We are not going to discuss whether gambling is good or not. People decide for themselves how to spend their lives and money. However, gambling addiction is without any question a terrible thing, and can have strong effects on people, especially students. We have collected a list of adverse effects gambling addiction can have on college students. You can use this information for your essay, or to help a friend, or maybe even yourself.
Inability to concentrate on something else
Gambling addiction, as any addiction, makes a person focused on one thing, and one thing only — an addiction matter. It can be alcohol, it can be drugs, it can be addiction to video games or gambling addiction. It is very hard to notice when “interest” ends and “addiction starts. Most of the people tend to think they have everything under control, they see everything that happens in their lives nice and clearly, but in fact, they don’t. Being focused on gambling is even worse than being focused on drinking. When drinking, you have a well-understood back strike — hangover, blackouts, health issues. It is not a remedy, but it, at least, makes you realize you are going into a completely wrong direction. When it comes to gambling addiction, things are more discrete. You don’t receive negative feedback too fast to stop on time.
Academic troubles, late submissions
It can be both the result of gambling itself and of addiction as a psychological state. Gambling is a process that requires time. It can be all about online games, poke with friends, poker in clubs, online casinos, gambling apps, sports gambling, even horse bets. No matter the field, it all requires time. Students want to follow the best closely, read comments, manuals, play, etc. It hardly leaves any time for studies. Also, academic life suffers because of psychological state. Gambling addiction blocks decision-making skills, makes a person restless, anxious. If a student starts realizing that he/she is in trouble, fear and guilt mix, blocking cognitive abilities. The best choice here is to address a psychotherapist or a student counselor first. However, not to stay behind in the learning process too much, it is also a good idea to use an essay writing service online if you need help from academic experts. A simple “pay someone to write my paper” can save your semester, and give you time to straighten things up.
Money issues, deep financial trouble
Even exceptionally rich people can lose all they have been addicted to gambling. What to say about college kids? Most of them have limited finances and at some point can’t support themselves. Lots of them dropout of college to find a side job, take loans in shady places, some even steal and get criminal records. And we are not talking only about extreme cases. Money problems make college students do stupid things, and the earlier such behavior is noted, the earlier it can be addressed. Attention to a student’s behavior is a must, as it is the most vulnerable stage in every person’s life — we want to live a fully adult life, and at the same time we don’t have enough experience and cognitive capacity to fight the most common temptations.
High anxiety levels, depression
With the amount of information available about gambling in particular and addiction in general, students know that what they do is ruining and will have consequences that are difficult to overcome. It raises the anxiety levels pretty high, and, unfortunately, students see dealing with this anxiety as too challenging and get even more sucked into gambling or another addiction. When it comes to addiction, replacing remedy with the cause of the problem is very typical. For example, alcoholics realize that drinking ruins their life, and get even more drunk, because thoughts about it are too painful to handle. Long-lasting struggle to fight addiction often leads to depression. Unfortunately, students often don’t have adequate access to mental health assistance, or feel embarrassed to ask for it in case of addiction-related problems. There is not one simple answer to this issue, as it should be addressed at a family, education institution and state levels. They often say that recognizing the problem is the first step to solving it, but it only works if the following steps are clearly seen and supported.
Lack of healthy communication
Much of this could be prevented with some help from friends and specialists, but people with gambling addiction lose connections very fast. Partially, they get too much absorbed with the game, partially, because they tend to lend money and not to give it back, partially, because they become aggressive to anyone expressing worries regarding the possible addiction.
We are not here to assign any blame, as any addiction is a disease, and it should be treated adequately, like a virus. The major idea is to be very attentive to your own behavior and your friends’ state, listen to others when they try to make some comments about your not too healthy hobbies and keep track of academic life and expenses.
