Does refusal to play (deprivation) help cure gambling addiction?

[Gozie51]

But if this is not the case, then what is the benefit of weaning from gaming? Perhaps the logic is to create positive habits in a person.

Well if having positive habits to gambling means to gamble responsibly, play with the amount of money you can bear to lose, gamble less frequently then you are weaning yourself from your gambling habit . Because what I know of weaning is that it helps you to reduce the addiction of excessive video gaming and gambling. So it is beneficial for an addict to learn weaning if it means depriving yourself of habits that will make you to gamble even when you don't want to. Like if you reduce the amount of times you visit off line game houses or if you also reduce the number of times that you login to your gambling app, it can help you reduce addiction.

[CryptoYar]

This is great point about addiction treatment. You are right that simply stopping is not enough especially because real reason for gambling is mostly naive hope of getting rich. And stopping behavior is necessary first step. Think of it like this you can not fix problem if you are still doing harmful thing. Quitting gambling breaks cycle of addiction which helps person think more clearly. This clarity will allow them to face real reasons and emotions which are back to their addiction. So quitting is not useless. It is important first step to recovery.

[Hewlet]

We are talking about weaning from gaming. I thought that weaning from gaming would most likely only work in very advanced cases, when the player is at the bottom of a financial crisis or on the verge of suicide. Then weaning from gaming would most likely work well. But if this is not the case, then what is the benefit of weaning from gaming? Perhaps the logic is to create positive habits in a person.

even without allowing yourself get to the point where others tries to isolate you from every form of gambling triggers, you can also wean yourself and sometimes deprive yourself of gambling so you at least become certain that you are in control of your gambling habits. self deprivation helps you know weather or not your are in charge of your gambling. if for instance you decide that you are going to abstain from gambling for a period of two weeks and then you find it difficult to do that, what that means is that you are obviously tilting towards becoming an addict if you do not watch how frequent you gamble. with that discovery, it becomes easy tame yourself from excessive gambling and work towards becoming a responsible gambler.

call it deprivation or even voluntary self denied, it goes a long way to reduce how exposed one is to gambling addiction.

[kryptqnick]

Rehabilitation from gambling addiction is often associated with completely stopping the activity, and it seems necessary for those who have hit rock bottom financially. In reality, taking a break from gambling shows how strong the habit is and helps reveal the root of the problem: many players have the illusion of easy profit without any skills in risk and money management, just as the op noted. I don't think weaning is necessary to recover, as the goal of rehabilitation, to me, is getting gambling under control. But perhaps for people with serious addiction, getting it under control is only possible through a full stop and switch to other things.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

And what do you think, does refusal to play (deprivation) contribute to recovery from addiction or is it useless?

It depends on time, you know time heals every wounds and if the deprivation period lasts for 6 months and above, then the possiblity of recovering fully from gambling addiction is assured. If the gambler still has the access to gambling tools as well as the exposure to gambling environment and keeps on relapsing after every month even if it's once in a month, then to deprived himself off such addiction won't be easy.

Staying clear within period of 6 months is sure to keep off and even stronger.

[Rockstarguy]

Addiction means not being able to do without something. In the case of gambling, an addict will not be able to control his gambling habits. At this point where there is a total loss of  control, voluntarily depriving oneself could be a good step to healing. If he can eventually stay without it, it is a good one. His comeback into gambling will be different; this time he would be more careful not to make thesame mistakes he made the first first time.

I am still wondering how it is possible for one to heal from addiction without trying to distance himself from that thing he cannot control. If anyone has successfully defeated addiction without weaning, I would love to know how the journey went.

The first step to staying away from addiction is to distance oneself from it. Nobody defeats addiction without staying away from gambling; it is impossible because the more you gamble as someone who is addicted, the more you will love gambling. That is why when one is addicted to gambling, the first instruction given is to stay away from it.

When you stay away from gambling, it means you are already overcoming addiction, but if you still find it difficult to stay away, that means your interest in gambling will continue to increase.

[hedgeh0g]

I think that it really helps many people, although obviously not everyone. Time without gambling helps to rethink, stop and listen to yourself, look at other addicted gamblers, understand their problems, compare with yours and many other things. All this together will help to understand the most important subtleties of yourself and your character as a gambler. For example, it definitely helped me, I realized that I can live without gambling after a very long refusal. Now I play, but I do it very little, to satisfy my interest in some bets or in those in which I think there is inefficiency.

[nullama]

I think that it really helps many people, although obviously not everyone. Time without gambling helps to rethink, stop and listen to yourself, look at other addicted gamblers, understand their problems, compare with yours and many other things. All this together will help to understand the most important subtleties of yourself and your character as a gambler. For example, it definitely helped me, I realized that I can live without gambling after a very long refusal. Now I play, but I do it very little, to satisfy my interest in some bets or in those in which I think there is inefficiency.

Yeah, time usually helps to heal many things.

Specially problems with the mind. It does take some time to get the rewiring done properly...

In the end it is best to keep those gambling nights a bit under control because it is so easy for them to take over at some point.