Gambling Addiction Recovery: Lost Everything? Here's What Actually Helps

Are you secretly struggling with a sports betting addiction or trying to survive financial ruin after chasing losses online? Learn how to break free. In this episode of the RECOVERable Podcast, host Terry Maguire continues an impactful conversation with expert psychologist Dr. Michael Zhang to explore the psychology of behavioral addiction. Together, they pull back the curtain on the industry's hidden traps, detailing the process of self-exclusion and explaining how modern gambling apps add layers of friction—or fail to enforce bans when you are at your most vulnerable. 

Find mental health and addiction treatment near you: https://recovery.com/

Dr. Michael Zhang, a leading psychologist and the innovative founder of the digital platform Incremental, breaks down why gambling disorder is uniquely recognized in the DSM-5 as the only official behavioral addiction. He addresses the intense psychological turmoil that comes with problem gambling, offering actionable advice on how to handle the immediate panic of massive financial loss and the daunting challenge of telling a partner or parents about severe gambling debt. Terry and Dr. Zhang take a hard look at the emerging landscape of sports betting apps and prediction markets, debunking the dangerous myth that betting on sports is purely a game of skill rather than high-risk gambling. 

They also expose the conflicts of interest behind industry-funded 'responsible gambling' programs, urging viewers to follow the money and seek independent recovery support instead. By explaining how variable ratio schedules and intermittent reinforcement keep your brain hooked on fake wins, Dr. Zhang delivers a powerful blueprint for shifting from active addiction into lasting freedom. If you are ready to stop active betting, escape the exhausting double life, and discover what true recovery looks like after hitting rock bottom, this conversation is for you. Watch the full episode to learn how to break the spell, rebuild broken relationships, and build a beautiful, authentic life. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this video with someone who needs to hear it today. 

Chapters: 00:00 – [Intro] 00:48 – How Self-Exclusion Works 03:09 – Using Self-Exclusion on Gambling Apps 06:29 – The Significance of Gambling in the DSM-5 08:20 – Handling the Panic of Massive Financial Loss 10:29 – How to Tell Your Family About Gambling Debt 15:14 – Is Sports Betting Gambling or Skill? 22:27 – How Gambling Hotlines Help 24:48 – Addressing Gambling as a Public Health Issue 31:02 – The Overlap with Substance Abuse and True Recovery 

Questions the Video Answers:

1. How do you stop gambling when you can't control it?
2. What is self-exclusion in gambling and does it work?
3. Can you ban yourself from online sports betting apps?
4. Why is gambling addiction classified as a behavioral disorder in the DSM-5?
5. How do I handle the immediate panic after losing all my money gambling?
6. What is the best way to tell your partner you lost rent money gambling?
7. Is sports betting considered real gambling or a game of skill?
8. Why do I keep losing money on sports betting apps?
9. How does calling a gambling addiction hotline help you?
10. Is problem gambling a recognized public health issue?
11. Why is the gambling industry funding responsible gambling programs?
12. What is the relationship between alcohol abuse and gambling addiction?
13. Can overcoming a gambling problem cure depression and anxiety?
14. What does true recovery from a gambling addiction actually look like?
15. How do you break the cycle of chasing losses in gambling

#GamblingAddiction #SportsBetting #AddictionRecovery

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Gambling only succeeds if you fail. That's not how most products work in the world.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Psychologist Dr. Michael Zhang joins us to share evidence-based strategies for breaking the cycle of gambling addiction. How does someone handle the immediate panic of massive financial loss due to gambling? Welcome to Recoverable. I'm your host, Terry McGuire. Today we're going to continue our discussion with Dr. Michael Zhang about gambling addictions and online searches and questions and am I an addict? How do I help somebody? They have just skyrocketed in recent years as more gambling has become legal. So, Dr. Zhang, thank you for joining us again. Thank you. We ended last week's episode talking about self-exclusion, but we didn't really define it. Let's talk about one of the ways that people can reduce the risk, reduce the temptation, protect themselves a bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

