Gambling Addiction: Causes, Signs, Effects and Treatment

Hey there,
I am 24 and have recently been diagnosed with ADHD. My whole world changed.
This condition is not what most people think it is, and it might be extremely relevant for our community. So please read this. It might be very important to you. I am not saying all of us have it now, don't worry. But I think it is extremely important to at least make sure it's not ADHD. If this post helps even one of you getting diagnosed with this condition, then this is more than worth it. Because many adult people never find out about it and try to fight and improve what they think are problems or bad traits but actually are symptoms, which is frustrating because they are not the real problem.
When I first read the headline of an article about "Adult ADHD" I thought to myself: "Well.. I am not that loud, annoying, running around type of person.. I might have been as a kid.. kind of.. but that's normal right?". Then I read this:
Adult ADHD symptoms may include:

• Impulsiveness
• Forgetting names and dates
• Missing deadlines and leaving projects unfinished
• Extreme emotionality and rejection sensitivity
• Becoming easily distracted and disorganized
• Suffering generalized anxiety disorder and depression
• Low frustration tolerance
• Trouble multitasking
• problems prioritizing
• Poor time management skills
• Problems focusing on a task
• Frequent mood swings
• Problems following through and completing tasks
• Hot temper
• Trouble coping with stress

"In adults, the main features of ADHD may include difficulty paying attention, impulsiveness and restlessness. Symptoms can range from mild to severe. Many adults with ADHD aren't aware they have it — they just know that everyday tasks can be a challenge."
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Boy were my assumptions wrong. I had no clue what ADHD really is.
So, it's basically a neurotransmitter deficiencie in your brain. And no, it doesn't grow out as you become an adult. Some folks just learn to somewhat cope. It's pretty much genetic. Nothing psychological. Just means you're born with too little of certain chemicals in your brain.. which it needs to function well and be happy. So if you really wanna break it down, you basically don't have enough dopamine because your DNA hates you (it's not that simple but works for now). It also has a very high comorbidity rate. Which means if you have ADHD, you are at way higher risk of developing psychological conditions like Anxiety, depression, eating disorder etc. "A disproportionate number of children and adults with ADHD also experience depression. For example, researchers from the University of Chicago have found that adolescents with ADHD are 10 times more likely to develop depression than those without ADHD." That's why ADHD is very often overlooked while it actually might be the underlying problem and the depression (+ anxiety + "insert fun") is just a nice side effect on top, to make sure life is great :)
But because of lower dopamine levels and the brain constantly wanting to close that gap, folks are way more prone to addiction. We need input to not feel sad. To feel normal. Substance, gambling, gaming.
Oh, and having ADHD also causes your brain to produce stress hormones all the time. Like the same hormones "normal" people produce only when they experience stressful situations. Sounds awesome, I know!
Medication, with the right dosage, is the single most effective treatment. Because it just regulates the chemicals in your brain to a normal level. My initial reaction when I first tried medication.. I literally started crying.
For the first time in my life, my brain actually felt calm.
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But then second reaction was like "No way this is how good normal feels like. This can't be true. I definitely am high. The dosage must be too high. This ain't real." --- it was real. I talked to my doc and he explained to me what it would feel like if the dosage was too high. Basically, it would definitely not calm you down like that. You could concentrate more, but you would get pretty nervous.
From there on I noticed so so many different things. I can't list all of them now but the most important thing is I was able to do things if that's what I really want to do now. Of course some things like studying aren't fun (if it's not very specific details about something in a game), but you might still want to do them. Because you should for your own good. I can just do these things now. If I really want to. I can still keep playing games or watching a show if I want to. But I don't have to.
If you want to read more about this, the following link is a great place to start~
https://www.healthline.com/health/depression
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Have a beautiful day everyone.
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Oh, you can also do this little test if you want to.
Please get yourself checked if you struggle with even some of these things. They might seem like normal life stuff, but they're not.
Quick test:
1. I have difficulty getting organized.
2. When given a task, I usually procrastinate rather than doing it right away.
3. I work on a lot of projects, but can’t seem to complete most of them.
4. I tend to make decisions and act on them impulsively — like spending money, getting sexually involved with someone, diving into new activities, and changing plans.
5. I get bored easily.
6. No matter how much I do or how hard I try, I just can’t seem to reach my goals.
7. I often get distracted when people are talking; I just tune out or drift off.
8. I get so wrapped up in some things I do that I can hardly stop to take a break or switch to doing something else.
9. I tend to overdo things even when they’re not good for me — like compulsive shopping, drinking too much, overworking, and overeating.
10. I get frustrated easily and I get impatient when things are going too slowly.
11. My self-esteem is not as high as that of others I know.
12. I need a lot of stimulation from things like action movies and video games, new purchases, being among lively friends, driving fast or engaging in extreme sports.
13. I tend to say or do things without thinking, and sometimes that gets me into trouble.
14. I’d rather do things my own way than follow the rules and procedures of others.
15. I often find myself tapping a pencil, swinging my leg, or doing something else to work off nervous energy.
16. I can feel suddenly down when I’m separated from people, projects or things that I like to be involved with.
17. I see myself differently than others see me, and when someone gets angry with me for doing something that upset them I’m often very surprised.
18. Even though I worry a lot about dangerous things that are unlikely to happen to me, I tend to be careless and accident prone.
19. Even though I have a lot of fears, people would describe me as a risk taker.
20. I make a lot of careless mistakes.
21. I have blood relatives who suffer from ADHD, another neurological disorder, or substance abuse.
If you answered yes to 15 of these questions, you show signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD). However, you can still have ADHD even if you answered yes to fewer than 15 of these questions. This informal test is intended as a general guide only; share it with your doctor for further analysis.

What is addiction? Is it a disease? If so, are we experiencing a pathological disease process when we become “addicted” to the naturally-rewarding endorphin release that comes with exercise? Are our addictions to the internet and coffee attributable to a ‘disease’ process too, or are those just habits, despite one (caffeine) having a basis on an actual, physical, chemical dependency?
When does a habit become an addiction — or an addiction become a disease — and how, exactly? Do various chemicals and drugs, themselves, cause a disease process in only THOSE specific addictions? Is gambling addiction a disease, even though there are no drugs involved? Does that make it a disorder as opposed to a disease? What’s the difference? Habit, addiction, disorder, disease — what do each of these words mean, and, more importantly, what do they look like in the brain?
As a result of the ongoing global pandemic, rates of alcohol and drug use, both pharmaceutical and otherwise, are skyrocketing, along with obesity. Against a backdrop of stress, fear, isolation, and actual or potential economic scarcity, more and more of us are developing maladaptive coping mechanisms like binge eating, binge drinking, and compulsive use of technology — even when we know that these actions will have adverse effects on our physical and mental health.
On top of these issues, many of us are succumbing to the depression and anxiety that so commonly co-occur with addictive disorders, and we might find that our bad habits accelerate and gain strength as our mental health deteriorates. Why is this so? What are the TRUE neural underpinnings of these experiences, divorced from any bought-and-sold biases? How can we use this knowledge to strengthen us?
It has never been more important for all of us to come to a collective understanding of exactly what addiction is, what is isn’t, how it happens, how we free ourselves from it, and how we can avoid it in the future or use our natural addictive tendencies to our advantage. Addiction exacts an almost incalculably high financial and human toll on us here in the United States, as the total economic cost to society is greater than all types of diabetes and all cancers combined. That’s a lot.
As our life situations complicate and our problems are exacerbated, we might feel that our survivability is at risk. The rampant stressors of 2020 have triggered emotions that are primordial valuation signals. Emotions are e-motive; they come from a Latin root that means ‘causing movement’. Our emotions are motivational. Emotions are evolutionary signals that are designed by nature to get us to assess how we fare on the daily road of survival and moderate our behavior accordingly. Fear is a primal emotion that is designed to get us to do something, NOW — but what can we really do right now?
As a result of evolution, we mammals are subconsciously wired on an extremely basic level to avoid the negative emotional stressors that often led to pain and death in our ancestors and seek the comforts and pleasures we intrinsically associate with survival. As a result of these ancient emotional valuation systems, stressors are a known trigger for comfort-seeking behavior. Hence, we are all at greater risk of falling into the kinds of impulsive, ritualized, and isolated routines of comfort-seeking despite negative consequences that define addictive disorders — which includes the binge eating that often leads to obesity, as Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has so beautifully illustrated with her work.
check out the article, what do you guys think about addiction?

Hi everyone, this is my first contribution to HobbyDrama, I hope this is an entertaining read and also to the community's standards. Let's go!!
Brief glossary before we begin (and some foreshadowing)
MMORPG: massively multiplayer online role-playing game, MMO for short. A videogame genre that generally invites hundreds, or up to thousands, of players to share a space. Depending on the game, anything from general adventure to large-scale war to economy and politics can be simulated. I find it hard to believe that anyone reading this could possibly not know what this is but it's included anyway.
Electro-convulsive therapy: ECT for short, it is a form of treatment where electrodes are "carefully" hooked up to a person's head and a "precise" level of electric shock is delivered, in order to treat major psychiatric disorders. Developed in 1938 when most psychiatric treatments was in their infancy, it is still used today occasionally for serious cases of depression, mania, or psychoses. In its early days however, there were widespread claims of abuse associated with its use.
Pt1: The Root of all that is bullshit
Zhengtu Online (hereafter referred to as ZT) was an immensely popular MMORPG that was developed in China and primarily served a Chinese playerbase. Released in 2006, at its peak it boasted more 2 million players, which while not particularly impressive relative to World of Warcraft (8mil worldwide at the same time), was a truly insane amount of success in a gaming scene that was very much in its embryonic stage.
The game itself was an unimpressive Diablo-style top down fantasy setting, and its gameplay loop primarily revolved around improving your ability to kill various things, but what made it special was the overarching metagame: every player population (sharing a server) was divided into 10 kingdoms. Kings and generals were all individual players, and they dictated politics to their neighbors--primarily in the form of initiating player-vs-player (or PVP) warfare.
Most contemporary MMOs had an upfront price plus a monthly subscription fee. In China, such pricing models were mostly replaced by paying oney for a set amount of ingame playing time. Unlike all of them, ZT was completely free to play (F2P).
Free to play, however, meant pay-to-win: the best weapons and armor, and even leveling up your character, needed you to pay real money. Since so much of the game was focused on PVP, it also created an eternal arms race between players, each paying for the privilege of not being evaporated by a high level enemy.
The way they did this was unique at the time. While F2P online games had already seen their rise in South Korea, equipment was generally priced explicitly via in-game currency and bought in virtual shops. ZT fused this with the sweet, sweet taste of gambling: gear in the game was primarily obtained in loot boxes, and you had to pay for keys to open them.
It needs to be emphasized that gambling of any kind was illegal in China, but, in an eerie parallel of American CEOS in the future, ZT's developers said it wasn't gambling because, well, you weren't getting your money back.
By combining this with multiple other exploitative practices, such as providing a small amount of premium currency like a casino giving you a free bet on the house, or awarding special items to the player with the highest number of lootboxes opened in a day, ZT was making money like taking candy from a candy-hating baby, and made gaming history.
As far as what this means for gamers, this was Eve giving Adam the apple, Oppenhemier splitting the atom, Prometheus stealing fire, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, and goddamn Helen Keller signing "water".
If you play any kind of videogames today, you've stepped through the long shadow that ZT had cast. Zynga (developers of Farmville) would be founded in 2007 and focused exclusively on free games with real-money integration. Lootboxes made it into Team Fortress 2 in 2010, one of the first major western-developed games to include them.
Similar mechanics (with varying degrees of exploitative practices) came to FIFA in 2010, Mass Effect 3 in 2012, Counter-Strike in 2013, League of Legends in 2016, and NBA 2K in 2017, infecting every genre of gaming under the sun, including the most popular MMO, World of Warcraft. As an aside, corporate defense of lootboxes in Star Wars Battlefront II also led to the most downvoted Reddit comment of all time.
Finally someone speaks out
The System, an article published in the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly in 2007, was a hard-hitting expose on the exploitive practices of ZT. It chronicled the rise and fall of a gamer who accidentally becomes the monarch of one of these in-game Kingdoms, her addiction to the game, and final disillusionment when she realized that in-game player behaviour was being explicitly manipulated by its designers for the purpose of creating addicts and selling more lootbox keys.
The whole article is worth a read, even if it is sensationalist in a way that immediately tells you the writer was clearly a failed novelist of some kind - describing virtual destruction with the kind of prose most people would consider and then discard for a gang rape, for starters. But it had gotten its point across. It created an explosive backlash against the game in China, and was even translated into English and propagated across gaming forums.
The fallout
In an act of censorship usually reserved for the CCP government, this article--including its English translation--began to be scrubbed from the internet, with speculation pointing to the immensely powerful CEO behind ZT. I mean, who else could it be, right?
This article would light the fire of China's first moral panic regarding videogames. In its wake, swift legislation would be enacted regarding internet gaming addiction as well as online proxy gambling. ZT would heed the new laws and remove its lootbox mechanics in the following years and many other similar games followed suit.
Most tragically, the panic (which, to be fair, was fueled by a very real problem) allowed unscrupulous characters such as Yang Yongxin, vice chairman of a hospital in Shandong province, to create "internet addiction centres". With its legitimacy established by a docuseries ("Fighting the Internet Monster") on the state-run television channel CCTV, these centres charged terrified parents exorbitant prices in order to keep teens by force in, essentially, private hospitals and asylums, subjecting them to inhumane conditions and abusive ECT in order to "cure" them of their disease. It was estimated that Yang earned the equivalent of more than $6million USD from his addiction centre in the short space of 2 years. While his centre was eventually closed by state order, he received no punishment of any kind.
As for ZT, it limped on until 2018. A mobile game reboot was made in 2015. A tie-in fantasy movie was released in 2020. it was not very good.
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Addendum: how we got here: Of Mice and levers
In the 1950s, an American scientist named BF Skinner discovered the following: when mouse is put in a box with a small lever that, when pressed, dispenses a food pellet, they will quickly learn to start pressing on the lever as fast as possible. If you then stop the food from dispensing, the mouse will lose interest quickly after pressing a few times and seeing no food coming out.
If, however, you hooked up the lever to dispense food at random intervals, the mouse will be practically glued to the lever and hammer on it nonstop, sometimes long after they become full, and long after any food has been dispensed.
This discovery, known as variable outcome operant conditioning, formed the foundation of our understanding of addiction and gambling. Skinner would go on to try and fail to make bombs guided by pigeons, but we're not interested in that here. His research tool--the Skinner Box--would become a descriptor you may have come across when discussing exploitive game mechanics.
Summary
Once upon a time, a game combined the random outcome of videogaming with real-money gambling. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

