When Is Poker An Addiction?

[FARGOpokerND 22]

You have been quite the nice guy/peacemaker on this site the last couple of weeks...did you have some sort of an epiphany or something? I don't ever remember you being THIS nice before.

Moodswings.As long as no one scams me for $215 I am happy...

[dna4ever 2]

Ok, tell me why you think that? Because I stand by what I say. It's just selfishness.

I have no real reason for anything I post. I have just been looking for a place to post that .gif for a day or so now.

[outsider13 0]

Ok, tell me why you think that? Because I stand by what I say. It's just selfishness.There is no addiction. It's so very easy to shift the blame away from yourself, and blame things on an 'addiction' in todays society. Exactly the same can be applied to many things.. fat people claim they are addicted to food. No, they just like food. There's sex addiction. No, just a high sex drive. Exactly the same as gambling addiction. No, just a desire to win money and the rush of winning a big pot, or scooping a jackpot, or getting yourself out of debt, quickly, without working for it.I hate this attitude in todays society that people have, of always wanting to shift the blame away from themselves.. 'It's not me, it's the addiction', lol what a joke.I will never feel sorry for anyone who claims they have a gambling addiction, and wants pity for it. They can always go to one of the organisations who will gladly take more of your money to help you though (they'll tell you it's an addiction, oh yeah.. cha-ching!).I've said what I think, so I'll prob not bother replying to people who disagree, because I'll be repeating myself - I guess it's a forum which may attract people who have had issues of this nature, so I know they'll be many.Keep feeling sorry for yourselves though. Remember, it's not you, it's the 'addiction'

You are entitled to your opinion, but I think you are wrong. There is no chemical addition to gambling, but there is a psychological addiction. It's basically a compulsive behavior. There is a difference between gambling and chemical additions, but a lot of the traits are the same.This has been proven over and over again, so I hate to say it, you are wrong.And most of the so called organizations are free non-profit organizations. Getting help can be pretty easy and free, as long as you admit to yourself there is a problem.

[Acid_Knight 2]

Ok, tell me why you think that? Because I stand by what I say. It's just selfishness.There is no addiction. It's so very easy to shift the blame away from yourself, and blame things on an 'addiction' in todays society. Exactly the same can be applied to many things.. fat people claim they are addicted to food. No, they just like food. There's sex addiction. No, just a high sex drive. Exactly the same as gambling addiction. No, just a desire to win money and the rush of winning a big pot, or scooping a jackpot, or getting yourself out of debt, quickly, without working for it.I hate this attitude in todays society that people have, of always wanting to shift the blame away from themselves.. 'It's not me, it's the addiction', lol what a joke.I will never feel sorry for anyone who claims they have a gambling addiction, and wants pity for it. They can always go to one of the organisations who will gladly take more of your money to help you though (they'll tell you it's an addiction, oh yeah.. cha-ching!).I've said what I think, so I'll prob not bother replying to people who disagree, because I'll be repeating myself - I guess it's a forum which may attract people who have had issues of this nature, so I know they'll be many.Keep feeling sorry for yourselves though. Remember, it's not you, it's the 'addiction'

I agree with Outsider13 and what he said.Also, just becuase gambling can become an addiction to people, doesn't make them any less responsible for it. Fat people are responsible for their weight, unless there's some genetic component that causes them to gain weight, but whatever.Not everyone can develop a gambling problem becuase some people approach the situations differently. It is pretty conclusive though, that it is a bonified psychological problem and people who develop gambling problems often exhibit compulsive behaviors in other areas of their life as well. It's on them to recognize their problem and fix it. I don't have much (if any) sympathy for people who lose more than they can afford to at any form of gambling because they invariably know it's bad/wrong when they're doing it and they do it anyway. When they say "i couldn't help myself" or something similar, all that you have to say is: of course you could, but you chose not to.And like Outsider said, getting help is free. Gambler's anonomyous doesn't charge people to go like a fancy rehab center.

[Jeepster80125 0]

NO i do not see at all, nothing you are saying is at all relevent.... btw I'm not the addict.... it was my dad... get off your high horse ****knob.... you don't know everything...SURPRISE!...kill yourself, princess...

