Gambling Problem Videos

Took some time to sort of sort through gambling addiction stuff as prompted by the way you-tube posts associated links. The original link about the guy Tony who started by putting $5 in a machine and winning $80 as been posted before. Now at first he strikes me as stupid, but it dawns on me later he is probably pretty intelligent, but was totally ignorant about gambling and probably generally ignorant with little education. He actually started making videos in order to record for posterity how he got rich playing slots! [there must be dozens more of his videos we don't see]. Instead it becomes a classic step by step record of proto-typical foolishness, to term it his way. Amazing. And this Tony I think made no more videos, which seems ominous.

Anyway one led to another, and you have to conclude almost without exception they must be riveting for someone who acknowledges a gambling problem and utterly boring to everyone else. I'd say one of the better ones I came across was this one, done in a curmudgeonly style that's hard not to like. But in other ways it is typical, starting off with the confession-to-the-world that seems to be required, then on to the horror stories [pretty good in this case], and includes whining about the gambling that goes on in a nothing-worse-than-a-reformed-drunk vein [with some good points in this case]. The award for well-done-but-utterly-boring goes to the Riback Group collection. Again, these must be riveting for someone who acknowledges a gambling problem and utterly boring to everyone else. I wonder if I should contact him and see what he says.

So what should a person who wants to avoid similar fates be paying attention to? I would have to say not these things, since they violate the problem that was pointed out to me long ago by a recovering alcoholic: the folks in trouble see the whatever and say "oh, that's not me." Horror stories can be entertaining, but they hardly reach anybody, usually, something is going to be slightly different in each case, and that is all it takes. Later, after control is lost, someone looks back and has his own, different horror stories, IMHO.

As far as I can tell, coming to the Wizard of Vegas site and getting educated is probably as good a step to take as anything.

Quote: odiousgambit

So what should a person who wants to avoid similar fates be paying attention to? I would have to say not these things, since they violate the problem that was pointed out to me long ago by a recovering alcoholic: the folks in trouble see the whatever and say "oh, that's not me." Horror stories can be entertaining, but they hardly reach anybody, usually, something is going to be slightly different in each case, and that is all it takes. Later, after control is lost, someone looks back and has his own, different horror stories, IMHO.

As far as I can tell, coming to the Wizard of Vegas site and getting educated is probably as good a step to take as anything.

Addiction is a funny thing. You're spot on about the denial of trouble. If the horror story doesn't match it exactly, well, "that's not me". Even if it matches exactly, well, "that was him, I'm (subjective term) than him."

Education helps, but I'm not sure how. I say that with an understanding of addiction and as an addict. If we took the entire WoV forum, some of us will be addicts. But the only way to figure out which ones is for those ones to get addicted, so the fail safe would be to preach abstinence from gaming. No one wants that.

So we give them the info, the warning signs, the what to look for. Those destined to be addicts game, get addicted, then when you point out the signs, "pfft, that ain't me." Who's been there? This guy has.

I think the education helps at this point and after. Someone that has had to live in addiction, see its evils and wants out, hits the proverbial "rock bottom", might now know and realize that they're addicted and seek addiction help, whereas the ignorant might continue to use the addiction to get out of their addiction (gamble to cover gambling losses, drug to cure the hurt caused by drugs, etc)

The idea that a blossoming addict will realize he's an addict in the beginning and act on it is counterintuitive to me. It's too easily shrugged off, too easily explained away. One of my Face-isms is "There is no way to know addiction until you know addiction", which is basically saying, "once you know, it's too late". All theeducation and warning signs are just words, they need meaning. And they don't have meaning until they have meaning, and by then it's too late.

Spoken as an addict. I had all the education needed to understand what was happening to me, but they were just words, just concepts, just ideas. Even as it was happening, what I knew was an idea that my mind assigned a value, what I was experiencing didn't match that value. It's like describing the color red to a blind person. No matter how many words you use, how many ideas you implant, how many concepts you provide, without experience it means nothing. I feel pre-addiction education is much the same. It works to maybe scare someone out of experiencing it, which is good for meth, but we don't want people to not experience gaming, or beer, or sex, or food, or video games, or whatever.

Some strong warnings signs -
- shrug off life to gamble (skip appt's, miss work, miss family functions)
- the hyper-convert. Excessive attempts to get people to gamble with you, especially those who've already said no
- financial hurt - Forsaking a different hobby is OK. Forsaking a weeks worth of dinner is not.
- ignoring ones self - When your mind for whatever reason says you should go and you don't
- chasers - when gambling is no longer fun, yet you're still always going
- the illusion - you get pumped to gamble until you get there, then you're bummed you're there (good to use as a springboard to quitting)

Those are just some possible signs. Only that quiet little voice in your head knows for sure