There Appear to be Three Types of Gambling Behaviors , Some can Gamble ,Enjoy and Self-Regulate but others can not, Why is that?
It is said by many there are three types of gamblers, social and recreational, who use predetermined amounts and time spent, they are able to enjoy their winnings, and are able to stop when they wish to. They appear to be clear in their mind that they cannot always win, so will enjoy the winnings knowing they may lose it if they continue (they appear to have free will)
The problem gambler, invests much energy and time into gambling which begins to impact on many areas of their lives. Winnings are often used for more gambling.
Some are able to stop if they absolutely have to ( due to lack of money) and some become compulsive gamblers.
( possibly some sense of free will), but it would appear they have become more determinist in nature.
The third, the compulsive gambler who often has an underlying emotional block, this could be causing anxiety or emotional pain, it would seem they are mostly suffering with a deeper psychological problem.
This person will gamble to escape their inner pain, tolerance levels will heighten and the person gambling will increase their gambling behavior, this will eventually impact on all aspects of the person’s life and eventually the person will always chase their losses and keep gambling.
Enjoyment is no longer a part of the gamblers life, gambling appears to become a way of coping. ( Free will no longer plays a part here, the gambler is so deep in denial that he is unable to find his way back to free will)
Counselling can help the person who gambles to move from a determinist mentality to a sense of free will by allowing the person a place to explore their past, using time lines and addressing the notion of determinism, which would appear to say that one can always win, it appears the person who gambles to escape emotional pain, changes their belief system, to become hard determinists to be able to sit in a place of complete denial.
I say this because as people go through therapy, they say things like , ‘I never would have imagined myself here’! And ‘I am not like this; I never lie in other areas of my life’! ‘I can’t believe I have deceived people I love by lying and stealing from them’!
These statements show us that the person appears to have lost their sense of free will, and importantly, that is a true feeling.
Through counselling they are able to reconnect with their core values , which reminds them that, what they truly value is more important and what they want in their lives, more than gambling, this brings them out of the hard deterministic mentality where they feel they have no control over their actions.
People who gamble excessively will often say , ‘but it’s not my fault I can’t help it , I just cant stop’!
The feeling they experience when they gamble guides them away from the feeling they are experiencing.
Many chronic compulsive gamblers, appear to have stopped feeling, in their day to day life , and are searching for an ever increasing heightened buzz that they seem to get when winning. For some it is not about winning but about dissociating from themselves, so here we begin to see the deterministic mentality develop through the loss of any sense of control over self.
It appears that many people who gamble are highly intelligent and they enjoy the strategizing
aspect, talking of bucking the system or beating the system.
Many appear to be able to work out ways to trick the machine, but with this comes the danger of being fooled into the notion that they can always win, but as we now know through quantum physics nothing is absolute.