You have great command of this. As I was saying, food is a necessity, so it is obvious that the treatment of food addiction does not have to be cessation, but is actually more about the role the agent is playing in one's life. Treating addiction is always about working on the addict's relationship to the agent, and often about quitting the agent.

Shopping addiction: don't have to quit shopping for life.
Work addiction: don't have to quit working to treat.
Gambling addiction: if it's sucker stuff playing against at a big disadvantage and you can't afford it, need to quit.
Alcoholism: need to quit
Heroin: need to quit
Meth: need to quit
Food: can't quit, need to adjust relationship to food while continuing to eat


Etc.

You bolded the part that completely contradicts your previous post where you said it “can’t be” cessation.

The poor examples you give also demonstrate why you’re wrong. People need to work, shop, and eat. You seem to understand that and note they need to adjust how they do those things to address the addiction. Alcohol, heroin, and meth are not necessities to life and you acknowledge people need to quit them (incidentally, this also conflicts with your assertion that addiction treatment can’t be cessation).

Which brings us to gambling and the actual issue in this thread. You seem to deviate from you’re criteria for needing to quit or not as it relates to gambling. Gambling is not necessary for life and should fall in the category of heroin, alcohol, and meth if that’s your criteria for cessation. Yet you have made an exception to allow for the non-necessary to life activity of gambling as long as you have an edge. Why is that?

If you explain your rationale in a non-contradictory fashion, it’d be a lot easier to understand your point. But you’re all over the map here.

Food addiction is not explicitly classified in the DSM-5 as an addiction, whereas gambling addiction is.

That really ends it as a meaningful discussion.

You sound like you take the DSM like fundamentalists take the Bible. In fact it is constantly in flux of being edited, improved, expanded. So if a person walks into a therapists office clearly presenting with an eating addiction, the therapist is to say, "Well, it's not specified in my book. So there is nothing meaningful to say about it?"

Of course a clinician has to a duty to consider each patients case on it's merits and treat them to the best of their ability.

But we're not in that context though are we.

Gambling addiction is something with a clear definition and a set of diagnostic criteria. Food addiction does not. Therefore, in the context of this debate, trying to conflate the two is a journey of flawed thinking and, as others have pointed out, will not lead to any meaningful debate or conclusions.

I clearly was saying an eating addiction can't be treated by cessation therapy, so therefore cessation strategy is only one aspect of addiction treatments. The standard for treatment is not whether something is a "necessity for life," but whether it is destructive to the individual's life. Meth is destructive, alcoholism is destructive, gambling degenerately is destructive but playing with an edge and winning is not nearly in the same category. Therefore, a gambling addiction that is winning money, even huge amounts of money, is not necessarily in need of cessation strategy.

There are millions of meaningful words to be said about food addiction, not zero. In fact, as you know, it is one of the most common ways in which people self-medicate. But this doesn't apply to our context here? Why not?

I've laid out my argument. I don't think food addiction meets the diagnostic criteria as an addiction, so I'm not interested in debating it's relevant merits in the present context.

Umm...post #26....you said food is a necessity and can’t be treated by cessation. Here you are saying necessity isn’t the criteria you’re using. I’ve met a lot of contrarians in my day but rarely ones who choose to be contrarians to themselves as much as you do.

You seem to have a very shortsighted view of gambling addiction. If someone has an edge and is winning money, you say it’s good and not destructive to their life. But suppose that person spends every waking hour in a casino to the detriment of his or her interpersonal relationships, or hygiene, or overall health; would you say that person’s gambling addiction is problematic even though they have an edge?

And I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that the person just needs to learn how to strike a balance in life and blah blah blah. Can the same be said for the alcoholic? Or the meth addict? Or the heroin addict? What if they are able to find a balance? Should they just do that instead of completely stopping? If not, why not?

