1) The stage of wins.
The stage when the gambler is just getting to know gambling, he is careful, he does not yet have material problems and the game gives him only positive feelings and emotions. Dealers in the gaming industry also use this. Everyone knows that the most "sweet" bonuses and special offers appear when registering on a gaming resource in order to draw a person into gambling at the first stage, where the euphoria from joining gambling is maximum, and the negative sensations from this harmful attraction are not yet felt. In fact, the first stage is getting used to the feeling of winning and the taste of easy money, and it’s natural to want to maximize these feelings. These processes give rise to the illusion of an increase in social status, strength and power in the player's brain. Subconsciously, a person begins to identify himself with the image of a successful player, an idol of women and the master of life, carefully cobbled together by the film industry and advertising of gambling resources. The mechanism for the development of gambling addiction is launched, and the gambler begins to feel a passionate desire to try his luck again and again. His dreams of winning turn out to be far from reality, he increases his rates and the time he spends on the game.
2) Stage of losses.
One of the natural phenomena of gambling addiction, so to speak, is the growth of rates, here gambling addiction is by its nature similar to alcoholism and drug addiction. The dose of "charge" must be continuously increased in order to obtain the same sensations in connection with the development of the brain's tolerance to the "reagents of happiness". But if the drunkard doesn’t take a lot of steam and doesn’t justify his desire to catch up to fitness in any way, then the mind of a gambler masks the brain’s desire not to reduce the dose of hormones coming from the process of gambling with a desire to take revenge and “punish” the game resource where money had been lost before. As the rates increase, the amount of losses grows.
In an effort to recoup, the gambler begins to borrow money wherever possible. He takes loans from the bank, borrows money from friends and relatives, takes all valuables to a pawnshop. Interest in the game becomes so strong that the rest of the world with other hobbies begins to disappear from the attention of the gambling addict.
At this moment, the social and spiritual degradation of a person begins.
3) The stage of disappointment.
At this stage, play occupies a dominant position in a person's life. Everything that is not important for the game fades into the background, so family and social ties collapse. A person faces serious losses in all areas of his life. Finances are in deep red, personal and business reputation is lost due to the inability to maintain them at the proper level, health and nervous activity are shattered by constant stress. Due to reproaches or unwillingness to discuss his situation, the gambling addict is removed from communication with people who were once close to him and, in fact, sooner or later remains in a social vacuum, first losing friends and then remaining without the support of close relatives elementary tired of his incessant financial vampirism and attempts pour out the negative. Few people will be satisfied with living in poverty, in eternal debts and listening to the negative from the "incomprehensible", something once deprived and "disliked" egoist.
At the same stage, let's say, a revision of moral values that once had significance in the life of a gambling addict most often occurs. Constant lies and small deals with their conscience sooner or later do their job. For a gambling addict, it becomes natural to deceive friends and relatives in order to obtain funds for the game, petty fraud if some material values that do not belong to him are available to him, waste and theft. Moreover, it is absolutely not important who the person was before the person got into the gambling addiction. On my way, I came across people who are crystal honest and extremely decent, who, having become gambling addicts, have tarnished their reputation with very unworthy actions. At the same time, panic attacks, thoughts of suicide and negative thoughts about the society around him, where absolutely everyone is to blame for his troubles, usually become frequent "guests" of the gambling addict.
4) The stage of hopelessness.
Social, emotional and financial impasse. Usually this is the bottom from which it is very, very difficult to climb. Absolutely everything is given to the game without a trace, and a person at this stage becomes essentially a social outcast. Associated addictions develop. According to statistics, gambling addicts in the later stages smoke a lot, use alcohol and often drugs, trying to somehow drown out negative emotions from frequent losses and being in a humiliated position on a social day. Disappointment comes from the game and there are attempts to tie, but without the absence of a systematic approach and any kind of self-discipline, they are doomed to failure. At the same time, very often gambling addicts already go to outright crime and move from the thought of suicide to its implementation. At this stage of gambling addiction, it is almost impossible to get rid of it on your own due to concomitant disorders and treatment is required from a qualified
