Through proper education, society can develop programs to stop compulsive gambling addiction before it gets out of control. It's unfortunate that people are willing to educate themselves only after they have been negatively affected by gambling. In most situations the damage has been done.

When most people think of education they think of schools and books. When in reality every day we are educating ourselves about life from the time we get up. To Learn about compulsive gamblers all we need to do is observe their patterns. Breaking the patterns will help in the recovery process. All the signs are there, all we have to do is face the truth. You start to ask yourself more and more questions. What are we going to do? We are going to find all the resources available and apply them to our situation. Through this knowledge we will help to accerlate the recovery. The first area to look at is your understanding of what you are going through. It dose not matter if you are the compulsive gambler, friend of the compulsive gambler or related to the compulsive gambler. Your life has been affected. It's now time to focus. Educating yourself on compulsive gambling addiction will help you to plan for your future. You can have a wonderful future.

It's first important to understand the definitions of compulsive, gambling and addiction. Through knowledge you will gain a better understanding of compulsive gambling addiction and find new alternative ways to treat it.

Compulsive is an uncontrollable desire to do something.

Gambling is the wagering of money where the end result is uncertain and the individual is willing to take a chance.

Addiction is a craving that develops into a dependency to repeat a certain behavior over and over with out regard for the outcome.

Combine these three words and you have an uncontrollable desire to gamble where the outcome is uncertain that develops into a dependency.

It's unfortunate but most people can not tell that they have an addiction until they have developed a self destructive behavior that has negatively affected their life.

What causes a person to have a compulsive gambling addiction? No one knows for sure, but there are many similarities in the type of individual that have becomes addicted. If we can understand the type personality that is more susceptible to addiction, then we can at least safe guard ourselves. For example it's an established fact that children of alcoholics have greater chance of becoming an alcoholic. Since there has been significant growth in the gambling industry more and more people have developed a compulsive gambling addiction.

Gambling is a common practice all over the world. It's believed that gambling dates back to the ancient civilizations where people would gather to take a chance even though the odds were against them.

People who are close to you, who have developed a compulsive gambling addiction will not show signs until a majority of their resources have been depleted. However these people exhibited negative social behavior inside the gambling establishments.

The gambling establishments are not regulated by law to stop people from recklessly throwing away their money. Even though these places know what they are doing to people, they recklessly destroy people's lives for profits.

The gambling establishments have seen gamblers stay up for two days straight gambling and have not turned them off. They have allowed these individuals and other to max out their credit cards. No one did anything to help them. A bar is required by law to turn someone off if they appear to be drunk. Gambling establishment's can also identify people who are in trouble. I have taken the opportunity to interview employees at gambling establishments. The employees all stated that they could tell who had a compulsive gambling addiction based on their repetitive behavior patterns. For example they would continuously go back and forth to the cash machine, they are there at all hours of the day and night when rational people would be sleeping, been seen in the same clothes for more then two days and there are many more signs. Why doesn't somebody do something about it?

When compulsive gamblers go out to the gambling establishments with friends or family they appear very conservative when they gamble at first. By the end of the night all the signs are there, but no one is paying any attention. A few signs are seeing them frequently go to the cash machine, not ready to leave when you are and they continually tell you that their luck is going to change with just one more bet.

You can find more information at I Stopped Gambling So Can You: http://www.istoppedgambling.com/

Education is the key and increasing your knowledge will enable you to deal with your particular situation.

Mr. Keith believes there are many alternatives to aid in the recovery of a gambling addiction verses a twelve step program. A large percentage of his emails were from compulsive gamblers looking for an alternative to Gamblers Anonymous and twelve step programs. Gamblers Anonymous also helps a significant number of people each year but there is a large percentage that does not stay. These are the people Mr. Keith is hoping to reach.