Pathological Gambling And Alcohol Addiction World Wide

Relating to the issue of subgroups, pathological gambling was originally classified as an impulse control disorder by the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000), though, based on its criteria similar to substance dependence, some researchers preferred to consider it a behavioural addiction (Blanco et al., 2001; Potenza et al., 2002). Goudriaan et al. (2006) provide a similar argument, stating that pathological gambling and alcohol dependence share common EF deficits, and it has since been amended to be a behavioural addiction the in the DSM-V (APA, 2013). The divisive topic of screening and diagnosis could have serious consequences on the quality of care, or form of therapy, a pathological gambler may receive or decide to enter. Whether they legitimately†¦show more content†¦More recent research reports that combining the twelve step program with professional psychotherapy increases abstinence rates to between 27% and 39% (Russo et al., 1984; Lesieur and Blume, 1991). The added psychotherapy could improve attrition rates even further using ‘Motivation Enhancement Therapy’ (Miller and Rollnick, 1991), a directive form of counselling that sees the therapist engage with the client in unravelling their uncertainty around the changes that will occur during treatment. This might include, for example, anxiety regarding re-integrating into society when ones addiction has rendered them socially withdrawn. Hodgins, Currie, el-Guebaly (2001) found that adding even just a phone call, in which a therapist applies this technique, to their on-going therapy can achieve a significant reduction in gambling over the following twelve months as compared to controls. Indeed, the main causal factor in the attrition rates for any therapy could be motivation – socially withdrawn or generally socially anxious gamblers may not feel comfortable undergoing therapy with a group of strangers, and we may be able to extrapolate from nicotine studies that suggest that greater anxie ty can lead to greater withdrawal symptoms (Zvolensky et al., 2004), which, in turn, is associated with reduced motivation to quit (Piasecki, Fiore, Baker,