On Jan 2, 2009, at 9:42 AM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
And it can be triggered by completely innocent actions on the part of
the "soon-to-be" compulsive gamblers. Anyone with RLS (Restless Leg
Syndrome) may be at risk for becoming a compulsive gambler, at
least if
neither they nor their doctor happens to be aware of one of the more
bizarre side effects of the drugs used to treat the condition.
See, for
example:
http://www.mdvu.org/emove/article.asp?ID=920
http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2007-rst/3918.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/08/09/primarysource/
entry3152310.shtml
As some shrinks have observed, compulsive gamblers of any sort tend to
be very reluctant to talk about their problems, and often try to hide
their compulsion from friends, family, and doctors. Consequently the
number of "victims" of this particularly strange side effect may be a
great deal larger than the number of documented cases.
Addictive behaviours of all sorts seem to be closely tied together
from
the point of view of what's going on in the brain, and messing with
the
dopamine receptors is never a good idea.
Thanks very much for posting the above references. I have RLS. If
confronted with the need for such medication I'll opt for a non-
dopamine agonist like gabapentin. BTW, contrary to some popular
wisdom, RLS is a very real thing and readily diagnosed in a sleep lab
by the presence of leg tremors at regular intervals. The interval
duration and separation in the trace for me was amazingly uniform and
the trace looked like it was generated by a signal generator.
Even given the above and various other physiological causes of
gambling addiction, I still think there is a serious need to
scientifically determine just how many problem gamblers would not
have been exposed to their problem if they knew the full truth about
gambling machines, and to determine how effective proper training in
this regard can be in assisting treatment of existing patients. It
is also clearly important to determine what means is effective for
training the non-addicts who lose the other 70% of the money.
State lotteries also are funded in part by compulsive gamblers, and in
fact generally "tax" the least well to do the most heavily. This is
highly unfair; the lotteries are among the most regressive of taxes.
Yes, indeed, especially when the time between bets are short.
Monthly lotteries are not so bad. Lotteries are much better than
state sponsored casinos.
Unfortunately, they are politically far more popular than the more
"fair" graduated income tax, and in fact the people lotteries hurt
worst
are exactly the ones who want states to continue to offer them.
So sad.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