So self-exclusion is about adding that layer of friction. Um, it's something that is offered at that uh, I guess more of that compliance level. You know, when you have when you have gambling operations, uh, and then you've got regulators as well. You got to make sure that you meet those expectations in terms of the industry. So the industry usually has to offer self-exclusion as an option, which basically means it's like a process where you put your your your name down on an agreement that you go through with them to essentially ban yourself. So it's self-excluding, self-banning, so that you're you're saying to them, this is my commitment that I'm not going to be entering in your venue or your online venue, and and I want you to help me uh stay true to that. Whether that happens or not, I mean that's uh that's debatable because I certainly know of instances where self-exclusion has worked. It's like, well, I'm I'm here to gamble, and then I'm trying to get my way around the self-exclusion, but they they got me. They got me, so I couldn't do it. And I also know of other examples, including what we discussed in the last episode, about well, I actually got in and I gambled, and uh and those cases we talked about and I won, and then they kept the money because I'm self-excluded, so they can't give me the money. But in other cases, it's I gambled and I lost, and they didn't really do anything about it, and self-exclusion didn't work in the way that I'd anticipated. So, but ultimately it's about making like an agreement to say I'm not gonna do this. So they have to honor that agreement. Obviously, they don't fully honor it, and they'll say there's no way of fully being able to monitor everyone who's trying to gamble and this and that. Uh, but also when you hear about the number of instances where self-exclusion is not uh is not addressed the way that it should be, uh is not enforced the way that it should be, then you start wondering what's really going on here.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

So that that example you gave is is going to a casino that you likely frequent and saying, I I want like on put myself on the no-fly list. What about apps?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

You you can do the same uh with with apps. You can also, as I mentioned, so you can do it with them directly. But again, I asked this question of like, whatever solution I'm looking at, what is it motivated by? Like what and ultimately how is it funded? Uh and and how and and and and I I want to make a decision. Like the way that I see it increasingly increasingly now is we have like uh like a real emerging marketplace of support when it comes to options, services, programs, um, treatments, recovery, whatever we want to call it, there's more and more coming into this space right now. So that's a good thing. Very good. There's a very good thing. I mean, and I I would be asking, right, like, how are these funded? Which of these actually have direct ties to the gambling industry? Because the ones that have ties of any sort to the gambling industry are probably the ones that don't have the best solutions for you. They they probably just have things in place, you know, to appease, to appease, hey, this is uh this is in theory how things should be and it should work. And if you and they place a lot of the responsibility, just so we're clear, they place a lot of the responsibility on the people who are gambling themselves. It's almost saying, like, we call it, we they call the whole thing responsible gambling, responsible gaming, even. They even use the word gaming to take off that sort of, oh, it's gaming. It feels a little bit more uh, you know, a little bit nicer in a way. But they place a lot of the responsibility on the people themselves, saying, oh, ultimately, you know, it's up to you. And and the responsibility on their side is really maybe not the same, where it's not like, well, we can't really claim responsibility for engineering our systems in a way to addict people. That's not language that they'll be using, but that's trends that we're seeing very clearly now. But when it comes to the online world, self-exclusion is one thing. Looking at third-party options may be helpful too. If if you're just focusing on I want to ban myself, I want to block myself from these gambling options, the third-party ones, uh, some of them may be more again. Look at the funding. Look at how those uh those companies, how those products, how those services are making their money. If they're making their money in part from the gambling industry, you you may want to question that in relation to your own interests. Um, if they're if they're making their money from you and they're charging you an affordable price, and it's like, well, this, I'm getting value out of this, that's a different story. Because then if you look at, or if they're making their money from grants or whatever the case may be. Again, I would say follow the money, right? I think uh that's a that's an important follow the money because that will inform the best options for you as you're looking to address the issues you may be experiencing. And and that's just the starting point. Blocking, banning, all of this stuff is just a starting point because if you don't do more, you that urge will find a way to get back into the picture.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

So gambling disorders, I learned and we talked about, is the only behavioral addiction that's currently recognized in the diagnostic manual, the DSM V. Why is that significant?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

