A recovery from a gambling disorder can be seen as one of the more serious problems in all addictions. Having no substance to remove, pathological gamblers are subject to lots of potholes in the road to recovery. Experts call these hurdles “negative recovery capital,” and they all have the possibility to derail a recovery. The study was conducted by Belle Gavriel-Fried and Niva Lev-el at the Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University, and was funded by a grant from the International Center for Responsible Gaming in 2017. The study is the first effort to map these elements across various domains pertinent to the recovery process. The study found that some of the most serious hurdles to a recovery are technology-related—either a negative response from the patient’s circle of social media contacts, or a withdrawal from those networks.
The study was published in the 27th edition of The Wager, a publication of the Cambridge Health Alliance Division on Addictions at Harvard Medical School. To obtain a copy of the study, visit https://link. springer.com/article/10.1007/s10899-021-10016-3.
