Cognitive regret

Also don't forget to get your bank to block gambling transactions on your card

This subject has interested me for such a long time. Why does it seem impossible for gamblers to hit the break when they gamble. Why do some become mug punters and burn through everything? Why can we in some instances say no and walk away but in others we are totally consumed? Yes, we have the dopamine that blurs our focus but if someone said"Fire!" then everyone would wake up and run for the exits so why would it be such a problem for us to find that stop or break in us? How would we ever get in control of that again? Can it even be done? So many people fall in this recovery. It may have one of the worst track records of recovery of all addictive things we can get stuck into. Why?  Why do we advocate just abstaining? The GA was there since the 70es and we are still following the 12 step method. Where is the progress? I am asking all these whys because there is a lack of talking about the subject there is a lack of pioneers in this field and the ones who have made some progress seems to get swallowed up by the industry or the medical industry. There was a doctor who determined through science that we get more excited by the near-miss than the actual win and this came to the word cognitive regret. He was in Cambridge then he found a high powered job in Canada equivalent of GamCare and then he disappeared off the radar and it all became quiet. That was several years ago and I have heard of no progress since. I find the whole thing quite strange. We are in an explosion of addiction in this field. People should sit up and take notice because it will cost those who run this country billions to sort the mess out and no gambling taxes will ever be enough to cover it.

Ty for reading

@c43h I can respond to the GA method and I would say that you don't understand the 12 steps. GA itself is about abstaince and recovery through change, not just abstaince, although a lot of GA members, and on here, just abstain. If you haven't changed anything, when the support network that might be around you is down then you might relapse. If you react to certain aspects of life by gambling and you haven't worked on your character then there's a good chance that next time life throws you a curveball you're going to escape back into gambling. Or people try the steps, do steps 1 to 4 and give up, or do step 1 and 12 but not those in between.

So, back to the 12 steps. Having worked the 12 step recovery program with another addict, I worked hard on recognising my defects, faults, character weaknesses as well as my strengths. I worked hard to change the things about me that were allowing me to relapse, usually after a prolonged period of abstaince. I faced my past, left it with someone. I made a list of those I had to make amends to and made amends. In fact I am still making amends. Each step allows me to look at myself and my relationship with gambling. I give back by my GA work and by helping others work through the steps. Every day I try to be the best version of me that I can be.

No one I know who has worked the steps from step one to step twelve has relapsed. Everyone is better for it. For my money there is no better way of recovery. It took me a long time to start it because I didn't know I needed it but I just got fed up ending back at the bottom of the hole. For me a relapse was the loss of everything time after time and I just got too tired and didn't think I could do it again. I needed to change something and that was trying the steps. For me, other than the higher power of a GA room, the 12 steps is the best thing I have ever done.

Chris.

I am not knocking the 12 steps, Chris. I know it works.  I am curious why there is not more out there to choose from. I think there should be more progress than there is.  I wanted to get a debate going about it but maybe it's too obvious why we don't have more progress than we do. Why should the industry turn of its own golden taps? They will milk this until it can not be milked anymore. That is human nature.

Naive I guess but I will always be hoping for a faster and more effective way of changing this habit. People don't deserve all this pain.They really don´t

@c43h so are you looking for that magic pill? Take a tablet and it cancels out the chemical imbalance or whatever happens? The compulsive gamblers would still be the same person though, so how would their inability to cope manifest itself?

I read on here sometimes about this book and that book and trying to find the easy way to stop gambling. There is an easy way and a hard way but I believe people get those mixed up. The hard way is not using blocks, not attending therapy of some sort, not talking to others, not changing but expecting it to just go away. The easy way for my money is two hours a week in a meeting for abstaince and a little bit more every day for change. 

There is CBT and therapy that you can choose too but despite all the studies that are undertaken by academics, if GA pushed their name more and more and if people really worked on themselves on a daily basis I believe you would see more recovery and less relapsing.