The DSM, and by the way, these things like the DSM and other diagnostic uh manuals, like they're all they're always playing catch-up. Uh like I see in some other places gaming, gaming disorder is recognized, and it probably will be recognized later in the DSM. And uh, and I think there's some revisions as well. I haven't looked too closely on that, but anyone who is interested, again, maybe some of this is also distractions too, right? Like ultimately, for a lot of the people, right, who are experiencing gambling issues, they have a sense of it in themselves. And maybe some would benefit from having a formal diagnosis for a number of reasons. Others maybe don't need that so much to recognize that, hey, I'm just in this thing with gambling. I'm trying to overcome this thing with gambling. Let's see if we can figure that out. You know, whether that's through uh clinical treatment therapy, counseling, coaching, whatever the case may be. When you look at what's happening with gambling in the DSM itself, I think what's interesting is like they used to call it pathological gambling. That's what they used to call it, the previous diagnosis. So again, just think about that, right? Like uh uh someone, I'm so glad they don't call it that today. Yeah. But just think about that. Like if someone's, oh, you have a diagnosis of pathological gambling, pathological associated with the person, that to me just doesn't feel right. Uh for I think maybe as I was listening would feel the same way. Like, how do we even ever use that language to describe it?

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Right. Let's uh dive back into these internet questions because there are a lot of them. How does someone handle the immediate panic of massive financial loss due to gambling?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

People usually handle that when they're in that situation by looking at ways that they can get money, borrowing more in most cases than they've already borrowed, so that they can try to re-gamble that back. That's that's the that's the default. That's the oh, this is the way that I'm gonna handle it. That way clearly doesn't work. Yeah because that that's the cycle. It just keeps going, that's the trap. Usually someone in that position is gambling without others in their lives even knowing that they're gambling. In theory, the best way of handling it is to say to oneself, I need to I need to tell someone about this. I need to open this up now because it's already a lot of money. And this could just keep getting worse and worse. And I need to be able to s to to start to stop this somehow. Even even the folks who are seeking help that we mentioned before, they're they're such a small number compared to those who are stuck in the problem. Even even those folks, most of them are coming when they've already reached rock bottom. Right. So that question could speak to rock bottom for somebody. Lots of them do, yeah. But what I've realized is it's not just one rock bottom. Like when we think of rock bottom, we think, oh, that's it. You can't you can't go any lower. But in reality, what I've realized now is it's almost like we have a series of rock bottoms where the basement has a basement.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Say again. The basement has a basement.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

The basement has a basement, yes. Yeah. And then I almost call it like the chapters of rock bottom now, where people will tell you their story and you realize, oh, and they'll even say, I thought that was a rock bottom. And I mean, and then the rock bottom was there. And actually, no, it's there. And then ultimately the rock bottom becomes what led them to, you know, whether you're you're in a therapy or a coaching setting, whatever led them to working with you, you realize, oh, that may have been the ultimate rock bottom. But then you realize as well, hey, hey, if this doesn't work out, there may be another rock bottom to follow this.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Another top search on the internet. How do I tell my parents or partner that I gambled away or lost the rent money, the mortgage money, whatever it might be?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

This is so hard, so hard to do. Like people that I've worked with who've been in this situation, I mean, they're feeling like they want to throw up. If you can take some steps towards telling, towards telling your partner, your spouse, your family, take steps towards it. That's probably my best advice. Okay. Meaning you don't just have to jump in and say, oh, let me go and tell them everything that's happened. Like take steps, like start doing, start working on your recovery in little ways. No one's gonna like, no one's gonna like hearing this. It's gonna be devastating for them. Right. But at least you can, you can say, I've started to work through this and I took some steps to get here to tell you. Because a lot of times what happens is they're not in a position of telling. They get found out, they get caught, and then they're like, well, I got no choice but to come clean now. And I think I think it's better. I think it's better if we can move with accountability towards those steps ourselves rather than having them be forced upon us. Because taking even some small steps, whatever it may be, like using any any resources and just being connected with anything that's like, I'm trying to work through this. And oftentimes for people, when they start realizing it is a problem, that's what they do. They go online and they, this is why we're looking at these searches. A lot of these questions are about what do I do about this? So taking any of these steps and putting some into action, even if they're not working out just yet, to be able to say, I'm working through this, maybe makes it a little bit more palatable. But anticipate too that you're gonna be met with a massive reaction. It's gonna be maybe the worst day in the life of your wife or your husband, or they will feel it because it's gonna be all that you've experienced that they don't know about, they're gonna feel it all at once. All of this, they're gonna be figure trying to figure out do I even want to be with you anymore? I mean, that's a legitimate question. A lot of people will go down that path and say, I don't know if I even want to be with you. But I always say, like, and and this is probably important for those on the other side to know as well, like people who are gambling, it's not, it wasn't their intent to hurt you. It's because gambling got them. Very rarely is someone using gambling to spite someone, to betray someone, to hurt someone else. It's because they're stuck. It's because I mean, even I I hear people use this, and I'm okay using it in this particular context, saying, like, I actually have a disease. Like this person has it, because if you see it like that, it's like, oh, it's a disease. Like some part of it they're not in control of, some part of it they're in control of. If we can see it in that way, like, hey, they're working through something, it's like a cancer to them. They're actually, you know, impacted very severely right now. Then I think that it can maybe build some of that, uh, some of that empathy a bit faster of like, hey, I have to recognize that ultimately, like, yeah, this person is responsible for what they did. I love them. I thought they loved me. I'm thinking, oh, if they love me, they should have just stopped. That's not how if we again, if we're using the disease, that's not how disease works, right? It doesn't, it doesn't stop because of love or this and that. It just it has a way and a life of its own, and it and it and its life impacts on the host's life and the gambler's life, and it impacts on the people in their sphere's lives as well. So it has a way of just destroying everything, and then unfortunately, you may become part of the consequences of that, but at the same time, if we equate the person with the problem and then say, Well, that's it, I'm done with you. I'm there, that's not going to help them overcome the problem either.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

