Abstract
This chapter discusses managing urges through acceptance. Problem gamblers and other people whose behavior appears out of control often feel overwhelmed by their urges and cravings to engage in self-defeating acts. The chapter focuses primarily on managing, what are popularly termed, “the immediate urges or cravings to gamble.” Self-regulation theory points out that, technically speaking, no one exercises impulse control. By definition, impulses simply arise and therefore, are uncontrollable. People only control the actions that impulses instigate. This fact leads many people mistakenly to use the wrong strategy in self-regulation. There are three aspects to impulses: latent motivations, activating stimulus, and impulse. Impulse itself is experienced as the resultant interaction of the latent motivation with the activating stimulus. Finally, this chapter outlines strategies for building an environmental fence around impulsive gambling and acceptance strategies to manage the impulses themselves.
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