Gambling, particularly winning, \u201clights up the neural pathways for the pleasure center in our brain, and so we get a reward from that,\u201d Strait said. \u201cAnd so just like when somebody uses a substance, they\u2019re not really addicted to the substance, they’re addicted to how that substance makes their brain feel. And so gambling does the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people are just more susceptible to it than others. \u2026 There’s something in their brain chemistry, or something triggers that reward sensor, and that’s what’s going to kind of drive them to that compulsive thinking. A lot of that’s going to be kind of driven through the subconscious part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weinstock, the psychology professor, said there are three general subsets of problem gamblers. There are those who see gambling as a solution to their life\u2019s problems, \u201cso maybe you have a very unhappy marriage, or maybe you\u2019re unfulfilled in your job, so you turn to gambling as a means to kind of manage those problems, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, he said, there are those who are more susceptible to addiction and substance abuse, and have a high predisposition for addiction, and they find the activity really rewarding.<\/p>\n
The third subset is much smaller, those who fall into the category of simply seeking positive reinforcement.<\/p>\n
Strait leads a team of counselors, some of whom are working on their gambling certifications. He said the state has restructured some of the ways services can be managed and accessed, leading to more services available next summer. The Missouri Department of Mental Health contracts with community agencies to provide compulsive gambling disorder treatment services, according to Debra Walker, a spokeswoman for the DMH. She said DMH is prepared to increase funding if there is an increased demand for services. Among the options for problem gamblers are telehealth treatments.<\/p>\n
According to Strait, the four most commonly endorsed problem gambling criteria are:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gambling, particularly winning, \u201clights up the neural pathways for the pleasure center in our brain, and so we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":{"0":"post-333096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}