Jeezus. It is a simple fact that an eating disorder cannot be treated long term with cessation. I did not say "and this is the only standard on earth." We apply the appropriate standards to various situations. So when the question is: "Can we treat all addictions with cessation?" ... the answer is, "No, for example, an eating addiction cannot be treated in this way, so therefore, we need other strategies in the addiction game." When the question is: "What are the important standards to determine whether a habit, obsession or addiction needs treatment?" ... at the top of the list is, "Is the habit destructive to the person's life, health and wellbeing?" For you to say I am a contrarian to myself because there are different answers and standards is just overt oversimplification.

It's not degenerate gambling if a person is playing with an edge. Of course it can be problematic in other ways, but playing with an edge is not destructive. Of course other elements can be destructive, and still with them, the standard is whether it is destructive. In such a case as you cite it isn't degenerate gambling, but a wasting of one's life, a neglect of other more important areas, excess instead of balance, hurting others, unhealthiness, etc. This applies to every endeavor under the sun pretty much, so it hardly needed to be spelled out. Hello.

I already classified alcoholism, meth, crack etc. as inherently destructive. They are inimical to health of the body/brain. Cessation is required for health in such cases, and we realize this by understanding the multiple and appropriate realities of the various agents.

We’re getting nowhere. Gl.

GL to you as well. I wasn't just arguing for the sake of being argumentative. I knew a Freudian analyst octogenarian who had seen most everything in her career, including treating pro athletes in NYC, but she was old school and more than a little set in her ways. She just could not see the gambling with an edge thing, and to her it always came back to degenerate gambling addiction. So I got a hard on for the issue. She truly was awesome. In my reading any word I came across that was unknown to me I would quiz her on it for fun. She got every one instantly for years. She would joke, "I'm old as dirt. I know everything." Finally one of them stumped her ... I can't remember what it was. I do remember it was a Jungian term, and she didn't like Jung but loved Freud, so that made sense. But she didn't make this distiinction well at all that you could be "gambling" in a casino with a positive expectation. It all got thrown under the umbrella of a gambling problem. She didn't see it. She had a blind spot. Thus I questioned OP here as to whether a similar thing was happening.

I am winning big, I am crushing this game, yesterday 200$ under EV but still up 600$, I play with 0.25$ ante, but I have big problem, many times I have won like 1000$ in a day or two, then I move up to 1$ ante and tilt it all away, if I only I could control that it would be great. I am moving ove rto pokerstars as there I can set a limit that dont allow me to play above a set limit, hopefully that will solve my problem somewhat. Yes, its a foolproof plan, I am going to be rich soon

Hi, first of all, congratulations, you've made it further than most people, the worst thing is to admit the gambling problem, and you not even admitted it, but also took responsibility and went to therapy. amazing, 10/10.
I think the person who listens to you in therapy is licenced, they know what they're doing, trust them if they say something to you that you maybe don't want to hear. The hardest conversations are those we need to have the most. If your therapist is seeing you as "have bad control system" and would not succeed in "just playing a lil", then you should trust them and quit, they only want to help you. But the thing is, you can only be helped to the point where you allow it. If you only go halfway, you can fall right back in and have it even worse. Trust me, I know. I also recommend for you to educate yourself on topic problematic gambling. I would recommend various articles, books. I found most helpful this Responsible gambling these articles are really easy to read, it least I found them easy to read and helped me to understand a lot of things. Hope this helps you too.

Gambling is the thrill of the chase, its exciting/thrill seeking as well as trying to make a dollar or two.
Normal life can lets face it can be boring at times, gambling is part of the entertainment industry.
If you cant control yourself, tough, I cant find much sympathy I'm afraid.
If you are losing all your money look elsewhere for your excitement.

its* merits.

Could you elaborate on why you don't think food addiction is an addiction, despite the APA listing it as one?

.

You need to set aside the word addiction. How about it's a self destructive compulsive habit.

I sense you have to much faith in mental health professionals. They have shown themselves to not be anywhere near being on point when it comes to treating mental health.





As far as treating these compulsions ie addictions. You use neuroplasticity to rewire your brain for new habits. Meditation and affirmations are king of this so far, eventually we will have much faster routes to fix these problems tho. This is the best way to reprogram your brain for new habits.

Care to share any factual evidence to support these claims?