Compulsive gambling is a difficult and growing addiction in our society. It requires specific knowledge in treatment not available from other addiction therapies. Compulsive gambling is an urge or addiction to gamble despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. A preferred term among many professionals is problem gambling, as few people described by the term experience true compulsions in the clinical sense of the word.

Gamblers can have a problem, however, without being totally out of control. Long before an addiction has fully developed, gambling can have a negative impact. Gamblers Anonymous is a worldwide association of other problem gamblers devoted to helping themselves, and others towards solving their gambling problem. Gamblers can find the real thrill in their hometowns these days.

Support groups tailored to the patient’s particular life situation will enhance the patient’s ability to make friends who are in a similar situation and decrease their dependence upon on-line cohorts. If a patient leads one of the above mentioned “lonely lifestyles” then perhaps the patient may join a local interpersonal growth group, a singles group, ceramics class, a bowling league, or church group to help meet new people. Support groups often require you to follow very strict rules and regulations. They also require very long, sometimes lifelong, commitments to attendance and participation.

Financial issues become a way of life for the problem gambler. Official government figures indicate the average gambling debt was over $23,000. Financial Management is one of the most difficult areas in life. Most of us, especially myself, need help to get it right.

Remember we are human – Every person who struggles with the demon of gambling addiction must remember we are only human, and we will struggle and fall on our face at times. However, every day we go without gambling, some of the temptations will fade away. Remember 90% of patients that work our program stay clean and sober.

Only a few years have passed since the gambling laws were relaxed to a degree in the United Kingdom and the result of this has become very apparent. The number of casinos has increased across most areas and initially, there was concern about people developing serious gambling addictions. Gambling in the UK already consisted of many forms including scratch cards, various lotteries and horse and dog racing. The major change was the arrival of Internet gambling and this has changed the face of British gambling forever.

The emergence of online gambling sites has set a trend that is likely to increase year on year for the foreseeable future. You cannot escape from the advertising campaigns that these companies put out and you can guarantee that you will see several advertisements on TV before your evenings relaxation is over. There are three main gambling websites that seem to be filling our TV screens which are bingo, casinos and poker related sites, and these sites often offer a welcome incentive to get you interested.

Many people have voiced concerns regarding online gambling in particular, as it is been seen as an easier way to potentially develop a gambling addiction, as you just put your credit card details in and away you go. The player never sees the money he or she is playing with and things could possibly get out of hand over a relatively short period of time. There have been several studies into gambling within the UK and the findings suggest that the impact has not been as severe as initially thought. Over 30 million of UK adults have gambled in one form or other over the last year and just over five percent of these gambled online. The suggested number of gamblers with a serious problem is put at less than 300,000 which shows that the majority of players are just having a bit of fun and are tending to gamble more responsibly.