Gambling addiction: How to break the cycle?
Gambling has experiencing a popularity surge over the past few years, with new gambling games online popping up all the time, you can buy lottery tickets online, bet on sports game, easily access gambling websites and even gambling with crypto. Gambling is more than just a bad habit; it often is the result of more serious emotional traumas.
Is playing games getting out of hands?
Money blockages or gambling problem are the two sides of the same coin.
If you feel guilty or ashamed about your financial life, regardless of whether you're overspending or almost rejecting money, this article is for you.
Let's examine the underlying reasons of gambling addiction and how to manage gambling habits. This blog highlights solutions to gamblers problems to break the cycle of financial and emotional trauma.
How gambling works?
Gambling is risking money or anything of value in hope of a positive game outcome based on chance such as slot machines, scratch cards, or group bets.
You get paid when you win, and you lose the money you bet on.
The Four Main criteria for gambling:
Action taken: A deliberate bet.
Risk of loss: The possibility of losing something important
Short-term reward: Immediate feedback (win or lose)
Zero-sum game: Your gain is someone else’s loss.
Why gambling is bad?
Gambling is bad because, like drugs and alcohol, it triggers the brain's reward system, which can lead to gambling addiction.
Gambling and Bankruptcy
If you have a compulsive disorder personality or problem with compulsive gambling, you might enter a vicious cycle of chasing bets, running after gambling free spins, using all your savings to pay for your addiction, getting in debt to maintain it.
Compulsive gambling often has serious financial repercussions from debt to legal issues. Gambling debts may even be legally enforceable in certain circumstances, placing a person at risk of further financial collapse. Some people lie to hide their gambling addiction or resort to theft and fraud in an attempt to recover gambling losses.
Why does gambling become addictive?
In a casino you loose track of time and in real life you might stop monitoring your expenses, mistakenly convincing yourself that you will win the jackpot next time you gamble and solve all of your financial problems.
That is the ‘ gambling zone’, the gambler distorted reality escape when on the gamer high, wrongfully reinforcing the idea that they are the game master, and understand the game with luck on their side.
Meanwhile they are gambling with lives and the gambling industry makes money off of this delusion as the player continues to lose money. A croupier is in charge of a gambling table and might even earn gambling commission out of gamblers.
How gambling affects the brain?
Dopamine release.
Gambling or poker games activates the brain's reward system, which releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter reinforcing our sense of pleasure: The thrill of gambling and dopamine reaction lead to a compulsive cycle of wanting to gamble more, chasing after a feeling as much as the gamble win, to maintain the high.
Cognitive distortions: Gamblers frequently believe that if they keep playing, they will eventually win. They become ensnared in the cycle of loss by this "gambler's fallacy'“, slowly getting into the habits of playing or buying lottery game tickets justifying the gambling loss as part of the game.
False sense of winning: Some gambling machine games, gambling on horses, gambling on football team etc, can make players feel like they're winning, even when they're not. This can lead to players becoming absorbed in the game and overestimating their winnings due to the emotional entanglement.
Emotional comfort: Gambling can be a way to cope with stress and trauma. Gamblers often grew up with a particular relationship with money- often either in great wealth they feel undeserving of, or struggling financially maybe guiltriped by their parents/family/friends and feeling ashame of burdens not theirs to carry because of remarks making them feeling responsible and irresponsible/ unqualified simultaneously. This Internalised disconnection create an inner conflict, which can lead to addiction such as gambling addictions or others; fondamentally coping mechanism to financial and emotional trauma.
Desensitization: Over time, gambling changes brain chemistry, making the gambler less sensitive to the effects of dopamine. This lead to riskier behavior to obtain the same pleasure.
Problem gambling or ludomania is repetitive gambling behavior despite harm and negative consequences. Problem gambling may be diagnosed as a mental disorder according to DSM-5 if certain diagnostic criteria are met. Pathological gambling is a common disorder associated with social and family costs.
How gambling addiction starts?
While personality traits or family history may predispose some people to gambling addiction, gambling is frequently used as a coping strategy for unresolved emotional trauma.
Gambling can be addictive if you are under a lot of social pressure, family trauma or feeling lonely; Social isolation can lead someone to see gambling as a temporary relief. They start to see british gambling sites or casinos as a social space, somewhere where they belong. However, over time, this escape game becomes a trap worsening the isolation problem and causing gambling exclusion.
Gambling is a deceptive reward system that traps people often gambling to make money and then gambling to pay off debt. Gamblers frequently chase an unattainable sense of satisfaction, trapped in a loop with their motivation stemming from a feeling of lack or disconnection with real life, which they try to satisfy with material gains.
Gambling addiction can also be the result of someone having an addictive personality prone to compulsive behaviour.
There are also fundamental emotional reasons which can contribute to the development and vicious cycle of compulsive gambling.
Gamblers may be motivated by feelings of worthlessness due to family or social conditioning, a conflicted desire for wealth, or unresolved financial childhood trauma.
Psychological and Emotional gambling Triggers
Gambling and Depression: There is a strong correlation between gambling and suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression. The neural pathways created by gambling mimic those found in other addictive behaviors, making it hard to break free.
