Addiction

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, PaulC said:

yes ive seen that. Good advice. I know with my bank theres a tool to stop all deposits into gambling sites. Its irreversible as well. But unfortunately theres ways around it

I believe GAMSTOP is very good from my brother. It’s 1 simple form, you set the time you want to take a break for and they do the rest in the back ground. It’s irreversible too. Anyone thinking they are gambling a bit too often just take a month off to clear your head.

[PaulC]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

I believe GAMSTOP is very good from my brother. It’s 1 simple form, you set the time you want to take a break for and they do the rest in the back ground. It’s irreversible too. Anyone thinking they are gambling a bit too often just take a month off to clear your head.

Does it work with everyone. Like pokerstars, Dunder, casumo 888

[Genie]

Just now, PaulC said:

Does it work with everyone. Like pokerstars, Dunder, casumo 888

I believe so, I think all the main players have signed up to the scheme.

[maqroll]

I jumped on the Texas Hold 'em bandwagon what must be about 13 years ago now. I played a lot of poker, but mostly online. I was bartending at a swanky bar in Boston making good money for the profession. I worked with guys who also liked to play poker, and we'd have a weekly game after work on Saturday that would go as late as 8AM Sunday morning. I'd also play charity games around town, and occasionally drive to Foxwoods for the casino experience. But mostly I played online, after work. I'd slam back margaritas and freewheel at my computer screen until the crack of dawn. It was all extremely fun. But I'm glad the fever broke because I could have taken a wrong turn trying to chase money. I think the last time I went to Foxwoods I watched some young guy totally implode trying to chase back lost money and I did not want it to happen to me. I smartened up. But I must admit to how much fun it was. That said, I don't miss it at all. If anyone is in the grip of a gambling addiction, just keep trying to limit the damage to your wallet, your family, yourself. Not worth losing what you love to the thrill of poker.

[maqroll]

Another point is that for me, poker went hand in hand with drinking and if I were younger at the time, cocaine and cigarettes. Not pretty.

[cheltenham_villa]

9 hours ago, Genie said:

There are hundreds and hundreds of online bookmakers and casinos so even if there were controls on 1 outlet to reduce losses hardened gamblers will move from site to site. 

That's another thing I'd change, more regulation for the industry. Introduce a single government controlled logon and force data sharing between the companies.

All companies need to be based in the UK and prevent access to any foreign betting sites.

I'd also introduce a maximum customer loss, if the customer goes above that amount they can reclaim the losses from the betting company.

Not disputing how broken the current system is.

 

[Rodders]

the self-regulatory checks on gambling are not fool proof at all. As a minimum I would

ban cash-outs being reversed. 

allow multiple settings on the limits on a site. Often with sports betting it's c ase of you can choose, EITHER daily or weekly or monthly limits. And even then some sites control the sums you can choose. 

I.e. I'd like the chance to limit a daily deposit to £10 a day and a weekly one to say £20, and a monthly one to £40/50 for example. Have full control, and then budget per month for it. As you can tell lockdown was not good for me no longer gambling. I made it to July, but then the boredom got to me, all that football, all the time. 

there should be a max loss too, and maybe even a maximum number of bets placed. A system that can interject if the patterns suggest you are chasing your losses / stops you making further bets for 30 minutes automatically, and then offers you the chance to cool down in the same moment. Perhaps. 

Voluntarily so of course, but most compulsive gamblers I know, like myself, do use these settings when available. I've permanently excluded myself from most sites out there now. 

I'd extend the 24 hour period in terms of reducing the limits, and have a reminder before you re-login of your own previous betting patterns the previous month. I dunno. That's not going to happen, and it's better to just not bet though

Edited October 30, 2020 by Rodders

[Genie]

I have a feeling reversing withdrawals is already banned @Rodders

[Rodders]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

I have a feeling reversing withdrawals is already banned @Rodders

 

It might be tbf, the site I have left to me doesn't allow it, so maybe it has happened in the past couple of years or so. In which case, that's a good step. 

[Genie]

The suggestion made earlier about their bank blocking deposits to gambling sites is a good one. Of course it’s possible to make more than 1 account but not too many people will bother I expect. 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Rodders said:

 

It might be tbf, the site I have left to me doesn't allow it, so maybe it has happened in the past couple of years or so. In which case, that's a good step. 

UKGC banned it for sites with a licence from them a couple of months ago.

[KentVillan]

Really interesting piece on BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-55221825

Quote

The science of addiction: Do you always like the things you want?

Until recently, it was generally assumed that if we wanted something, it was because we liked it. But science is now questioning that idea - and pointing the way to a possible cure for addiction.

