Gambling has been known since antiquity. It is also known that some people play their whole lives, intelligently correlating the costs of the game with wins and losses and just having fun, while others become addicted and lose touch with reality.
Up to 5-6 years old, the child has a leading gaming activity. If the child does not play games or chooses the wrong games, his condition should be alarming. From the moment of going to school, the game activity is gradually replaced by the educational one, and until the last classes of the school the child masters the skills that prepare him for adulthood. The game, corresponding to age, fades into the background. In adulthood, a person masters labor activity, training is relegated to the background, and the game is pushed even further. For a gambler, this priority is violated, he always plays, which in itself speaks of certain violations.
There are three stages of addiction:
Stage winnings. This stage, when the player gets acquainted with the game, is often accompanied by big wins. This is possible due to the fact that a person is still able to stop in time and losses remain insignificant. At this stage, the player enjoys and even some profit.
Stage of losing. At this stage, the cost of the game becomes more tangible than income. Debts appear, and with them the inability to stop. There is a mismatch of thinking and logic. If a player loses, then he thinks about how he will return and win, and if he wins, he goes on to play further in order to win more. There is some depreciation of money, they are presented no more than chips in a casino. At this stage, problems arise in communicating with loved ones, people have anxiety at the time of separation from the game, displeasure. Also, people tend to hide their game and block it from the rest of their lives.
Stage of despair. Family and professional problems are aggravated, a person feels that he is no longer in control of the situation. At this stage, remorse, panic, hatred of other people and accusations, as well as suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts are possible.
Who becomes addicted to gambling?
There are initial prerequisites that increase the risk of addiction:
Low self-esteem. It seems to the addict that there is a void around him, and he is trying to fill it, compensating for the lowered self-esteem with some bravado, ostentatious behavior. Self-esteem of a dependent person is directly related to the lack of acceptance and unconditional love in childhood, and in adulthood, what the child received less in childhood, he compensates for with fantasies about his greatness. The game helps him with this. After all, people prone to the game, inherent mystical thinking. The gamer in his fantasies imagines that he can control the uncontrollable - for example, to win with the help of cunning combinations of compliance with the signs. In this case, a loss for him means that somewhere he made a mistake: put on the wrong tie, for example.
Violations of interpersonal relationships. A dependent player is not able to build long-term relationships with other people, it seems to him that no one understands him. The reasons for this should be sought in childhood, in relationships with the mother.
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Impaired ability to take care of yourself. If a person with a normal attitude to the game is able to predict the situation and stops when the forecast is clearly not in his favor, then the dependent person dulls a sense of self-preservation, he can not think about the consequences of his actions.
Violation of the regulation of own excitation. The gambler, having received the first dose of adrenaline, can no longer stop, he wants more and more.
Focus on material achievements. If the material side of life was a priority in the family and there was no education of spirituality at all, then the child’s chances are significantly increased in the future to become a gambler. If parents do not pay attention to the development of the child’s talent, if the child grows up with a clear understanding that the work, no matter how hard and hateful it should be, should bring a lot of money, then sooner or later he will need an outlet that he will look for in the game.
Losing as a defense mechanism
A gambling addiction differs from all other addictions by the moment of loss. Currently, it is customary to consider losing the game as a defense mechanism. When a person loses everything that he has, he again becomes able to sense reality. Thus, losing is the mechanism that keeps the player living in the game, allowing him to return to reality and function in it. When a person loses, he repents, then he is inclined to think about how to help himself. At this point, you can talk with him about his problem and convince him to go to a psychotherapist, psychiatrist or psychoanalyst.
How to induce a gamer to be treated
Often gamers are sure that they have no problems. Any talk comes across aggressive manifestations. But, as with a child who begins to bully when he feels a lack of maternal love and with
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