Determined to make 2025 a year of positive change.

I am determined this time to make these changes stick. It’s been quite the rollercoaster the last few weeks.  I know I can’t walk away from my losses, and I can’t walk away once I’ve won either.

I have been re subscribed anti depressants recently that I hope will help again in my journey to finally walk away from gambling for good. I hope they will help balance my mood to stay away from drinking also in addition to regular exercise and a healthy diet, but I am obviously more concerned with discussing my gambling on this forum.

In trying to make these changes stick I have reverted back to some literature I used during my degree about ten or so years ago.  I don’t know if anybody has ever heard of a behavioural

psychology experiment called The Skinner Box?.

Skinner studied how animals learn to repeat behaviours that are rewarded. The Skinner Box contained a leaver used for positive and negative reinforcement where food was deposited through a dispenser after the leaver was pressed.  There was an electric grid on the floor of the box that would deliver painful electric shocks. There was also a light when active would warn the rat that the electric currents would start not long after.

To begin with the rats behaviour was random. In that every time they accidentally pressed the lever Skinner would drop a food pellet every time. The rat then associated leaver pressing resulted in the positive outcome of receiving a foot pellet. The consequence of receiving the food reinforced the behaviour to press the leaver.  Shortly after Skinner went from dropping the food at every press to a partial  schedule.

The rat also subject to the negative reinforcement of the electric currents, eventually learnt that pressing the leaver at the right time when the red light lit up would stop the electric shocks from occurring. The behaviour of the leaver pressing had been learned would avoid the negative stimulus - thus we have negative reinforcement as well as positive associated with the leaver.

Applying The Skinner Box to gambling is quite straight forward. It can be applied to social media and all sorts too. So I won’t insult your intelligence by explaining it further. I would recommend checking it out though if this is the first time you’ve ever heard of this experiment by giving it a quick google. I find applying peer reviewed and dogma social experiments to a very real problem I’m experiencing quite helpful. It means I’m not alone and it means I’m doing exactly what the creators of these games have intended to achieve.