Addiction is something that may seem inevitable, but at the end it’s entirely the fault of a person who is addicted. In the article, “the power of habit” by Charles Duhigg, it states how Angie Bachmann became addicted to gambling and how it was entirely her fault because she kept accepting the offers from casinos and many other reasons. Both the casino and Angie knew what they were doing by Angie letting herself get into the situation and the casino encouraging it. She started out as a well-settled housewife. When everybody left the house, she ended up all alone without having much to do. Because of this, one day, as she was passing through the streets, she decided to visit a casino for a change. “She knew gambling could lead to trouble, so …show more content…
The regular habit loop gave her the pleasure when she visited the casino and the reward system in the brain was controlled and brought back to normal. Angie couldn’t control the impulse to gamble even though she knew that her gambling was hurting her loved ones. The relationships were strained and all she thought about was ‘Gambling’ whether she was up or down. It takes courage to stop an addiction, especially if you have lost a big amount of money and broke the relationships by that time. But compulsive gamblers (addicted to gambling) go through a problem of being totally out of control. It disrupts their lives, but still they won’t prefer to stay off the bet. The same case applied to Angie. She was so preoccupied with gambling that she wasted both her time and money, despite the serious consequences. There was an experiment done with rats to help visualize the case, “The rat park residents, however, resisted drinking the narcotic solution, no matter how sweet the researchers made it. While they occasionally imbibe(females more than males), they consistently showed a preference for straight water, And when the groups were compared, the caged isolated rats drank up to sixteen times more than the park residents.” (pg 167, Lauren Slater) In this experiment from the article “The rat park“ by Lauren Slater, the rats were kept in a cage and were addicted to the morphine-laced water, then they had to …show more content…
The first was to overcome her loneliness, second was to numb unpleasant feelings, third was to get rid of the isolation that she felt when she was at home and lastly, that feeling that developed when she visited the casino, it gave her happiness which was as a result of the rush of dopamine in her brain.“Years later, after she had lost everything and had ruined her life and her husband’s, after she had thrown away hundreds of thousands of dollars and her lawyer had argued before the state’s highest court that Angie Bachmann gambled not by choice, but out of habit, and thus shouldn’t bear culpability for her losses,.....I honestly believe anyone in my shoes would have done the same things,” (pg 252, Duhigg) This quote explains how she lost everything in her life along with her parents and entire bank balance. Of course she gambled out of control but it was not by choice but by helplessness. She was pressurized as she was the only person dealing with the pain by herself. will put even more pressure on yourself . “Addiction in Alexander’s world is a lifestyle strategy, and like all human-constructed strategies, it’s malleable to education, diversion, opportunity. It’s a choice. (pg 170, Lauren Slater). The rats that were kept in the cage had no way except to like the morphine-laced water. This also applied with Angie. At home, she was like an isolated caged rat (kept apart from others).
The article, “The Power of Habit” (chapter 9), by Charles Duhigg, is about Angie Bachmann who was addicted to gambling. It all started one day when she felt so lonely that she decided to go out and play in the nearest casino. Angie started by setting rules just so she would not become addicted. As days went by Angie slowly started to break her rules and gambled more than what she should of have. Angie lost a lot of money. Although, Harrah’s casino would send her free stuff and vacation trips to get Angie to play more. Angie realized that she had a problem with gambling and went away for a time, but she went back to Harrah’s casino when her parents inherit her money. Angie lost all the money that she inherited and started to get loans
Expanding gambling can increase gambling addiction. Compulsive gambling addiction is a social issue that is related to gambling. In the past, compulsive gambling was thought of as an issue or behavior for adults. However, “today’s youth are the first generation to grow up in a society where gambling is legal, easily accessible, and in most cases government supported” (Monaghan & Derevensky 537). Gambling is often advertised in the media as a quick and easy way to “get rich” and is rarely seen
Sally Satel, author of “Addiction Doesn’t Discriminate? Wrong,” leads us down a harrowing path of the causes and effects that lead people to addiction. It can be a choice, possibly subconscious, or a condition that leads a person left fighting a lifelong battle they did not intend to sign up for. Mental and emotional health/conditions, personality traits, attitudes, values, behaviors, choices, and perceived rewards are just a few of the supposed causes of becoming an addict.
