Four Stages of Gambling Addiction

Experts agree that there are four stages of gambling addiction that all addicts seem to follow during their “careers” as slot machine and gambling addicts. They say that the four stages are winning, losing, hopelessness, and desperation.

During the winning stage, everything is great. The addict feels like they are on top of the world. They are hooked on the adrenaline that rushes through their body while they are winning, and know that there is nothing else like it. They don’t believe that they can lose.

During the losing stage, the addict is still hopeful that they will turn it around. They spent all of their money trying to get back to the winning stage, and all the little wins that they get here and there only serve to justify their continuing to gamble. They are sure that the next win is just around the corner.

In the hopelessness phase, they just can’t figure out what to do. They have spent all of their money and have lost all of it. They can’t figure out what went wrong, and how they just couldn’t get their luck to change. They will be feeling depressed and possibly even suicidal; they cannot see a way out of their despair.

However, the desperation stage is the worst one of all because the addict will literally consider anything to get themselves out of the mess they are in. They will consider stealing from their job, their loved ones, society as a whole, just so they can get back into the casino and play the slot machines or the table games again. There is no limit to what they will do to play again.

If someone you know is exhibiting the above signs, please contact Gamblers Anonymous or any other local gambling program to get them help.



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