- [Voiceover] Thank you for doing that Denise E., this is Denise Q.. Developing an addiction, as the terminology is on the slide, whether it's rapid onset or long-standing gradual onset of an addiction, because some people will literally be addicted to cocaine after the first time they try it, literally, physically and mentally, the whole bit. Some of my gambling clients, in my estimation, go from being recreational gamblers to, we used to call them compulsive gamblers, so I'm pausing and changing my language, to having a gambling disorder the first time they have a big win, and so that's like a euphoric experience times 10, if you can imagine you've been plugging away putting nickels into a machine whenever your aunt and uncle come into town because they wanna go get the cheap buffet and do a little gambling, and let's say you drop a couple nickels in and you win a month's worth of pay in one pull of the handle, the euphoric experience on your brain, as you were referring to earlier about the dopaminergic effect, is as strong and as addicting, to me, as somebody who has a massive hit of cocaine check this website.
So whatever the progression is, whether it's rapid or slow, keep that in mind on the physical sense when you compare it to the conversations that people have about being addicted to chocolate or addicted to Diet Coke, that's a conversation in the culture of my middle aged ladies that I hang out with and I always question and, in fact, they made fun of me because I love to knit so much that they said, "Well, do you think you're addicted to knitting?" And I said, "No, where's the problem?" (laughs) Because one of my mentors said when you're trying to determine if the person's behavior is an addiction or a problem, ask them, "Is it creating a problem in any area of their life?" Like Denise just described conditions of addiction, well, here's a whole lot of the conditions. Well, if it's not a problem in any area of your life, but there's a little bit of a flavor of I'm worried about how much money your spending or somebody is concerned how much time you're spending knitting, okay, as soon as it becomes all-consuming, hoarding, you're losing relationships, then yeah, I could see you could probably develop a knitting addiction. But when people are joking about it and they look to me, because I'm a substance abuse professional, to give them some kind of a diagnostic label, I literally use that term, I say, "If it's not a problem, it's not a problem." But if it is a problem to you or to anyone in any one of those areas of your life, it behooves you to go get it checked out. So, next slide... There is a wonderful resource if you're not already aware of it, the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, and you can access the Nevada Council by just googling nevadacouncil.org. I gave you the link for the little clip that is being shown, the illustration is a piece of the free video called, "Given the Chance." Just wanna make sure that you all know that the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling has a ton of free resources for counselors and for general lay people who just want more information. This particular clip talks about, it's a video, it's a 45 minute video that you can get for free by simply calling or writing to them and requesting it and it also has a discussion booklet with discussion questions that you can instantly plug in to a group for adolescents or for adults. And this one shows the, I think it's kind of a progressive nature of how youth have been given permission for years to have their little garage or home poker parties and how many times have we heard parents minimizing the effects of gambling? They say stuff like, "Well, we're just glad that Johnny is home with his friends, so we buy him all the snacks that he needs and we get all the poker chips and we set him up because isn't it great that he's staying home and he's not going out and doing stupid stuff like drinking or drugging.
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