The comparison between drugs and gambling has been normal these days and people think that they are the same but they aren't.
There might be people who are really lonely in real life and because of that they gamble but in every action that everyone does, we don't have the same reason for what we do.
It can be others past times, bonding moment why they gamble, some aren't satisfied on how much they make and that's why they gamble.
They better be making money from gambling to have that reason. Otherwise, they are just using that to justify their gambling addiction and they are losing even more money because of gambling which makes their situation worse.
Another thing that you said is that some people have gambling as a bonding time with their friends. This is actually a thing. Let's say that your officemates are all gambling on Saturday nights and they invited you to join them, you can't just say "no" because as the human being that you are, you have the
need to belong to a group of people. You will say 'yes' just because. Peer pressure, that is. I really do think that there's a lot of reasons why people become addicted to something. Loneliness and dissatisfaction with their life is just one of them.
To OP: This is a really deep topic. But I strongly agree that dissatisfaction with life really is what brings people down to the addiction line. The situation that I was talking about (above) is saying that addiction can also be caused by peer pressure and being surrounded by gambling addicts can also make you addicted to it. It's an easily solvable addiction for you are able to easily get rid of these people. You can easily say "no" to them. If these people are your workmates, then you changing jobs will solve the problem right away. You don't have the peer pressure to become a gambling addict anymore.
But true addiction comes from within. It's something that you can't control because no one or nothing really is forcing you to do it. You choose to do it. We were taught that we should replace a bad habit by a good habit. We were also taught that you form a habit within 90 days so 90 days of abstinence from this gambling and 90 days of doing this new habit is the way to go. On the other hand, in
/r/nofap, which is a subreddit for ridding yourself of your fapping addiction, they have tried this strategy for so long but people always just relapse at some point. I, myself, have tried it. I relapsed after 3 weeks and never really tried to do it again. It's like your body is looking for this addiction. It's like it was missing it. So now that you have tried it again (relapsed), it's like your body embraced that addiction more than ever.
There's an interesting post that came out. (
I do know that these are two different types of addiction but I really think that they are still both addiction at the end of the day, and they will have very similar ways to treat) It says that "
Gambling is not a disease, it's a symptom". It explained that we're not really doing well in life and so we're low. Our body is looking for this dopamine rush since our body isn't producing it due to loneliness and dissatisfaction. We then resort to things like fapping, gambling, drugs, and alcohol for this. We're trying to make ourselves happy. We're trying to escape the reality that is very sad and cruel. To make things short, in order to rid yourself of gambling, what you have to do is rid yourself of these problems. What's making you unhappy? Anyone toxic around you? People giving you a hard time? Then research about it, stop researching about your addiction because it's just a result of the combination of all the problems in life that you have. Or are you just gambling because after a long day at work, you have nothing else to do? Then that's easy, just find something to fill that extra time you have. It really is about how you live your life, rather than you being a "sick" person with an addiction. It's sad because we're told that we have an addiction, we were never told that it was a result of something else deeper in you.
My take on this? I would say it really is the way to treat your gambling addiction, or any addiction for that matter. I was
genuinely happy for a couple of days and none of those days did I fap, gamble, and drink alcohol. It was all because I was in a good mood. I was able to sleep with a smile on my face without knowing that I didn't do OR even have the urge to do the "addiction" that I was told I had.