The first part of the video describes Pat, a 64-year-old retired field technician for a gas company. After he retired, he had a good deal of time on his hands and started to gamble frequently. After a year or two, he was going to the casino every day. Since seeing a woman hitting a progressive slot machine with a payout of 350,000, he became obsessed. Dr. Fong, an addiction psychiatrist, mentions, “40-50% of the risk to develop a gambling addiction comes from genetics.” I was taken by surprise to hear that such a high percentage comes from genetics. Come to find out, Pat’s father had an addictive personality as well. I was surprised by the fact that, after Pat had the realization of what he has done to his family, he seeks out help himself
When Jeanna became addicted so young she disrupted the normal development of the part of the brain that handles the abilities to plan ahead, handle complex tasks, and inhibit inappropriate behavior (Buzzed intro and Brain basics ppt slide 22). Jeanna showed the positive incentive theory of addiction. The hedonic value she gets from the methamphetamine does not equal the anticipated feeling. She expects the meth to make her feel numb, but she continuously has to take more and more of the drug to feel the same effect. As stated in our addiction powerpoint, “In chronic addicts, positive-incentive value of drug is out of proportion with pleasure actually derived from it” (Addiction ppt slide 9). This is important pertaining to the class because she is feeding her addiction more as she gains tolerance to the dosage of drug she initially took. The episode did not explain how severe her withdrawal was when Jeanna stopped using, but they did emphasize that she was using because of the pain of losing her son. I find this important because there is an emotional aspect to her drug abuse. She is numbing her emotional pain and this drives her to take more and more of the drug in order to reach the initial feeling she felt when she took meth the first time after her son
Addiction is defined as a chronic, relapsing brain disease that is characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Addiction is normally thought of as drug abuse and alcoholism but people can also be addicted to things such as gambling and sex as well. The controversy on if addiction is a disease or a choice is a continuous debate. Everyone has an opinion on this topic, one side believes it’s a disease, while the other believes it is a choice. Although addiction has been assumed to be a lack of willpower and a weakness, addiction is actually a complex disease that changes the wiring of the brain. Addiction is a brain disease expressed in the form of compulsive behavior (Leshner.) Both devolping
Gambling can be addicting.Gambling is something that I don't necessarily like.Gambling is a bad idea because once your addicted it then controls you.You can lose tons of money.For example, Pete Rose had gambled on himself, Pete would then no longer be able to be inducted into the baseball hall of fame.This is why gambling is a really bad idea for the world.Then you have more poor people buying the cards and trying to get rich, and most likely they end up failing and losing money.Yet, if the poor people do end up winning they do not spend the money wisely and end back where they started or even losing some money.
By understanding the golden mean, one can achieve a proper balance between insufficiencies and over-indulgence. Individuals who are able to control the amount of time and money they gamble are successfully able to achieve the golden mean. By giving oneself a sufficient amount of time and money to gamble, one shows that they are able to fulfill the virtue of temperance. Should the individual had not given themselves sufficient time and money to gamble, they would be deficient in the amount of temperance they should have exercised, which would be a vice. On the other hand, should the individual spend too much time and money on gambling, they would be in excess of the amount of temperance they should have used, which would also be a vice. Furthermore, many of the behaviors seen in compulsive gamblers would lead to more vices, since continuing to gamble would likely result in deficiencies in honesty and respect, and an excess in
Compulsive gambling is considered to be a type of impulse-control disorder. Even when the addict is aware that their addiction is negatively affecting their life, they cannot stop the impulse to gamble regardless of the consequences. The mental health community distinguishes between problem gambling and gambling addiction. Problem gambling is any gambling behavior that affects your life. Gambling addiction is where the person is unable to resist the impulse to gamble. The must gamble regardless of the consequences. A common myth is that problem gamblers have to gamble every day. When in reality it can be either frequent or infrequent. It is normally cyclic. Where there are periods of gambling, followed by rest periods and then back to gambling. People can go for months without gambling and still be considered to have a gambling addiction (Saison).
