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The psychodynamic approach to gambling
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In the movie Eddie and the rest of the gamblers are depicted as just normal people. They are not considered to be criminals to others or to each other. Eddie could be depicted as a tricky person, because of how he tries to influence people when playing them in pool. He is also an intelligent person that is highly skilled at what he does. Along with Minnesota Fats, another character that is very skilled in pool but not seen as a criminal or as an enemy. Minnesota Fats is viewed as a person of interest to the other characters because he is the best at pool and everyone wants to beat him. Eddies character changes when he is playing Minnesota Fats, the first time Eddie was very aggressive and cocky. Compared to the second time where Eddie was very …show more content…
focused on just winning the game and nothing else. It could be argued that the way Eddie acts in the movie effects how the other characters act or reflect in the movie. Giving Eddie the ultimate power and control over the way others are around him. After writing about all of these vast aspects of Eddie’s role in the movie, does the audience approve or disapprove of him? It could go either way, it depends on the audience member and how they view Eddie’s life style. But most audience members will probably consider him a likeable character. Due to the mainly to the fact that he makes money off pool games and has a girlfriend to share it all with. This provides the audience with something to relate to, it might be something that they hope will happen in their own lives later on in life. As mentioned before, after viewing the movie multiple times there is evidence that shows that Eddie might have a problem with gambling.
Most of Eddie’s life consists of spending time hustling people in pool by betting money on who would win. This has greatly affected Eddie’s life and who he was as a person. Eddie could be classified as a person who is addicted to gambling. An example is when he faces Minnesota Fats in pool. Eddie at one point in the match was winning a great deal of money, but he continued to keep playing because he wanted to win more, it was not enough for him to stop. Charlie tried to convince Eddie to stop, but Eddie explains that the game will only be over once Minnesota Fats says it is over. At the end of the match Eddie had lost all of his money to Minnesota Fats. Eddie used an excuse against Charlie and to provide a reason not to stop playing. In reality this was just a cover up to Eddie’s true reason as to why he could not stop playing because he was addicted to the excitement of the game. It has been proven that gambling incorporates both impulsivity and sensation seeking could offer a potential direction into addiction gambling (McDaniel, Zuckerman, …show more content…
2002). Another example is Eddie and his girlfriend, Sarah Packard, had very unhealthy and unstable relationship due to Eddie’s gambling problem. Eddie decides to travel on the road to gamble, he invites Sarah to come with him and she does. Then later on in the movie Sarah choose to sleep with Bert and then she takes her own life. This happened because of Eddie’s addiction to gambling, it was controlling his life and he dragged Sarah into it with him. Sarah was a very emotional character that went through many challenges with Eddie. Research has been done proving that a person in a relationship with problem gambling has almost or has lost the other person in that relationship (Ferris, Wynne, 2001). This was due to the fact that problem gambling can change you as a person and keep you away from your loved one. Ultimately if Eddie was not addicted to gambling, Sarah and Eddie could have lived a typical normal life. Essentially Eddie’s life consisted of his gambling enterprise that had its up and downs throughout the movie. Eddie traveled the country to play others in pool, using this as a source of income for him. It also administered him with a reason for living, it gave him a sense of accomplishment. Eddie and the rest of the movie was portrayed realistically, which made it easy for the audience to connect and relate to it. Eddie and his girlfriend Sarah gave the movie a romantic side and showed the challenges of struggling couples when one has a problem with gambling. Finally the detailed showing of Eddie’s experiences in pool hustling is the main idea of what the movie intends to show to the audience, which it does an exceptional job. In the end the movie tells us that if you lose the first time to not give up and to try again.
In the beginning Eddie loses to Minnesota Fats in dramatic fashion. Eddie struggles with this lose because he lost a lot of money. Therefore the audience was now determined to see what would happen to Eddie after this devastating lost. At the end Eddie returns to challenge Minnesota Fats again and this time Eddie destroys him game after game until he decides to quit. This made for a very entertaining film that keep the viewer engaged from beginning to end. It presented an accurate representation on Eddie and how he was portrayed as a gambler that hustles in games of pool. Not being a typical gambler that goes to a casino to play slots or table games and still having a compelling storyline, is what makes the movie a superior one. It created a completely different type of gambler that involved strategy and social skills to hustle the person. The movie also does not provide any false hope to its viewers because it shows that it is likely for a gambler to lose some amount of money, even if they are not a problem gambler. In conclusion a lesson can be learned because it shows what it is like to lose everything you have due to gambling and the effects it can have on the rest of your
life.
This is a crucial part because he finally committed to not letting alcohol control his life, something that has controlled him since his brother was killed. This was a huge step in Eddie’s character development.
