Self-medication and pleasure seeking as dichotomous motivations underlying behavioral disorders

Social concern is increasing about the perceived negative effects from consuming a number of legal products including gambling, alcohol, and food. This study uses data from a clinic treating gambling and other behavioral disorders to test the theory that different motivations may exist in the consumption of legal products that harm health and well-being. Pathological consumers whose goal is self-medication are more likely to have correlated consumption disorders (e.g., other substance dependencies) than those whose goal is pure pleasure. Self-medicators demonstrate a positive correlation between the severity of their consumption problems and having other substance dependencies. This finding suggests that gambling and other substance dependencies are means of self-medication to one category of pathological gamblers. Furthermore, because self-medicators can more easily substitute among different problem consumptions (e.g., switch from gambling to illicit drugs) for the same goal, they are less likely than pleasure seekers to commit crimes to facilitate their gambling. The possible predictors of motivation types and their implications are further discussed.