Recovery from Gambling Addiction: Lesson learnt from Silvia's experience #3 Understanding addiction is a misdirected motivation

Understanding addiction is a misdirected motivation

I came to believe that addiction is a misdirected motivation.

Why would someone not take care of high priority tasks but choose to gamble instead? High priority tasks such as take care of your children, find a job, go to work, buy some groceries for the week and spend time with your love ones etc. Instead, gambling like playing the pokies machines always seems to be something the brain craves the most? Why? It has to be the brain has misdirected motivation!

I long hypothesized that some people who are addicted to something usually have co-existing mental conditions, such as depression, anxiety or bipolar etc. They have conditions that make them more vulnerable to the vicious cycle of pathological gambling than other people who have more control.

Recently, I came across an article from the Black Dog Institute, they do research in depression and bipolar. This article reported on a recent finding and provided (at least to me) a profound insight to an addictive brain. 

Quote “A number of psychiatric disorders, including substance dependence, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, psychopathy, pathological gambling and bipolar disorder, are characterised by impulsive and risky decision-making.

People with these disorders often find it difficult to control behaviours that offer immediate reward but poor long-term outcomes.”

What they find is: with the bipolar subjects, they are more motivated towards immediate rewards that pay really well but have poor long term consequences than lesser paid reward but works out in the long run.

This is also shown by their brain scan images. Imagine there’s a part of your brain (ventral striatum) becomes activated when you get excited and considered about an immediate reward and if getting this reward is risky then it activates another part of the brain (dorsal striatum) responsible for weighing the consequences of getting it now or not or choose one that is a safer bet. It turns out in bipolar subjects their ventral striatum area responsible for immediate rewards lights up more when betting in a risky task which may give lucrative return compared to healthy control. In contrast, the healthy control lights up different part of their brain - the dorsal striatum as they weigh in the long term consequences and choose the safer bet. This suggests that the decision making is impaired in the bipolar subjects and skew them towards anything that yield immediate reward regardless of consequences. There is also a high percentage of bipolar people having addictions problem. Other studies have shown other addicts such as alcoholics also have higher ventral striatum activity than dorsal activity.

Imagine bipolar people and people with addictions share similar neural circuit deficit. This means we (the pathological gamblers/addicts) are more motivated towards anything that gives immediate reward or pleasure. This means our motivation can be misdirected as we do not consider, or our brain does not process, long term goals properly. This is why anything that gives us short term immediate reward excites us!

This is why when I used to gamble on pokies machines and was chasing losses, I couldn’t stop withdrawing money from the ATM until all my savings had been drawn out. Because my brain is like “I want it now, I want to win, win back the losses now!” and ignore the long term consequences that I would lose all those money. Because once I gamble, it is like the water tap, once I turn it on, it gets loose and all the water starts gushing out and I have difficulty turning it off. Simply because immediate reward come first and the brain, while enjoying this reward/rush, has difficulty processing consequences.   

This is why I feel abstinence from gambling is important because the brain loves immediate reward, has clouded judgement about limits and likely to ignore long term consequences. The more I gamble, the more I lose and the more I couldn't stop. Whereas I am now in abstinence from gambling, although the cravings during the initial phases of quitting gambling was very high, it eventually went away and reduced. The "tap" remained closed.

This is also why I feel so much more motivated in going to sample a great café next day (because I love coffee) than working at uni on a project that I think isn’t going to work. Coffee = immediate reward; negative view on a project = feels like a non-rewarding long term goal.

This is also why even when I am in abstinence from gambling, my brain still loves a game of chance. Recently, McDonalds have this monopoly promotion where you can win instant or collect to win prizes. I recalled that I do get some “feel good rush” even when anticipating and collecting the stickers and winning instant prizes. My brain is susceptible to immediate rewards and pleasure. But this profound insight has great implications. It means that perhaps we can modify long term goals that are unappealing and break them into smaller attractive goals that give you immediate reward and redirecting that motivation. For example work sucks (unattractive long term goal) which might make one escape back to gambling pokies (immediate reward), we can reframe work and make it seems attractive. Remember it is all about perception, you can change your perception and you can change how you view a task. I will elaborate on how changing your perception and thinking can change how your body function next time.

This is also why even when some people quit gambling on pokies machine, they buy lottery tickets or scratches, they smoke, they binge eat, they compulsively shop online, drink alcohol excessively etc. They are all “rewards” that can be immediately executed and perhaps, satisfied.

Understanding your addictive brain maybe neural-anatomically different than other people and how your motivation is being misdirected is important. I am not sure if we are born like this or once you started gambling, it induces changes in the brain that makes it become like this. I hope this sheds a few light on your situation too and help you in your recovery.