In the article “ The Neurology Of Free Will” by Charles Duhigg , Angie Bachmann is responsible for her gambling addiction and her actions . Bachmann addiction changes her life because she made a wrong decision in her life. Angie Bachmann life was routine , reward , and cue. She was responsible for addiction because she could control herself and nothing of this situation would happen to her if she would ask for help by solving her addiction . Angie Bachmann got out of control because she would go to the casino to play games and Bachmann sometimes would win or lose . Angie Bachmann’s was bored and she decides to enjoy her life . After she took her first to the casino, Bachmann started going with a riverboat once a week and that’s where her
He ran a series of experiments that he called Rat Park. The experiments led him to conclude that drugs like heroin and cocaine don’t cause addiction, the user’s environment does. Alexander constructed Rat Park with wheels and balls for play, plenty of food and a mating space, with 16 rats of both sexes mingling with one another. He tested a variety of theories using different experiments to show that the rat’s environment played the largest part in whether a rat became addicted to opiates or not. In the experiment, the social rats had the choice to drink fluids from one of two dispensers. One had plain tap water, and the other had a morphine solution. He found that the caged rats ingested larger doses of the morphine solution, more than Rat Park rats. The Rat Park rats preferred the plain water. Even when the rats in cages were fed nothing but morphine water and then moved to Rat Park, the rats voluntarily went through withdrawal. Based on the findings, the team concluded that the drugs do not cause one’s addictions. Rather, how a person’s environment feeds their addiction. Feelings isolated, lonely, hopeless, or a lack of control based on unsatisfactory living conditions is what make a person dependent on substance addiction. Alexander once said, " I f I lived like that in a cage, I'd get as high as possible too."(Duhigg 10) Alexander’s goal was to prove that drugs do not cause
Main Point: What defines an addiction? According to Psychology Today, “Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance…. or engages in an activity….that can be pleasurable but the continued use/act of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work, relationships, or health.” This can range anywhere from drug use to eating disorders, to gambling, to even texting in today’s generation. Shocking to say the least, especially when most people do not even know they are addicted or are an addict until they realize this definition.
Angie Bachmann started out as a bored housewife that could not stand being by herself. She has three daughters that were constantly hanging out with friends, and not spending enough time with their mother. Her husband is a land surveyor, often left for work at eight and did not get home until six; he was also not as supportive as he should have been. This soon led to a craving for gambling since a new casino opened up close by. She thought tha...
One of them was to overcome her loneliness, second was to numb unpleasant feelings, third was to get rid of the isolation that she felt when she was at home and lastly that feeling that developed when she visited the casino, it gave her happiness which was as a result of rush of dopamine in her brain. “Addiction in Alexander’s world is a lifestyle strategy, and like all human-constructed strategies, it’s malleable to education, diversion, opportunity. It’s a choice. (pg 170, Lauren Slater) The rats kept the cage were all alone and had no way except liking the morphine-laced water. Same was with Angie, at home she was like an isolated caged rat where she could not find any other alternative that could entertain her. Here morphine-laced water and gambling were like a reward system, the only choice that they had was to accept what was offered to them. Angie chose gambling as a short term happiness, and never thought about the long term
One thing people don’t realize is how serious compulsive gambling is. I personally am one who suffered through a great deal of distress to my addiction to gambling. People think compulsive gamblers are weird and messed up low life’s who have nothing better to due with their time. The average person thinks that there is no way he or she would ever be stupid enough to get to the point whe...