At https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pain#Emotional_agony_in_borderline_personality_disorder Wikipedia claims that BPD produces "the most intense emotional pain, agony, and distress" compared to all other disorders. It then talks about how various harmful behaviours are "desperate attempts to escape these subjective inner experiences". I'll quote the whole section here:

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has long been believed to be the one psychiatric disorder that produced the most intense emotional pain, agony, and distress in those who suffer with this condition. Studies have shown that borderline patients experience chronic and significant emotional suffering and mental agony.[21][22] Borderline patients may feel overwhelmed by negative emotions, experiencing intense grief instead of sadness, shame and humiliation instead of mild embarrassment, rage instead of annoyance, and panic instead of nervousness.[23] People with BPD are especially sensitive to feelings of rejection, isolation and perceived failure.[24] Both clinicians and laymen alike have witnessed the desperate attempts to escape these subjective inner experiences of these patients. Borderline patients are severely impulsive and their attempts to alleviate the agony are often very destructive or self-destructive. Suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and bulimia nervosa), self-harm (cutting, overdosing, starvation, etc.), compulsive spending, gambling, sex addiction, violent and aggressive behaviour, sexual promiscuity and deviant sexual behaviours, are desperate attempts to escape. The intrapsychic pain experienced by those diagnosed with BPD has been studied and compared to normal healthy controls and to others suffering from major depression, bipolar disorder, substance use disorder, schizophrenia, other personality disorders, and a range of other conditions. The excruciatingly painful inner experience of the borderline patient is both unique and perplexing. In clinical populations, the rate of suicide of patients with borderline personality disorder is estimated to be 10%, a rate far greater than that in the general population and still considerably greater than for patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, since 60–70% of patients with borderline personality disorder make suicide attempts; suicide attempts are far more frequent than completed suicides in patients with borderline personality disorder.[25]
The intense dysphoric states which patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) endure on a regular basis distinguishes them from those suffering from other personality disorders, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and virtually all known Axis I and Axis II conditions. In a 1998 study entitled "The Pain of Being Borderline: Dysphoric States Specific to Borderline Personality Disorder", one hundred and forty six diagnosed borderline patients took a 50-item self-report measure test. The conclusions from this study suggest "that the subjective pain of borderline patients may be both more pervasive and more multifaceted than previously recognized and that the overall “amplitude” of this pain may be a particularly good marker for the borderline diagnosis".[26]

This totally agrees with my observations of my mother. I'm posting about it because understanding of this seems to be important for understanding her in general, and understanding this may similarly help others.
I'm not posting this as any sort of defence for pwBPD behaviour.
Also, it's not as simple as a physical disorder causing pain. One curious aspect not discussed in Wikipedia is how pain seems to often be caused by both external behaviour and thinking patterns, almost as if it is a choice or an addiction to causing oneself pain. I still don't understand this aspect well enough.

Note: this post talks primarily about the type of "addiction" to information in a more general sense, rather than just social media (e.g. related to hobbies and interests, or just exploration). This is my attempt to share a more balanced view on the topic and provide practical ideas for a mindful approach to the internet use to minimize its side-effects.
I've realized it's a mistake to demonize the internet and our tendency to seek information and novelty. Without this insatiable curiosity and drive to search answers we would not have evolved to be where we are now. The internet opened up numerous opportunities for self-directed learning that was not possible before. Labeling information seeking as a problem, or thinking that life was better before the internet and denying yourself the pleasure of almost effortless learning afforded by the web may do more harm than good. The internet is an incredible resource and, if I'm being honest, it had the biggest influence on my ability to regain the love of learning after losing it thanks to school (I got home access to the internet at 16 years old).
The internet is, no doubt, a source of distraction, manipulation, and addictive content. Many people on this sub complain of wasting time on platforms like Youtube, Reddit etc. I've felt similarly on many occasions as well. But it's also a rich source of knowledge, inspiration, and awesome communities on every obscure topic that exists. Imposing arbitrary limits on screen time and internet usage is not always a reasonable approach, at least not without first trying to understand the deeper processes behind your behavior.
We should be aware of black-and-white thinking and look at it from multiple angles. I wrote a post here a couple of weeks ago about a concept called Compulsive Information Seeking, but I've made a mistake of labeling information seeking as a pathology, rather than a natural desire (obviously, there are exceptions, but they are probably more rare than some scientists and journalists would make us believe).
For a different view on this you can look at this insightful paper: Scholars’ open debate paper on the World Health Organization ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal. The authors talk about a gaming disorder, rather than internet addiction, but many of their concerns can be extrapolated to broader use of technology. Here is an excerpt that summarizes their points:

Our main concerns are the low quality of the research base, the fact that the current operationalization leans too heavily on substance use and gambling criteria, and the lack of consensus on symptomatology and assessment of problematic gaming. The act of formalizing this disorder, even as a proposal, has negative medical, scientific, public-health, societal, and human rights fallout that should be considered. Of particular concern are moral panics around the harm of video gaming. They might result in premature application of diagnosis in the medical community and the treatment of abundant false-positive cases, especially for children and adolescents. Second, research will be locked into a confirmatory approach, rather than an exploration of the boundaries of normal versus pathological. Third, the healthy majority of gamers will be affected negatively. We expect that the premature inclusion of Gaming Disorder as a diagnosis in ICD-11 will cause significant stigma to the millions of children who play video games as a part of a normal, healthy life.

Basically, before jumping to conclusions and pathologizing everyone who spends a lot of their waking life using screens and the internet, we first need to explore what is actually normal and healthy, what is just a symptom of a larger issue (mindless scrolling can be a sign of chronic stress and low energy) and what is a full-blown addiction.
In fact, I believe those who are able to maintain or regain the hunger for new knowledge are lucky, because of how difficult it can be to do so in modern society. Children naturally love to learn, but after going through years of coercive school system, then dragging themselves through college (often studying something they are barely interested in because of the job market), then working at a job they dislike, it becomes apparent how easy it is to lose your innate learn drive in these circumstances, and use whatever is left of it to scroll through social media. This is why the desire to learn (even about seemingly useless things!) and pleasure of learning should be cherished and cultivated.
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Information seeking can become a problem when it prevents you from living the life you want, or when it's driven by anxiety (fear of missing out, obsessively googling your symptoms etc.). I think the solution here is to learn how to use it mindfully and enjoyably. Here are a few ideas I've thought about and experimented with:

• Apply mindfulness and introspection
  • Learn to be aware of your thoughts and behavior. If you catch yourself mindlessly scrolling through social media, or obsessively googling something and opening dozens of tabs, pause and slow down. Observe what you are doing. As much as possible, avoid judgments and negative self-talk. Be friendly and gentle with yourself! Decide if you want to continue, and if you do, try to do it with full awareness.
  • Recognize what positive things this desire to gather and consume information brings you. Maybe it helped you solve a personal problem, maybe it helps you contributing to conversations or helping others. Recognize that love of learning is inherently good, you may just need to make a few tweaks to reduce or (ideally) eliminate negative side-effects.
  • Accept the present situation and commit to making incremental changes.
• Work on deeper issues that keep you googling and scrolling, if you suffer from anxiety and fear of missing out
  • This is a big one. Various techniques and practices exist to address this problem. For me personally the most helpful techniques are recognition of impermanence of everything, meditation on death and facing my fears (e.g. by asking "What's the worst that I fear might happen? How could I deal with it if it happens?") Depending on severity though, you may need therapy.
  • Try to eliminate as many stressors in your life as possible. Stress is a major cause of addictive behavior. This is not easy, and often impossible as we are constrained by external circumstances. But it's good to remind yourself that the biggest source of stress is your own mind. This is good news, because it's something we can change.
• Adopt better learning habits
  • Try to avoid mindlessly consuming and collecting information with no proper knowledge integration. Passive consumption is not very useful in the long-term, because you will forget what you learned pretty soon (but we are often not aware that's what's happening!)
  • Prefer long-form content like longer articles, research papers, books and lectures. It's probably not necessary to cut out bite-sized stuff completely, but the ratio of long-form to short-form should be in favor of long-form. If you have a short attention span, you can start with reading abstracts and summaries to increase exposure to higher quality of information.
  • Think about what you read (or watch, or listen). Thinking in writing is particularly awesome, because you can save your notes and revisit later (or write a post on Reddit :)) (See Zettelkasten)
  • Use spaced repetition and active recall to commit knowledge to long-term memory (See anki)
  • Apply what you learn in real life - share it with others (irl or on the internet), use it for self-improvement, create something.
• Regularly (preferably daily) schedule time for NOT learning
  • A hands-on hobby, time with your friends and family, exercise, spending time outdoors, meditation, daydreaming. Basically any enjoyable activity that doesn't involve direct interaction with information. Sometimes your brain needs a break!
• And last but not least - learn to enjoy it!
  • Allow yourself to follow those rabbit holes of obscure knowledge, explore new territories, savor the thrill of the process and the rewards of discovery. Take small steps to adopt better learning habits, but try not to force it. Focus on the pleasure of learning, explore your creativity, share what you learn, and you'll be much closer to sustainable happiness.

Thank you all for reading. I don't know how many of you relate to my wall of text or find it helpful, but I hope it will at least inspire an interesting discussion!

