Compulsive Gambling

Compulsive behaviors usually include gambling – and no one knows that more than Sandy Yakim. Yakim is very careful about noting what she pays out and what she gets in. She is divorced, and is a retired schoolteacher who put her daughter through college, on her own. However, she is also a compulsive gambler who has been headed toward rock bottom for the past three years. Once she discovered the slot machines, she came and played them all the time and before she knew it – what was originally a couple of hours here and there quickly became 12 hour marathons. When all was said and done, she had lost $50,000.

The problem with compulsive gambling is that there are no real signs of a problem. Other addictions have tell tale signs, but no one usually knows if a person has a slot machines addiction until they have lost practically everything. In fact, addicted gamblers usually have a very high addiction rate, which just adds to the problem – because no one knows that they are addicted and then they kill themselves leaving everyone shocked and surprised that they even had a problem.

As can be seen with slot machine addicts, their brain chemistry is the same as someone sitting at a bar ordering drink after drink without the ability to stop themselves. Their suicide rate is actually one of the highest of any addiction, but one of the reasons why it is so high is because before people know they have a problem, many times they are already dead.

Psychiatrists say that it takes a certain kind of counselor to know how to deal with the slot machine or gambling addiction, because it really is the same internally as another kind of addiction – the same mentally – but the outside factors and triggers are different. They are much harder to see, which makes it harder to treat.

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