I don't think you realize how foolish you look right now. I'm not trying to say that I know everything. Although, you seem to be qualifying yourself as an expert on this subject because your dad was an addict? So you are attempting to speak with an air of authority like you know what's going on, but now the story is that you weren't even an addict, it was someone close to you?I just don't see the correlation to you being an expert on addiction, just because your dad was a junkie of some kind. It might be easier to swallow if you yourself was an addict and were trying to offer advice. I just feel like there isn't really much substance to what you say about addiction. It's like you're trying to give advice just because you know someone who has an addiction, and that's how you qualify your post. I'm just saying you don't seem to have any sort of experience dealing with this other than your dad, which doesn't really mean anything.I guess I got on your ass because your advice doesn't seem to be friend to friend, I thought you were attempting to present yourself as an expert on dealing with this sort of stuff, when it's painfully obvious you don't really know what your talking about, other than the fact that someone close to you was an addict.Make sense?

[FARGOpokerND 22]

I don't think you realize how foolish you look right now. I'm not trying to say that I know everything. Although, you seem to be qualifying yourself as an expert on this subject because your dad was an addict? So you are attempting to speak with an air of authority like you know what's going on, but now the story is that you weren't even an addict, it was someone close to you?I just don't see the correlation to you being an expert on addiction, just because your dad was a junkie of some kind. It might be easier to swallow if you yourself was an addict and were trying to offer advice. I just feel like there isn't really much substance to what you say about addiction. It's like you're trying to give advice just because you know someone who has an addiction, and that's how you qualify your post. I'm just saying you don't seem to have any sort of experience dealing with this other than your dad, which doesn't really mean anything.I guess I got on your ass because your advice doesn't seem to be friend to friend, I thought you were attempting to present yourself as an expert on dealing with this sort of stuff, when it's painfully obvious you don't really know what your talking about, other than the fact that someone close to you was an addict.Make sense?

To make a poker correlation...Jeep is comparing what you were saying about addiction...To Erik Ryland discussing poker. Just because you are around it, doesn't make you an expert.

[dapokerbum 0]

I don't think you realize how foolish you look right now. I'm not trying to say that I know everything. Although, you seem to be qualifying yourself as an expert on this subject because your dad was an addict? So you are attempting to speak with an air of authority like you know what's going on, but now the story is that you weren't even an addict, it was someone close to you?I just don't see the correlation to you being an expert on addiction, just because your dad was a junkie of some kind. It might be easier to swallow if you yourself was an addict and were trying to offer advice. I just feel like there isn't really much substance to what you say about addiction. It's like you're trying to give advice just because you know someone who has an addiction, and that's how you qualify your post. I'm just saying you don't seem to have any sort of experience dealing with this other than your dad, which doesn't really mean anything.I guess I got on your ass because your advice doesn't seem to be friend to friend, I thought you were attempting to present yourself as an expert on dealing with this sort of stuff, when it's painfully obvious you don't really know what your talking about, other than the fact that someone close to you was an addict.Make sense?

Maybe if you didn't always come off as being a condenscending jerk on this site then you wouldn't have to defend what you said to rile this guy up. I always try to ignore your posts and I will probably go on ignoring them after this but seriously if you don't like what someone says then tell them ... without being a full jerk. /hate of jeepster

[dapokerbum 0]

To make a poker correlation...Jeep is comparing what you were saying about addiction...To Erik Ryland discussing poker. Just because you are around it, doesn't make you an expert.

see this makes sense and doesn't come off as being rude.IMO

[chgocubs99 0]

Maybe if you didn't always come off as being a condenscending jerk on this site then you wouldn't have to defend what you said to rile this guy up. I always try to ignore your posts and I will probably go on ignoring them after this but seriously if you don't like what someone says then tell them ... without being a full jerk. /hate of jeepster

Jeepsters actually pretty harmless. He may take a lot of shots at people but they are usually deserved and he does it in a way that is actually intelligent and makes valid points, instead of with "throw yourself off a cliff" or the like.

[Snamuh 0]

NO i do not see at all, nothing you are saying is at all relevent.... btw I'm not the addict.... it was my dad... get off your high horse ****knob.... you don't know everything...SURPRISE!...kill yourself, princess...

My parents know I play poker and have seen me play poker, yet they know nothing about it. It's like you are trying to say you lived your dad's addiction vicariously through him. Doing something and knowing someone who has done something or watching someone do something is definitely not the same thing.

[Snamuh 0]

see this makes sense and doesn't come off as being rude.IMO

So comparing someone to complete douchebag scum (Ryland) is not rude but explaining to someone why they're not an expert is? Your logic is flawed.

[dapokerbum 0]

So comparing someone to complete douchebag scum (Ryland) is not rude but explaining to someone why they're not an expert is? Your logic is flawed.

i think the rude part is the condescending attitude in which the explanations are given...again only my opinion.

