Skip to main content

icrg_png_214_65.png

  • Home
  • About ICRG
    • Leadership
    • History
    • ICRG Staff
    • Employment Opportunities
    • Funding
    • Annual Reports
  • Research Center
    • Apply for ICRG Funding
    • Grant Review Criteria
    • Key Research Findings
    • ICRG-Funded Research
    • Research Library
    • Scientific Achievement Awards
  • Education
    • Conference
    • Continuing Education Hours
    • Webinars
    • Treatment Provider Workshops
    • College and Youth Gambling Programs
  • Discovery Project
  • Resources
    • Gambling and Health Series
    • Gambling and Public Health: A Guide for Policymakers
    • The WAGER
    • Monographs
    • Videos
    • Brief Biosocial Gambling Screen
    • Talking with Children About Gambling
    • White Papers
    • Helpful Links
  • Press Room
    • Press Releases
    • News Alerts
    • Media Kit
    • Testimony
  • Blog

You are here

Home » Blog

Study Finds Surprising Relationship Between Prescription Drug Misuse and Problem Gambling

by: NCRG staff | Mar 10, 2011

Addiction researchers have found associations between numerous addictive behaviors, with individuals often being involved with many addictive substances and behaviors at the same time. Though this relationship is common, it is not well understood. The intermingling relationships of less thoroughly studied addictive behaviors, such as gambling and prescription drug misuse (PDM), are particularly unclear. A recent study led by Cheryl Currie, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alberta, Canada, was published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry and explores the relationship between prescription drug misuse, demographics and addictive behaviors including gambling (Currie, Schopflocher, & Wild, 2011). Currie won the Outstanding Poster Award at the 2010 NCRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction, and discussed early findings from this study with us in an audio interview conducted at the conference.       

The researchers surveyed a representative sample of 3,511 adults living in Alberta, Canada, about their PDM, illicit drug and alcohol use and abuse, tobacco use, gambling behavior and demographics. They found that 8.2 percent of Albertans had misused a prescription drug in the previous 12 months, and the strongest demographic predictors for PDM were disabled status, younger age, and high school graduates with no college experience. These correlations are not unexpected, as younger people use more illicit drugs generally, and disabled persons use more prescription drugs than adults generally (e.g. to control pain). What was not expected was the strong relationship between PDM and problem gambling.

After disabled status, problem gambling was the second strongest predictor for PDM, with problem gamblers misusing prescription drugs three times more often than others. This finding is unexpected because PDM is a form of substance abuse, and it would be logical to assume that people who misuse prescription drugs might also abuse other substances like alcohol or cannabis. In fact, alcohol and cannabis dependence is more common in people with past-12-month PDM, but gambling is the most common addictive predictor of PDM in this study.

Since the relationship between gambling and PDM has not yet been comprehensively examined, there is no way of knowing how or why the two behaviors interact. The authors suggest that problem gamblers may be misusing prescription drugs to “cope with gambling losses, deal with gambling urges, to stay awake while gambling, or they may engage in both PDM and gambling to escape other life stressors,” (Currie et al., 2011, p. 32). Certainly this surprising finding deserves more research attention as the complex relationships between addictive disorders are further explored.

More information on the article is available on the journal’s website, and the full interview with Cheryl Currie can be heard on the Gambling Disorders 360 post from November 15th. Are you surprised by these findings? Let us know in the Comments section below.

References

Currie, C. L., Schopflocher, D. P., & Wild, T. C. (2011). Prevalence and correlates of 12-month prescription drug misuse in alberta. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Revue Canadienne De Psychiatrie, 56(1), 27-34.

Read More »
Tags:
  • behavioral addiction
  • comorbidity
  • conference 2010
  • disordered gambling
  • NCRG Conference
  • new investigator
  • new research
  • poster session
  • prescription drug misuse

Share This

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Conference on Gambling and Addiction
  • Continuing Education Opportunities
  • ICRG News
  • In the News
  • Interviews
  • Issues & Insights
  • Research Update
  • Responsible Gaming

Archive

  • July 2022  (1)
  • June 2022  (1)
  • May 2022  (1)
  • April 2022  (2)
  • March 2022  (2)
  • February 2022  (1)
  • December 2021  (1)
  • November 2021  (2)
  • October 2021  (1)
  • September 2021  (1)
more

Connect With Us

Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow Us on Slideshare Follow us on YouTube 

18 years of benefiting NCRG

21 years of benefiting the NCRG

Visit the CollegeGambling Webiste

Visit CollegeGambling.org

icrgtwitterlogo400px_1.jpg

 

© 2020 International Center for Responsible Gaming

Headquarters
900 Cummings Center
Suite 219-U
Beverly, MA 01915
Tel: 978-338-6610
Fax: 978-552-8452

E-mail: info@icrg.org

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use