How to stop gambling 10 tips gateway foundation


How to Stop Gambling: 10 Tips
You might also join a support group, such as Gamblers Anonymous. Here, you can share your story in a nonjudgmental setting with those who might have similar experiences. In support groups, you’ll find connections you may not have even realized you needed.
How to Stop Gambling: 10 Tips


Gambling addiction can significantly impact a person’s life, from their health and finances to their relationships. In the past, gambling only occurred in casinos. Today, it takes many forms, with people easily betting and gaming online. While compulsive gambling can be challenging to manage, you can break the cycle. Keep reading to learn how to deal with gambling and seek support for yourself or someone you know.
Practical Ways to Stop Gambling
Gambling addiction can affect everyone from teenagers to adults. Approximately 6 million people in the U.S. struggle with it. This disorder’s leading characteristic is an overpowering urge to gamble, no matter the consequences. Many problem gamblers experience financial difficulties, failed relationships and poor health outcomes.
While addiction is a complex condition, there are many treatment options to help you overcome it and regain control of your life. Additionally, you can learn how to manage gambling on your own with these tips.
1. Understand the Problem
Accepting that you are struggling with a gambling addiction is the first step in managing it. If you recognize the signs and symptoms, you can work on modifying the behavior and start feeling better.
The American Psychiatric Association lists the signs and symptoms of gambling addiction as follows:
There are also a few social problems associated with gambling, including lying about your activities or borrowing or stealing money to support your habit. As soon as you recognize these signs, you should learn how to stop gambling and regain control of your life. Additionally, you might seek an assessment from a professional who can help you address the issue.

2. Pinpoint Your Triggers
To conquer your gambling addiction, you’ll need to learn your triggers. In other words, you must understand the reasons behind your pathological gambling and the outside stressors that might be contributing to it. Triggers can be any situations, thoughts, feelings or behaviors that make you want to gamble.
For instance, being around friends with the same habits triggers many problem gamblers. Additionally, you might be more likely to gamble when you are under the influence, since drinking can lower your inhibitions and increase risk-taking behaviors. Those with gambling addiction are at an increased risk of developing a substance use disorder, which can arise from the same stressors.
To identify your triggers, you might start by documenting them in a journal. You can include the type of gambling, time spent and the amount of money you lost. Next, write down the thoughts, feelings and situations that occurred before and during the gambling session to understand what caused the craving.
3. Identify Thoughts and Feelings
The urge to gamble can be intense, and while you’re experiencing it, you might feel like it will last forever. However, these feelings will pass. Paying attention to your emotional wellness can help you regain control over them and build resilience against pathological gambling.
If you have increased cravings to gamble, take a second to record the following.
Do negative feelings like depression or stress cause your gambling? In this case, an excellent coping mechanism might be to attend therapy or discuss your emotions with a trusted friend or family member. Do you look for excitement and find yourself gambling to combat boredom? Look for new hobbies to fulfill that need for a thrill. You can use several effective coping techniques to stop your gambling addiction.
4. Avoid High-Risk Situations
Steering clear of high-risk situations is essential when trying to stop your gambling addiction. It’s also helpful to prevent isolation. Instead of spending hours playing online poker, you might call family members or friends to meet for coffee. Or, you could distract yourself with an activity like watching a movie, practicing mindfulness exercises like deep breathing or going to the gym.
It can be challenging to avoid cravings if you find yourself near a casino or around triggers that might cause you to gamble. Try the following techniques to prevent high-risk situations:
Avoiding your triggers can help prevent any thoughts or emotions from arising that encourage gambling. If your usual way to and from work goes past a casino, take an alternate route. Change the channel if watching sports makes you want to bet. Additionally, you can plan by leaving credit cards and nonessential cash at home and limiting the total amount of money you carry when you leave the house.