This podcast is a production of recovery.com. Getting help for an addiction or mental health concern is one of the best decisions you will ever make. But once you make that decision, it can be tough to know what to do next. That's why we built recovery.com. It's the best place to find mental health and addiction treatment for anyone, anywhere. Here's how it works. Search over 22,000 facilities, compare your options, and connect directly with treatment providers that meet your needs. So if you need treatment that goes beyond an occasional therapy session, go to recovery.com. Your recovery starts today. Another top search is is sports betting actually gambling, or is it different because it's skill?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Oh, it's definitely gambling. So even anything that involves a form of betting where the outcomes are uncertain, you're putting money on it and you could win or lose and be up or down, however you want to frame it, anything like that, even forms of trading can be gambling. So all of these things can be gambling. Even if they involve information and knowledge and skill, um, and it feels like, oh, I'm actually doing something that that I have more control over than than just playing a slot machine. Even in those cases, it is still gambling. And the reason I call it gambling is I differentiate it like this. Not only the the core definition of it, but I look at it regarding the the outcome which happens over time. Sports betting over time, there may be some skill, some luck involved, all of that. But sports betting over time, what will happen if you keep going? You may have some wins throughout, but you're gonna have greater losses overall. And if you do, that's definitely gambling. And that applies as well to any forms of trading, especially the ones that are more high risk that people get involved in, whether crypto trading or now we look at prediction markets being another variant of again, more financialized forms of gambling that are emerging. Anything like this is definitely gambling too, by its definition. Whether they call it that or not, I say, oh, you know, it's trading, it's not gambling. That doesn't matter. Ultimately, what matters is if the losses outweigh the wins over time, it is gambling.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