I also think that there isn't more to choose from because it never goes away and all we can do is work at keeping it at bay, one day/week/month at a time. 

It does suck though!

Interesting topic though.

Chris.

Yes. There should be a magic pill. We do have dopamine spikes that could be managed with that but I am not going to give up my liver in the process and nalmex / naltrexone is that pill ( or so they say). 

You are right when you are talking about the gambler not going away. We have worked in behaviour that won't quit but if you look at smoking cigarettes for ex. Once you have made that decision to quit. Are you looking things up online about Marlboro or Bensons? No, you leave it alone and become quite anty smoking in some instances. You have created a new neural pathway in your brain and you do not look or act on it in the same way again, Same things go for drink and in some cases drugs but gambling one seems to stick around like sh.t on a shoe that you can not seem to clean. Why?

We have the most expensive computers on the planets lodged in our heads. Do you mean to tell me that this one addiction is forever going to damage that computer? I don't believe that. I do believe that what we have is far more complicated than other addictions. It covers more fields and the change work becomes harder for the brain to do because we are connected with it so hard on a daily basis (ie money) but once our new tracks (pathways) are laid down that want/urge / should be no different than giving up the cigarettes.

So the reason I am wondering that there are not more choices is that Industry, in general, spends billions in getting into our supercomputers to get us hooked on sugar alcohol mobile phones and so on. Surely some bright spark should have figured out how we create a super-fast change of neural pathway? Or maybe we have that option already but it is not available to everyone.

Hi

I thought about trying to sound clever but I really cant answer the medical questions why I was a gambling addict.

Ive smoked the odd cigarette and had a drink so why are those not as dangerously addictive to me. Why am I not an alcoholic or chain smoker when others have problems with those addictions. Why can I leave those when they are clearly addictive.

Lets not beat about the bush. I can summon up the gambling feeling right now. After forty years of it I should know the feeling. Its a lightness of breath as something rises in me... It's like a rush round the bloodsteam...a flutter feeling in the torso like oooh are we going to do it....like my body is responding with ooooooh sounds nice...dont mind if I do

The difference now is that I can counter it or quickly dismiss it as somewhere Im not going. I dont usually think if it now apart from helping on this site and giving financial reports.

I know its not for me and my abstention feelings are strong. Am I complacent about it...absolutely not. I know in my heart of hearts its what I would be dong when having  a complete breakdown...if I felt nobody cared or couldnt see the point to anything

We have a lot to understand about the brain... well I do lol. The chemicals in us are primordial. Gambling creates a natural morphine. I do believe it acts as a drug addiction. We like the thrill of expectation and the chase. I just didnt know how strong the hook was for me. It didnt seem like something that could be dangerously addictive to me

I would have thought gambling to extinction was like having our hands burnt and we wouldnt do it again...but oh no I was back repeatedly. I think the chance of putting things right plays a part but overall I think we are just addicted to the act of the gamble...I just dont know how that works though.. To be honest I feel a bit stupid thinking that it affects me in that way.

I think we can adjust the brain when we take abstention seriously..when we realise that there is no control for us and we cant go anwhere near it. We can certainly strengthen our resolve but maybe we can never fully beat it. 

I would have to speak to heavy smokers ar alcoholics. Ive a feeling the core addiction is similar. They have to take it one day at a time and I know abstention is very hard for them.

I dont know what the future holds for brain remedies. I dont even know if hypnosis works. I suspect there will never be an easy cure. I dont think we are getting to the Star Trek medical bay anytime soon

For now I stick with what has helped me. It works when I started to take the problem deadly seriously

Best wishes to everyone on the forum 

You may not be far off from the answer. Check out bbc news online today. Interesting article on addiction. 

Regards Chezzy 

It's called "Do you always like the things you want"..the science of addiction. 

I think the problem for me with GA, is the cult mentality.

I attended a few of meetings and I have to say, I didn't like it. I felt there were people there who were constantly relapsing, but kept preaching the GA way, including my sponsor.