mods please lmk if this violates the rules. i’m posting here because I write about the mob/casino and many relevant themes that are important elements of the Sopranos, in my opinion. I think they’re of the same medium and genre so wanted to post here. Hope that’s alright. Cheers! (11 min read) ————————————————————————
EDIT 2: TL;DR -
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
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Every good filmmaker makes the same movie over and over again—Martin Scorsese is no different
Scorsese's Casino is a phenomenal story of the condoned chaos and "legalized robbery" that happens on a daily basis to gamblers who bett away thousands of dollars and return each day for more “FinDom,” but without any of the sexual sadism. The whole scam only persists because the house always wins: the odds are stacked 3 million to one on the slot machines, but the same shmucks return wide-eyed each day hoping for a different outcome, devoid of any rational re-evaluation required to maintain their grasp on reality, and the liquidity of their bank accounts.
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, recruited by his childhood friend Nick "Nicky" Santorno to help run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by an investment made with the Teamsters’ pension fund. Ace’s job is to keep the bottom line flowing so that the Mafia's skimming operation can continue seamlessly. De Niro's character felt like half-way between Travis from Taxi Driver (of course, nowhere as mentally disturbed) and half of the addictive excess, greed, and eccentric business-mind of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Ace’s attention to detail gives him a rain-man-esque sensibility; his ability to see every scam, trick, hand signal, and maneuver happening on the casino floor make him the perfect manager of the casino, and take his managerial style to authoritarian heights in his pursuit of order and control over what is an inherently unstable and dynamic scheme; betting, hedging outcomes, and walking the line to keep the money flowing and the gamblers coming back. I’m not claiming Ace is autistic, I'm no clinician, but his managerial sensibilities over the daily operations of the casino, from the dealers to the pit bosses, to the shift managers, are to the point of disturbing precision, he has eyes everywhere, and knows how to remove belligerent customers with class and professionalism, but ultimately is short sighted in “reading” the human beings he is in relationship with. Ace is frustratingly naive and gullible in his partnership with Nicky and the threat he poses to him, and in his marriage with Ginger.
Ace has no personal aspirations to extract millions of dollars for himself out of the casino corruption venture. Ace simply wants the casino to operate as efficiently as possible, and he has no qualms about being a pawn of the bosses. While Sam, “the Golden Jew”—as he is called—is the real CEO of the whole enterprise, directing things at Tangiers for the benefit of the bosses “back home.” Ace’s compliance is juxtaposed with Nicky’s outrage upon feeling used: he gripes about how he is in “the trenches” while the bosses sit back and do nothing. Note that none of the activity Nicky engages in outside of the casino—doing the work of “taking Las Vegas over”—is authorized by the bosses. Ultimately Nicky’s inability to exert control over his crew and the street lead to his demise.
In the end, capitalism, and all that happens in the confines of the casino, is nothing but “organized violence.” Sound familiar? The mob has a capitalist structure in its organization and hierarchy: muscle men collect and send money back to the bosses who do not labor tirelessly “in the trenches.” The labor of the collectors is exploited to create the profits of their bosses. The entire business-model of the Mafia is predicated on usury and debtors defaulting on loans for which the repayment is only guaranteed by the threat of violence. But this dynamic is not without its internal contradictions and tensions, as seen in Casino.
In a comedic turn, the skimmers get skimmed! The bosses begin to notice the thinning of the envelopes and lighter and lighter suitcases being brought from the casino to Kansas City, “back home”. The situation continues to spin out of control, but a mid-tier mafioso articulates the careful balance required for the skimming operation to carry on: to keep the skimming operation functioning, the skimmers need to be kept loyal and happy. It’s a price the bosses have to pay to maintain the operation, “leakage” in their terms. Ace’s efficient management and precision in maintaining order within Tangiers is crucial for the money to keep flowing. But Ace’s control over the casino slips more and more as the movie progresses. We see this as the direct result of Nicky’s ascendance as mob kingpin in Vegas, the chaos he creates cannot be contained and disrupts the profits and delicate dynamics that keep the scam running.
Of course I can’t help myself here! We should view Scorsese’s discography, and the many portrayals of capitalist excess not as celebratory fetishization, but a critique of the greed and violence he so masterfully captures on film. See the Wolf of Wall Street for its tale of money as the most dangerous drug of them all, and the alienation—social and political—showcased in Taxi Driver. Scorsese uses the mob as a foil to the casino to attack the supposed monopoly the casino holds on legitimate, legal economic activity that rests on institutionalized theft. When juxtaposed with the logic of organized crime, we begin to see that the two—Ace and Nick—are not so different after all.
The only dividing line between the casino and organized crime is the law. Vegas is a lawless town yes, “the Wild West” as Nicky puts it, but there are laws in Vegas. The corruption of the political establishment and ruling elites is demonstrated when they pressure Ace to re-hire an incompetent employee who he fired for his complicity in a cheating scam or his stupidity in letting the slot machines get rigged; nepotism breeds mediocrity. In the end, Ace’s fall is the result of the rent-seeking behavior that the Vegas ruling class wields to influence the gaming board to not even permit Ace a fair hearing for his gaming license, which would’ve given him the lawful authority to officially run Tangiers. The elites use the political apparatus of the State to resist the new gang in town, the warring faction of mob-affiliated casino capitalists. While the mob’s only weapon to employ is that of violence. The mafia is still subservient to the powers that be within the political and economic establishment of Vegas, and they’re told “this is not your town.”
I’d like to make the most salient claim of this entire review now. Casino is a western film. The frontier of the Wild West is Vegas in this case, where the disorder of the mob wreaks havoc on, an until then, an “untapped market.” The investment scheme that the Teamsters pension fund is exploited for as seed capital, is an attempt to remain in the confines of the law while extracting as much value as possible through illegal and corrupt means for the capitalist class of the mob (and the ultimately dispensable union president). Tangiers exists in the liminal space of condoned economic activity as a legal and otherwise standard casino. While the violence required to maintain the operation, corrupts the legal legitimacy it never fully enjoyed from the beginning. This mirrors the bounty economy of the West and the out-sourcing of the law and the execution of the law, to bounty hunters. There is no real authority out in the frontier, the killer outlaw on the run is not so different from the bounty hunter who enjoys his livelihood by hunting down the killers. Yet, he himself is not the State. The wide-lens frame of Ace and Nicky meeting in the desert felt like a direct homage to the iconic image of the Western standoff. The conflict between Ace and Nick, the enforcer and the mastermind, is an approximation of the conflicts we might see in John Wayne’s films. The casino venture itself could be seen as an analogy of the frontier-venturism of railroad pioneers going to lay track to develop the West into a more industrial region.
I would have believed that this was a documentary about how the mob took over control of the Vegas casinos in the 1970-80s … if it were not for the viewer being expected to believe that Robert De Niro could play a Jew; it's hard to believe a man with that accent and the roles he’s played his entire career could be a “CRAZY JEW FUCK!!” I kid! But alas, De Niro is a class act and the last of the many greats of a bygone era. At times, it felt like Joe Pesci lacked talent as an actor, but his portrayal of the scummy, backstabbing bastard in Nicky was genuinely remarkable, but I might consider his performance the weak point of the movie. It’s weird to see a man that short, be that much of physical menace. There are a number of Sopranos actors in Casino. I’m sure Vincent Chase watched the movie and said to himself, “bet, i’ll cast half of these guys.”The set design and costumes were gorgeous. The styles and fashion of the time were spectacular. Scorsese’s signature gratuitous violence featured prominently, but tastefully. The camera work, tracking shots through the casino and spatial movement was incredible and I thought the cinematography was outstanding, the Western-esque wide lens in the desert was worthy of being a framed still.
The Nicky//Ace dynamic is excellent and the two play off of each other well. The conflict between the two of them escalates gradually, and then Nicky’s betrayal of Ace by cheating with Ginger marks the final break between the two of them. Nicky’s mob faculties represent a brutal, violent theft that is illegal and requires the enforcement of violence by organized crime. Despite the illegal embezzlement and corruption at play with the “skimming” operation at work at the casino, the general business model of the casino stands in contrast to the obscene violence of the loan sharks. Ace operates an intelligent operation of theft through the casino, and his hands-on management approach is instrumental to the success of the casino. Nicky’s chaos pervades the casino, and the life and activities of “the street” begin to bleed into Ace’s ability to maintain order in the casino. “Connected” types begin frequenting the casino, and Ace unknowingly forces one particularly rude gambler to leave the casino, who happens to have mob ties with Nicky. The “organized violence” of the casino cannot stay intact perfectly, because the very thing holding it together is the presence of the mob. Nicky is in Vegas as the enforcer and tasked with protecting Ace but his independent, entrepreneurial (shall we call them?) aspirations lead him to attempt to overtake what he realizes is a frontier for organized crime to brutalize and exploit the characters of “the street” (pimps, players, addicts, dealers, and prostitutes) and the owners of small private businesses.
Nicky is reckless, “when i plant my flag out here you won’t need your [casino/gaming] license” Nicky thinks he, and Ace, can bypass the regulations and bureaucratic legal measures by sheer force of violence alone. But ultimately Nicky is shortsighted and doesn’t have a real attachment to the success of the casino. After all, he isn’t getting profits from it (or much anyway) and isn’t permitted to play a real, active role in its daily functions because of his belligerent, untamed personality. Nicky has no buy-in that would motivate him to follow the rules or to work within the legal parts of the economy, it’s not the game he knows how to play, and win. All that he is loyal to, or deferent too, is the bosses back home; for whom he maintains absolute, uncompromising loyalty to, but still holds intense spite for.
And now to the more compelling element of the narrative. Sam “Ace” Rothstein is positioned as remarkably intelligent, he makes informed decisions that aid in his skill as a gambler, he can read people to determine whether he’s being conned, he has an attention to detail—aided by the casino’s surveillance apparatus which monitors cheating—that is almost unbelievable. Ace knows when he’s being cheated, he knows how to rig the game so that the house always wins, enacting psychological warfare to break down the confidence of would be proficient gamblers, who could threaten Tangiers’ bottom line. But in the end, the greatest gamble Ace makes is his marriage to Ginger. Ginger is the seductive, charismatic, and flirtatious madame who makes her money with tricks and her sexual power. Ginger works as a prostitute, seducing men, and extracting everything she can, almost as a sort of sexual-financial vampirism.
Ginger is the bad bet Ace can’t stop making even when she destroys his life, her own, and puts their daughter Amy in harm’s way. Ginger is the gamble Ace made wrong, but he keeps going back to her every time, trying to rationalize how she might change and be different the next time. Ace is not a victim to Ginger’s antics. Ginger makes it clear who she is: an addict, alcoholic, manic shopaholic who will use all of her powers to extract everything she can from everyone around her. She uses everyone to her advantage and manipulates men with her sexual power in exchange for their money and protection. Ginger had a price for her hand in marriage: $1 million in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry that are left to her and her alone as a sort of emergency fund.
Ace’s numerous attempts to buy Ginger’s love—and the clear fact that no matter how expensive the fur coat and how grand the mansion, none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her—mirrored Jordan Belfort’s relationship with Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both relationships carried the same manic volatility and conflict over child custody was found in both films, with the roles reversed in the respective films. Ginger may be irredeemable and a pathological liar, but Ace can’t claim that she wasn’t clear with him; when he asked her to marry him, Ginger said she didn’t love Ace. Ace replied that love could be “developed” but required a foundation of trust to develop. That trust was never there to begin with. The love was doomed from the start to destroy the two of them; two addicts, two gamblers, lying on a daily basis to one another and themselves about reality to justify their respective existences, the marriage, and Ace’s livelihood. And as Ginger pointed out, “I should have never married him. He’s a gemini, a triple gemini … a snake” Maybe astrology has some truth to it after all.
Now I’m not licensed (but hey neither was Ace, and he ran a casino empire!), but Ginger has the inklings of a borderline personality: her manic depression, narcissism, drug and alcohol abuse, and constant begging for forgiveness all seem indications of a larger psychological disorder at play. In the end, Ginger runs away with all the money Ace left her and finds her people in Los Angeles, the pimps, whores, and addicts she fits in with, in turn exploit and kill her for 3 grand in mint coins by giving her a ‘hot’ dose.
Overall, Casino is an incredible cinematic experience. I highly recommend watching this and seeing it as part of Scorsese's anthology of commentary on our economic system and its human victims. I’d argue that Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman all fit together nicely into a trilogy of the Scorsesean history of finance and corruption from the 70s to the 90s.
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EDIT 2: TL;DR —
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.

