Awareness activities for gambling and the new "behavioural addictions" (compulsive shopping, Internet addiction, etc.) are being organised by the G.A.N.D. Group of the Addictions Department of the Usl 8 in Arezzo. This month, initiatives are planned with two public meetings, aimed at new users, their families, and also all those who want to know more about these illnesses.

Organised by SerT in Arezzo since 2006, these meetings have proved to be particularly useful in encouraging the population at large to meet and reflect on these new forms of addiction that are not related to drugs but to behaviour that is encouraged by social incentives: shopping, Internet searches, playing on slot machines rather than with scratch cards, betting on the stock exchange, etc.

Who are the users and what is the profile of the average player?

Between October 2004 and December 2008, as many as 122 people have contacted SerT in Arezzo, prompted by their gaming and other behavioural addictions; among these, 64 families have been cared for by the service, by starting an integrated psycho-socio-health course, run in an individual and/or family and/or group setting.

In summary, the average player referred to SerT in Arezzo is male, married, plays on slot machines, has been through secondary school and works as a manual worker, is a smoker, and is heavily indebted on account of his many years of gaming. Requests for help made to the Service come from another family member in 75.5% of cases. The average age for addiction to gaming is 36, but the average age for access to SerT is 42. Therefore the player comes into contact with the Service when the damage (psychological, economic, social and for the family) is fairly serious already.

Two interesting facts come to light from the data relating to last year (period 1/1/2008 - 31/12/2008): the first concerns the average age for admission to the Arezzo SerT for new users, and the second deals with the channels through which people may be sent to the Service.

As regards new users, the data show that in 2008 the average age for the new gaming users registered with SerT dropped from 42 years, for all those cared for by the Service in 2004-2008, to 38 years for new users in 2008; in addition, 38% of these new users are in the younger age band (under 33 years of age). The younger users, who joined the Service during the last year and thus have a shorter gaming history, do not have such serious problems as regards debt, extent of gaming addiction, conflicts within the family, etc. For this reason it is possible to work with them on preventing as well as treating the damage deriving from gaming.

As for the referrals to the Service, in addition to referrals by specialists as in previous years, calls for help received by the Service are by word of mouth, through the local media with published articles on behavioural addictions and through local initiatives aimed at increasing awareness throughout the community and, more recently, through information posters exhibited in their establishment by legal gaming operators, who have accepted the "challenge" to transform their gaming halls into places to prevent addiction.

In other words, it seems that initiatives introduced during the past year by the territorial network for games of chance, aimed at spreading awareness and information, are beginning to promote a new "culture" and a new "awareness" among the residents of the Arezzo region of the risks posed by legal gaming and of the existence of new forms of addiction that are not drug related. This territorial network comprises the Addictions Department, local Authorities, the Prefecture, the Financial Police, Caritas, Misericordia, commercial Associations and the Mirimettoingioco Association of ex-players.

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