[Jeepster80125 0]

Maybe if you didn't always come off as being a condenscending jerk on this site then you wouldn't have to defend what you said to rile this guy up. I always try to ignore your posts and I will probably go on ignoring them after this but seriously if you don't like what someone says then tell them ... without being a full jerk. /hate of jeepster

I would normally give the guy a pass, but to post this...

What is it to be an addict... When you never measure the cost or risk (whether it's ODing, missing an important event for one of your children, borrowing money, missing classes and flunking out of college, stealing money) just putting your addiction before all things, anything to just fullfill your need, then think about everything afterwards. then spend ever minute of your life when you aren't fullfilling your addiction, either thinking about it, or running around, completely stressed out trying to put together pieces of your life, apologise, or make up for things that happened while you were off filling your addiction. You feel like while you're filling your addiction you want to be far away from your family or those close to you whom do not have the same addiction, or at least an affinity towards it. Your conscience is always eatingat you knowing your are doing wrong, knowing you are pushing people away, but you can't stop, because the more you do it the more it overcomes your mind, the more it eats at you and blocks out all other thoughts... It drives you crazy, it pulls everything out of you emotionally physically and mentally... It starts with one taste and grows and becomes a monster that turns your life into a disgusting pit of denile and greed that you can no longer control alone.

and then come out and say that he wasn't an addict actually, it was his dad, rubs me the wrong way. What the **** does bigcoled know about being an addict? (s)he knows about being the child of a junkie, which I don't feel is a situation that warrants making posts starting out with "What is it to be an addict..."I just want bigcoled to explain to me why being the progeny of an addict gives him the authority to be an expert on the subject.

Jeepsters actually pretty harmless. He may take a lot of shots at people but they are usually deserved and he does it in a way that is actually intelligent and makes valid points, instead of with "throw yourself off a cliff" or the like.

Thanks.EDIT:

i think the rude part is the condescending attitude in which the explanations are given...again only my opinion.

This subject is obviously one that means a lot and hits home with bigcoled. But it doesn't give him the right to talk like he's an expert. I don't even think he should be giving advice, especially because he qualifies himself with, "Well, my dad is a junkie so I know what I'm talking about."But yeah, I am being condescending, because I think people who don't really know what they're talking about shouldn't be dispensing advice under an air of authority that's obviously phony. It's disingenuous at best.

[bdc30 0]

Why do you guys take anything that bigcoled posts seriously, let alone getting in to a bitch-fest with him over it?Look at ANY of his posts or threads he's created. The guy's a joke.

[dapokerbum 0]

I would normally give the guy a pass, but to post this...and then come out and say that he wasn't an addict actually, it was his dad, rubs me the wrong way. What the **** does bigcoled know about being an addict? (s)he knows about being the child of a junkie, which I don't feel is a situation that warrants making posts starting out with "What is it to be an addict..."I just want bigcoled to explain to me why being the progeny of an addict gives him the authority to be an expert on the subject.Thanks.

I don't disagree with what you have said ... i just disagreed with how it comes across to the other person. i just think there are better ways to tell someone whaat you are thinking so that they don't get all riled up against you and it ends up in a flame war.

[chgocubs99 0]

Why do you guys take anything that bigcoled posts seriously, let alone getting in to a bitch-fest with him over it?Look at ANY of his posts or threads he's created. The guy's a joke.

Didn't remember who he was but just took your advice and you do have a point.

[Jeepster80125 0]

I don't disagree with what you have said ... i just disagreed with how it comes across to the other person. i just think there are better ways to tell someone whaat you are thinking so that they don't get all riled up against you and it ends up in a flame war.

That's what happens when you try to tell stupid people that they're stupid. It never goes across very well.I'm not trying to have a flame war, I just wanted to call out bigcoled because he's giving advice on a subject which he has no right to. He's invested because his dad is/was a junkie, so he thinks he can carry on an intelligent discussion. Anyone who has dealt with addiction and read bigcoleds "What it is to be an addict" rant knows he was a peripheral figure in this subject at best, and the whole situation probably wasn't as bad as he makes it.I'm perfectly capable of having a conversation or debate without being insulting. I'm hoping to bigcoled gets all fired up, because it'll be easier to point out all of the flaws in his arguments if he's insulted.To be fair, if the asshole didn't make a fake staking thread yesterday than I wouldn't have jumped on him so hard.

[Balloon guy 158]

I spent 16 months in a rehab house for drug / alcohol addiction.I've had friends die from drugs / alcoholI've known hundred of serious drunks and junkies.I think I am a pretty good judge of addictions.Gambler's anonymous has a place, because there are many people that need it.Bible says it best: "All things are lawful, but I will not be a slave to anything."Some people are also addicted to being right all the time. It annoys those of us that are.

