Recovery from Gambling Addiction: Lesson learnt from Silvia's experience #2: Understanding anticipation and its relations to "feel good" signal

Understanding anticipation and its relations to "feel good" signal (a.k.a dopamine)

From previous posts, I mentioned somehow I kind of subconsciously overwrite my cravings to gamble and intrusive gambling thoughts with cravings for sugar or good food.

For example, once I learn about a cafe that serves great coffee with rave reviews, I started to anticipate that I would go and visit the cafe the following day. I get a little"high" or a tiny uplift with slight raising in intensity.

After reflecting on this "high", I came to realise it was very similar to the feeling I get:


i) when  I decided I have the money and wanted to gamble, took the money and heading off to the venue, I could feel this feeling inside me raising in intensity while I was on my way to the venue.

ii) when I was chasing losses and went out of the venue to withdraw money and couldn't wait to get back to the pokies machine, same thing I could feel the eagerness and anticipation of how much I could win or hopefully I break even.

iii) On a spur moment decided to head into a gambling venue (e.g. pub), walking towards a pokie machine, I could feel this raising intensity too.

So do you, someone who have a gambling disorder, feel this too?

Of course, by being a scientist, my inquisitive brain naturally decided to hit the google and the scientific journals for an answer or a correlation of some sort. My hypothesis was: this anticipation to gamble or to do favourable activity may also raises dopamine levels in the brain, same way of how near-misses on the pokie machine might have make your dopamine spikes too. Or anticipating a good dopamine rush once you arrive at the venue to start gambling. Recalling dopamine is a feel good chemical, anticipating doing something you eagerly want or like, makes you feel good and better, explaining the raising intensity.

And yes, I was somewhat on the right track. in this article Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music , confirms that during anticipation, you do get a good dopamine release.

I also found these two articles: Could Dopamine be the Most Evil Chemical in the World? and this: Are we addicted to anticipation not reward?. Quote "It’s the uncertainty of the reward that drives behaviour and for humans that reward anticipation can last on the short timescale of slot machines at Las Vegas to the decades long anticipation of heaven’s unearthly estate for many."

Quote "If you are addicted, then apparently you are not addicted to the substances and activities you crave, nor to the nicotine of cigarette smoke" " You are, in fact, addicted to the dopamine and its effects."

The article suggests that the brain anticipate the dopamine reward, and is "addicted" to its effects, this could also explains why sometime  we loose control over gambling, why we subconsciously open that "floodgate" to chase losses, how we go from someone who think twice of buying a $6 loaf of sourdough bread to one who brainlessly put in thousands of dollars into the pokie machine and wouldn't stop. It wasn't about winning or loosing, it was about that dopamine effect the brain is after.

The article also stated the reason why it was hard to quit. Quote "if all these things we crave simply plug into our dopamine reward system, then why is it so difficult for a chocoholic to stop eating chocolate and take up jogging instead? Surely, they will both trigger the desired dopamine release? Well, the whole issue of anticipating and receiving the reward is tied in at a subconscious level as we learn to associate a particular stimulus, eating chocolate say, with the reward. It is possible to get the same buzz from jogging as others do from chocolate. But, switching between the two and getting the same anticipation and buzz is difficult."

Indeed, to overwrite this program of compulsive gambling, it requires you to overwrite with an activity that will tuck it deep into your subconscious. If you are conscious to change, that's not enough because your body will resist it when you do it deliberately, think when you were force to exercise, you naturally associate unhappy feeling with it, therefore in order for successful "reprogramming", you need to get it into the deep root of subconscious.

Some of you might notice, when you're not gambling, you turned to smoking or you have a smoking problem. I believe "addiction can transfer/transform from one form to another", like the brain knew which activity will enable a good amount of feel good chemicals released, and if the first activity is not accessible (e.g. gambling), they will scan and look for the next one (e.g. smoking).

You can learn to overwrite "bad programming" (e.g. pathological gambling) in your brain. It could be as easy as getting into an activity you naturally like, or any activities you can anticipate and loving it subconsciously. Go start doing something you once love or pick up something new, start day by day anticipating how you will do it, when you will do it, what you need to get to do it, and intensify that feeling of happiness and greatness once you complete it. It takes time for the brain to be re-conditioned so be patience. If you like music. then learn to enjoy music more, anticipate the climax of the song, sing a long, loving what you enjoy should be effortless.

Look, I once lost my motivation "program" in my brain for work and this reduces the feel good chemicals in my brain (motivations is related to dopamine reward system), I replaced it with quick feel good dopamine rushes from pokies machines. This quick rush is not a good thing as the brain gets too pampered and decided it wanted more and more each time for me to feel happy. I gambled more and more with increasing bet credits, $5 max bet "made" me feel better than 25 cents bet. I completely wrecked my happiness and reward system in my brain and every other activities just didn't seem to make me feel as good.

Until I learn to feel good again doing something I used to like, strangely it was the love for food and cafe hopping. My cravings for gambling drops and was surprisingly replaced with sugar and caffeine cravings lol. Sugar addiction is a real thing. But I have better control for sugar addiction than gambling with lots of money.

Why do I have better control for sugar addiction? I train in gym, I make an effort to eat healthily, I watch my figure, I work in health research field and understand adverse effects of obesity and all these thinking I "program" into my brain and my subconsciously gets it. Therefore I have better discipline for sugar than gambling.

Next I would like to ask you fellow readers, "What is in your inner programming"? What have you program subconsciously in the brain? Was it "if I don't have enough money, I can go "invest" and win the at the pokies machine" or "all i could think of is gambling because it "normalised" me, I felt peaceful there, no worries, no anxiety, but happy" or "I will never be able to quit gambling" or "if I feel bad, or need a hideaway, gambling is the perfect way of escape".

It is wise to be aware of your negative inner programs, then you will learn how to overwrite them with positive ones. This is what I believe, the true cure of addictions lie in fixing the broken inner core, including those "bad programming" you did to yourself consciously or subconsciously, or those subconsciously picked up by your brain because it was biased to "feel good" signals or "feel bad" signal. Otherwise, addictive behaviour may never be resolved and could transform from one form to the other.

I know I can write a very long blog. I hope it is readable. Please pardon me as my english is so-so, if any readers would like to re-write my articles to make them more readable, please kindly drop me an email.

I hope you learn something or have an epiphany moment.

Till next day,

Stay well and start getting awesome,

Silvia