Addicted? by Marilyn Freimuth

Author:Marilyn Freimuth
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2008-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

Persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior is indicated by five or more of the above.

What Gambling Teaches about Other Addictions

These criteria overlap with those for substance-related disorders but pathological gambling has a number of distinct attributes that I find useful when it comes to recognizing other addictions.

Criterion 1 states that an addicted gambler is mentally preoccupied with this activity. The pathological gambler wonders which race to bet on and how much to wager. There are fantasies about what winning will mean and worries about the cost of a loss. Obsessive ruminations accompany many kinds of addictions and should not be mistaken for an obsessive-compulsive disorder, as discussed in chapter 2.

Criterion 5 highlights a distinguishing feature of addictive behaviors that is omitted from the diagnostic criteria for substance addiction: the behavior’s motivation. A gambler’s motivation falls into two general categories: stimulation or escape (McCormick, 1987). Stimulation- or action-seeking gamblers are prone to feeling understimulated; brief moments of excitement punctuate a chronic sense of boredom. Gambling provides needed arousal, variety, and stimulation. Other gamblers are attracted to this activity for its escape value. Depression, stress, or loneliness temporarily vanish while following a horse race or playing cards. Criterion 5 serves as a reminder that any behavior that occurs primarily because of its mood- or self-altering effects is at risk of becoming addictive.

The complex relationship between addiction and psychological distress is capably illustrated in Bill Lee’s (2005) memoir about his gambling addiction. Lee was an unhappy little boy who never felt safe at home with his father, an alcoholic gambler who could be abusive and sexually provocative. He managed the chaos of his internal and external worlds by being compulsively neat. Later, he found that the excitement of gambling provided an escape. Gambling also served another function. As a child watching his family struggle for money, he concluded that becoming rich was the only road to happiness. Initially, gambling had a self-medicating effect; it helped Lee leave behind his psychological distress. But over time, gambling returned him to his original feelings of uncertainty and self-loathing (i.e., the paradox of addiction). He rarely stopped when winning big or losing little. He gambled to the point that he hated himself for his losses. Even when he had money, it did not bring the happiness he imagined. He never spent money on personal comforts; he saved it to gamble more. He neglected his health and his appearance. He wore the same tennis shoes until the sidewalk tore up his socks. Even when loathing himself for gambling, he could not stop; to stop meant unburying the pervasive and frightening sense of chaos and self-hatred he felt as a child.

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