Stoke's Matthew Etherington under pressure to settle huge gambling debts

[Shaggy]

I've got a cold but since there isn't a drug that cures it I'm not a bit ill.

My grandmother died of cancer. She wasn't ill though, obviously.

[Dalglish]

Presumably we can add AIDS to the non illness list too.

[Chrono]

I've got a cold but since there isn't a drug that cures it I'm not a bit ill.

Not that I agree with Saj but for the sake of discussion do you think there will ever be a time where you can medicate gambling addictions or even treat them?

[Reece]

Presumably we can add AIDS to the non illness list too.

:candle: RIP YNWA

[Guest]

Not that I agree with Saj but for the sake of discussion do you think there will ever be a time where you can medicate gambling addictions or even treat them?

It's not just about medication Max, it's a bit more complex than that. There's counselling and the likes, which even though can avoid medical treatment, can still mean the treatment of a particular illness.

For example someone who's had a drug addiction is 'treated' in such a way that he loses that addiction by eradicating the remnants of the drug in his body by locking him away for some time. He's maybe medically treated but only for the symptom that manifest itself as a result of his body fighting off this sudden stop in drug consumption.

The whole discussion was about how people can be harshly antagonised because they suffer from this sort of stuff, that's what Shaggy is mainly intimating at, IMO.

[Chrono]

It's not just about medication Max, it's a bit more complex than that. There's counselling and the likes, which even though can avoid medical treatment, can still mean the treatment of a particular illness.

For example someone who's had a drug addiction is 'treated' in such a way that he loses that addiction by eradicating the remnants of the drug in his body by locking him away for some time. He's maybe medically treated but only for the symptom that manifest itself as a result of his body fighting off this sudden stop in drug consumption.

The whole discussion was about how people can be harshly antagonised because they suffer from this sort of stuff, that's what Shaggy is mainly intimating at, IMO.

Sorry, I'm not talking about any of that, you've gone off on a tangent. It was simply the question I asked; can medication ever be used on a gambling condition. Yes or no. I'm well aware how gambling addiction is currently treated, Fred.

[Neil Young]

Not that I agree with Saj but for the sake of discussion do you think there will ever be a time where you can medicate gambling addictions or even treat them?

That's a very mechanistic approach and I really don't think it's useful.

For a start, who knows what medicine will be like in a hundred years time? Today it doesn't look anything like it did in 1910. The link between mind and body is under constant review - who's to say there isn't even a genetic basis for gambling addiction? And even if there isn't, it doesn't mean it's wrong to treat it as an illness. There are plenty of instances where medicine has got something wrong, diagnosing physical problems as purely behavioural/mental problems and vice versa (for example, "female hysteria").

[Guest]

That's a very mechanistic approach and I really don't think it's useful.

For a start, who knows what medicine will be like in a hundred years time? Today it doesn't look anything like it did in 1910. The link between mind and body is under constant review - who's to say there isn't even a genetic basis for gambling addiction? And even if there isn't, it doesn't mean it's wrong to treat it as an illness. There are plenty of instances where medicine has got something wrong, diagnosing physical problems as purely behavioural/mental problems and vice versa (for example, "female hysteria").

I've forgotten you've lived many eras, 'O sage.

[saj]

Naive beyond belief, Dr Saj.

I've got a cold but since there isn't a drug that cures it I'm not a bit ill.

My grandmother died of cancer. She wasn't ill though, obviously.

Presumably we can add AIDS to the non illness list too.

With all of those mentioned above, the individual suffering from cancer, aids or whatever can have tests done to prove that they suffer from something as they are physcial illnesses. It shows in there blood, chromosomes, they get tumours etc etc. These physical illnesses can be cured or controllled with drugs or even removal of the actual tumour.

Whereas how can someone be proven to be an addict? They carry out studies where they scan the brains of gamblers and say things like "studies have found that that gambler have a slightly larger part of the left side of the brain". But if they carried out the same scans on every individual in the world, they would find that 99.9% of the people who had an enlarged left side of the brain were not gambling addicts. This is the reason why these studies are highly subjective and the exact reason why there will never be a medical cure. Are people addcicted to online gaming ill too?

Addiction is down to a deficiency in the individuals personality, hence the reason why counselling can work. I have OCD (similar to addiction) but yet I will never class that as an illness

[Neil Young]

I think you're getting hung up on definitions.