Back in 1970 a shabby and shameful experiment was performed on a New Orleans psychiatric patient. We know him only as Patient B-19.

B-19 was unhappy. He had a drug problem and he'd been expelled from the military for homosexual tendencies. As part of his therapy and as an attempt to "cure" him of being gay, his psychiatrist, Robert Heath, hooked electrodes into his brain, attaching them to what - at the time - were thought to be the pleasure centres of the brain.

While the electrodes were attached, B-19 had the power to turn them on, by pressing a button. And press it he did, time after time after time - over 1,000 times a session.

"It made him feel very, very sexually aroused," says Kent Berridge, professor of biopsychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan. B-19 felt a compulsion to masturbate. With the electrodes on, he found both men and women sexually attractive. And when the electrodes were removed, he strongly protested.

But Robert Heath noted something odd. When he asked B-19 to describe how the electrode made him feel, he expected him to use vocabulary like, "fantastic", "amazing", "wonderful". But he didn't. In fact, he didn't seem to enjoy the experience at all.

So why did he keep pressing the button and why did he protest when the electrodes were removed?

Kent Berridge says we have to start by recognising that although B-19 didn't enjoy the sensations produced by the electrodes, he nonetheless wanted to turn the electrodes on.

But that sounds like a puzzle, a contradiction.

For many years psychologists and neuroscientists assumed that there was no real difference between liking something and wanting it. "Liking" and "wanting" sound like two words capturing the same phenomena. Surely, when I want a cup of coffee in the morning, it's because I like coffee?

Alongside this assumption - that wanting equates to liking - there was another. It was widely believed that there was a system in the brain, involving the hormone dopamine, that drove both wanting and liking. What's more, there seemed to be compelling evidence that dopamine was essential for pleasure. Rats, like humans, love sugary stuff, but when dopamine was removed from their brains and sweet substances were placed in their cages, they ceased to seek these foods out. Cut off the dopamine, it was thought, and you cut out the pleasure.

But was this right? Kent Berridge found another way to investigate the link between dopamine and pleasure. After removing dopamine from rats' brains, he fed the rats a sugary substance. "And to our surprise, the rats still liked the taste normally. The pleasure was still there!" In another experiment at his lab, the dopamine levels were raised in rats, leading to a huge increase in eating - but no apparent increase in liking.

You may wonder how a lab-coat wearing scientist can tell whether a rodent is enjoying itself. Well, the answer is that rats have facial expressions rather like humans. When they eat a sweet substance, they lick their lips; when it's something bitter, they open their mouths and shake their head.

So what's going on? Why do rats still like a food they no longer seem to want?

Kent Berridge had a hypothesis, but it was so wild that even he didn't really believe it - at least not for a long time. Was it possible that wanting a thing, and liking it, corresponded to distinct systems in the brain? And was it possible that dopamine didn't affect liking - it was all about wanting?

For many years, the scientific community remained sceptical. But now the theory has become widely accepted. Dopamine increases temptation. When I go downstairs in the morning and see my coffee machine, it's dopamine that drives me to brew a cup. Dopamine intensifies the temptation for food if you're hungry, and makes the smoker crave a cigarette.

The most startling evidence that the dopamine system fires wanting, and not liking, comes once again from the unfortunate laboratory rat. In one experiment, Kent Berridge attached a little metal stick to the rat cage that, when touched, delivered a minor electric shock. A normal rat learns, after one or two touches, to stay well away from the stick. But by activating the rat's dopamine system, Berridge was able to make the rodent become engrossed by the stick. It would approach it, sniff it, nuzzle it, touch it with its paw or nose. And even after the minor shock was received, it would return time after time within a five- or 10-minute period, before the experiment was stopped.

Perhaps this explains my coffee-drinking habits. I both want and like my morning cup of coffee. But the afternoon cup of coffee - which somehow I cannot resist making - tastes bitter and unpleasant to me. I want it, but I don't like it.

It's no understatement to say that Kent Berridge has transformed scientific understanding of human desire and motivation.

He argues that wanting is more fundamental than liking. Ultimately, it doesn't matter for the preservation of our genes whether we like sex, or like food. Far more important is whether we want to have sex, and whether we seek out food.

The single most important implication of the wanting-liking distinction is the insight it offers us into addiction - be it to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and perhaps even to food.

For the addict, wanting becomes detached from liking. The dopamine system learns that certain cues - such as the sight of a coffee machine - can bring rewards. Somehow, in ways that are not fully understood, the dopamine system for the addict becomes sensitised. The wanting never goes away, and is triggered by numerous cues. Drug addicts may find their urge to take drugs sparked by a syringe, a spoon, even a party, or being on a street corner.

