Gambling Addiction Treatment – A New Transformative Approach
Infinite Recovery is an alternative to rehabilitation for anyone struggling with problem gambling or addiction. The programme guides you to a new understanding of yourself, gives you a different perspective of life’s struggles, and sets you free to experience the ups and downs of life without the suffering.
What is Gambling Addiction?
The act of gambling, finding something outside of yourself to make you feel better on the inside is the symptom, not the problem. This turns into addiction when loss of rational thinking sets in, psychological habits form and finding ways and means to get more becomes more important than normal daily life, after that important things start to get compromised and gambling takes over.
We start to rationalise our gambling, spend money we don’t have, manipulate close family members and hide what we are doing due to feelings of shame.
It’s important to remember that the gambling is just the outward manifestation of a deeper internal discomfort, it is a learned way of coping with a feeling of dis-ease within the bodymind. While you may cross some moral boundaries during your struggles, there is hope, everything can change, joy and contentment, peace of mind can become more prevalent.
Facts around Gambling Problems
61%
of all adults have participated in gambling in the last year.
13%
of all adults score on the PGSI risk scale as gamblers from 1-8+
People from a lower socio-economic background were more likely to have gambling problems
LONDON
has the highest number of problem gamblers.
Psychological well-being decreased as gambling severity increased.
Problem gamblers have worse general health than other groups.
Younger people are more likely to drop out of traditional treatment.
A high % of all people who engage with traditional treatment drop out.
11%
of people said shame and stigma are seen as barriers to access current treatment offerings
31%
of all people who needed help perceived that treatment was not relevant or suitable.
Female’s had more practical barriers to accessing traditional treatment – Cost, time, location.
Lower socio-economic background gamblers reported no motivation to seek support.
As you can see with people’s perception of traditional understandings and treatments of gambling addiction, many do not want to come forward. Their feelings of shame, the stigma attached with being told they have potential mental health issues. It makes sense that they do not want to go to rehab, adopt a new label, take time out of their lives to get help. The good news is, you can recover without all those things, in fact not only recover, but thrive, gambling addiction can open the door to a happier, freer experience of being alive.
Spotting the Signs of a Gambling Problem
If you have started to notice your tendency to gamble increase, your thoughts about gambling become more frequent, or you have become obsessed with when the next opportunity is coming, you have a problem. It often starts off as questioning what is normal, justifying to yourself “I am ok” “this is normal” “everyone does it a little” or “does everyone think about this a lot” for example, right through to the extremes where you will do anything to get to your next bet.
It could go as far as dropping friends, relationships, stealing from close members, frauding banks, getting loans, and total preoccupation with the next opportunity to gamble. If you have started to have a sense of wonder, or your life is fully out of control, there is always hope, no matter how far it has gone.
If you are here for a loved one, you are supporting someone with a gambling habit, it may seem daunting knowing how to help. What is most common is that you want to control, force stop, take over someone’s life, just because it seems like you know what is best for them, the problem with this is, it cuts them off from your loving support. They start to resent you.
Unfortunately you cannot force someone to stop, it will just drive a bigger wedge between you, and when they do finally get to that place where they say, ok enough is enough, they will be reluctant to turn to you.
When you gently support someone without judgement, be there, listen to them, and hold your hands out when they are ready to stop, you then have the opportunity to signpost them to get proper help. Please reach out to us if you need support for yourself while supporting someone else who is struggling.
Why do People Become Hooked on Gambling?
The act of gambling is an innocent attempt to deal with somatic, emotional and mental struggle, and at its core, is a loss of identity, because any life grounded in seeking something outside of ourselves, is suffering with a simple misunderstanding, that somehow, someway, something outside of us, can make us feel better, which could never be true.
We don’t need anything to make us feel better. What happens when we gamble, we get temporary relief from seeking, we get a hit of adrenaline and a chemical reaction in the brain, a hormonal release that makes us feel good with a shot of dopamine. Which just becomes a great way to get temporary relief from the struggle we are having in life, even if life looks rosey on the outside, there will be a sense of dis-ease on the inside.
As we start to have this process in our lives it makes us feel good, it becomes the go to place for feeling good. At first, it can be without issue, then becoming more and more compelling to the point of completely taking over. To some it almost becomes normal to engage in the act of gambling they have done it that often for that long, and not gambling just seems to be a distant memory or an unreachable future.
With gambling becoming easier on mobile devices, websites and computers anywhere in recent times, it has become an easy go to for anyone to get an escape from their daily life. Accessibility is not the cause of gambling, it is relevant though, it just makes it easier to hide it.
Is Gambling Addiction a Disease?
Innocent misunderstanding within the psychological and psychiatric professions is responsible for the belief that gambling addiction and mental health diagnoses are a real disease, along with our conditioning to not question the medical profession. The disease concept of addiction is exactly that, a concept of understanding psychology in order to give people techniques to overcome their behaviour. The issue with this is, most people go from gambling to another addiction, never achieve a life of true peace, and or suffer in some other way, feel fragile and struggle to fully recover, ie no lasting peace can be found this way.