So that's an interesting distinction because it makes it sound like if I'm playing the slots or or at all the different ways you can gamble at and I don't gamble. And I win, it's not gambling.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Over time. So those wins will happen. They'll be there. I mean, it's part of how the thing's been designed with reinforcements. Reinforcements. Intermittent reinforcement or what reinforcement, variable ratio schedules, all of this stuff. Um and and that's and that and that design is pretty much universal, even if it's even if it's less obvious in more of the sophisticated forms of gambling, the principles are there. If you win, uh it's a part of the design. And the question is this if you're actually winning more than you're losing over time, I may not call that gambling anymore. Interesting. I probably would call that because people say, Oh, I'm investing, I'm trading, I'm investing. Right. Those who are actually benefiting from their trading over time, they'll that very very legitimately could be trading, could be investing. Those who are on the other side where it's like, whoa, this keeps going and and I feel a desperation to keep going and try to try to get that back, right? That that's more of the gambling trajectory. Right. But in reality, there are sports betters that actually do this and that actually win over time. I don't think they're really gambling. I think that they, and by the way, anyone listening to this, that's probably not you, okay? For most people, they have real operations. They treat the money as units. And we discussed that in the previous episode. They see it as units of like, this is just unit, I'm not attached to this. This doesn't have the same meaning. I'm operating a business right now, and my business is about how can I identify not how can I pick winners, how can I find positively valued bets at a mathematical level? And that's a different question. That's not that's not what we're usually asking. Folks who are gambling, who are doing sports betting in the casual way or in the problematic way, aren't usually approaching it the same way that people who treat it like a job and a profession. I would ask this, and I've asked this to a lot of my clients before can you turn your gambling into a real career? Can you quit your job job and just go and gamble now? Just go and sports bet now, just go and trade on prediction markets or trade on crypto. Can you do that? If you can do that, that's a job. If you can do that, that's a form of investment. If you can do that, that's not gambling anymore. If you can't do that, most people can't, it's definitely gambling. And it will guarantee you to have losses over time, because those losses have to be accounted for in the industry revenue numbers based on how the whole thing's been designed. That's how the game, that's how it works in the world that we live in now. And not just losses, but more losses than wins. Right. More like because the numbers that we talked about, right? Like uh in the previous episode of uh like $79 billion of commercial gambling industry revenue. That doesn't include like maybe another 40 sum from tribal gaming and then prediction markets. There's got to be billions added on to that as well. You know what that doesn't include, okay? Those numbers are just the profits of the industry. They're basically like it's essentially you could just say, I'm gonna skip the whole gambling part in the middle, and I'll just give you my money. Like, that's essentially what it what we're saying when it comes to those numbers. Add in the gambling part in the middle, we're dealing in over a trillion then. We're dealing in maybe even trillions, and that's just in the US, of money that you've won along the way that you've re-gambled and that keeps getting recycled through that whole system. That's how it's designed because that whole middle part is what keeps the possibility alive. It's what keeps the the trap going, right? It's this it's just uh it's it's so dangerous, this thing, because once you get caught in this trap, it is so hard to get out of it. And and and again, it's like especially when you have those wins, you start feeling like, oh, the possibility is still there. Part of recovery, the work that I do, is about getting to the point where you you realize and you believe deep down that the losses are inevitable, and that's your guiding light. That's what creates a form of strategic regret for you where you're not regretting what happened in your gambling session or episode after the session, you're regretting what happened before it even happened. Because you're starting to imagine what's likely to happen today isn't what I hope will happen today. Right. And when that happens, here's the position I'm gonna be in. And it's almost like the opposite of all those things that happen when someone starts gambling, when they start gambling, and the very early experiences when they're winning and they start feeling, oh, this is amazing. Like I this is easy money and all of this, and uh, and I should do it more. They start feeling the opposite of all those things as part of their recovery journey. And that's also where the meaning of the gambling. Wakens a lot.

SPEAKER_04 22:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

And the psychological effect and the spell breaks essentially.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Okay. So a lot of the searches online are about resources. Like how, how, what's the first thing I can do? How do I get some information? How do I determine what's what the problem is, including the hotline, which was 1-800 GAMBLER. You named another one, which I'll ask you to repeat. But how does telephone support, how does talking to somebody at a hotline help?

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Uh the hotlines are usually the starting points. And it's funny because I've heard from people who work in those hotlines directly that or with them closely, that a good number of the people that call actually are more like, you know, gambling customers calling because they're trying to figure out something on their account. They're trying to figure out, like, oh, like I'm trying to get access to this and I can't get in, and I'm trying to troubleshoot this problem. And a good number of the people calling are actually more like customer support calls. They're not like, you know, like, oh, I'm I'm calling because and it's funny because those people who are calling about those account issues probably do have some level of a gambling problem already. Uh, you know, if they're trying to figure out their account and trying to, you know, overcome whatever friction has come about there. But uh the number that that uh that they've told me now that that they're using the National Council on Problem Gambling is 1-800 my reset. And the way these usually work is you call them, it's on a state-by-state level in the US, and they they kind of help you through what resources may be available to you where you are. Uh but ultimately in an ideal world, like if you're calling, if you're calling, they should be able to refer you in some directions. Um, and I think uh even more now, like people are doing the online searches like like we're covering today. And I hope more and more in the future that we'll see like options become available where it's like, oh, I I in the past, it's like uh in terms of self-help, because a lot of people they start looking for private solutions to a private problem. They want to try to keep it that way. And for those who are looking there, they haven't been able to find exactly what uh uh what's helpful because they've tried this, they've tried that, it hasn't worked out the way they anticipated. And um, but hopefully in the future it gets to the point where there are going to be more options available that you can look at and try different things, things that are more effective than what currently exists. Um, and then and then maybe that will uh maybe that will make it more worthwhile, like you know, that that initial um entry point into the support system.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

