The only requirement for Gamblers Anonymous membership is a desire to stop gambling.
I believe that compulsive gambling is a lot like having an addiction to a drug or alcohol because it is something that you cannot just stop doing when you feel like it. Just like having an addiction to drugs and alcohol, people that addicted to gambling also feel that there life is hopeless. They may think about suicide because they have gotten themselves so far into debt that they truly feel that there is no way out of it and there is no help out there for them. But even though they feel hopeless, there is a way out, just like there is for the people addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Compulsive gambling is an illness, progressive in its nature, which can never be cured, but can be arrested.
The Gamblers Anonymous concept is that compulsive gamblers are really very sick people who can recover if they will follow to the best of their ability a simple program that has proved successful for thousands of other men and women with a gambling or compulsive gambling problem. The compulsive gambler needs to be willing to accept the fact that he or she is in the grip of a progressive illness and has a desire to get well. Using their own will-power to stop their gambling isn't enough. Gamblers anonymous has found that will power and self-knowledge will not help in those mental blank spots, but adherence to spiritual principles seem to solve our problems. Most of us feel that a belief in a Power greater than ourselves is necessary in order for us to sustain a desire to refrain from gambling.
Some gamblers have a concern about their social lives going into turmoil if they were to stop their gambling. However, according to gamblers anonymous, many of our leaders in business, industry and professional life have attained great success without knowing one card from another or which way the horses run around the track. In the area of social relationships, the newcomer will soon find a keen...