Over the course of 34 days in the spring of 2018, three unsettling crimes played out in the city of Bakersfield, California. The families of the three victims realized their children all knew each other and ran in the same circles, and they began to suspect that all three crimes were connected. But what began as a crusade for justice among grieving parents took a shocking turn when investigators discovered that the so-called Bakersfield 3 were embroiled in a criminal underworld of black-market weapons smuggling, the Hells Angels, unspecified ties to drug cartels, torture and kidnapping, and a convicted felon nicknamed “The Boogeyman of Bakersfield.”
This is a genuinely bizarre case, and while I’ve never written up a case for this sub before, I’ve been following this story closely for the past couple years. The last time it was mentioned on here over a year ago, but there have been some huge recent developments in the last year that I thought deserved as comprehensive a telling as possible. And despite all that, it's nowhere near resolved. So without further ado...
Part 1: Missing
On March 23,2018, Micah Holsonbake, 34, went missing in East Bakersfield near the intersection of Flower Street and Mount Vernon Avenue. Micah was a clean-cut dad who worked in finance, a former high school debater who loved karaoke despite not being any good at it. He was presumed endangered missing until August 22, 2018, when teenagers swimming near a local park found an arm in the Kern River that was identified as his. The rest of his body has never been found.
On April 18, 2018, James Kulstad, 38, was murdered on a quiet block in Southwest Bakersfield. A father of two daughters, James was a serial entrepreneur described as the type of man who “could sell a dollar bill on the side of the road for a million dollars if he could just get 5 minutes with you.” His brother Ryan heard the gunshots from the next street over, but didn’t see the shooter, and he claims he held James as he died in his arms.
On April 25, 2018, Baylee Parrent-Despot, 20, disappeared from Rosedale, the upper-middle-class neighborhood in Northwest Bakersfield where she’d grown up. Baylee described herself as a “flower child” who had been born in the wrong generation. After facing a number of serious challenges, she was struggling to get her life back on track, and was said to be pregnant and trying to leave her boyfriend when she went missing. She has never been heard from again.
Local media christened Micah, James, and Baylee the “Bakersfield 3” after the victims’ families discovered that all three victims knew one another. In the wake of the links between all three disappearances coming to light, Micah’s father told a local news reporter, “Just to be blunt, something happened to Micah… and a month later something happened to Baylee, and I think it’s because she knew what happened to Micah.” And in between them, there was James Kulstad, who ran in the same drug-fueled circles as Baylee and had helped Micah move just weeks before they both were killed. Bakersfield is a city of half a million people, but on a social level, it can feel as insular as any small town — you’re rarely more than one or two degrees removed from anyone you meet — and even in a city where everyone seems to know everyone, it’s hard to buy three friends all going missing within the space of a month by sheer coincidence. But as time went on with few official developments in the investigation, it seemed like people largely lost interest in the case by late 2019.
Then, in 2020, the Kern County District Attorney’s office charged three people with a total of 34 different charges, ranging from first degree murder, torture, kidnapping, assault with a firearm, and illegal manufacturing of assault weapons. Two of the defendants were already in custody — and the third may not even be alive.
Part 2: Some Local Context
By every metric, Bakersfield is just a flat-out terrible place to live. It’s my hometown, I left for a reason, and the reason is that it sucks. Kern County suffers from a slew of serious socioeconomic and public health problems, the largest of which is probably related to economic and income inequality. A fifth of the population is under the poverty line, and crime rates are sky-high, especially drug-related ones. Opioid abuse is rampant, though it still falls second to methamphetamine, the most widespread drug in the area. There’s a significant issue with white supremacist gang violence. When I was 16, my 70-year-old next-door neighbor got stabbed in a biker gang fight at a tattoo parlor by a Hells Angel called “Delano Mike.” A high school chemistry teacher was literally arrested for trying to make meth in his classroom three months before Breaking Bad even premiered. This is a region with a lot of serious problems that go deeper than any one symptom, but suffice it to say, there’s a reason I moved away as soon as I tuned 18.
The other thing you need to know is that despite being one of the most conservative cities in California, there’s a widespread distrust of law enforcement outside of the police and courts themselves — and, frankly, for good reason. Corruption in the justice system is widespread, and basically a local tradition dating back to the tenure of longtime district attorney Ed Jagels, perhaps best known for ramming through 36 false convictions of ritual child abuse at the height of the satanic panic. (34 were eventually overtured, and the other two people convicted died in prison and never saw justice.) Jagels’ history of prosecutorial misconduct is also the subject of Mean Justice, a 600-page doorstopper by Pulitzer-winning author Edward Humes about the wrongful conviction of Pat Dunn, who is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife despite a wealth of evidence that would suggest his innocence. In 2002, Jagels’ protege, an assistant district attorney named Steve Tauzer, was murdered by a former Bakersfield police deputy, Chris Hillis, after Hillis allegedly learned that Tauzer had a sexual relationship with Hillis’ 22-year-old son, an addict in recovery; facing first-degree murder charges, he pled out to manslaughter and received a 12-year prison sentence.
In 2015, The Guardian published an in-depth exposé about how widespread corruption within the local law enforcement community led to Kern County having the highest rate of police killings in the country: the deadliest cops per capita. And over the past several years, the Kern County law enforcement community has been mired in a police corruption scandal in which members of the BPD abused asset forfeiture laws to illegally seize guns, drugs, and money from suspects, which they in turn trafficked for personal gain. All this is to say that Bakersfield cops and prosecutors have not engendered much public trust outside of their own communities. In a city with high rates of violent crime, law enforcement has consistently put its own interests above public safety, justice, or victims’ rights. That's just something to keep in mind while reading.
Part 3: Down the Rabbit Hole
Micah
In the weeks and months prior to Micah Holsonbake’s disappearance, his family could tell that something was troubling him. Lance and Cheryl Holsonbake both recalled their son behaving erratically in the days before he vanished. But none of it seemed to make any sense coming from someone like Micah, whose family described him as intelligent and hard-working. He had a comfortable upbringing in Rosedale and worked his way into a lucrative career as a financial advisor despite only one year of college. In the photo his family circulated following his disappearance, he wore the suit and tie and placid smile of someone posing for a corporate headshot. But Micah was going through a dark time following a rocky separation from his wife and family, and had been struggling with a painkiller addiction for the past two years. The year before, he’d been laid off from his job after going on disability leave due to depression.
According to court documents, Micah owed drug-related debts to members of the Hells Angels as well as “the cartel.” One friend of Micah’s told police his life seemed to be headed in a downward spiral after he lost the ability to see his son, and often got in fights with others at bars. In one witness statement, an unidentified woman told police of a prior incident when she and Holsonbake were kidnapped at gunpoint and driven to an orchard in west Bakersfield. Holsonbake bolted from the vehicle as it was moving, she told police. That account was corroborated by a friend of Holsonbake's who told police that he said he had been kidnapped at gunpoint. He told his parents that he feared for his life, frequently thought he was being followed in his car, and rambled about various people he believed were out to get him, but they mostly wrote it off.
James
Micah had been hanging around with James Kulstad for some time before he disappeared. It’s not clear when they first met, but it appears they become friendly through the drug scene. Like Micah, James first became addicted to prescription painkillers after being hit by a car, before progressing to fentanyl patches and eventually heroin. He’d been a single father to his daughters Camryn and August. His obituary characterized him as a free-wheeling surfer who held a patent for an action sports product and earned the nickname “Joe Vegas” for his love of gambling and table games. Camryn, now 19, says she and James had an especially close relationship after her mother died when Camryn was an infant, and James often warned her against getting involved with drugs and partying in a clear-headed way, which made it even harder to watch him spiral downward in the years before his death. “I felt like I lost him before I even lost him, but I worked so hard,” she told a reporter. “I was working so hard on everything I could do to make him get better… I was hanging onto hope and whoever killed him took that away from me. I don’t have that anymore, I don’t have hope.”
In the wake of her father’s death, Camryn says that a number of stories and rumors about his life surfaced, further complicating her grief. “Some of the stories I’ve heard is that he was a really bad person these last 3 years,” she said in 2019. On the night of his murder, James reportedly drove to an acquaintance’s home in Southwest Bakersfield where his brother Ryan Kulstad was hanging out. Ryan claims that the homeowner allegedly owed money to James and told Ryan that if James came over to his house, he’d “call his boys and they’d come over there strapped,” which Ryan says he didn’t interpret as a serious threat. Ryan and James reportedly argued about this on the phone, and James showed up at the house a couple hours later. Ryan says he had just returned from driving someone else home and noticed a driver in a silver sedan behaving suspiciously as he returned to the house. Moments later, Ryan and his unidentified male passenger heard gunshots on the next block: an unknown gunman opened fire on James from another car, causing him to crash into a parked trailer. The same silver sedan was seen speeding away from the scene.
The owner of the home where this all took place was Dr. Sukhjeet Bajwa, who at the time was a chiropractor with a local practice. Bajwa lived in a quiet subdivision in Southwest Bakersfield. It was an unlikely setting for a drive-by, and according to initial news reports, police were at a loss for the motive behind the killing, or what James was even doing in the neighborhood at all. Then things began to unravel: Bajwa, it turned out, had been arrested twice in 2016 and 2017 after driving while impaired, and in addition to liquid heroin, Xanax, and hydrocodone, police also found two unregistered, loaded guns in his car, an AR-15 and a .22LR semi-automatic rifle with a fake silencer attached. All of this was detailed in a disciplinary complaint filed by the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners, and after Bajwa’s name began repeatedly surfacing in connection with the shooting, a rumor began to circulate about a black-market gun and drug trafficking ring in which Bajwa was supposedly a central figure.
It was the type of conspiracy theory most people instinctively write off as too bizarre to be credible. But it must have rung a bell to Lance Holsonbake. Before Micah’s disappearance, he told his father that he was “putting together guns for people,” according to a 2019 interview. Lance said he reacted in disbelief to this confession, because the idea that Micah would risk his career by getting involved in illegal gun manufacturing just didn’t make sense. “If you’re this afraid, just stop,” Lance recalls telling him. “And he’d say, ‘I can’t do that I can’t do that.’ He was afraid he did that they would hurt his family.” He wrote it off as paranoia exaggerated by his son’s drug use, and didn’t know how much of it was real and how much was in Micah’s mind. According to Lance, Bakersfield police initially suggested that Micah had left town of his own volition after getting mixed up in criminal activity and, from what I can tell, didn’t make much of an effort to investigate. Though the family says he was last seen on March 23, 2018, Bakersfield police claimed he wasn’t reported missing until April 4, and it appears they waited until April 13, when he’d been missing for almost a month, before BPD made its first public statement regarding his disappearance. After James was murdered a few days later, the Holsonbake and Kulstad families grew increasingly frustrated with the apparent lack of interest in investigating either case, and told the media later that as they began digging into the circumstances surrounding both cases, one name kept coming up with everyone they talked to: Baylee Despot. And within a week, Baylee Despot had also gone missing in Bakersfield.
Baylee
Baylee Parrent-Despot was 20 years old when she was reported missing in April 2018, and the families say that it was her disappearance that finally motivated the police and local news to start investigating the links between all three cases, for reasons that seem obvious to anyone who has ever seen the media react to a pretty white 20-year-old going missing. Her sister, Katelyn Parrent, describes her as “a girl that’s grown up in a good neighborhood, raised by good parents, had a good childhood, could’ve had everything she ever wanted,” much like James and Micah. And beneath the surface, she was as troubled as either of the men: after graduating high school, she’d run off to Vegas to marry her boyfriend, but their rocky relationship turned into an abusive marriage that ended just a year later in 2017. In the aftermath, she wrecked her car, lost her job, and in her mother’s words, “Her life just spiraled out of control.”
In July 2017, Baylee was arrested for disorderly conduct in front of her friend Micah Holsonbake’s house. This came as a surprise to her sister, who had at one point been friendly with Micah herself — she didn’t realize he and Baylee even knew each other. But even though he was 14 years Baylee’s senior, Katelyn remembered him as a clean-cut guy who worked at a bank, and their mother, Jane Parrent, says Micah helped her get a restraining order against an abusive ex-boyfriend. They didn’t see any cause for concern. Still, Baylee’s life continued to spiral out of control. The following month, she was drugged and gang-raped at an acquaintance’s apartment complex. She disappeared for days at a time and resurfaced with “horrible stories” or pleading phone calls begging to be picked up. On one occasion, Katelyn remembers, “She had none of her belongings, no shoes… A couple nights after that there were two vehicles that came to pick her up and we could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t want to go, but if she didn’t go, we didn’t know what would happen.”
Matthew
Not long after that incident, Baylee had a new boyfriend. Matthew Queen was 43 years old, a convicted felon, and an all-around bad dude. Not much is known about his background, with one major exception: in the early 2000s, he plead guilty to one count of making a false statement to a federal firearms dealer after he used a false address, but his real name, to purchase $11,000 in guns from dealers in Indiana. Many of those guns were later recovered at crime scenes in Detroit and Chicago. If you want an idea of what type of criminal mastermind we’re dealing with here, I recommend reading just the final ruling on that case from the 7th Circuit court of appeals:

“We reject Queen's argument that gun buyers may lie about a street address so long as they live within the state where the gun is sold . . . Queen in fact had once lived in an apartment at 2072 Egret Court, but he did not live at this address when he completed the forms and bought the guns because he was evicted on December 18, 2000, for nonpayment of rent."

Great. Sounds like a great guy.
Lest you assume Matthew Queen might have hypothetically seen the error of his ways and cleaned up his act after this early foray into gunrunning, he absolutely did not. In December 2017, just a couple weeks into Matthew and Baylee’s relationship, they were arrested after police found four unmarked, unregistered, loaded assault rifles in Matthew’s car during a traffic stop. Neither he or Baylee said a word to the police, but while Matthew (who, as a convicted felon, was prohibited from carrying any guns or ammunition at all) was charged with several felonies, while Baylee pled no contest to a lesser misdemeanor and received three years probation. Later that month, she moved in with Matthew, his mother, and his estranged wife. Baylee’s family saw and heard even less from her. And in April, a month after Micah’s disappearance and just one day after she and Matthew attended a court date for the weapons charges, Baylee went missing. Her mother believed she was pregnant with Matthew’s child and was trying to leave him at the time. Matthew told police that she had connections through her father's side of the family with a Mexican drug cartel and believed they had something to do with her disappearance.
Local interest in the case reached an even greater frenzy after Micah’s severed arm was found in the Kern River in Hart Park on the east side of town, not far from from where he was last seen. It was positively identified in late December 2018. By this point, the family of the Bakersfield 3's investigation had amassed around 10,000 followers on Facebook and another 5,000 in a private group, and the story was a fixture on local news. Another curveball came around this time too, when a former friend of Baylee’s named Sara Wedemeyer, 21, filed a restraining order against Baylee’s mother, Jane Parrent. As it was reported, Sara had moved in with Matthew mere weeks after Baylee disappeared, and she was four months pregnant with his child when she attempted to take out legal action against Mrs. Parrent, whom she claimed was harassing her and her “fiancé” by hanging up missing person fliers in their neighborhood. The restraining order wasn't granted, but Queen allegedly began making disturbing social media posts about Baylee, Micah, and the Parrent family, with Mrs. Parrent as the primary target. And in mid-2019, the investigation seemed to grind to a halt.
Part 4: New Developments
On May 27, 2020, roughly two years after the first developments in the Bakersfield 3 case, the Kern County District Attorney held at a press conference to announce they believe Baylee Despot and Matthew Queen “deliberately and with premeditation" murdered Micah Holsonbake. Despot and Queen, along with a third man, Matthew Vandecasteele, were charged with the alleged kidnapping, torture, and first degree murder, as well as unlawful manufacturing of assault weapons, conspiracy relating to the murder and torture plot, and a slew of other assault and gun charges (34 in total). Queen and Vandacasteele were both in custody at the time the charges against them were filed, but even though Baylee still has not been seen or heard from since 2018, the DA’s office issued a warrant for her arrest, leading some to speculate she may still be alive.
According to court records, Matthew Queen allegedly believed that Micah Holsonbake had stolen a .44-caliber revolver from him. He and Baylee Despot kidnapped Micah, zip-tied him to a chair in Matthew Vandecasteele’s garage, and attempted to torture him in order to extract information from him. A blood stain in the garage matched Holsonbake’s DNA. Vandecasteele told police that he didn’t see or hear Micah on the night he was killed, but knew that the other two had brought him there to question him. After several hours, Baylee allegedly returned to the apartment seeming “flustered” and changed her clothes in a back bedroom. Before they left, “Queen told Vandecasteele that he had cleaned everything up and it was OK to go inside the garage.” The next day, Queen returned to Vandecasteele’s apartment and said he “needed help disposing of something” in a large black storage container in the trunk of his car. Vandecasteele claims he refused to help with disposing of the body, but according police reports, his Google history during that period of time included searches for “lye chemical formula,” “lye for sale” and “how long does it take to dissolve a human body,” as well as browsing for lye on the Home Depot and Lowe’s websites.
Queen, Despot, and Vandacasteele allegedly manufactured and sold AR-15s from gun build kits. Other witness testimony released by the courts described various kidnappings that witnesses allege Queen, known as “the boogeyman of Bakersfield,” committed. In one incident, Queen allegedly handcuffed one victim to a chair and put an electric dog collar around his neck because he believed the man had stolen a gun part from him. Another witness said that Queen and Vandacasteele showed up armed at his hotel room after the witness told Baylee where he was staying, and that he believed they intended to kill him because he’d been arrested “with a large quantity of narcotics that he was fronted or given without paying for them and the people who had gave him the narcotics could have been upset.” (According to the police report, surveillance footage from the hotel corroborates this account.)
It’s also believed that he made anonymous calls to the police tip line to misdirect the investigation away from himself: one such caller referred to Baylee as a “sugar momma,” a phrase which Queen reportedly used to describe her when he spoke to investigators in August 2019, and he also used the same pseudonym on the tip line that he did on social media. When police questioned him around this time, he denied being part of a criminal enterprise and claimed he could barely pay his bills. Then, while out on bail for unrelated gun charges in January 2019, Queen allegedly kidnapped another man at gunpoint and forced him to walk into the Kern River while Queen accused him of snitching to the cops. He’s been in custody since July of 2019 due to this kidnapping.
Part 5: No Body, No Crime
So where is Baylee Despot?
According to official statements from law enforcement, no one knows. After the warrant was issued for her arrest, a wave of speculation followed that she had faked her own death or fled to Mexico with the help of unspecified “cartel connections.” That story seems less and less likely as more details have emerged from court documents. Vandecasteele told the police that Despot was “falling apart mentally” after murdering Micah. He and Queen both suspected that she was cooperating with police on an investigation relating to the illegal weapons charges, called her a “snitch” in one interview, and told investigators he believed Queen “made her disappear.” In one interview, a female witness said Queen kidnapped her at gunpoint, took her to an orchard, and held an AR-15 to her head while he questioned her about whether Baylee was faithful to him.
When police questioned him about Baylee’s disappearance in July 2019, he said was depressed and off her medications, and she had said she wanted to die. When the investigator told Queen there had been allegations of domestic violence involving him and Baylee, some of which resulted in bruises, Queen said he never laid a hand on anyone. He told the detective she was clumsy. Despite all of this, Jane Parrent says that police have told her that they don’t consider Matthew Queen a person of interest in Baylee’s disappearance, and that there is "no known physical evidence that definitively confirms her possible death." She is now offering her own personally-funded $1000 reward for information about her daughter’s location.
The rest of Micah Holsonbake’s body has not been recovered, though according to court documents, investigators believe Queen may have buried him in the hills near Taft, a rural area about 45 minutes west of Bakersfield.
There have been no developments in the investigation of James Kulstad’s murder since 2018. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Bakersfield Police Department at (661) 327-7111, or the Kern Secret Witness program at (661) 322-4040. A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest in this case.
Ultimately, what really frustrates me about this case is that even after this avalanche of charges, so many questions remain unresolved, and not just what happened and who did it, but why. If the investigation concluded that James Kulstad’s death was unrelated to the disappearances of Baylee and Micah, who ordered his murder, and what was the reason? To what extent was the chiropractor involved with Queen and Vandecasteele’s trafficking racket? Was Sara Wedemeyer involved with Baylee’s disappearance, and if not, how’d she end up living with Matthew and expecting his child just two months after her “friend” went missing? Why did Sara and Matthew harass Baylee’s mother for months after the disappearance?
More than anything, I’m still lost as to Baylee Despot’s motivation for any of this. Did she just find herself in too deep with no way out? Did she actively make the choice to become a gunrunner? Did Matthew, looking to settle a grudge against Micah, seek out a relationship with Baylee with the intention of using her to get to him? Did he kill her because she was cooperating with the cops, because she attempted to leave him, or because he was just a sociopath who felt she was no longer useful?
Or is there a chance that law enforcement knows more than they’ve let on? When investigators told Mrs. Parrent that Matthew isn’t a suspect in her disappearance, was that an indication that she may, in fact, be alive?
Probably not. But at this point, anything is possible.
Sources:

