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Dear
Readers,
Last week, I responded to a letter from a mom whose adult
son has finally recognized that he has a gambling problem.
I sent info about Gamblers Anonymous (GA). In my reply I noted
that many kids by the age 13 and younger in our suburbs are
already involved in gambling. I promised more info on teen
gamblers this week. So here goes:
By the
time our suburban kids are 14, forty-two percent of them are
gambling; by age 15, forty-nine percent; sixty-three percent
of 16 year-olds; seventy-one percent at age 17; seventy-one
percent of 18 year-olds and by age 19, eighty-eight percent
are involved in some form of gambling. Bottom line...Approxiately
two-thirds or seven million of our teens gamble regularly,
one million of these are compulsive gamblers, each of whom
costs society anywhere from $13,200 to $35,000 for treatment,
court costs, and other expenses.
Teen
gambling usually starts from little bets among friends. It
becomes a compulsive addiction when gambling becomes a "must",
often developing in three steps: 1. Winning 2. Losing 3. Desperation.
When a teen begins to lose, he will often borrow, steal, sell
possessions, or lie to get money to make up for the losses.
As a result, desperation sets in. Once he is feeling desperate,
a teen gambler cares little about school and may even have
thoughts about running away or killing himself (about 80 percent
of compulsive gamblers are seriously at risk of suicide).
To me,
it's a familiar story... An innocent game, a lark of adolescence,
turns bad and then lethal. Addiction professionals know how
this game goes with drugs and alcohol but gambling seems different,
pure behavior--no drug. But, from recent research in the neurobiology
of addiction, we now know that all addiction works through
the mesolimbic dopamine system in the brain. This triggers
the endogenous opioids that are many times more powerful than
morphine. Recent evidence shows that naltrexone blocks the
reinforcing properties of alcohol and other substances and
it does the same thing for gambling. ALL addictions, then,
have a neurobiological basis; so pathological gambling
is also a chronic relapsing brain disease like alcoholism.
It has all of the hallmarks of addiction including tolerance
and withdrawal. Further evidence suggesting neurological dopaminergic
involvement, comes from a study that found nearly 50% of a
group of pathological gamblers carried the DRD2 gene receptor
variant so common in other addictions and, the more severe
the gambling problem, the more likely the individual was to
be a carrier for this receptor variant.
Let's
face it. Gambling has become increasingly acceptable throughout
our society. Adults might see buying a Lottery ticket and
playing games in state casinos as fun, but this attitude influences
kids who are twice as likely as adults to become problem gamblers.
A Harvard
Medical School paper published 3 year ago by the American
Academy of Pediatrics reviewed a survey of nearly 17,000 8th
thru 12th grade students which revealed the fact that adolescents
who do gamble reported participating in a marked increase
number of at risk behaviors in other areas of their lives.
Of this group, 53% reported gambling in the last 12 months
and 7% reported that gambling caused problems with their families
and friends.
Overall,
illegal drug use was nearly doubled by teens who gambled
in the past year (15%) vs. teens who did not (8%), and
that number was nearly doubled again (28%) by students who
reported having problems related to gambling. Gambling teens
were twice as likely as non-gambling teens to have been in
a fight or to have carried a weapon in the last 30 days. Each
risky behavior that a student reported participating in made
them more likely to have gambled and to have experienced problems
in relationships because of it.
Is your
teenager a gambler?... No?... Are you sure?..... Next week
the Warning Signs.
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