That is because the behaviour is not the problem, and managing the behaviour will always be difficult, when it is the outward manifestation of a deeper misunderstanding. What we have found is that when we point people to the truth of who they are, and they see beyond seeking on the outside, they can fully recover, even some can return to gambling safely although many remain abstinent. This understanding frees people from diagnoses and disease concepts, and helps them have a full recovery.
Gambling Addiction Treatments:
Why are they ineffective?
Traditional treatments are focussed on teaching people a concept, a way to deal with the behaviour, the outward manifestation, this is like trying to change the direction of a 20 carriage train by removing the rear carriage. The engine is where the change needs to happen, the behaviour is just the symptom.
As you can see from the study results above, many people are full of shame, and also have the experience of gambling addiction being stigmatised. They do not want to come forward for traditional treatments and even if they do, many do not stay the full course. It makes complete sense that people do not want to come forward to receive the diagnoses of “addict”, or mental health condition on their health record.
It is also clearly documented by key figures in the mental health world that mental health is not progressing, nor is it solving any problems.
Thomas Insel MD who was head of the National Institute for Mental Health for 13 years, recently said in an article:
There are endless books, quotes, articles written by the medical profession that point to the same thing, mental health is not progressing, in fact, it’s perpetuating the problem.
Psychological understanding being much the same, it confirms that you are damaged, something is wrong and it needs fixing, hence the reason there are 600 different types of talking therapies, with a new one starting every week, they have no answers.
In 12 steps many people stop gambling, some return, and some stay stopped, many also develop anxiety, depression, have difficult relationships, never fully experience peace of mind, develop problems with compulsive eating, or spending.
This approach offers a completely new way to treat gambling addiction, and points to the innate mental health in everyone, it helps people end suffering in ALL areas of life, get a new understanding and thrive.
Traditional Treatment vs Transformative Coaching
Traditional Treatment (Rehab, Mental Health Diagnosis, Therapy, 12 Steps) |
Transformative Coaching (Insight Lead Learning) |
---|---|
Model of disease / diagnosis | Understanding of being human |
Lifetime of practices to be ok | Awakening to being ok regardless |
Addiction is permanent, cannot be recovered | Addiction is a simple misunderstanding that can be overcome |
We are powerless over addiction but can manage it | We are powerful and can achieve anything when we see beyond beliefs |
Require extra therapy for other ‘issues’ | An understanding of peace of mind that is infinite |
Work hard to feel the rewards of recovery to feel good | Experience more joy, peace of mind, contentment from the start. |
Bad days are down to not working a programme or practicing techniques correctly | Emotional days come and go, that’s part of being human, emotions are not the enemy |
Assumes an addictive personality that affects all areas of life | Personality is not fixed, it’s ever changing, not permanent |
Points to answers being in the past and reliving past trauma and old wounds in order to be ok now | Knows that everything is happening now, in the present and that is all there is |
Is both curative and preventative | |
Be recovered with much more than you can imagine possible – Infinite Possibility | |
Change is permanent | |
Change affects all other areas of life in a positive way with no downsides | |
Transformation is a magical experience, nothing changes, but everything looks different |
The Benefits of Transformative Coaching over
Traditional Treatment Modalities
This is a life and death matter we are dealing with here and we understand that people who come to us for change, want to live a better life. The potential of having an insight lead journey and getting an understanding of our innate mental health is infinite, that means adding any words would be selling the possibilities short. Many people come to us with a desire to stop gambling, for us that is simply just the start of the journey to a richer, more connected experience of being alive.
Here at infinite recovery, we see ourselves as a guide, we point out to you what is already there. Insight is a site of something that is inside of you, as such once you see it, you cannot unsee it, it is yours, permanently no need for maintenance or practice to live a better, happier life.
Traditional rehab will cost anywhere from £7,000 to £30,000 for a 28 day programme. This is the only fast way into rehab or private treatment. For many that is completely unaffordable, the Infinite Recovery Project programme is cost effective, and more powerful.
Leaving your life for 28 days, finding someone to take care of your family, your dependents and your responsibilities for many is impossible, there is always something important going on. The Infinite Recovery Project programme allows you to stay in your life, and be immersed in a life changing process, it is less disruptive practically but lovingly disruptive to your gambling addiction.
We understand that starting a new way of life can have some hurdles, our community is here to gently support you, pointing you back to your own wisdom and keeping you close to your new understanding should you need it.
Whether you are simply trying to find freedom from problem gambling, or you have been through every programme there is to get help, this is the end of the road, when you get to see through the insidious yet simple process that addiction is, you will find freedom. We have been helping people with addictions for more than 2 decades, our programme is based on truth’s instead of theories. It points to the wisdom that is present in every person. A simple insight that can change everything, and find lasting freedom.