1. Baylee’s page on The Charley Project: https://charleyproject.org/case/baylee-cheyanne-despot
2. First news story about Micah Holsonbake’s disappearance, 4/13/20: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/breaking/man-reported-missing-april-has-medical-condition-family-says/article_8af62936-3f73-11e8-a82e-4b2ef30f031f.html
3. “Baylee Parrent-Despot reported missing for more than a month,” 6/8/18: https://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/baylee-parrent-despot-reported-missing-for-more-than-a-month
4. “The Bakersfield 3: Reward offered in Baylee Despot case,” 9/18/18: https://www.kget.com/news/the-bakersfield-3-reward-offered-in-baylee-despot-case/
5. “Bakersfield 3 mothers recall their last contact with children,” news article dated 10/24/18 https://www.bakersfield.com/news/momma-loves-you-bakersfield-mothers-recall-their-last-contact-with/article_418f70a8-d7e0-11e8-ac3c-67a7fc8df3d1.html
6. “BPD: Missing man in Bakersfield 3 believed to have been killed, and his death shares similarities with disappearance of missing woman,” 10/20/18: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/breaking/bpd-missing-man-in-bakersfield-believed-to-have-been-killed/article_fbeb8eb4-04b8-11e9-bb07-17e07813288b.html
7. “Mother of missing woman fights harassment claims stemming from her daughter’s disappearance,” 12/18/18: https://www.kget.com/news/mother-of-missing-woman-fights-harassment-claims-stemming-from-her-daughters-disappearance/
8. “Micah Holsonbake dead; DNA test confirms arm found in river his,” 12/20/18: https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/bpd-believes-a-man-missing-since-march-was-murdered
9. “Stories behind the Bakersfield 3,” 12/20/18: https://www.kget.com/news/homicide-news/stories-behind-the-bakersfield-3/1669785945/
10. Ryan Kulstad appearance on Dr. Phil, 1/14/19: https://www.drphil.com/videos/a-young-man-describes-what-led-up-to-him-holding-his-older-brother-in-his-arms-as-he-died/
11. “A closer look at the Bakersfield 3: Where is Baylee Despot?,” 3/5/19: https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/domestic-violence/a-closer-look-at-the-bakersfield-3-where-is-baylee-despot/
12. “A closer look at the Bakersfield 3: Who killed James Kulstad?” 3/6/19: https://www.kget.com/news/a-closer-look-at-the-bakersfield-3-who-killed-james-kulstad/
13. “A closer look at the Bakersfield 3: What happened to Micah Holsonbake?” 3/7/19: https://www.kget.com/news/a-closer-look-at-the-bakersfield-3-what-happened-to-micah-holsonbake/
14. “One year later, mothers of Bakersfield 3 continue their search for answers,” 3/23/19: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/one-year-later-mothers-of-bakersfield-3-continue-their-search-for-answers/article_528a7650-4cfc-11e9-886c-23d55ec3c32d.html
15. “One year since death of James Kulstad, one of the 'Bakersfield 3’,” 4/8/19: https://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/one-year-since-death-of-james-kulstad-one-of-the-bakersfield-3
16. “Mother of missing Baylee Despot speaks out on arrest of kidnapping suspect Matthew Queen,” 7/15/19: https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/mother-of-missing-baylee-despot-speaks-out-on-arrest-of-kidnapping-suspect-matthew-queen/
17. “Investigating the mysteries of what happened to the Bakersfield 3,” 11/3/19: https://www.turnto23.com/news/crime/investigating-the-mysteries-of-what-happened-to-the-bakersfield-3
18. “Defendant in alleged kidnapping waives right to preliminary hearing,” 11/9/19: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/defendant-in-alleged-kidnapping-waives-right-to-preliminary-hearing/article_b5a3274c-00c4-11ea-a1e9-635cd4a35c9e.html
19. “More charges filed against accused kidnapper Matthew Queen,” 1/1/20: https://www.kget.com/news/crime-watch/more-charges-filed-against-kidnapping-suspect-matthew-queen/
20. Press release announcing charges filed against Queen, Despot, and Vandacasteele: https://www.kerncounty.com/home/showpublisheddocument?id=4595
21. “Matthew Queen makes a court appearance in connection to 'Bakersfield 3' case,” 6/12/20: https://www.turnto23.com/news/crime/matthew-queen-make-a-court-appearance-in-connection-to-bakersfield-3-case
22. “‘Bakersfield 3’ member Micah Holsonbake believed killed by Matthew Queen over alleged stolen gun, defendant says in court documents,” 6/18/20: https://www.kget.com/news/crime-watch/bakersfield-3-member-micah-holsonbake-was-killed-by-matthew-queen-over-alleged-stolen-gun-defendant-says-in-court-documents/
23. “Documents suggest Micah Holsonbake was afraid of suspect Matthew Queen; suggest Queen attempted to mislead investigation,” 6/17/20: https://www.turnto23.com/news/crime/documents-suggest-micah-holsonbake-was-afraid-of-suspect-matthew-queen-suggest-queen-attempted-to-mislead-investigation
24. “Documents detail depth of investigation into suspected murder of Bakersfield 3 member,” 6/19/20: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/documents-detail-depth-of-investigation-into-suspected-murder-of-bakersfield-3-membearticle_ac1fb9a4-b278-11ea-962b-6b8ee0b03647.html
25. “Bakersfield 3 update: Matthew Queen appears in court, pleas not guilty to all charges,” 6/11/20: https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/bakersfield-3-update-matthew-queen-appears-in-court-pleas-not-guilty-to-all-charges
26. “‘Bakersfield 3’ member Micah Holsonbake was afraid of murder suspect Matthew Queen, became increasingly paranoid before he disappeared, documents say,” 6/17/20
27. Appellate court decision against Matthew Queen: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/408/337/509670/
28. Obituary of James Kulstad: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bakersfield/obituary.aspx?n=james-john-kulstad&pid=188771330&fhid=6140

Hello fellow Gamedevs and Designers!
There are tons of gamedev resources out there that offer insights about psychological concepts and what they mean for Game Design. Some are very basic overviews of concepts, some are deeper theories and applications, some are surface level observations that are often misinterpreted. My initial idea was to write a post about some common misconceptions, but that would not do this topic justice, so I start with this kinda introduction to what psychology is and how its research benefits Game Design currently. If there is a demand, I might share some more insights.
A few words to me: I'm a psychologist and neuroscientist and now for about 5 years (god - has it been so long?) Gamedev/Designer. I'm working on my PhD right now, connecting everything we currently know about emotions and how they are used (and could be used) in the Game Design process.
For this post, I want to focus on really, really broad concepts of psychology, because as you can imagine - it can get quite deep and covering everything would need a few books at least. I'm doing this because I feel like there is a lot of confusion about the whole discipline of psychology and I see crazy misconceptions that are widely spread in the Game Design community. This post may not hold any new or valuable information for some people - as it is quite broad. But for others it might give some perspective that is necessary.
So, let's start with the beginning: What even is psychology?
Yeah, yeah. I know. That's way to broad, right? But this is quite an important question, because people have vastly different ideas. Some think it is the cumulated knowledge of the human mind, some think it's a range of technical terms describing biological processes in our brains. You have no idea how often I read "Psychology tells us that we have 5 kinds of motivations". Uhm... yeah? Does psychology tell us that? Here are three very important points when talking about "psychology":

• Psychology is the study of mind and behaviour. It's pretty much everything that goes on in our brain, everything we think, we feel, we perceive, and (quite importantly) it's the study of our actions. Behaviour is an essential part of it, because this is what we usually measure in experiments. Sure, there are biological variables that are measured, but (and here is the first huge misconception) these tell us not necessarily something about psychology. The relationship between our body and our mind is very complex and both influence each other in ways we don't fully understand yet. Neurobiology and psychology are not the same thing.
• Psychology is young. In theory, psychology should hold the answer to every question of human behaviour and should therefore not only be the most important discipline in Game Design, but in every aspect of human life. This is of course not the case. Current research reflects suprisingly little information, because it is only a few years old. It started with medicine and kinda began to be its own thing in the past 100 years, but was not taken very seriously. It had (and still has) a very heavy emphasis on mental disorder research with some great progress there. But general concepts of perception, emotion, motivation - very important stuff - only emerged around the 60s. The study of positive psychology (positive traits and experiences) only formed 1998 - think about that. We're still at the very beginning of everthing there is to know about the mind.
• Psychology research is probability-based. Because psychology measures behaviour, there are many problems in research design and methodology that are not present in other natural sciences. Not everybody behaves the same way, people are very different, but we still like to make some assumptions about everybody, right? Or at least a certain culture? A certain audience? Yeah, that's all hard. Every study has a certain probability to report false results and in the best case these probabilities stay consistent and can be decreased by study replications. However, even with strict guidelines in place that decide what might be seen as valid, there is a huge replication crisis (meaning very few studies can actually be replicated and show consistent results). This is a very big topic, but for you the most important thing to understand is that psychology faces some serious challenges when it comes to making valid conclusions

Now with that out of the way - is there even a way psychology can help anybody? Answer: Yes!