Gambling and alcohol addiction: often exacerbated by one another with emotional dysregulation and traumatic experiences as the underlying cause of both habits. Sadly, they're also both linked to serious mental health issues such as depression and suicidal tendencies. Both addictions create neural pathways in the brain which make compulsive behaviours hard to break without rehab.
Maybe you were depressed and started to gamble as a way to relieve anxiety or distract yourself. Maybe you started to gambled and felt into depression.
Maybe you used to drink and got into gambling, maybe gambling at the casino placed you in an environment pushing you to drink. Maybe the gambling stress got out of hand and led you to drink.
We often confuse the reaction to trauma for the problem so it is important to know for yourself what triggers your addictions. There are no rules on what get the vicious gambling cycle started.
Gambling addictions consequences
Gambling or betting in excess can have negative effects on the person who gambles and those around them, including family, friends, and communities.
Gambling or cheating can have similar betrayal feeling effects on loved ones due to the intertwined underlying psychological and emotional factors at play in both. Sex addiction/ infidelity and gambling disorders are behaviours both stemming from impulsivity and a tendency toward risk-taking, which are common traits in emotionally dysregulated individuals with unhealthy coping mechanisms ( such as self sabotaging tendencies or on the other extreme suffering of grandiosity).
How to manage gambling habits?
Paying bills before gambling
Spending time with friends and family who don't gamble
Dealing with debts
Avoiding seeing gambling as a way to make money
Avoiding taking out credit cards to pay for gambling
Go on a retreat where gambling is illegal or heavily regulated
Gambling can damage self-esteem, relationships, physical and mental health, work performance and social life.
Gambling help to stop Gambling
If gambling films are often a bad example, glamourising gambling disorders more than offering help to gamblers, it's critical to realise that gambling addiction is a symptom of more serious emotional and psychological problems, making many people suffer. If you or someone you know is experiencing these problems, a variety of gambling help is available.
Gambling for free: Emotionally detaching the game from the gain can be a first step. Often gamblers are after a social connection more than after gambling gain; you can still share football gambling tips with your friends, just do not involve money in the game.
Gambling blocker: If you tend to scroll on the best uk gambling site, putting blocker might be the obstacle you need to make your gambler experience more difficult to access.
Gambling rehab: Provide Addiction recovery programs with all gambling support you could dream of with gambling insider able to understand you experience and help you heal your addiction to gambling.
Gambling helpline: You might be one phone call away from receiving the help you need to stop gambling.
Gambling hypnotherapy: Hypnosis is a new age gambling treatment that has helped many gamblers break the gambling cycle. It is a therapy with an expert helping you reach a state of trance and sharing strategies that can be efficient, however being convinced of the efficiency of the therapy can also help, a little like a placebo effect.
Gambling documentary: It can be engaging to relate to someone else real life struggle with gambling addictions without romantizing the gambling problems.
Talk to your support person, journal your feelings and actions in your gambling diary, keep track of your spending habits, learn to refuse the invitation to the casino gambling free or say no to betting with friends.
Life Back after Gambling
You need to deeply be convinced that investing in your future is better than gambling with life.
Will gambling ever be banned? Even if gambling can ruin your life, gambling online and gambling games are legal in UK until legislation changes. That is why the ideal is not to be tempted by money gambling games, regardless of if they are allowed or not. In order to do so, you need to find out what triggers you gamble habits.
It is important to be able to resist the gaming temptation. There is a lot that can be done to channel your life force into something actually bringing you profound fulfilment-not just pleasure.
Gambling addiction: A trauma coping mechanism
Money and emotional blockages frequently indicate problems with the root chakra, which related to how childhood has influenced your perceptions of money safety, trust, and survival. Here are a few questions to reflect.
What was going on in your life or head space when gambling started? What feeling were you looking for?
How was money discussed in your family when you were growing up? Were they afraid/ avoiding the subject, or was it a source of conflict?
Do you see yourself as responsible with money, or do you still feel like the 'child' when it comes to handling finances? maybe going overboard to feel carefree?
Is there a part of you that finds it difficult or scary to handle money the way you think ‘adult’ should?
Do you feel bad or embarrassed about having more money than your friends or family?
Do you think being more financially responsible would be taken as an invitation by your loved ones to request more from you?
Do they simultaneously insinuate that you are pretending to be better than them while also telling you that you are not doing enough for them?
Have you ever suppressed your desires, self-sabotage or refrained from enjoying wealth, to fit in or out of a fear of appearing as "abandoning" others.
If these questions resonated with you, it’s a sign that you’re ready to explore the deeper emotional and financial patterns driving your relationship with money.
A balanced root chakra helps foster a healthy relationship with money to find emotional freedom and stop reacting to your gambling triggers
Manage your financial blessings with wisdom and guilt-free; You merit financial stability!
Guidance to overcome feeling of shame & guilt
Healing spending patterns requires more than just practical tips—it involves understanding the emotional and spiritual root causes, and I’m here to guide you through that journey. Make the change today and arrange a consultation with me.
I can assist you in identifying the root of the problem to integrate your shadow side and bring long-lasting change; whether you're looking for one-on-one coaching, retreats, or ongoing support. Click [here] to book your consultation or find out more about my coaching services, or send me an email.
Together, with our problem solving skills and energy healing, we can address the root blockage of your emotional disconnection and assist you in filling the void, that gambling was trying to hide, with new meaningful things to do.
