How can someone make a full recovery from gambling addiction?
KETHEA’ gambling treatment is based on a personalized plan drawn up in line with the needs of the person concerned and designed not to cut them off from their environment and activities. KETHEA treatment programmes include individual counselling, group psychotherapy, psychiatric support, and family or couples therapy.
Participants usually attend the programme once or twice a week, depending on the treatment phase they are in. The programmes aim to address the causes of their gambling addiction, as well as to construct a new gambling-free lifestyle.
Therapeutic support focuses on:
- Examining and understanding how the individual came to be addicted to gambling
- Producing strategies and methods to reduce their involvement with gambling
- Coming up with motives for stopping
- Providing training in how to deal with high-risk situations
- Provide training in problem-solving and handling interpersonal relationships
- Family and couples therapy
- The services are confidential and free or charge; anonymity will be respected.
Services are provided confidentially and free or charge; anonymity will be respected.
What are the signs of gambling addiction?
Since pathological gambling is not a physical illness, the symptoms of addiction are sometimes difficult to detect and only those who are very close to the gambler can pick up on them. Generally, gambling addiction makes its presence felt when the gambler’s behaviour begins to affect their everyday life and relationships. A gambler whose gambling is pathological manifests:
- An intense preoccupation with gambling and restlessness and irritability when they try to stop or reduce it.
- A tendency to borrow money as a temporary solution to financial problems
- Repeated failed attempts at controlling, reducing or stopping gambling
- Long or unexplained absences from the home and the workplace
- Multiple bank loans, overloaded credit cards, unpaid bills and inexplicable holes in the family budget
- Studying programmes and forecasts related to gambling with great intensity on the television, radio and Internet as well as in newspapers.
- Isolating themselves to think through gambling tactics,
- Refusal to engage with suggestions from others relating to their gambling
- Reduced productivity at work
- Discomfort, anger and rising tension if something prevents them from gambling
- Elation, an inflated “ego” and relief when they win
How can the family help someone addicted to gambling?
The participation of close friends and relatives is considered to be of crucial importance to the rehabilitation process, because it contributes to the positive outcome of treatment and helps make family and close interpersonal relationships functional again.
In this context, apart from therapeutic interventions including individual and group counselling for the dependent individual, KETHEA programmes also provide family or couple therapy to help restore family relationships.
In most cases, the people close to a dependent individual realize that there is a problem before the addict does, and can thus seek help before they do. In any case, there is no getting round the fact that treating compulsive gambling is a long and involved process.
Services are provided confidentially and free or charge; anonymity will be respected.
For more information call 1114 or mail to 1114a@kethea-alfa.gr.