1. First, the absolute basics. Colour theory, gestalt-psychology, reward systems, biases, stuff like that. These are elemental things to understand about players (and yourself) that are well established and should be studied for every design task. The recent Dunning-Kruger discussion is a nice example.
2. Second, the theoretical concepts. Cognition and emotion have TONS of concepts that are incredibly helpful to understand and have a great use in Game Design. Just an example, but addiction and gambling are huge topics that exploded the gaming industry in the last years with a quite scary success. As I said before, I would love to talk more about a lot of these concepts (e.g. what makes us perceive things as pretty and engaging, why are we motivated to play, what makes us feel certain emotions, stuff like that), but this post is long enough as is, so I will maybe come back to some of these topics. This is what people typically see as the benefits of psychological research. However, I think some people have some wrong expectations here. These concepts are broad and often basic and situational implications are usually not well researched (especially in gaming). Example: Just because there is a useful distinction between intrinsic (behaviour-led) and extrinsic (reward-led) motivation doesn't mean that people love your game mechanics automatically when you add satisfying sounds. I'd even argue that any game that is not inherintly intrinsic motivating (aka fun) fails as a video game. Sure - if you're looking for broad concepts, you'll find them. But everything in psychology is complicated and gets influenced by a lot of factors, so there is not very often an easy answer to a complicated question. The more you want to know, the deeper you have to dig yourself. And that leads me to the most underexplored use:
3. Third, the Methods. Psychology is in a very unique place, because we all employ ourselves with our own mind. Everybody has certain theories ("This will be fun") and Game Design is a perfect place to test some of these theories. Now how do we test? This is where all the troubles I described finally pay off: The statistics and methodology that are used today are quite good (when properly used) in making informed decisions about a theory, because our research circumstances make really elaborate methods a necessity. Psychologists are extremely well trained in finding truth, because experimenting with humans as subject is so difficult. And we're still developing great ways to properly find true effects in experiments (or uncover false effects in bad experiments - huge problem). This goes of course much further than just the typical "ask you players for experiences" - which is still a fine approach for a lot of questions. But I think a solid grasp on experimental design and statistics should not be underestimated. An understanding of these methods can also help you train your senses regarding game design decisions that really make an impact and make your feedback so much more valuable. Why? Because you can't trust people. Not other people. Not yourself. Our brains are there to trick us into happiness. So finding truth is harder than you might think. Example methods that are useful: Finding statistical significant effects of a mechanic by testing against a control group, analyzing complex relations between machanics, handling big player datasets in the right way, knowing your players (better than they know themselves) from behavioural player data.

So in short:

• Basics in cognition and emotion are a must-study in every design task
• Psychological concepts and theories are helpful, but often broad and not easily generalizable (if a concept is important for your game [e.g. how to properly use fear], but lacks studies, you still can use the theory and test yourself if it works in your game)
• Game Design can and should benefit by using psychological methods to test its own theories (which can go very deep and specific)

And remember: Don't just trust people. Trust numbers and valid methods.
Literature for people who are interested (I know these are just psychology books, and I would be happy to link a more gamedev-related book, but I don't know any - but happy to write one if you're a publisher reading this).
Introduction to Psychology - James W. Kalat (pretty standard, very nice overview) Learning and Behavior - Paul Chance (Great to get some deeper knowledge about why people are unreliable Cognitive Psychology - E. Bruce Goldstein (Great to get the basics straight) Discovering Statistics - Andy Field (Great introduction to the mathematical side of things) Putting Psychology in its place - Graham Richards (great for learning more about the history and problems of the science - and freely available online)
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Bonus: Very general introduction to psychology and its methods that seems to touch on the most important fields (pdf).

Well look, obviously there IS such a thing as physical addiction but I’m talking about addictive behaviours. People who choose to gamble, or take drugs or alcohol in a compulsive manner, despite causing immense damage to themselves and others around them.
These behaviours are viewed as mental disorders when they are classed as obsessive compulsive but I have a hard time accepting that. If somebody with say schizophrenia has a psychotic episode we accept that they really aren’t responsible for choices made by them at that time, on a personal and I believe legal level.
Not so addicts. When an addict makes the calculated choice, completely sober, to steal and lie, we shouldn’t excuse it by labelling it “addiction”. It’s not an acceptable legal defence so neither should we allow addicts to shrug off the responsibility of choices made.

What is addiction? Is it a disease? If so, are we experiencing a pathological disease process when we become “addicted” to the naturally-rewarding endorphin release that comes with exercise? Are our addictions to the internet and coffee attributable to a ‘disease’ process too, or are those just habits, despite one (caffeine) having a basis on an actual, physical, chemical dependency?
When does a habit become an addiction — or an addiction become a disease — and how, exactly? Do various chemicals and drugs, themselves, cause a disease process in only THOSE specific addictions? Is gambling addiction a disease, even though there are no drugs involved? Does that make it a disorder as opposed to a disease? What’s the difference? Habit, addiction, disorder, disease — what do each of these words mean? More importantly, what do they look like in the brain?
As a result of the ongoing global pandemic, rates of alcohol and drug use, both pharmaceutical and otherwise, are skyrocketing, along with obesity. Against a backdrop of stress, fear, isolation, and actual or potential economic scarcity, more and more of us are developing maladaptive coping mechanisms like binge eating, binge drinking, and compulsive use of technology — even when we know that these actions will have adverse effects on our physical and mental health.
On top of these issues, many of us are succumbing to the depression and anxiety that so commonly co-occur with addictive disorders, and we might find that our bad habits accelerate and gain strength as our mental health deteriorates. Why is this so? What are the TRUE neural underpinnings of these experiences, divorced from any bought-and-sold biases? How can we use this knowledge to strengthen us?
It has never been more important for all of us to come to a collective understanding of exactly what addiction is, what is isn’t, how it happens, how we free ourselves from it, and how we can avoid it in the future or use it to our advantage. Addiction exacts an almost incalculably high financial and human toll on us here in the United States, as the total economic cost to society is greater than all types of diabetes and all cancers combined. That’s a lot.
As our life situations complicate and our problems are exacerbated, we might feel that our survivability is at risk. The rampant stressors of 2020 have triggered emotions that are primordial signals. Emotions are emotive; they come from a Latin root that means ‘causing movement’. Our emotions are our motivation; our motives. Emotions are signals. They’re designed to get us to do something — but what can we really do right now?
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What do you guys think? what does addiction mean to you?

Hi everyone, I've been following the outrage over the new battlepass system and Blizzard's lying, non-apologies, and PR nonsense. One thing I've seen repeatedly in these threads is that many players want to quit but don't think they will (or can) because they feel addicted. I've seen that word get brought up a lot this week, sometimes seriously and sometimes casually.
I'd like to focus on the seriousness angle: gaming addiction is real, it can destroy lives, and is really challenging to get out of even when you recognize you are experiencing it. If you want to quit because of this current bullshit but don't think you can, or if you've wanted to quit for a long time but find you keep coming back despite your best intentions, I'm writing this for you. I'm also writing this as someone who has been suffered this myself, have been on a years-long journey to quit, and want to support anyone who wants to but needs help.
Gaming and gaming addiction are not synonymous. While it's true that every gaming addict is a gamer, the reverse is not true; in fact, that vast majority of players have a normal, healthy relationship with gaming. Research has shown that roughly 3% of gamers, however, have an unhealthy relationship to gaming. That might not sound like much, but apply it to the 1.7m members of this sub, and potentially 50,000 of us are addicted. That's a lot.
The World Health Organization has officially recognized "gaming disorder" within the last three years. Gaming disorder (or addiction) is characterized by persistence in playing despite negative consequences in our lives (physical or mental health, finances, school or professional life, friendships and relationships, etc). It's also characterized by compulsive playing, logging tons of hours, spending money you don't have, low impulse control, foregoing sleep to play, and so on. If you feel your relationship with Hearthstone is normal, that's great great, have fun, I'm not saying there's any problem with being a fan or a player, but I hope you can also be supportive of those who can't do this in a healthy way and want to leave it behind.
Not all games are created equal when it comes to addictiveness, and it's been shown that certain types of games are more addictive than others -- MMORPGs, games with daily rewards, loot boxes simulating gambling, games with no set "end" that repeat matches over and over again. Sound like any games you know? Hearthstone is intentionally designed with some of the most up-to-date strategies for addictive game design, and the most recent battlepass situation is only the most recent predatory act towards its player base. Most of us accept the coin-toss nature of these card games because they're fun, and they feel rewarding when we win, even if we know it's basically just gambling and a 50/50 chance each time we roll a new match. Even though I think people can have fun, enjoy the game, get a lot of out of it, deep down, based on my own experience, I do believe Blizzard is a predatory company basically like tobacco companies, creating and selling a product to get people hooked and suck as much cash out of them as possible, should they prove vulnerable to the addicting mechanics.
If you want to quit, but find yourself stuck playing Hearthstone long after its lost its meaning in your life, there is help. Visit www.gamequitters.com -- they have podcasts, youtube videos, forums, and a support program. There's www.cgaa.info which runs on the 12-step AA style model and has lists of in-person meetings around the world. There are lots of websites with more information, books available, and an increasing number of therapists with skills in treating gaming and other internet addictions. You don't need to go that far though -- you can read more from redditors at StopGaming.
Also, anyone who wants to talk about this more but isn't comfortable doing it in a public space like this is more than welcome to DM me. I would be happy to talk to anyone. Of 1.7m subscribers, of a potential 50k suffering in some way because of Hearthstone, if even one of you finds support because of this post, it'd be worth it to me. Reach out, to me or others. Please don't assume you can't do it, and if you've been on the fence about trying, make this newest shitshow the reason to finally walk away from the game.

