Posted by: Marianty on: February 19, 2010
So far we have covered everything a person can do to fight their gambling addiction but sometimes the person with the addiction will not realize they have it. When this is the case it is very likely that the people around the compulsive online gambler will notice his behavior and realize that something is not normal about their friend’s habits.
When you find yourself in the position of being a close relative, friend or partner to a compulsive online gambler you are in a position to help them realize the problem.
I recommend that you sit down and talk to the person about the problem, maybe they will recognize that it exists but some will deny it and it is possible that they get mad at you in that moment. However, once you have mentioned it to them you have put it in their mindsets. The next time you notice that they have been in a computer for more than 10 hours doing nothing but gambling you might want to say something like “Do you think people who are not addicted to online gambling sit in the computer for 10 hours everyday?”, and just question their actions everytime you notice the dangerous behaviour.
There is a high chance that the online gambler will get angry and will feel annoyed by you pointing out each one of their compulsive gambling actions, but try to be the reasonable person and calmly explain to them the dangers of addictive online gambling.
This will be the hardest part of the process, you will need to be very patient and also very careful with the type of things you say so that you are not attacking the person but pointing out their actions so they can judge themselves.
On our next article we will go into pointing out those actions more in detail and what to do once they acknowledge that the problem is there.
