Angie Bachmann's Article: The Power Of Addiction

Addiction is something that may seem inevitable but at the end it’s entirely the fault of a person who is addicted. In the article by Charles Duhigg ‘the power of habit’ Angie Bachmann got addicted to gambling, it was because of her fault as she kept accepting the offers from cassino and many other reasons.. Both knew what they were doing but still Angie let herself get into the situation, and the casino encouraged it. She was a well settled housewife, when everybody used to leave the house she was all alone. One fine day, while passing through the street she took a visit to casino just for a change. “She knew gambling could lead to trouble, so she set strict rules for herself. No more than one hour at the blackjack table per trip.” (pg 247,
Angie couldn’t control the impulse to gamble even though she knew that her gambling was hurting her loved ones. “Years later, after she had lost everything and had ruined her life and her husband’s, after she had thrown away hundreds of thousands of dollars and her lawyer had argued before the state’s highest court that Angie Bachmann gambled not by choice, but out of habit, and thus shouldn’t bear culpability for her losses,.....I honestly believe anyone in my shoes would have done the same things,” (pg 252, Duhigg) The relationships were strained and all she thought about was ‘Gambling’ whether she was up or down. It takes courage to stop an addiction especially if you have lost a big amount of money and broke the relationships by that time. But compulsive gamblers (addicted to gambling) go through a problem of being totally out of control. It disrupts their life but still they won’t prefer to stay off the bet. Same problem was with Angie, she was preoccupied with gambling and so spent a lot of money and wasted her time on it, despite serious consequences. “The rat park residents, however, resisted drinking the narcotic solution, no matter how sweet the researchers made it. While they occasionally imbibe(females more than males), they consistently showed a preference for straight water, And when the groups were compared, the caged isolated rats drank up to sixteen times more than the park residents.” (pg 167, Lauren
One of them was to overcome her loneliness, second was to numb unpleasant feelings, third was to get rid of the isolation that she felt when she was at home and lastly that feeling that developed when she visited the casino, it gave her happiness which was as a result of rush of dopamine in her brain. “Addiction in Alexander’s world is a lifestyle strategy, and like all human-constructed strategies, it’s malleable to education, diversion, opportunity. It’s a choice. (pg 170, Lauren Slater) The rats kept the cage were all alone and had no way except liking the morphine-laced water. Same was with Angie, at home she was like an isolated caged rat where she could not find any other alternative that could entertain her. Here morphine-laced water and gambling were like a reward system, the only choice that they had was to accept what was offered to them. Angie chose gambling as a short term happiness, and never thought about the long term