't question, or reinvent, something that is already known
That's a pretty naive approach
The Earth had been known flat and Sun circling around it for how many millinea? But the fact that the American Psychiatric Association refers to this "disorder" as something recognized makes it abundantly clear that not everyone even among clinical psychologists is actually recognizing it as such (read, they have doubts)
Gambling Disorder is a behavioral addiction diagnosis introduced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition or DSM-5. This is the first formal recognition of behavioral addiction in the psychiatry text
Taken from
hereLet me guess, gambling, i.e. as in compulsive gambling or disordered gambling, or whatever term they came up with, is not the only such "disorder" in that manual?
Well, I think the word "recognized" means that most pros in the field accept that view, but I can be wrong, because English is not my first language. Regarding times, when the Earth was considered flat, I think we are living in a very different time now. Today, with the help of the Internet, we can find out what most scientists and specialists say about this or that. If most physicists and astronomers were saying that the Earth is flat, I would believe them. But since they are not saying it, I don't believe flat-Earthers. For me it's that simple.
For example, if a person gambled as much as any other individual whom you would rightfully consider a gambling addict but without financial losses that gambling typically incurs (say, in demo mode), would you still think of their passion as a mental disorder which should be cured?
I would. Absolutely. It happened to me once, actually. I was playing poker tournaments with zero buy-in, but also with extremely small prize pool, of less than $0.1, for hours, 8-10 hours per day in some cases, and although I wasn't losing any money, I believe I felt like an addicted gambler during those days. I couldn't think of anything but playing
So what about love, when you can't think of anything else but the object of your passion for weeks, if not months on end? Is it also a mental disorder according to DSM-5 or what?
If you ask me, the so called "love"
is a mental disorder. There is a saying that goes "love was invented by men to manipulate women", and I personally agree with it. There's also another kind of love, people's love for their king or their president. With that kind, people of the past loved Hitler and Stalin. And I bet, the most loved president by his own people is Kim Jong-un currently. So, yeah, it's a mental illness that needs to be cured, the sooner the better.
Gambling addicts frequently say that they love gambling, and they behave exactly as you describe people who are "in love" do. And that is not good.