I found it a bit like church, where there is no real proof that God exists, but you dare not question that in any church.

I believe people are all different and in so being, each needs to find what works for them. 

I opted to put blocks in place and keep a diary on this forum. My life was in ruins and I am now 248 days gamble free and things are so much better.

Do I still have the odd urge? Of course I do, but I have no desire to act on them, and for me that is the main factor. If someone truly wants to stop, then they will find a way, whether that is through GA, self help, therapy, medical help or a mixture of those, the main ingredient is a yearn to actually stop imho.

As a caveat, I should say, I attended GA a few of years ago, and continued to gamble. Would GA have worked for me now? The answer is probably yes, but the real question is did I need GA to stop for 248 days so far and the answer to that is no. What I really needed was a true yearn to stop imo and not just telling myself I needed to stop.

I would also never put anyone off attending GA, because like I said, I believe each individual needs different levels of support to continue the fight to stop.

Keep up the fight.

@wanttochange1234 It's a shame that you had a negative experience at your GA meetings. Certain meetings are better than others and it can take a long time to change a meeting's mentality and get decent members who work the program properly.

As far as your sponser relapsing, in the groups I use and have used, he wouldn't be able to be your sponser. No one listens to others who aren't walking the walk, so it was no wonder it didn't work out for you.

Just to address the cult mentality and not being able to question anything, again i think you had a bad meeting. GA isn't religious but does believe in a higher power. In the books it is referred to as a higher power or God, but a God of your understanding. For me it's the power of the room, not a specific thing, but others have their own ideas.

The reason we call it a higher power is simple. I tried on my own, I couldn't do it. I attend GA and I am able to stop. After so long of gambling and failing to stop on my own, how can just attending a meeting with other people help me stop? Hence the higher power. Now don't get me wrong, there is more to it than just attending a meeting. It takes regular meetings, opening up in group sessions about your story and being able to identify with others, reading the literature and also wanting to stop. 

Most people that attend GA and say oh it wasn't for me either didn't give it a chance or maybe had a bad meeting and that's a shame. My experience of over thirty years of GA is simple. When I attend and work at it, i do not gamble. When I stop going, after a cerain time I gamble. For me it's simple.

If you have any questions that others wouldn't allow you to ask please ask me, I'm straightforward and I'll answer. When I worked the steps program I asked a whole bunch of questions until I understood what was trying to be explained. I'll do the same for you or anyone.

Chris.

Thank you for all the interesting feedback. I am atm listening to Melissa Tiers. She is an outstanding addiction counsellor and a hypnotist in New York. She says that 97% of all addicts sort out their own addictions without counselling. 97%. That is a huge nr that I have a hard time believing. She points the blame at the money. In the US a spot in a decent rehab can set you back 30K. And that the sale is that YOU are chronically ill and you will never get better so give it up to higher powers that will save you. People who leave rehab with that notion stand a 70% relapse possibility. 70% = another 30K . It is big money. Her solution is to stop and distract before you trigger yourself to act. If you can catch yourself before you fall you can change those neural pathways in the brain and new options open up. I am going to enrol in her course now and I will be interested in the tools she can provide. It far beats all the self-branding we all do. The BBC article today was very cool. It shows clearly what dopamine is doing and how fast we could change if it was managed better.

I am convinced now that we will see solutions to this in my lifetime where we can treat this addiction like any other. When we are done we will be able to walk away and continue living life better. It may take a few more years but it will happen.

Best 

C

GA works AA works It has been proven since the 7o: es I think. The principle of rehab should and will always be in the actual result. Use what works for you.

Posted by: c43h

" If I always do what I did I will always be where I have always been"! A spin of on Henry ford but it is true words.

I looked it up now.

"If I always do what I have always done, I will always be where I have always been"

Sry I will try and get admin to remove that post above.

Do not give up hope. Don´t ever surrender. Decide how you want things to be and it will be so.

Happy New Year!

Best

C