ENGLAND footballers take note: gambling is as addictive as smoking, drinking and taking narcotic drugs.
This controversial claim by German researchers is based on a study of hormone levels in men playing blackjack. The findings are important because many addiction researchers refuse to accept that behaviours can be physiologically addictive.
“Some people say you can’t have addiction unless you take a substance, but I would argue that gambling taken to excess is an addiction,” says psychologist Mark Griffiths, who studies behavioural addiction at Nottingham Trent University. “If you accept that, you then accept that sex, computer games, even gardening, can be addictive-it opens up the floodgates to everything else.”…
