giving up an addiction depends on the level of the addiction. for some people they can just stop it if it is in its early stages and not so serious , for others doing some activity like going out and doing a hobby will help and for the serious problems they should seek professional help or some sort of counseling
I will agree on this one. At first, your gambling addiction is like a small plant that you can easily pull out or stop anytime. Then you continue gambling and the plant grows. You continue to water that gambling addiction of yours and you'd notice that the small plant is now a tree. It will be so hard to pull. There's no way pulling out all of its roots at once.