Genshin Impact is simultaneously the next step forward in open-world games and one of the biggest and worst time sinks you can imagine. It’s a game that has a nicely-crafted world and a bunch of environmental puzzles with a wide variety of characters with interesting, different, and unique playstyles, that can be combined into interesting teams, and a horrible grindfest that eats up days of your time for minimal progression and a stingy gacha system that demands your time and your money with no guarantee you will get what you want without investing hundreds of dollars.
Ostensibly, you play as the Traveler – a character from another world who was depowered by a god, their brothesister kidnapped, and they themselves dumped down into the world below for who knows how long. One day, you encounter Paimon, a floating cherubic fairy-like creature who encourages you to go seek out the seven gods, teaching you how to absorb their elemental powers from their statues for your own use.
Joining you on your journey is a vast array of characters – over two dozen at the time of writing – all with unique personalities, voice acting, backstories, and most importantly, playstyles. There are seven elemental affinities in the world (though characters only existed for six of them at the time of this review), and five different weapons, but more importantly, each character has a unique set of talents. These talents affect how a character plays.
Core Gameplay
The core gameplay is very reminiscent of Breath of the Wild and other third person open-world action-RPGs. You control a character, you can run, dash (which also doubles as a dodge), jump a short distance in the air, glide in the air, climb walls and cliffs and other things (everything except special walls in the world is climbable), and explore the world in order to find environmental puzzles and complete quests for NPCs.
The main thing that sets this game apart is the combat system. Unlike Breath of the Wild, the game has a much more fluid and flowing combat system, with fairly rapid attacks and agile characters. Moreover, you are not stuck with a single character, but rather have four characters, that you switch between during combat. This four character team makes up the core of the game, as you will need to use your various characters skills in concert to overcome your foes.
Each character has three combat talents – a basic attack, an elemental skill, and an elemental burst. The basic attack is exactly that – something that allows you to swing your weapon around, as well as make “charged attacks” by holding the attack button, and plunge attacks by attacking enemies from above. Each character has a unique set of autoattacks that deal different levels of damage and have different hitboxes and different attack rates, making each character feel different even when they use the same weapon. There are five weapons – polearms, swords, claymores (giant two-handed swords), bows, and catalysts, the last of which are used by “magic users”. Each suggests a different playstyle, with different characters further changing how they play.
The elemental skills are more flashy. Here, characters call upon their elemental powers and do something. This can range from making a flame-empowered sword strike, to summoning a raven who strikes your foes repeatedly with lightning, to throwing out a magic lightning kunai that, with a second activation of the elemental skill, you teleport to. These abilities have varying cooldown times and deal varying amounts of damage, and radically change how characters play. A character who can teleport around can not only be very swift in combat and engage enemies on platforms, but can also use this ability outside of combat to teleport up walls or over gaps. A character who can shield can prevent knockback and ignore a lot of enemy attacks. A character who can heal can restore the rest of your team’s life – very important in some of the more dangerous areas, where you cannot simply use food items to restore your health at will.
The elemental bursts are the most flashy abilities. These both have a cooldown timer, AND require you to gather enough “energy” to use them. Using elemental skills, attacking with your basic attacks, killing enemies – all of these things generate energy, and you can also equip items that further increase energy regeneration. Elemental bursts tend to be quite powerful and are the most “exciting” abilities in some ways, playing a brief cutscene during which the characters are invulnerable and unleashing some powerful burst of power, ranging from throwing a firey phoenix across the field, to rapid attacks too fast for the eye to follow striking everyone nearby, to turning into a raven and flying across the battlefield (shocking everyone along the way), to summoning a gigantic meteorite which petrifies your foes, to creating an aura that boosts your attacks and heals you over time. Using these abilities can turn the tide of battle, and the brief period of invulnerability is yet another way to dodge enemy attacks.
On top of this, each character has three passive talents, two of which boost your combat prowess (often affecting how your skills work), as well as a third that has some minor effect on the game’s crafting or resource gathering mechanics. The out of combat mechanics are mostly boring, but some pretty useful – some reduce the time you have to spend to farm materials on a passive “expedition” that you dispatch characters on, or give you more items when you craft, while others give you the ability to see different kinds of items automatically on your minimap.
The most important aspect of the combat system is the way that various elements can interact. If two elements are applied to the same enemy, then an elemental reaction occurs. These can deal extra damage, send enemies flying, generate shields, or spread elemental effects to other enemies as well. Thus, the ideal team uses a variety of elements to exploit these reactions as often as possible, often particular ones that are synergistic with the characters you concentrate on using for damage output as opposed for things like healing or shields.
Additionally, there are some enemies that have shields that are only vulnerable to particular elements, be it a wooden shield that can be set on fire or a water “empowerment” that can be broken by repeatedly electrocuting the enemy.
All of this conspires to encourage players to run diverse teams so as to be able to respond to a variety of enemies and circumstances while exploiting elemental reactions to deal as much damage as possible.
Unfortunately, the combat also turns into one of the game’s greatest weaknesses in the long term.
The problem comes from the fact that while there is okay enemy variety, it is still fairly limited relative to the very long time the game wants you to play it for. On top of this, the most common type of enemy – the hilichurl – is nigh-omnipresent, and has sharply limited variety. While on one hand, palette cleaners like them can be fun to bat around with your overpowered characters, the map has enormous numbers of these, and they really present no threat to you. As a result, a great deal of what you do while wandering around is filler.
Additionally, there is limited challenge overall in overworld encounters in general. It is common to encounter very small groups of enemies, but rare for there to be actual threatening encounters – indeed, there are perhaps three actually challenging encounters around on the overworld map, where multiple enemies congregate in a small area and present a real challenge. This is unfortunate, because it means that, while you are free to explore to your heart’s content, after a while, all you will run into is easy, samey encounters, with very few exceptions. This is disappointing – while first entering a new area will expose you to some new foes, there are no more than a handful typically, and the novelty quickly wears off.
The only actually challenging encounters are found in domains and the Abyss, instanced areas where you fight on small, circular, samey maps every single time. While these maps allow the game creators to quickly create new encounters, it feels like a let-down that with a game with a bunch of neat overworld areas to explore, all the actual challenging encounters occur in samey instanced areas.
These encounters do a great deal more to test a player’s skill, though, with the domains serving to give players materials for powering up characters and special equippable items, and the Abyss serving as an endgame area to grind for.
Unfortunately, while this all sounds cool, the domains are likely to wear thin after a while, as they are always the same and you often must do them dozens of times to get all the items you need for powering up your characters.
This leads to one of the main issues with the game…
The Grind
Genshin Impact involves a ridiculous amount of grinding, and like most gacha games, progression is limited by a energy system, where you are limited in how much you can play the areas that give you rewards based on real time. The resin system gives you about 180 resin a day, or about 7.5 per hour. The purpose of this is to slow down character progression; however, it has some pretty large negative consequences, especially in the endgame.
The issue arises from the conflict between this slow, long-term grinding and the fact that you want to use new characters. Because it takes several weeks of grinding to power up a new character, you are forced to focus on only a small number of characters so that they can actually complete the content – if you spread out your focus too much, you end up with a bunch of underpowered characters who can’t progress in the game.
This has major negative consequences. By the end of my time with the game – three months of gameplay – I had only nine characters levelled up, with a tenth being sort of half-leveled. This was because I simply didn’t have the materials to level up the rest of my team. And indeed, even amongst my core team, many were unable to progress as high as I’d like – or be equipped as well as I’d like – because I simply didn’t have the ability to grind for either the materials they needed to level up/otherwise become stronger, or for their equipment. A large number of characters I would have liked to use were simply not available for use due to lack of materials.
This conflict between the coolness of the game having a lot of characters with varied gameplay and the fact that you can’t actually use most of them severely undercuts one of the major selling points of the game, and one of the major sources of gameplay variety that it theoretically offers.
On top of this, there are a lot of inane tasks that the player is given to get the game’s currency for levelling characters. Every day, a player gets four “commissions”, that are very simple, short encounters that give you “primogems”, the game’s premium currency. While a few of these tasks have some cute little stories attached to them, probably 80% of them are just “Go to a spot and kill the enemies there”. The encounters aren’t even difficult, so these are purely a waste of the player’s time.
In addition, every day there are multiple “magic crystals” locations that spawn a bunch of special ore deposits. Ore is crafted into a material that is used to level up weapons. As players need vast amounts of this material to level their weapons, they need to farm for this every day to max out their weapons. This is independent of the other forms of grinding, and is very tedious after a while, as you are just going to the same spots day after day to check if ore spawned there. There are NPCs that tell you where ore has spawned – but you have to check other locations anyway in many cases, as ore spawns in addition to the marked locations.
The result is a bunch of tedious daily busywork intended to keep the player playing every single day. And none of it is fun.
This is a huge problem. The game has neat exploration, but to progress beyond a certain point, you need to interact with these grindy systems. The result is that you feel compelled to do many things that simply are not very fun so that you can do the few fun things as they occur.
The game tries to hook you in with the promise of the cool overworld content, but it quickly devolves into this grindfest, after you feel like you’ve sunk a lot of time into the game (and potentially, money, if you are fool enough to spend money on it). This sunk cost fallacy combined with daily tasks is designed to monopolize your time and keep you playing, even though most of what you do isn’t very interesting. While periodic events and releases of new content do help a little, they simply are far too small compared to the amount of boring grinding the game expects you to do.
The Gacha System
The gacha system in this game is very much a mixed bag. On the one hand, the pull rates are terrible. On the other hand, if you don’t really care what characters you get, you can get the overwhelming majority of the cast for pretty cheap if you play the game for a few months. On the gripping hand, the game exploits gambling addicts and people who want particular characters to the tunes of hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
For those not familiar, gacha systems are very closely related to loot box systems. You spend some amount of premium currency and you get a “roll”, where you have a chance of getting a weapon or a character. Getting multiple copies of the same character gives you “constellations”, which make those characters more powerful; getting multiple copies of the same weapon gives you the ability to refine the weapon into a more powerful version.
The catch is, all the cool items and literally all of the characters are 4-star and 5-star drops, which are rare pulls; 4-stars drop only a bit over 6% of the time, and 5-stars 0.6%.
To make up for these low drop rates, there is a “pity” system where the probability of getting a 4-star increases after about 7 or 8 rolls without one, and the probability of getting a 5-star increases after about 75 rolls without one. On average, you get them after about 9 pulls and 75 pulls respectively, and never later than every 10 and 90 pulls respectively.
As a result, the game encourages you to pull… a lot.
And it doesn’t give you a lot of resources to do it with, while trying to manipulate you into paying money.
If you do all the various overworld stuff and do your daily commissions, you’ll get about enough free premium currency to do about 150 pulls. This is roughly enough to get two 5-star characters or items, along with a bunch of others. This seems like a good start, and it is – but it is really there to trigger the sunk cost fallacy, because from there on out, your rate of currency earning will plummet.
And, notably, all the characters and all the cool weapons are 4-stars and 5-stars. As a result, almost everything you pull is garbage – and you don’t get to pull very much.
Now, this is a basal rate; the actual rate is a bit higher due to events, so you’re more likely to get about 10-15 more pulls than that a month. The spiral abyss – if you are good enough to push deep in it – can provide about six more per month. Even still, it’s pretty paltry – because of the game’s “pity system” giving you a 4-star every 10th pull and a 5-star every 90th (though in reality, the average is about the 9th pull and 75th pull because the game tweaks the probability of getting such a pull0
In comes the ability to buy currency.
There is really one efficient option here – the Blessing of the Welkin Moon. For $5 a month, you get another 3000 premium currency – but the catch is that you get 300 up front, and then 90 a day for the next 30 days. This is designed to encourage you to keep playing, but if you actually are going to play the game for a month, you will go from getting 60 premium currency a day from the daily commissions to getting 150. As a pull is 160, and you got 300 gems up front, this works out to getting a pull a day, every day. This not only greatly increases your rate of pulls, but it also just makes it feel like less of a struggle to get more characters.
The other option is the gnostic hymn - the game’s equivalent of a battle pass, something that gives you rewards for completing various tasks in game over the course of six weeks. This mostly exists for the purpose of making grinding less awful – you get a bunch of materials for levelling your characters – but it also gives you a free 4-star weapon of your choice (which lets you equip a key character who you haven’t gotten lucky enough to pull a weapon for) and some extra premium currency, about enough for eight pulls. This costs $10, and is not a great deal from a pulls perspective, but if you’re someone who really wants to get a weapon for their main character, it’s a way to make sure you got one, and to help lessen the grind.
By the end of my three month stint with the game, I bought the Blessing three times, and the gnostic hymn twice. After $35 spent on the game, I had every single 4-star character (some at maximum constellations – meaning they got a bunch of bonuses), half of the 5-star characters (including a constellation for one), and two 5-star weapons.
I was actually pretty happy with this assortment, save for the fact that I couldn’t level most of them.
But for people who have impulse control problems, or who want particular characters, the game can fleece you for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
The game has “character event banners”, where a new 5-star character and three 4-star characters are given a “rate up” – half the time when you get a 5-star or a 4-star, you will get one of the rate up characters. If you don’t get a rate-up character, then the next time you roll a drop of the same rarity, it is guaranteed to be one from the banner.
The problem is, you will get about enough premium currency to guarantee you’ll get a 5-star about 2 banners in 3, even if you spend money, and about 1 banner in 3 if you don’t.
This means that you will miss out on at least half of these characters, even if you spend money on the “reasonable” stuff.
If you feel like you “must” have one of these characters, you will need to pay.
A lot.
81 pulls – about what is required for a 5-star character – will run you $99.99 the first time, and twice that thereafter, or more than $2 per pull.
And if you want constellations for the character, it can easily run over $1,000.
Needless to say, when 90% of your pulls are garbage, this is not only inordinately expensive, but just flat-out exploitative.
Unfortunately, these games tend to heavily rely on so-called “whales” – people with impulse control disorders with money to burn – to finance themselves.
The result is a much worse experience for everyone else, and no real ground between “spending a marginal amount of money” and “bankrupting yourself for digital characters”.
Story and Plot
The plot of the game is serviceable so far. It isn’t great but it isn’t terrible, either, and it does a pretty good job of mixing in humor while managing a serious plot that doesn’t feel like it is the same generic JRPG plot that is seen in upteen many games. The characters have excellent voice acting, but the actual plot itself varies in quality; some sidequests are pretty high quality while others are only okay, and the various random world quests around are often pretty weak, though a small number did some solid worldbuilding or hit strong emotional notes.
Unfortunately, after playing through the first two areas of the game, you will run out of game to play entirely; the game is very, very much unfinished, and won’t be finished for many years to come.
Recommendation
While the core of the game is fun, the game is unfinished. Moreover, because of the awful gacha system combined with the inability to level your characters fully, playing the game just feels like a mistake – you’ll have fun for a while, long enough to get you hooked, and then you’ll run out of stuff to do and be stuck with a lot of repetitive, grindy gameplay.
The actual cost of the game varies from “free” to “outright extortative”, and anyone with impulse control problems should never, ever, ever play this game, as it will try to fleece you for all that you’re worth.
The game’s core mechanics drive you towards grinding, but the result is that the amount of “fun” gameplay you get will ever dwindle over time.
All in all, as much fun as I had with this game starting out, I can’t recommend it. It’s a game that tries to eat your life, and it is unfinished to boot.
Maybe when the plot is finished, you could just pick it up and play it as a free open-world game. But you’d have to be able to ignore the myriad ways in which the game is trying to get you to open your wallet and devour your time.
All in all, this is a game to be avoided, not because of its low quality, but because of its incomplete nature and attempt at eating your life and wallet.

UK Mental Health Helplines:

ME CONNECT HELPLINE

https://meassociation.org.uk/information-and-support-line/
Got me/cfs fibro? Feel alone? Feel no one understands you? Not even Samaritans helps?
Volunteers at ME Association really do UNDERSTAND so call em:
We deal with each person individually, in a sensitive and professional manner. Every communication is kept completely confidential. ME Connect is staffed by a fully trained, and supervised, team of volunteers – most of whom have personal experience of M.E.