It's a common disease on this forum.

[dww]

Not that I agree with Saj but for the sake of discussion do you think there will ever be a time where you can medicate gambling addictions or even treat them?

First off: Saj's definition of an illness is clearly areas backwards. There is no one treatment that is universally efficacious against HIV and I'm fairly convinced that someone with AIDS is reasonably defined as being ill. The other arguments seem to pretty convincingly look like they could rule out diabetes (which has no single cause, no cure and can be dealt with by willpower based lifestyle changes in some cases and otherwise requires constant chemical intervention to alter the way the body operates).

I do think it is probably helpful to define important difference between mental and physical illnesses but they are not totally separable and certainly as Neill Young put it dealing with the former is made more effective when it is categorised as a medical condition or illness.

Depends what you mean it terms of medicating/treating addiction. I would imagine it is more that plausible to assume that a few key hormones or other parts of brain chemistry are involved and you could take something when you were in a situation where gambling might occur to prevent you craving it. In general I think behavioural treatment is more likely and can be effective. Certainly it's effectiveness could be compared to existing cancer treatments say.

[saj]

Not that I agree with Saj but for the sake of discussion do you think there will ever be a time where you can medicate gambling addictions or even treat them?

There may be medicine that can control it but there will never be a cure as it's psychological. The minute the person stops taking the medicine, the addiction would begin again. It's psychological symptoms that would need to be treated (i.e. counselling which can work)

[Chrono]

First off: Saj's definition of an illness is clearly areas backwards. There is no one treatment that is universally efficacious against HIV and I'm fairly convinced that someone with AIDS is reasonably defined as being ill. The other arguments seem to pretty convincingly look like they could rule out diabetes (which has no single cause, no cure and can be dealt with by willpower based lifestyle changes in some cases and otherwise requires constant chemical intervention to alter the way the body operates).

I do think it is probably helpful to define important difference between mental and physical illnesses but they are not totally separable and certainly as Neill Young put it dealing with the former is made more effective when it is categorised as a medical condition or illness.

Depends what you mean it terms of medicating/treating addiction. I would imagine it is more that plausible to assume that a few key hormones or other parts of brain chemistry are involved and you could take something when you were in a situation where gambling might occur to prevent you craving it. In general I think behavioural treatment is more likely and can be effective. Certainly it's effectiveness could be compared to existing cancer treatments say.

We've diverted somewhat anyway and I don't want to completely change direction but from what you have said you can clearly categorise those that can be medically treated and those that cannot. I think a change in lifestyle is really a medical change in terms of what you are consuming, etc.

When it comes to something like gambling is there likely to be a medical condition where you are highly likely to be a gambler or just varrying degrees of the same biological starting point. Assuming the later, would you really want to start treating something that was inherintly part of your psychological makeup. It's aking to removing the flight response as the trigger cannot be assumed to only relate to detrimental risk taking and nothing else.

[dww]

We've diverted somewhat anyway and I don't want to completely change direction but from what you have said you can clearly categorise those that can be medically treated and those that cannot. I think a change in lifestyle is really a medical change in terms of what you are consuming, etc.

When it comes to something like gambling is there likely to be a medical condition where you are highly likely to be a gambler or just varrying degrees of the same biological starting point. Assuming the later, would you really want to start treating something that was inherintly part of your psychological makeup. It's aking to removing the flight response as the trigger cannot be assumed to only relate to detrimental risk taking and nothing else.

I'm not sure of the real answers. To my mind the feedback setup in an addict seems to be markedly qualitatively different to normal behaviour. Obviously it is possibly simply a spectrum with no definable phenotype at the sort of cellular/chemical level necessary to medicate though. It could also be that certain types of neuronal connections are made which could be targetable or that in some cases it may be deemed serious enough that less specific treatment (as is performed with depression say) is worth the risk.

It's certainly not a simple question but I wouldn't altogether rule out treatment being possible. Even if I think our knowledge of the brain and neurological processing probably isn't anywhere near good enough to give us a rational starting point at present.

[dom9]

Addiction is not an illness but a weakness. I have no sympathy for addicts (be it drugs, alcohol or gambling). And why a premiership footballer gambles such high sums of money defies all logic considering the amount he earns. There's a million ways he can use his money - why doesn't he hire an Asset Manager to invest his money or something?

That is a truly clueless post.