alt Hacker NewsSomebody said (I think it was FrostPrime) roughly: Gambling is genuinely the scariest drug, I actually think it's worse than cocaine and it's just right there on your phone.
I think that really framed the issue well to me. Imagine having an addiction problem and having to carry the problem substance around with you 24/7.
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The other one on that list is food (or, using food to cope with trauma, resulting in an addiction).
You have to eat to survive, but when it becomes your only source of peace or happiness and/or you get addicted to it … very bad things happen and it’s very hard to moderate.
Imagine having a gambling addiction and trying to watch sports! I swear every third commercial is for gambling.
and also blasted into your face at any opportune moment (TV, billboards, print media, in person conversations)
When a gambling addict spends money on a bet, they're actually spending that money on a moment of hope. After the bet is placed but before the cards fall, they can live in a place where there is at least a possibility that they can make enough money to escape their problems. That moment of possibility is experienced as hope, and it's a feeling that's truly addictive to the hopeless.
It's scary like all addiction, but particularly sad at its core.
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> Gambling is genuinely the scariest drug
Every personality has something, it seems, that it tends to get addicted to if given the chance. Gambling has never been that to me. I get bored with most of the games and upset at losing money—even if I net win, I’m irritated about the incremental losses.
On the other hand, I have to manually keep track of how many days in a month I drink because if I don’t I’ll happily have half a bottle of wine every evening, and I think I know where that leads. (When I lose money in a casino I almost always translate that into a nice dinner. Which I will, invariably, enjoy far more than winning imaginary numbers.)