[dapokerbum 0]

Didn't remember who he was but just took your advice and you do have a point.

2nd ... my apologies to Jeepster.:hangsheadinshameface:

[vbnautilus 48]

Jeepster, I think you are kind of off base on this one. I know where you are coming from in being upset that people use "addiction" to lay off responsibility for their actions, and the issue of free will within addiction is a gray area, but addiction to gambling is actually very similar to addiction to other things, including drugs. Gambling addicts display the same pattern of behavior in relation to gambling that drug addicts show in relation to drugs. There are even similar events within the brain. (Pretty much all addictable activities are accompanied by the release of dopamine in a brain region called the nucleus accumbens... if you let an animal stimulate dopamine release in this area directly they basically will not do anything else!) Certainly the process of becoming addicted requires some cooperation on the part of the person who is addicted, so I do not think being addicted means you are not responsible for what you do. However, once a behavior becomes a compulsion it can be very difficult to avoid doing. To the OP: I think you are asking the wrong question. Whether playing poker classifies as an addiction is really not so important in the end... I think the question should be: Is playing poker a problem for you? In other words, does it impact your life in a negative way, is it unhealthy for you.

[gatortom64 1]

Poker is when your wife/gf asks for sex and you try to figure if you will be done before your BB comes back around!!!

[Jeepster80125 0]

Jeepster, I think you are kind of off base on this one. I know where you are coming from in being upset that people use "addiction" to lay off responsibility for their actions, and the issue of free will within addiction is a gray area, but addiction to gambling is actually very similar to addiction to other things, including drugs. Gambling addicts display the same pattern of behavior in relation to gambling that drug addicts show in relation to drugs. There are even similar events within the brain. (Pretty much all addictable activities are accompanied by the release of dopamine in a brain region called the nucleus accumbens... if you let an animal stimulate dopamine release in this area directly they basically will not do anything else!) Certainly the process of becoming addicted requires some cooperation on the part of the person who is addicted, so I do not think being addicted means you are not responsible for what you do. However, once a behavior becomes a compulsion it can be very difficult to avoid doing. To the OP: I think you are asking the wrong question. Whether playing poker classifies as an addiction is really not so important in the end... I think the question should be: Is playing poker a problem for you? In other words, does it impact your life in a negative way, is it unhealthy for you.

You are misunderstanding me.I'm not opining on the subject of the OP. It was obvious to me that bigcoled, despite his attempt to qualify himself as an expert in addiction, is about as far from an expert in this field as it gets. That's what I'm here to share.I'm not going to discuss my opinions on addiction, whether gambling should be considered an addiction, or any other views, because it doesn't matter here. It's far too complex a subject, with many caveats, to properly discuss here.The only reason I made a post is because I don't think bigcoled should be handing out advice like he's been in a similar situation. The fact that his father was the junkie and not him, tells me that he's more emotionally invested in this subject, rather than trying to be knowledgeable about it.Basically, I'm only here to tell bigcoled to stop acting like he knows what's going on. He's just an idiot.EDIT: I'm almost willing to call BS on the dad-addict story. Look who has been absent the last few posts. Why would he mention himself when giving advice if his dad was the addict? Strange.

[psujohn 0]

Addiction and compulsion have specific medical meaning that don't apply to gambling. "Problem gambling (ludomania) is an urge to gamble despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. The term is preferred to compulsive gambling among many professionals, as few people described by the term experience true compulsions in the clinical sense of the word. Problem gambling often is defined by whether harm is experienced by the gambler or others, rather than by the gambler's behavior."Problem gambling is defined in terms of harm. If you're winning and it's not otherwise causing harm it's not problem gambling by definition. If you feel the urge to gamble when it's inappropriate (you need to work, spend time with family, etc) then that's harm. If you want to stop and feel like you can't that is also problem gambling.

[Balloon guy 158]

Not to cloud the water but in the 1970s homosexuality was a classified as a mental disorder. With a single vote the head doctors at their yearly convention voted that it was no longer a mental disorder.So if the psych docs will comply, we can cure all addictions by tomorrow.

[bdc30 0]

for those who don't know him...here's a couple of bigcoled's greatest hits (misses)I'm 25/381 in a $2.20 sng -- come rail!He was bored. Seriously.Don't even know how to title this gemEven DN gets in on the act hereTale of playing 2c/4cI could go on and on...