Gambling Addiction: Am I Addicted or Just on a Losing Streak?
episode
RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions
58 min
2 speakers
4 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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For every person who has a gambling problem, it affects six other people.
Psychologist Dr. Michael Zhang joins us to share evidence-based strategies for breaking the cycle of gambling addiction. If I'm saying to myself, okay, I've lost a whole lot of money and I know just how to get it back, right? I can I've won before I can win again. Am I just completely ignoring the and I've lost before and I can lose again? Hi and welcome to Recoverable. I'm your host, Terry McGuire. Gambling has become a part of everyday life for millions of people, from casinos and online poker to sports betting and mobile apps. But for some, what starts as entertainment slowly becomes something painful and isolating. Today, Dr. Michael Zhang joins us for a conversation about the psychology of gambling addiction, why it can be so hard to recognize, and that gambling addictions are recoverable.
A quick note: if you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-GAMBLER. Doctors saying, Welcome to our set and welcome to this to recoverable.
Thank you so much uh for welcoming me. And I'll just say one thing. Uh that phone number you just mentioned, it's funny because uh th apparently there was some dispute about like who owns this phone number and and what it should be. And apparently now there's another phone number that they're promoting, which is one-eight hundred my reset. I guess we have at least that other option too. Okay, good to know. My reset.
Reset. Good. Excellent. Well, we're going to start with a general overview just because, as you said before we sat down, this is not discussed as much as it needs to be. There is not a general understanding of what gambling addiction is and how it can be treated. So, for people who have never thought much about this issue, how do you define a gambling addiction? And how is it different from simply gambling a lot? Yeah.
I believe when someone's gambling to an extent where they start wondering, hold on, I've I've lost I've lost a lot more than than I thought I would, something's sort of changing here. I feel stuck. I feel trapped. Something about the gambling makes me believe that the way to solve it is to keep gambling. I think this is where we We start having to look at this as more of an addiction, uh, more of a potentially if we use formal terms, more of a diagnosis per se. I believe mo most people who are actually in the midst of experiencing whether it's just gambling or gambling problems or the evolution to gambling disorder or addiction, like that they have a sense of what's going on.
Mm-hmm.
Um so for anyone who's actually in kind of going through the stages of gambling, they probably themselves have a good sense of, ah, this is something's not quite right here. But then I feel like the way to solve this is to keep gambling. And when you have that mindset You're definitely uh in the territory of whether we want to call it addiction or disorder or problem, problematic gambling, problem gambling, whatever we call it, ultimately there's a struggle there. So and I think people know the struggle actually, which which is quite interesting. In themselves, you mean? In themselves. I believe that they know the struggle. From everyone I've ever worked with, I've seen it in a way and And and there's a strong sense of the struggle they're going through.
So I mean if you're if gambling is causing you to struggle, then you're likely having a problem. And part of the struggle may even be hiding the struggle, right? So there's just so many layers to it. But if it's becoming more complicated for you, if it's becoming more complex, if it's uh if it's running your life around in circles you never expected, then certainly uh you probably have a strong sense that gambling is no longer good for you.
Yeah. You brought up the stages of gambling.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–9:31
2
How does Dr. Michael Zhang define gambling addiction versus gambling a lot?
9:31–19:48
3
What are the psychological stages of problem gambling and how do they progress?
19:48–41:04
4
Why does awareness of a gambling problem develop slowly and how does denial play a role?
41:04–57:59
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions
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