The gambling is popular from ancient times. We find it in the old societies like the Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, Hindu or Persian ones. The religious, moral and economic considerations led to extreme variations, in different historical periods, between the acceptance and the prohibition of the gambling. We can often encounter attitudes ranging from admiration to contempt.
As in any other conduct that becomes excessive, one question arises: what makes the person who gambles repeat the same behavior over and over again, and turn gambling into the most important thing in his/her life? What are the changes that occur in the personal life or in the contextual environment of a person that makes a certain behavior cross the barrier between normal and pathological?
The authors who have studied the pathological gambling issue various assumptions; from the fact that this behavior is an expression of some magical rituals or a vestige of the risk behaviors that “forces” the luck giving the illusion of control, to simple explanations that take into account playful aspects that generate the state of euphoria.
A Short Pathology
The psychiatrists talk about the pathological gambling behavior when this behavior persists beyond the devastating effects in the social, professional and material aspect. Similar to the drug dependency cases, the gambling phenomenon develops tolerance, meaning that there is a need to increase the “dose” to get the same good feeling. The attempt to stop the gambling habit brings physical and psychiatric effects similar to the withdrawal from a psychoactive substance: irritability, restlessness, concentrating difficulty or a depressed mood.
The statistics from the western world show that at least 80% of people have played a gambling game at least once. It seems that the incidence of the pathological gambling is 3%, the balance tilting in favor of men. According to the statistics, one can imagine a gambler as being a male, having the age over 30, that belongs at least to the middle social class. In many cases, they consume alcohol and drugs frequently. In this subgroup the interpersonal conflicts and the unemployment are more frequent.
The Gamblers Traits
Here are the diagnostics criteria that show when a person needs professional help:
- The progressive inability to control the gambling behavior in detriment to the financial and social loses.
- The need to play with higher and higher sums of money to achieve the same level of pleasure.
- The withdrawal phenomena that occurs when the gambler stops his activity.
- The existence of the persistent concerns regarding the game: the planning, the ways to gather money, etc.
- The repeated failure to control the game or to stop this behavior.
- The game, seen as a way to escape problems or to reduce the feelings of guilt, anxiety, depression, discouragement;
- The loss of money makes the gambler play one more game, then another one, with the belief that “this time I will win for sure”;
- Those around the gambler are lied constantly about the amount lost;
- Interpersonal difficulties occur in time and they’re shortly followed by the possible loss of the job.
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