So you said private solutions to a private problem. Do you think as a society we are underestimating, under responding to what is a public health issue with gambling addiction?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Uh yes, I believe that too. So it's I I uh it works on both levels. So at a public health level, I definitely have seen uh it's becoming more recognized. And uh, and especially in contrast to in the previous episode, we talked a bit about responsible gambling. So responsible gambling is more of the industry's framing of what's going on and like, oh, and ultimately we're trying to get these folks gambling in a more responsible way and in a safer way so that we can keep them gambling. So it's not about like how do we make gambling unnecessary for them? It's about, you know, how do we ultimately keep them engaged and maybe at a lesser extent. That's usually not the case. The reality is it ends up just uh any most responsible gambling uh tools and measures don't have the same effectiveness as real recovery support measures, okay? Um, that make gambling feel unnecessary as a result of those uh of the journey that someone can go through there. Uh on the public health side, I've seen that as a reaction to responsible gambling. So it's almost like, oh, here's the here's where the industry is focused on. Now we're focused on like almost attacking the industry in a way, saying, like, oh, the industry, the industry is causing this. Um, it's not that people are causing it themselves necessarily, it's the industry because of how it's been designed and engineered, we're putting the responsibility on them. And I I've seen some public health uh advocates really champion that notion. And I'm probably somewhere in the middle somewhere because I I my focus is on yes, like there's influences everywhere. Um, but but also if we get too focused on now, it's just a public health issue, now let's try to get funding for the public health programs and this and that. I mean, are we still are we getting to the heart of helping people then overcome this legitimately? Or are we getting to just maybe more programs and more services, more funding so that things look a certain way? And so there's an operation of public health. That's what I worried about, actually. I worried about this. If we if in the future there is uh there are changes and there are bills that that result in funding for gambling at a federal level or already exists at certain states and certain levels. But if there's more of this funding in the future, my concern is is it going to actually be used in a way that will help people ultimately in their individual personal lives and recovery journeys, or is it kind of part of serving the system and the subsystems that are created from that? Because that's what I feel. I fear that a lot of the uh I uh uh if there is more funding in the future, that we're gonna end up dealing with other problems like, hey, now we're focused on you know how the funding's being used, and now the people, the same people are still suffering. That's why like what I do is independent of all that system. I'm I'm part of like uh I mentioned that I'm the uh founder of Incumental. We uh not only have a platform, we're a part of an ecosystem. I like to think of ourselves as a part of the real recovery ecosystem that we're actually helping people in partnership with others who have the same values, have the same mission, including podcasts. Funny enough, I never would have thought that years ago when I was practicing in a clinical setting, I never would have thought like we'd be talking about podcasts as a legitimate part of recovery, a recovery ecosystem. But they are because a lot of people, that's how they're getting into this journey. They're listening to the podcast, they're hearing other stories of lived experience addiction and recovery. And it's inspiring them to want to do something about where they're at. And they're actually working on it, and the podcasts are a really important part of that whole ecosystem. So I'm seeing now there's a there's a recovery, again, I call it the real recovery ecosystem. This is what we're focused on. We're not focused on trying to do responsible gambling, trying to get money from the industry, trying to uh trying to work closely with them. There's easy money to get there. People do that already. A lot of research is funded by the gambling industry, directly or indirectly. That's interesting, right? I was at a conference last week, in fact, in Las Vegas, uh, which a gambling conference in Las Vegas. And most of the research presentations I heard, they were not about recovery. They were about responsible gambling, they were about risk factors, they were about maybe different models, okay, but they weren't about real recovery. And I think there's a reason for that because when a lot of the research is funded by the industry, again, is it ultimately about how can we help people overcome these problems? Or is it about how can we just sort of play the game and keep it, keep things flowing because they're working out for us as an industry. And yeah, we're making, we're giving money here, we're giving money there, but ultimately that money isn't really designed to change things. Because if it does change things, we have to say to our stakeholders to our shareholders, yeah, we we got to go backwards because we really want to improve people's lives now. So again, always follow the money, right? Always follow the money, see where investments are being made, how industry funding ties in with research or with programs or even with organizations, right? You can go look this stuff up. You can just ask your your favorite AI platforms, hey, you know, how are uh I'm interested in these resources. By the way, that's another another way people are looking for help now, right? They're actually using AI to make these searches. It's not so much just Google search.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