0344 576 5326

Available every day of the week between these times: 10am - 12noon, 2pm - 4pm and 7pm - 9pm.
Calls cost the same as other standard landline numbers (starting 01 or 02). If you have a call package for your landline or mobile phone then calls will normally come out of your inclusive minutes.
​
And on with...
​
... other valuable resources:
​
Mental health helplines:
Shout
Shout is the UK’s first 24/7 text service, free on all major mobile networks, for anyone in crisis anytime, anywhere. We can help with urgent issues such as: suicidal thoughts, abuse or assault, self-harm, bullying and relationship challenges
Text Shout to 85258
(https://www.giveusashout.org/)
Mental Health Matters
Helpline for people with mental health problems, their carers, families and friends. The Team can offer emotional guidance and information and help people who may be feeling low, anxious or stressed or in extreme emotional distress and feel that there is nowhere else to turn. Support is also provided to people caring for another person and finding it difficult to cope. The service is confidential unless it is considered there is a risk to yourself or others. Webchat available 24/7
Phone: click here to find the different numbers for the geographical areas covered Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Supportline
We offer confidential emotional support to children, young adults and adults by telephone, email and post. We work with callers to develop healthy, positive coping strategies, an inner feeling of strength and increased self esteem to encourage healing, recovery and moving forward with life.
Phone: 01708 765200 (hours variable - ring for details)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
The Silver Line
The Silver Line operates the only confidential, free helpline for older people across the UK that's open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year. We also offer telephone friendship where we match volunteers with older people based on their interests, facilitated group calls, and help to connect people with local services in their area.
Phone: 0800 4 70 80 90 Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
(https://www.thesilverline.org.uk/)
Breathing Space
A confidential phoneline for anyone in Scotland over the age of 16, feeling low, anxious or depressed.
Phone: 0800 838587 (weekdays mon-thurs 6pm until 2am. Weekend Friday 6pm-Monday 6am)
(https://breathingspace.scot/)
C.A.L.L. Mental health helpline
Offers emotional support and information/literature on Mental Health and related matters to the people of Wales. Anyone concerned about their own mental health or that of a relative or friend can access the service. C.A.L.L. Helpline offers a confidential listening and support service.
Phone: 0800 132 737 or text help to 81066
(https://www.callhelpline.org.uk/)
Lifeline Helpline
Lifeline is the Northern Ireland crisis response helpline service for people who are experiencing distress or despair. No matter what your age or where you live in Northern Ireland, if you are or someone you know is in distress or despair, Lifeline is here to help.
Phone: 0808 808 8000 or 18001 0808 808 8000 for Deaf and hard of hearing Textphone users. (24 hours a day, seven days a week)
(https://www.lifelinehelpline.info/)
One parent families Scotland
The Lone Parent Helpline provides advice and support to single parents. Call us about anything from dealing with a break-up, sorting out child maintenance, understanding benefits, money when having a baby, studying or moving into work. We provide a free confidential friendly service that provides advice and supports your wellbeing whatever you are going through.
Phone: 0808 801 0323 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 4pm)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
(https://opfs.org.uk/)
RABI Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution
Time is a precious commodity, especially in farming. But it’s something our staff will happily give you.
When you call you’ll speak to a member of our dedicated welfare team. We understand that making that very first call – and talking about personal things with someone you don’t know – might sound daunting. However, it’s 100% confidential, so you’ll be free to discuss what’s on your mind without judgement. We won’t disclose any information to third parties without your explicit permission and calls are not recorded. We’ll do our very best to make you feel at ease, listening with courtesy, sympathy and respect.
Phone: 0808 281 9490 (9am-5pm weekdays) Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
(https://rabi.org.uk/)
The Drinks Trust:
We are the drinks industry community organisation, providing care and support to the people who form the drinks industry workforce, both past and present. The Trust provides individuals with services across vocational, well-being, financial and practical support. These services are intended to assist with and improve the circumstances of those who receive them
Phone: 0800 915 4610
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Contact form - To be eligible, you must have worked for at least two years full-time or four years part-time in the UK drinks industry.
(https://www.drinkstrust.org.uk/)
Anxiety UK
Charity providing support if you've been diagnosed with an anxiety condition.
Phone: 03444 775 774 (Mon to Fri, 9.30am to 5.30pm)
(www.anxietyuk.org.uk)
Bipolar UK
A charity helping people living with manic depression or bipolar disorder.
Peer support line: Arrange a call back from our Peer Support Line. Book in a call with our chatbot- simply type in 'I would like to speak to someone' and select a date and time that works best for you.
Email us: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
(www.bipolaruk.org.uk)
Carers UK
We provide an expert telephone advice and support service. You can talk to us, no matter where you are in the UK or how complex your query is. We do benefits checks, and advise on financial and practical matters related to caring.
Phone: 0808 808 7777 (Mon-Fri 9am until 6pm)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Online forum: here
(https://www.carersuk.org/)
CALM
Our helpline is for people in the UK who are down or have hit a wall for any reason, who need to talk or find information and support.
Phone: 0800 58 58 58 (5pm to midnight - 365 days a year)
(www.thecalmzone.net)
Shelter
Shelter helps millions of people every year struggling with bad housing or homelessness through our advice, support, and legal services
England&Scotland phone number: 08088004444 (8am - 8pm on weekdays and 9am - 5pm weekends).
(https://www.shelter.org.uk/)
Wales phone number: 08000 495495 (9.30am – 4.00pm, Monday to Friday)
(https://sheltercymru.org.uk/)
For similar housing support in Ireland and NI: Ireland and Northern Ireland
Mind
Promotes the views and needs of people with mental health problems.
Phone: 0300 123 3393 (Mon to Fri, 9am to 6pm)
(www.mind.org.uk)
Mind Cymru: 0292-0395-123 (https://www.mind.org.uk/about-us/mind-cymru/)
No Panic
Voluntary charity offering support for sufferers of panic attacks and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Offers a course to help overcome your phobia/OCD. Includes a helpline.
Phone: 0844 967 4848 (daily, 10am to 10pm)
(www.nopanic.org.uk)
OCD Action
Support for people with OCD. Includes information on treatment and online resources.
Phone: 0845 390 6232 (Mon to Fri, 9.30am to 5pm)
(www.ocdaction.org.uk)
OCD UK
A charity run by people with OCD, for people with OCD. Includes facts, news and treatments.
Phone: 0845 120 3778 (Mon to Fri, 9am to 5pm)
(www.ocduk.org)
PAPYRUS
HOPELINEUK is a confidential support and advice service for children and young people under the age of 35 who are experiencing thoughts of suicide, or anyone concerned that a young person could be thinking about suicide.
Phone: HOPElineUK 0800 068 4141 (9:00 am to 12:00 am midnight every day including weekends & bank holidays)
Text: 07860 039 967
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
(www.papyrus-uk.org)
Rethink Mental Illness
Support and advice for people living with mental illness.
Phone: 0300 5000 927 (Mon to Fri, 9.30am to 4pm)
(www.rethink.org)
Samaritans
Confidential support for people experiencing feelings of distress or despair.
Phone: 116 123 (free 24-hour helpline)
(www.samaritans.org.uk)
SANE
Emotional support, information and guidance for people affected by mental illness, their families and carers.
SANEline: 0300 304 7000 (daily, 4.30 to 10.30pm)
Textcare: comfort and care via text message, sent when the person needs it most: (http://www.sane.org.uk/textcare)
(www.sane.org.uk/supportforum)
(www.sane.org.uk/support)
YoungMinds
Information on child and adolescent mental health. Services for parents and professionals.
Phone: Parents' helpline 0808 802 5544 (Mon to Fri, 9.30am to 4pm)
(www.youngminds.org.uk)
Veterans Gateway
The first point of contact for veterans seeking support. We put veterans and their families in touch with the organisations best placed to help with the information, advice and support they need – from healthcare and housing to employability, finances, personal relationships and more.
Phone: 0808 802 1212 Text: 81212 Email: submit here Live chat: here
(https://www.veteransgateway.org.uk/)
First Person Plural
First Person Plural (FPP) specialises in working for and on behalf of all those affected by Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and similar complex trauma-related dissociative identity conditions. These similar conditions include type 1 Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS), and a type of Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) which is described as DID-like.
Phone: 01902810082 (if we do not pick up leave a message and we will contact you as soon as possible but this might not be for a few days as our office is not staffed everyday) Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Twitter: u/DissociationFPP
LGBT+ helplines:
Switchboard LGBT
Switchboard provides a one-stop listening service for LGBT+ people on the phone, by email and through Instant Messaging.
Phone: 0300 330 0630 (10am-10pm every day)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
(https://switchboard.lgbt/)
MindlineTrans+
MindLine Trans+ is a confidential emotional, mental health support helpline for people who identify as Transgender, Agender, Gender Fluid, Non-binary..
Phone: 03003305468 (Mondays and Fridays from 8pm to midnight.)
Mermaids UK
Mermaids provides a helpline aimed at supporting transgender youth up to and including the age of 19, their families and professionals working with them.
Phone: 0808 801 0400 (Open Monday - Friday; 9am - 9pm)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
(https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk)
Abuse helplines (child, sexual, domestic violence):
NSPCC
Children's charity dedicated to ending child abuse and child cruelty.
Phone: 0800 1111 for Childline for children (24-hour helpline)
0808 800 5000 for adults concerned about a child (24-hour helpline)
(www.nspcc.org.uk)
Refuge
Advice on dealing with domestic violence.
Phone: 0808 2000 247 (24-hour helpline)
(www.refuge.org.uk)
Women's Aid
Women’s Aid is the national charity working to end domestic abuse against women and children.
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Live chat: Our hours are Monday to Friday 10:00am - 4:00pm, Saturday and Sunday 10:00am-12:00pm. Here
Respect Men's advice line
The Men’s Advice Line is a confidential helpline for male victims of domestic abuse and those supporting them. We offer advice and emotional support to men who experience abuse, and signpost to other vital services that help keep them and their children safe.
Call: 0808 8010327 or visit: here
Respect phoneline
The Respect Phoneline is an anonymous and confidential helpline for men and women who are harming their partners and families. We provide specialist advice and guidance to help people change their behaviours and support for those working with domestic abuse perpetrators.
Call: 0808 8024040 or visit: here
National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans+ Domestic Abuse Helpline:
Galop gives advice and support to people who have experienced biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexual violence or domestic abuse. We also support lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people who have had problems with the police or have questions about the criminal justice system
Galop is completely independent – we are a community-led group and we are not connected to police. You can talk to us anonymously if you choose
Phone: 0800 999 5428 (Monday to Friday 10:00am - 5:00pm. Wednesday to Thursday 10:00am - 8:00pm)
(http://www.galop.org.uk/domesticabuse/)
Honour based abuse/violence, forced marriage and/or female genital mutilation helplines
Freedom Charity
We aim to empower young people to feel they have the tools and confidence to support each other and have practical ways in which they can help their best friend around the issues of family relationships which can lead to early and forced marriage and dishonour based violence
(https://www.freedomcharity.org.uk/)
Phone: 0845 607 0133 ; or text "4freedom"to 88802 (24-hour helpline)
Halo Project
Halo Project Charity is a national project that will support victims of honour-based violence, forced marriages and FGM by providing appropriate advice and support to victims. We will also work with key partners to provide required interventions and advice necessary for the protection and safety of victims.
Phone: 01642 683 045 (9am-5pm)
(https://www.haloproject.org.uk/)
Karma Nirvana
Karma Nirvana is an award-winning National charity supporting victims of honour-based abuse and forced marriage. Honour crimes are not determined by age, faith, gender or sexuality, we support and work with all victims
Phone: 0800 5999 247 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)
(https://karmanirvana.org.uk/)
Addiction helplines (drugs, alcohol, gambling):
Alcoholics Anonymous
Phone: 0845 769 7555 (24-hour helpline)
(www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk)
Gamblers Anonymous
Phone: 0330 094 0322
(www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk)
Narcotics Anonymous
Phone: 0300 999 1212 (daily 10am to midnight)
(www.ukna.org)
Drugfam
Support for families, friends and partners affected by someone else’s addiction to drugs or alcohol.
Phone: 0300 888 3853
(https://www.drugfam.co.uk/)
Al-Anon UK&Eire
We are here for anyone affected by someone else's drinking. Our Helpline is manned by a team of friendly and helpful volunteers who are also members of Al-Anon. They will listen and be happy to answer your questions
Phone: 0800 0086 811 (10am-10pm, 365 days a year)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Alzheimer's helpline:
Alzheimer's Society
Provides information on dementia, including factsheets and helplines.
Phone: 0300 222 1122 (Mon to Fri, 9am to 5pm. Weekends, 10am to 4pm)
(www.alzheimers.org.uk)
Bereavement helplines:
Cruse Bereavement Care
Phone: 0808 808 1677 (Mon to Fri, 9am to 5pm)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
CruseChat
(https://www.cruse.org.uk)
Blue Cross for pets
If you have lost, or are facing saying goodbye to, a much loved pet and need somebody to talk to, our Pet Bereavement Support Service is here for you every day from 8.30am – 8.30pm
Phone: 0800 096 6606
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
The Compassionate Friends
The Compassionate Friends is a charitable organisation of bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents dedicated to the support and care of other similarly bereaved family members who have suffered the death of a child or children of any age and from any cause
Phone: 0345 120 3785 (9:30am - 4:30pm Mon to Fri)
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide:
If you are 18+ and have been bereaved or affected by suicide and you would like to talk with one of our volunteers about your experience, you can get in touch in the following ways:
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) and/or [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Helpline: open 9am to 9pm Monday to Sunday 0300 111 5065
You can also apply to join their online peer support forum here
(https://uksobs.org/)
Crime victims helplines:
Rape Crisis
To find your local services phone: 0808 802 9999 (daily, 12 to 2.30pm, 7 to 9.30pm)
(www.rapecrisis.org.uk)
Victim Support
Phone: 0808 168 9111 (24-hour helpline)
(www.victimsupport.org)
Eating disorders helpline:
Beat
Phone: 0808 801 0677 (adults) or 0808 801 0711 (for under-18s)
(www.b-eat.co.uk)
Learning disabilities helpline:
Mencap
Charity working with people with a learning disability, their families and carers.
Phone: 0808 808 1111 (Mon to Fri, 9am to 5pm)
(www.mencap.org.uk)
Parenting helpline:
Family Lives
Family Lives offers a confidential and free helpline service for families in England and Wales (previously known as Parentline). Please call us on 0808 800 2222 for emotional support, information, advice and guidance on any aspect of parenting and family life. Our helpline service is open 9am-9pm Monday to Friday and 10am-3pm Saturday and Sunday
Callers in Wales: If you would like to access this service in Welsh, find out how to request a call back here
Callers in Scotland: for callers from Scotland, Children 1st run Parentline Scotland and you may wish to contact them on 08000 28 22 33 Monday to Friday from 9am - 9pm.
Online chat: available 1:30pm-5:30pm every weekday excluding bank holidays here
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Online forum: here
(https://www.familylives.org.uk/)
Relationships helpline:
Relate
The UK's largest provider of relationship support.
(www.relate.org.uk)
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