The regular habit loop gave her the pleasure when she visited the casino and the reward system in the brain was controlled and brought back to normal. Angie couldn’t control the impulse to gamble even though she knew that her gambling was hurting her loved ones. 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 lives, but still they won’t prefer to stay off the bet. The same case applied to Angie. She was so preoccupied with gambling that she wasted both her time and money, despite the serious consequences. There was an experiment done with rats to help visualize the case, “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 Slater) In this experiment from the article “The rat park“ by Lauren Slater, the rats were kept in a cage and were addicted to the morphine-laced water, then they had to
During the movie, Frankie was training Willy one of the best fighters in the world at the time but was not risking putting Willy into the world championship fight. Due to this Willy left, which caused Frankie a lot of pain and he agreed to take on Maggie for that redemption of losing Willy. Eddie redeemed himself when he managed to knock out Shawrelle, a younger fighter that was practicing in the ring. Furthermore, Eddie was the narrator of the movie describing himself in the process and what he went through (Orr, 2005). The second theme is second chances that get everyone where they want to be even if the end does not work out, it’s the process of getting there. Frankie got a second chance to improve someone and take her to the world championships against a girl that played very dirty in the ring. He stood by her side every chance he got and showed her how to be a true fighter and the best. With his own problems that were happening with his daughter and her returning his letters back to him unopened he saw his second chance in Maggie. Moreover, fighting was Maggie’s second chance, since she has had a rough childhood with her father dying at such a young age and her mother being very ungrateful. Maggie was determined to become the best and she almost had her shot at being the best. Everyone in life deserves a second chance whether they chose to use it in a positive or negative way that is up to
In the same scheme, both in the movie and the book, the father is presented as abusive and alcoholic on many occasions. In words, the book gives a detailed account of the damages inflicted on Eddie by his father’s violence: “he went through his younger years whacked, lashed, and beaten.” (Albom 105) In the film, t...
Expanding gambling can increase gambling addiction. Compulsive gambling addiction is a social issue that is related to gambling. In the past, compulsive gambling was thought of as an issue or behavior for adults. However, “today’s youth are the first generation to grow up in a society where gambling is legal, easily accessible, and in most cases government supported” (Monaghan & Derevensky 537). Gambling is often advertised in the media as a quick and easy way to “get rich” and is rarely seen
“Pathological gambling is medically defined in both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases 10th revision (ICD-10) as being unable to resist impulses to gamble, which can lead to severe personal or social consequences.” (ICDC College, 2014)
Everyone Eddie met in heaven taught him something about his life. They were all connected to him in different ways, whether it was someone close to him once, or a complete stranger. Somehow, all of their lives had crossed Eddie’s and helped make him the person that he had become. When you think about this lesson, you truly understand. One decision causes an effect, maybe on your life or maybe on someone else’s life. That effect will cause something else. It’s what I think of as a ripple effect. Everything happens for a reason, and all of the events that lead up to our “now” makes us who we are.
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,
The article, “The Power of Habit” (chapter 9), by Charles Duhigg, is about Angie Bachmann who was addicted to gambling. It all started one day when she felt so lonely that she decided to go out and play in the nearest casino. Angie started by setting rules just so she would not become addicted. As days went by Angie slowly started to break her rules and gambled more than what she should of have. Angie lost a lot of money. Although, Harrah’s casino would send her free stuff and vacation trips to get Angie to play more. Angie realized that she had a problem with gambling and went away for a time, but she went back to Harrah’s casino when her parents inherit her money. Angie lost all the money that she inherited and started to get loans
Some people have the same situation as Bachmann addiction always end up loosening everything in life and also getting the consequence just for making a wrong decision in life. Bachmann made a wrong decision in life, probably because she felt lonely in life and she decide to have some fun without thinking the consequence that would happen in her life. Angie Bachmann didn’t ask for help to stop her addiction or getting some treatment to solve her situation instead of continue with her life of enjoyment. Bachmann rules become more flexible as the size of her winnings and losses expanded. For example, “one day she lost 800 dollars in an hour and then earned 1,200 in forty minutes’’(qtd in Duhigg). Bachmann habit was loosening and winning, but one day lost everything , she had in life just because of her addiction of playing. Her habit became bad in life because she didn’t know how manage her
Compulsive gambling is considered to be a type of impulse-control disorder. Even when the addict is aware that their addiction is negatively affecting their life, they cannot stop the impulse to gamble regardless of the consequences. The mental health community distinguishes between problem gambling and gambling addiction. Problem gambling is any gambling behavior that affects your life. Gambling addiction is where the person is unable to resist the impulse to gamble. The must gamble regardless of the consequences. A common myth is that problem gamblers have to gamble every day. When in reality it can be either frequent or infrequent. It is normally cyclic. Where there are periods of gambling, followed by rest periods and then back to gambling. People can go for months without gambling and still be considered to have a gambling addiction (Saison).
It is the story of a man named Eddie who for almost his whole life was the
The adrenaline-rushing feeling of gambling offers people the idea that opportunity lies within their hands. Unfortunately, there are far too many consequences to gambling to even begin to count. To win you must play, and to win big you must play big. As more gamblers can recall their losses rather than their winnings, gamblers are often dealt with poor hands and must play the risky game to stay alive. Even though gambling has so many faults, some still fall under its corruptions because of gambling’s deceiving fallacies.
Maxi Chambers, a former gambling addict, recalled a personal life story about winning five hundred dollars her first time gambling in her article “What I Lost Gambling.” She stated this event led to an uncontrollable need to gamble more frequently every week. In a compulsive gambler, the high from winning overpowers the disappointment from losing. This causes him or her to forget how much money has been lost and focus on trying to win
Gambling is an addiction that draws the attention of many individuals. Gambling offers individuals the idea that if they put more money down, they will win more money. This is a continuous cycle which never fails to stop but can be extremely detrimental to an individual and their families socially, financially and mentally. Gambling problems develop and worsen over time, similar to alcohol and other drugs. According to Dunstan (1997), there are five stages of gambling. The stages of gambling range from mild to severe, which can be a threat to both the gambler and their family. The five stages of gambling are non-gamblers, casual/social gamblers, at risk gamblers, problem gamblers and pathological gamblers. Depending on the individual and how mild or severe their p...