But the wanting never ceases to go away - or not for a very long time. That makes drug addicts extremely vulnerable to relapse. They want to take the drugs again, even if the drugs give them little or no pleasure. For rats, the dopamine sensitisation can last half a lifetime. The task now for researchers is to find whether they can reverse this sensitisation - in rats, and then hopefully, in humans.

But let's return to Patient B-19. Recall that he had been hooked up to a so-called pleasure electrode and kept pressing the button to activate it, yet, he expressed no delight in the resulting sensations. At the time the psychiatrist, Robert Heath, wondered whether he was poor at expressing his feelings. But now we have a more convincing explanation. It's more likely that B-19 genuinely took no pleasure in the feelings the button aroused, but that he had a compulsion to press the button nonetheless.

As for me, I'm off for my second cup of coffee.

Hope everyone is coping alright with this shitter of a year. And if not, hope you find the strength to build yourself back up.

[A'Villan]

Stay strong today, my friends. Stay true.

There's no point wishing a storm would calm and go away, it does that in it's own time, however, we can remember that we can calm ourselves, and seek brighter pastures.

If you're struggling this Xmas, if you're alone for it, or even just feeling that way about it, then I have the following message for you on this day..

F*** Xmas, and it's spirit. Really.

Today I only wish for you, that alone, you're always in good company, and that it is your spirit, not the Xmas spirit, that rises, like the phoenix, defiant.

God bless.

Edited December 24, 2020 by A'Villan

[Peckham Wanderer]

On 23/05/2020 at 02:58, KentVillan said:

Thanks for sharing this. I'd say probably the main reason at 35 I don't have children, despite a few relationships where that was on the cards, was I just felt completely unprepared to bring another human being into the world who would have to go through what you've described.

Maybe it's a convenient excuse for more general commitment phobia or whatever, but I have this genuine desire to be a parent who provides an emotionally stable environment to a child, and I'm terrified of not being capable of doing that.

Quote

When you come from a family with a history of mental health and alcohol / substance abuse problems, as I imagine most of us in this thread do to some extent, it's very hard not to worry that you "carry the gene".

It's quite uplifting to hear from people who have that experience lingering somewhere in the background, but haven't let it define them.

Both my parents are alcoholics (he's extremely violent). Home was a head-wreck, I've two younger sisters. I know I've an addictive personality, but gave up smoking 14 years ago and have had 9 bottles of cider since November (and 1 bourbon). I don't want to end up like them. Years ago i remember thinking I could just sit in a pub all day, but decided this wasn't a good course of action.

Then again it means everything is directed inwards, resulting in depression on and off the last twenty-odd years.

Unfortunately I'm attracted to people with addictive personalities. It would be so much simpler if someone would wear a badge: "Hi, my name is ___. I may be funny, charming and a bit cute but please be aware I'm 1) a binge drinker, 2) enjoy taking class As, 3) love Christmas, 4) don't vote and 5) am a narcissist". The red flags would be obvious. I would know when to nope the f*ck right out.

[KentVillan]

"Addiction is giving up everything for one thing. Recovery is giving up one thing for everything."

Found this quote in the comments on this video

 

 

[KentVillan]

She also says "if punishment worked there wouldn't be any addiction, it's a punishing enough experience". God that hits home. Recommend anyone struggling with addiction give that video a go.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

6 hours ago, KentVillan said:

"Addiction is giving up everything for one thing. Recovery is giving up one thing for everything."

Never thought about it like that . 

I got multiple plates spinning at the moment so its a good start to Monday. 

[KentVillan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0017qnm/addiction

 

Quote

Documentary

Addiction

An exploration of a new approach to helping people dependent on drugs and alcohol being trialled in the north west of England.

 

Very thoughtful documentary about Addiction & Recovery on iPlayer

Edited June 2, 2022 by KentVillan

[osmark86]

Three days without nicotine now. I'm an avid snusare as of multiple years. I've been so damn irritable these past days. Like just generally edgy and not tolerant of anything stupid or mildly annoying. Even if I'm overall in a generally good mood.

At least I can laugh about how childishly petty I"m feeling XD. Quitting nicotine is just ass.

[maqroll]

1 hour ago, osmark86 said:

Three days without nicotine now. I'm an avid snusare as of multiple years. I've been so damn irritable these past days. Like just generally edgy and not tolerant of anything stupid or mildly annoying. Even if I'm overall in a generally good mood.

At least I can laugh about how childishly petty I"m feeling XD. Quitting nicotine is just ass.

Keep it up! I quit 20 years ago after several attempts. The final attempt was easy. Just plow through it.