Pathological gambling can leave extremely difficult and long-lasting consequences per person!
They can be classified into several groups:
Physical consequences are happening due to frequent, stressful situations. A person which is gambling survives stress when finding gambling assets during gambling, in situations when he loses and wins, and finally, when he/she feels guilty because he/she gambled again. As a consequence of this condition, health problems are starting to appear.
Some examples are:
digestion disorder, headaches, insomnia, mumps, loss of appetite or increased appetite, increased consumption of alcohol and cigarettes or psychoactive substances, migraine, rapid heart rate, cardiovascular disease, skin diseases, dandruff, tics, trembling, increased sweating, and other stress-related illnesses.
Psychic Consequences from the gambling addiction can cause mental disorders, which are manifested by:
weaker concentration, poor memory, difficulty in thinking, frequent and inadequate mood swings, slowness, depression, impulsiveness, reduced motivation and narrowing of interest. Also, there are also characteristic changes and the establishment of an addictive behavioral pattern characterized by behavior based on the "principle of affection," which is inherent in children, not the "principle of reality" that is inherent to adults.
Characteristics are:
lying, manipulation, selfishness, egocentricity, immaturity, insensibility, irresponsibility, negative attitude towards authorities. In addition to these, other specific personality traits that are specifically connected with of gamblers are appearing:
parasitism, laziness, inability to deal with productive work, grandiosity, and omnipotence develop.
In the group of psychological consequences, the so-called comorbidity is also a rule, and not as an exception. With gambling, other psychological disorders are appearing such as:
nicotinism, alcoholism, drug addiction, anxiety disorders, depression, hyperactive pores, eye and attention deficit.
The social consequences relate to the problems that gambling causes in the social environment of addicts, in several areas of social life:
Professional consequences are first expressed in: absentia from work, illness, poor quality of work, poor communication with colleagues and intolerance towards superiors if the addict is employed. If a person is in the process of education, there are:
[color=greenabsences from classes or lectures, pauses in education or his break, worse results and grades, problems with colleagues and professors.
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Consequences in interpersonal communication - This group includes problems in communicating with people who are reflected in:
increasingly frequent conflict situations, fights, quarrels, criticism of others, glorification of one's own and degrading other people's work. Communication problems arise:
in relation to partners, friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors ... Relations with them become weak and superficial, and communication termination often comes to an end.
The economic consequences are often and most pronounced. Due to
frequent losses of large amounts of money, constant loans from family, friends and at the end of taking money from the loaner, the gambler, and his family are beginning to suffer on the financial plan as well. It takes several years for the gambler and his family to recover from these consequences (provided that the person no longer gambles). Unfortunately, there is not a small number of those who never recover from these consequences.
Criminal-legal consequences arise mainly after all sources of money "dry up" from the family to those "from whom they could almost borrow". In order to get money, addicts resort to the commission of crimes and most often robbery - stealing and robbery.
Family consequences are also included in a group of social consequences, but are, for the sake of importance, separated into a personal group. The problem of gambling is also the problem of the entire family system. Relations within family become worse, more conflicting. Communication among members becomes superficial and insincere and family roles are disturbed. The family begins to isolate itself from the social environment, contacts with friends and relatives are reduced. It will take a long time from the moment when it is learned that one member is an addicted gambler until the moment of this same gambler going to the treatment. During this time, the family is going through a paradoxical process, in which (despite the best intentions for the addicted member), it will contribute to various ways of further developing and pushing the gambler to stay in the addiction phase. All of this is a result of defense mechanisms by family members.
Thus, for example, following mechanisms of defense that are appearing in the wife and mother are:
negation-type - they are convinced that the gambling habits are only temporary - that's the current thinking, according to the principle "it will not happen to me".
minimizing - he/she is not a gambler he is just betting
projection - society is guilty for everything, they have brought him in this phase
There are also other defense mechanisms but the list is too long to write them all in a single post!
However, by the time the family begins to face this difficult problem which brings consequences which are becoming increasingly apparent and they are trying to help the gambler. There is a range of measures; so-called solution such as:
prayer, conviction, quarreling, threats of divorce and abandonment, tracking and also the movement to another city. All of these attempts are only temporary solutions, but they also create new problems, which are exacerbating an already unsettling situation. Only at this stage family members are deciding to seek the professional help!
My question is -
______________Has gambling left a trace on you; if it has which consequences are you experiencing right now?
