Gambling Addiction

A gambling addiction, also called gambling disorder, is a mental health condition that affects your physical, emotional, and financial well-being. Joshua Holloway, LCPC, and the team at Open Door Wellness Center in Great Falls, Montana, specialize in diagnosing and treating gambling addiction. Call Open Door Wellness Center or book an appointment online today to learn more about help for gambling addiction.

What is gambling addiction?

Gambling addiction, medically called gambling disorder, is a mental health disorder that causes a compulsive need to gamble despite the harm it causes. 

Gambling is a behavior that triggers your brain’s reward system, causing feelings of pleasure and excitement. When you have a gambling addiction, your compulsive need to gamble is driven by the brain’s desire to experience those pleasurable feelings. 

Addiction isn’t a lack of willpower but a chronic disease that affects the structure and function of the brain. Like any disease, gambling addiction needs medical intervention and ongoing care. 

Can I have a gambling addiction if I don’t gamble all the time?

Symptoms of gambling addiction vary, and people with the addiction can have periods of time where they don’t gamble. 

However, you should get help from the professionals at Open Door Wellness Center if you have experienced any of the following:

• Need to gamble more to feel the same excitement
• Feeling restless or irritable when attempting to stop gambling
• Trying and failing to cut back or stop gambling  
• Gambling after losing to even out your losses
• Hiding your gambling from friends and family
• Borrowing money from others to gamble
• Gambling negatively affects personal and professional relationships

Anyone can develop gambling addiction at any age, but you’re at greater risk if it runs in your family. Gambling behaviors usually appear during adolescence.

What are the treatments for gambling addiction?

Your provider at Open Door Wellness Center conducts a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation to determine the best treatment for your gambling addiction. This evaluation may also uncover underlying mental illnesses contributing to your behaviors.

For individual therapy, your provider uses therapeutic techniques that focus on your strengths and help you develop coping mechanisms to handle the urges to gamble. They also help you solve financial, relationship, and work problems that developed because of your addiction. 

Gambling addiction is a complex disease and not something you need to handle all on your own. For expert addiction treatment, call Open Door Wellness Center to schedule an appointment today.