Treatment of gambling dependence

The technical progress is not only inevitable, but it is dangerous because it creates a number of social tests and markers exposing and designating an endogenic weakness and vulnerability of people, causes defeats of mentality, somatic diseases, frequently converting them into the enemies of the society and the life itself on the Earth. Such tests include alcohol, drugs, gambling that mark hundred millions of people predisposed to acquirement of socially significant diseases - alcoholism, drug addiction, game addiction, computermania causing great losses to mankind: growth of general incidence, mortality, spiritual impoverishment and rise of crimes.

The danger of gambling was acknowledged from the ancient times. The playing field is endless and attractive. Its existential meaning is irrational and not identified. Everybody, consciously or unconsciously, tries to find his own game and seeks for it. For the past years we noticed a considerable growth of persons with the manifested pathological prone to gambling who need specialized medical and rehabilitation treatment.

Biological, pathopsychological and neurochemical mechanisms lie in basis of gambling disease. The output is degradation of an individual, social desadaptation, asocial forms of behavior, change to other forms of pathological addiction. The scientific narcology supposes similar pathogenetic mechanisms of onset and progression of illness, although gambling is not specified by direct affection of endogenous toxic subtance on the central nervous system and metabolic processes.

The symptom of gambling addiction is presented by pathological urge to gambling (playing drive, reasoned concept) and it is expressed by uncompromising urge to participate in a game, in spite of any obstacles. Let it be a family, work, social duties, economic problems, somatic illnesses requiring treatment and so on. In the period of remission the symptom of pathological urge can increase or weaken to fading (levelling), but it always contains an expressed tint of pleasure. Even in case of long, sometimes forced abstention from the game it reveals as remembrances not always reminding of danger or as ostensible repentance.

Degradation of the individual and social desadaptation do not stop patients from participating in gambling, but they promote progression and stabilization of illness. Development of gambling as an illnesses passes through two stages:

• subcompensaton (formation of illness)
• decompensation (stabilization of illness)

At the first stage the symptom of pathological urge for a game is formed, “crazy and passionate ideas”, «presentiments» about indispensable winning are crystallized. We can speak about «self-poisoning» by own fantasy which repeats iself for many times and reliably is fixed in consciousness turning into a vision, sometimes to a «sweet» creative activity with increasing «urge for risk». The first signs of individual’s deviation in moral and ethical spectrum occur at this stage. Its duration averages from 2-3 months to 1-2 years. The rapid terms of entering into the stage of illness formation are conditioned by biological and psychical predisposition to formation of addiction. Yet, at the stage of subcompensaton patients preserve their work, their family, believe that «everything will be OK somehow» in spite of debts and troubles, they are still ready for spontaneous remissions.

At the stage of decompensation such syndromes as abstinention, playing trance, winning, loss; personality degradation and social dysadaptation take a clearly outlined form. Criticism at obvious signs of hazard subsequences of gambling dependence goes down considerably. The somatic state is characterized with exacerbation of cardio-vascular diseases (hypertension, stenocardiya), occurrence of astheno-neurotic disorders. The family is wrecked, work is lost, problems with law machinery appear. Suicide tendencies are often occur. Duration of this stage formation is from 6-7 months to 1.5 years.

Gambling is a progrediental disease. Possibilities of our Centre to carry out complex pathosychologic, biochemical, neurophysiological and other examinations allow us to determine the stage of the disease, its clinical presentations and the level of the rehabilitation potential in the process of rendering medical and rehabilitation care. To find the trigger mechanisms of disturbance and recurrence of the disease in order to work out individual complex medical programs aimed to a positive solution of such a complicated problem as gambling addiction.

In the programs of treatment and rehabilitation used in our Centre not only the latest developments of scientific narcology find their relevant place, but our own programs of psychocorrection as well, with use of medical xenon sleeps, long-term antirecurrent programs with use of delta-sleep inducing neuropeptide and method of psycho-programming. In addition, we use rather often method of reflexotherapy and psychotherapy in treatment of gambling addiction (restructuring of experience in solution of problems, training of social skills, teaching to prevent from derangements).

Ask your question