Controlling the urge to Gamble
Gambling is usually a difficult habit to kick but hypnotherapy stands head and shoulders above the other therapies because it efficiently deals with the root causes supporting the addiction. What’s more, it equips the sufferer with the tools to navigate life’s problems more effectively, enabling them to feel more in control and less likely to resort to destructive gambling behaviour.
If you gamble when you don’t wish to or continue past the point where you know you ought to quit, if you lose money that you need for other things or if the people around you complain until you feel you must defend your gambling, then you probably have a problem.
This addiction, referred to as compulsive gambling, creates and exploits flaws and circumstances in a way that can seem nearly impossible to get over. Online gaming has made it into an accessible, solitary pursuit available 24-7. Advertising represents gamblers as being glamorous high rollers when the reality is often a pyjama-clad, sleep deprived, ordinary Joe or Joanna who just wants a few quid extra to meet the bills.
Many think that problem gambling can become so ingrained in the brain that only hypnotheraputic techniques have a chance of eradicating it.
A good deal of a gambler’s life is spent resolving the problems that gambling brings like paying bills, placating creditors and even maintaining a normal life. Often the social life of a gambler suffers because they are so wrapped up in the need to gamble. This removes the pretty important stabilising influence of friends and family. Some of the most otherwise honest people will lie or hide their reckless wagering activities from those closest to them.
The excessive gambler may find that they are signing up for loans they can’t repay, selling things that they cherish and neglecting bills to further fund their gambling. Then the vicious circle begins of gambling to pay back the debts, an impossible goal when the gambler always statistically loses.
It doesn’t have to be this way – there is a proven solution that works. Hypnosis targets the underlying memories, ideas and habits that drive the compulsive gambler’s obsession. Some may be related to early life trauma, large amounts of stress, a lack of confidence, low self-worth or a consistently debilitating depression.
In a great many cases, however, the gambler has become so obsessed with gambling that they in many cases have forgotten why and how it all began. So consuming is the urge that all other feelings can be ignored or pushed to one side.
Hypnotherapist Karen Martin, based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent said: “When you satisfy or redirect the subconscious needs the way hypnotherapeutic strategies do, the need to gamble just vanishes. It is then possible to deconstruct the circumstances, thoughts and feelings which created the addiction and find better solutions to resolve underlying issues.”