5. Challenge Your Beliefs
It also helps to challenge negative thinking habits, such as the illusion of control, irrational beliefs and the gambler’s fallacy. These unhealthy thought patterns can increase compulsive gambling, but you can reduce them by identifying and altering them.
You can prevent risk-taking behaviors with logic and reason. When you gamble, think about the amount of money you’ll potentially lose if you make a bet. Challenging fallacies, the illusion of control and superstitions can help you stop a gambling problem.
6. Delay the Decision
Delaying the decision to gamble allows time for cravings to pass so you can be more in control.
Try the following next time you have the urge to gamble:
Tell yourself that you’ll wait at least an hour, allowing the desire to dissipate. Visualize what could happen if you gave in to the cravings, such as how regretful or anxious you’d feel if you lost your family’s grocery money.
7. Recognize the Benefits of Stopping
A gambling disorder can lead to several adverse outcomes, from draining your finances to destroying close relationships. While shame and guilt can be dangerous in recovery, a small amount of reflection can motivate you to get better.
When you think about how gambling has affected your past, you can make strides to avoid it in the future. You might consider your financial hardships, the loved ones you’ve harmed and the strain gambling has on your physical and mental health. Calculate the money and time you’ve spent gambling and think about better ways you could spend those.
At the same time, consider all the positives of overcoming your gambling disorder. Imagine the better ways you could spend your money and how finding a more practical outlet for your stressors can improve your mental health. Set goals you can achieve to stop gambling and reasons behind them, such as making your family proud, having more money to put toward a vacation or being able to pay bills.
Try not to dwell too much on the past — instead, let it motivate you to change and grow. Be kind and patient with yourself as you work to overcome a gambling disorder.

8. Find Healthy Alternatives
Since gambling can change your brain’s reward system, you might find it challenging to occupy your mind after stopping. However, you can replace problem gambling with equally stimulating alternatives. You might rekindle an old hobby or try something completely new.
Consider incorporating these activities into your daily routine.
Set new goals and tasks for yourself each day. As you focus on these activities, you can better cope with gambling urges as they arise. When you replace risky gambling behaviors with more positive ones, you can change your maladaptive coping mechanisms for good.
9. Practice Gratitude
You can work to release any negative thoughts with an attitude of gratitude. Keep track of your goals and progress as you manage your gambling addiction. List everything you’re grateful for to increase positivity and shift away from unhealthy behaviors.
Believe in yourself and the ability to change. You might journal about your achievements, strengths and attributes. Let yourself feel optimistic about your future, perhaps for the first time in years. Write a daily gratitude list to stay aware of how much better your life is without gambling. The goal is to improve your self-esteem and help prevent relapse.
10. Seek Social Support
Social support is a vital component of compulsive gambling recovery. You can discuss your addiction with trusted friends or family members to keep them informed. They might be able to help you avoid gambling triggers and let you discuss stress or anxiety that could cause the addiction.
You might also join a support group, such as Gamblers Anonymous. Here, you can share your story in a nonjudgmental setting with those who might have similar experiences. In support groups, you’ll find connections you may not have even realized you needed.
How to Get Help for Gambling Addiction In Illinois
While a gambling disorder can result in numerous challenges, you can’t overcome it with willpower and self-help alone. Professional treatment can help you get back on the right track with options like these.
Seeking professional gambling addiction can help you overcome the cycle and refine skills you’re already using. At Gateway Foundation, we offer outpatient care services, which can be more affordable and flexible than inpatient care. You can attend support groups and therapy sessions at the times that work best for you, allowing you to be with friends and family while in recovery.

Get Gambling Addiction Treatment at Gateway Foundation
If you or someone you know needs help for a gambling problem, contact us today. Gateway Foundation specializes in treating addiction, including compulsive gambling. Our team of experts will work with you to identify why you use gaming to cope and replace those self-destructive urges with healthier tools.
We offer various treatments to treat gambling addiction and its underlying causes. Our highly trained team provides individualized care in a compassionate setting, giving our patients a better chance of lasting success
Gateway Foundation is a recognized leader in evidence-based addiction treatment proven to get results. Our experts in Addiction Medicine—including highly educated clinical and medical professionals and expert psychiatrists and nurses—deliver care that never stops. For over 50 years, Gateway Foundation has been helping individuals and their families recover from addictions and behavioral health issues and is the only provider that covers the entire state of Illinois with 16 facilities from the Wisconsin Border to the Kentucky Border. Gateway has specific programs focusing on substance use disorders, trauma, depression, anxiety, and other co-occurring issues. We’re licensed by the state of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. We are in-network with all the major commercial insurance plans. Gateway Foundation: Addiction medicine, saving lives.
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