Recovery Articles
Who Can Actually Treat Gambling Addiction?
Gambling disorder is treatable, but not every clinician is trained for it. Learn which professionals help, what to ask them, and how integrated care works.
When someone finally decides to get help for gambling, they usually start where help is easiest to find: a general therapist, a primary care doctor, a helpline. Sometimes that works. Often it stalls, because gambling disorder is a specialty, and not every well meaning clinician has trained for it.
Knowing who can actually treat gambling addiction saves months of trial and error.
Why Generic Help Often Falls Short
Most counseling programs touch on gambling briefly, if at all. Clinicians without that training may treat it as a money management issue or a simple habit, missing both the specific psychology of betting and the conditions that drive it. The person trying to recover ends up educating their own therapist, and that rarely goes well.
The Professionals Who Can Help
- Licensed addictions counselors with gambling specialization. Credentials in problem gambling treatment signal real training and supervised experience, not just general substance use knowledge.
- Psychiatric providers. Psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners evaluate and treat the anxiety, depression, ADHD, or trauma that often travel with gambling, and manage medication when it genuinely helps.
- Therapists trained in approaches with evidence behind them, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing, adapted to gambling specifically.
- Peer recovery specialists. People with lived experience of gambling recovery offer something no degree can: proof that it is possible, and practical navigation of the early days.
The strongest care usually combines these roles rather than choosing one.
Questions Worth Asking a New Provider
Before committing, ask directly:
- How much of your practice involves gambling disorder?
- What training or credentials do you hold specific to gambling?
- How do you approach what sits underneath the gambling?
- How do you involve family when it is helpful?
- What does a typical treatment plan look like over the first three months?
Good providers welcome these questions. Vague answers are information too.
Why Integrated Care Works
Gambling problems rarely arrive alone, so care should not be delivered alone. At Lilac Grove, psychiatric care and addiction counseling sit under one roof. Sandra DeGroat, PMHNP-BC, addresses the mental health foundations, including the sleep, anxiety, and mood patterns that feed compulsive behavior. Ken Litwak, a licensed addictions counselor holding the ICGC-II gambling credential, provides gambling specific therapy. Doug Martin, our peer recovery support specialist, brings lived experience to the gaps between sessions.
That combination exists because recovery is not one decision. It is a set of supports catching you at different moments.
A Simple Starting Point
If you are weighing who to talk to, begin with clarity about where you stand. Our online assessment takes a few minutes and gives you something concrete to bring to any provider, including us. Or send a message and start the conversation directly.