We understand mental illness and the difficulties it creates for those who suffer from it. At our San Diego Mental Health Treatment Center we are sensitive to your challenges. Solara will find every possible solution to enable you to live the life that you are meant to live.

MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Gambling Addiction

Solara Mental Health’s San Diego Gambling Addiction Treatment is an effective, comprehensive program specifically designed to address the unique struggles for those with a mental health disorder and a co-occurring gambling addiction. Treatment begins with a thorough evaluative process, which provides a clear diagnosis for all veterans. From this diagnosis, our expert clinicians build individualized treatment plans for each veteran. Treatment is designed to address all behavioral and emotional symptoms, as well as the gambling addiction and its underlying mental health disorder.

Our mental health treatment center’s program uses a combination of individual psychotherapy, group therapy, holistic therapies, a twelve-step program with peers, and (as needed) psychotropic therapy to fully engage veterans in the recovery process. Through this variety of therapeutic modalities, veterans learn not only how to address the roots of their symptoms, but also to develop and utilize skills that will allow them to avoid engaging in self-destructive behaviors. Veterans strengthen their impulse control and gain valuable personal insight, allowing them to recover from their experiences and take control of their lives once more.

Overcoming Addiction

Although gambling usually starts out as a harmless, fun activity, it can sometimes evolve into a harmful addiction that requires professional involvement to stop. No matter the form the gambling takes, if not properly treated, this addiction can cause social isolation, financial ruin and psychological distress. Symptoms of a gambling addiction can include the following:

Thinking constantly about gambling and/or looking for occasions to gamble
Engaging in risky financial endeavors to fund gambling, including frequently borrowing or stealing money
Needing increasingly higher stakes to get the same thrill
Using gamble as a coping mechanism for stress or other emotional issues
Lying to others about gambling habits
Wanting to stop, but not being able to

Gambling is not a substance addiction, but it does have biochemical roots. For those with a gambling addiction, dopamine is released during anticipation for or participation in betting, this creates a powerful biochemical drive to continue gambling. This drive is exceptionally difficult to ignore and the more it is acted upon, the more ingrained the behavior becomes, even when the gambling has negative consequences. Mental health disorders often underlie a gambling addiction. People gamble as a way to deal with the difficult emotions they have as a result of their mental health disorder. Specifically, manic episodes can be associated with gambling binges, exacerbating the impulse control struggles and requiring specialized professional treatment.

Solara Mental Health understands the complicated nature of gambling addiction and the co-occurring mental health disorders that sometimes come with them. The calm, quiet facilities at Solara provide a refuge from the day-to-day triggers and habits that can cause gambling, giving veterans the distance and space they need to begin recovery. Our psychiatric clinicians, who are experts at treating mental health disorders and co-occurring addictions, use a variety of therapeutic modalities to help veterans better understand the nature of their illness and the psychological drive that causes them to gamble. From this understanding, veterans can begin to practice techniques that help them strengthen self-control, develop increased self-confidence and cope with triggers in a healthy manner. This allows them to rebuild damaged interpersonal relationships and take control of their lives once again.

While our veterans make considerable and rapid improvements, gambling addiction is often a long-term condition. Through years of experience, our mental health treatment center has learned how to provides the entire spectrum of care for our veterans. From inpatient to outpatient, from transitional living to a long-term aftercare plan, our program has been designed to free our veterans from the clutches of gambling addiction.

Stress reduction is an important part of managing co-occurring impulse control disorders, Solara offers several physical therapies as part of our treatment program. Massages will alleviate tension that builds up in the body. Meditation and yoga will help veterans ground themselves in their body and relax. These physical therapeutic modalities give veterans extra methods for avoiding and overcoming triggers and mastering the impulse to engage in damaging behaviors.

What Our Clients Say

Dad

We are so grateful to you for the treatment and care you provided our daughter. She is doing unbelievably well now thanks to your program. We will gladly tell anyone we encounter that needs treatment about the wonderful work you do at Solara.

M.P. – Father

Your program provided our daughter with the most masterful therapist we have ever encountered (and we have used many). She has had an unbelievable ability to see the long-term trajectory of our daughter’s treatment and to approach her treatment in stages that fit where my daughter’s development was. We can’t say enough positive about her.

Watson Family

Solara’s program was such a positive experience for our mom (and for us)! She had become almost impossible to deal with. Your entire staff was phenomenally supportive and kind and patient with her. We feel like we’ve got our mom back, now.

Husband

Solara was truly a life-changing experience for me and for our children, because of what you did for my wife! The treatment team was phenomenally supportive and perfect for helping her with her anxiety and depression. We are all now moving forward to put our lives back together and it started with you all in Pacific Beach. Thank you for what you do.

Lauren

The Solara program is truly amazing. I’ve never had more clarity or more good energy in my entire life. The attention the physicians and the therapists gave me was outstanding. I feel like they truly understood and addressed my issues, which had consumed my life for years. Thank you all.

R.M. – Father

If not for Solara Mental Health, I am almost positive that our daughter would not be as advanced in her treatment, and would not have the almost miraculous confident and positive outlook that she has.

Terri

The Solara Treatment Program was a life-changing experience for me. To be able to heal in such a beautiful, peaceful environment, with such a terrific treatment team, was so amazingly positive. I have found my true self, again. I thank you and my family thanks you for helping me become the person I was meant to be.

Michelle Family

I want to thank you and the entire staff and support system at Solara for taking such good care of my sister. On behalf of my entire family, we want you all to understand that your patience and kindness stretches further than you can see… Thank you, again and again, from the bottom of my heart.

Bill

The program has given me the tools I needed to really gain stability. For the first time in years - maybe for as long as I can remember, actually, I’m learning how to cope and manage my stressors and triggers. I now believe that I can find some relief and happiness.

Lynn

Even though I’m not religious, I realized when I got sober that for the first time in my life I wanted to explore my spiritual side. I benefited hugely from the individual spiritual sessions that I had with Chris. I’m really grateful for that aspect of the whole treatment experience.

Bradley

The therapists and counselors and really whole team were extremely beneficial to me and my understanding of my issues. The treatment plan they developed was exactly what I needed

Alex

I have never felt better than I do now, since completing your program. The truly caring and supportive staff and the intensive program changed my life. What a neat place to stay for treatment - I love Pacific Beach! I have learned skills and behavior to move forward with my life thanks to you.