So they're kind of working through AI conversationally, making these searches, figuring out what's available. But then I would always say, like, ask the questions of, you know, is this effective? Why is it effective? Why would it work for me? Uh, look at it from the perspective of where the funding comes from. Uh, because a lot of what has existed to date has been freely available and provided. But again, free doesn't necessarily mean effective. And free is free because it's gambling industry funded, a lot of it.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

What is the overlap between other addictions like substance use disorder in particular and gambling?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Oh, there's a high, I mean, to use the technical terms, there's a high comorbidity. I think it's like 50%. Okay, it's very high. Um and then, and then I I've seen it you so when I used to work in a clinical setting, like we we'd always be assessing gambling uh uh comprehensively, and that included like alcohol, you know, substance use assessments as well. What's what was interesting for me is like the research and and what we see like at treatment centers, uh we definitely see that high comorbidity. Um, but what's interesting to me is I've also seen it the other way too, where people just have gambling and it's like that's their main issue, and that's the cause of all the other issues in their life too. So stress, depression, anxiety, um, uh uh substance issues, uh whatever the case, but it's the cause of everything. And for those who wear gambling is the main, is the root cause of all their problems, solving the gambling actually solves all those other problems too. You don't, you don't have to just work on, you don't have to work on every little piece. Like solving gambling, all of a sudden it's like, well, I'm no longer depressed because I'm no longer gambling. My anxiety is gone because I'm no longer gambling. I don't feel the need to even use uh, you know, uh alcohol anymore because I'm no longer gambling. And but the other way around exists too, which is you have people in treatment centers where they're like they're working on their substance uh use and and they get to the point where they maybe are successful there, but then the gambling surfaces after that. And it's like, well, this was my main, this was my real problem. This maybe um uh wasn't so much of a problem, but then you see that it still is because there can be a sort of a transfer, and there can be a transfer when there's the same underlying system behind it. But when there's not the same underlying system, maybe it's just gambling. I've seen that where a lot of people, if we're just talking about gambling, yeah, we can resolve that and that resolves everything else. When it comes to the comorbidities, you gotta work on everything. Got to work on it all because uh uh and you gotta work on the same, you gotta work on that underlying system too, primarily, in order to overcome. So it's not just oh now I'm no longer drugging and drinking, now I'm just gambling. So it's like, well, I'm not interested in any of those anymore because that's not how I feel about myself. That's not what I want from my life, and I'm creating the life and building the life that fits with my expectations post all of those addictions.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Very related question, and we'll end with this one. But what does true recovery from a gambling addiction look like?

SPEAKER_00 33:54

It's living the life that you envisioned before gambling, and living it in a better and more beautiful way than you ever envisioned. The folks that I've worked with over the years, what I've come to see is they after ga after gambling, they're able to build, rebuild, they're able to figure it out. The debt, that can be overcome. It'll take time, you can overcome that. It'll take years in most cases. The the all the psychological turmoil and consequences, that will be overcome as you as you overcome the gambling. And just the sort of lives they build, the relations that they they they maybe they have they have kids that have families, maybe they uh that they've uh they've started businesses or mul or operating multiple businesses now. Um they're getting involved in recovery work themselves. Um they're they're giving back, they're they're helping others in their journeys. And um they're able to build a real a real life, not a fake one because that whole gambling life, that double life, that is a life that is guided by fake wins. And the fake wins applies to every part of gambling, the whole experience. You have false hope that ultimately drives fake wins, that ultimately leads to the life of a gambler. And that life in recovery is so real, the wins are so real, and everything that comes out of that is it connects you to the world in a way that is inspiring, really inspiring, really hopeful, where you feel like you're value where you feel like you're valuable and you are contributing value in the world in a very real way. Those are real wins. Real wins come out of recovery.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Oh, that's just the perfect way to end. Thank you. I really appreciate your time, and I know that comments like that come from a very real place because you're dealing with real people in a real practice, so thank you. Thank you. And we will be back next week with a dive into another behavioral health topic.