Helpful Strategies to Cope with Cravings among Problem Gamblers by Rory Reid, PhD

This session focuses on specific ways to cope with cravings including challenging irrational thoughts, reorganizing the relationship with cravings, ways to address triggers, and mindfulness-based strategies.
Efforts to abstain from gambling will invariably be met with cravings and urges to gamble. This is common and unavoidable in gambling recovery work. Cravings can emerge as part of the natural withdrawal process as the brain and body adapt to a reduction in the neurochemical ‘high’ associated with gambling.
Cravings can also be linked to a multitude of internal and external triggers gamblers encounter in everyday life. Insofar as cravings have been linked to attrition in therapy, relapse, and severity of problem gambling behaviors, it is imperative gamblers be given helpful coping strategies to address cravings.
Dr Rory Reid
Asst. Professor of Psychiatry/ Neuropsychology Research Psychologist, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, UCLA Dept of Psychiatry
Dr Reid is an International Certified Gambling Counselor and sees patients at the Gambling Addiction Treatment Center of Las Vegas. He was appointed to serve on the Nevada Board of Examiners for Alcohol, Drug and Gambling Counselors by the Nevada Governor and has published numerous research articles on problem gambling in scientific journals.
Dr Reid has worked with hundreds of individuals, couples, and families negatively impacted by various addictions and other mental health issues.
Visit the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling for more information like this as well as resources for help in the State of Nevada.
www.nevadacoun...