Why Childhood Trauma Can Lead to Gambling Addiction
Gambling Is Often a Symptom – It’s Not the Whole Story
If you’re struggling with gambling, or even if you’ve stopped but still feel pulled back towards it during stressful moments, you might have a sense that gambling isn’t really the whole issue. And you’d likely be right.
In my work with people affected by gambling addiction, I’ve seen time and time again that gambling is never actually about money, excitement, or poor self-control. Gambling is often a way of coping with emotional pain that hasn’t had the chance to heal. For many, this pain is longstanding and is rooted in earlier difficult life experiences.
Understanding this can be a huge turning point. When problematic gambling is viewed not as a personal failure, but as a response to something deeper, it starts to make a lot more sense as to why gambling was such a powerful hook. It also offers a way of understanding what is needed in recovery to strengthen life without gambling and reduce the risk of relapse.
Childhood Trauma Isn’t Always What People Think
When people hear the word trauma, they often think of extreme events, like somebody returning from war or surviving a car crash. But childhood trauma can take many forms, which are not always obvious, or were experiences that we just considered normal life and not out of the ordinary. To add to this, trauma in younger life isn’t only about what happened to us, it can also be about what didn’t happen for us.
Trauma can develop when a child experiences something overwhelming without enough emotional safety or support at the time, or when something emotionally harmful is experienced over and over again. This might include:
· Being hurt, scared, or violated by someone who was supposed to protect you
· Not getting the care, comfort, or attention you needed to feel safe and valued
· Growing up with a parent who struggled with addiction, or mental health problems
· Living in a home where there was constant fighting, tension, or violence
· Feeling repeatedly rejected, unsafe, or unsure if the people you loved would stay
· Being constantly criticised or judged as not being good enough
Unfortunately, the memory of these experiences don’t just disappear when we become adults. Instead, when these memories are not worked through and resolved, they keep being triggered by something in the here and now, and often in subtle ways. This could be something more obvious like seeing the person who hurt you. Or it could be more subtle like being criticised by your boss and the old not good enough feeling leaving you feeling worthless.
How Childhood Trauma Affects the Nervous System
Childhood trauma can shape how the brain and nervous system develop. Many adults who experienced early emotional pain live in a state of survival, even when their life is now objectively safe.
This might look like:
Constant anxiety or feeling on edge
Emotional numbness or feeling disconnected
Difficulty calming yourself when distressed
Deep shame or harsh self-criticism
From this perspective, gambling can make a lot of sense.
For some people, gambling brings calm and relief from anxiety. For others, gambling provides intensity, focus, or an escape from emotional emptiness. Either way, gambling isn’t really about winning, it’s about regulating the nervous system.
Gambling as a Survival Strategy
From a trauma-informed viewpoint, gambling often begins as a creative way to cope. For many, they crossed paths with gambling, often by chance – the arcade was the place to go when people wanted to bunk off school, or you’d help your Grandad pick out his horse on a Saturday afternoon. However, you first discovered it, what you would have learned pretty quickly is that if offered:
Escape from painful emotions or memories
A way of relieving stress
A sense of control when life once felt chaotic
Predictability in contrast to early instability
Temporary relief from loneliness, shame, or emptiness
Over time, the brain learns that gambling equals an emotional escape. During moments of stress, conflict, or emotional overwhelm, the brain automatically reaches for what it knows will soothe the nervous system.
This is why stopping gambling can feel so difficult, even when you truly want to stop. It’s not a lack of motivation. It’s your nervous system needing to reach for what it learned to do to survive.
Why Trauma-Informed Therapy Is So Important
Therapy that focuses only on strategies to help somebody stop gambling can miss its underlying purpose. When emotional pain resurfaces, which it often does, relapse can happen, not because of failure, but because the nervous system is reaching for what it knows will soothe it.
Trauma-informed therapy recognises that:
Gambling serves a survival function
Behaviour change requires emotional safety
Healing involves the body and nervous system, not just insight or willpower
Rather than just focusing on strategies to help somebody stop gambling, trauma-informed therapy for gambling addiction asks:
What happened to you?
How did gambling help you to cope?
How is your past showing up in the here and now?
What past memories are in need of healing?
As a Therapist who’s interested in taking this approach with my clients, I know this shift alone can feel so clarifying and deeply relieving for people. The pieces of the puzzle start to become clearer. People understand the link between their past, their present and what requires healing for the future they want for themselves to come to fruition.
How EMDR Therapy Can Support Recovery
When gambling addiction is rooted in childhood trauma, I have found that EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) can be especially helpful for many people.
EMDR works by helping the brain reprocess distressing memories that are still emotionally “stuck”. As these memories lose their emotional charge, the urge to escape from them, including through gambling, often reduces.
In the context of gambling addiction, EMDR can help you:
Process childhood memories linked to shame, fear, or abandonment
Reduce emotional triggers that drive gambling urges
Strengthen healthier beliefs such as “I am safe now” or “I have choices now”
Build tolerance for difficult emotions without needing to gamble
Importantly, EMDR is always used within a phased, stabilisation-focused approach, ensuring you have grounding tools and emotional safety before trauma processing begins.
Healing Starts with Compassion
Understanding the link between childhood trauma and gambling addiction helps us move away from judgement and towards compassion.
For many people, gambling wasn’t a reckless choice, it was a way to survive experiences that felt overwhelming at the time.
Recovery isn’t just about stopping a behaviour. It’s about gently separating the past from the present, restoring choice, and helping your nervous system learn that safety and connection are possible without gambling.
If you recognise yourself in this, know that nothing is “wrong” with you. With trauma-informed support, including approaches like EMDR, healing can honour your whole story, not just the symptoms.
If you’d like to explore this further, you don’t have to do it alone. One supportive conversation can be the start of meaningful change.