The urge that pushes us to gamble more can lead us to addiction as well. It is normal for people to aim for higher earning but the thing is as much as we want to get something the more we will hesitant to admit that we are slowly getting addicted. It is really hard to tell ourselves to be satisfied for a small earning but we can still gamble and take every penny as a big reward, we need to discipline ourselves, because that is the only way that help us not to get addicted.
I agree with you, we need to be honest with ourselves and take a good look at our own gambling habits. Gambling with the motivation to make big rewards and hit a jackpot one day is a valid dream, but we need to stay realistic about the chances hitting those big wins. I have been gambling for more than years and I am still waiting to break the jackpot one day. It's very rare occurrence and will only happen when I am really lucky. There is no point in lying to ourselves about the real reason we are gambling. In the past I played with playmoney at casinos to try out new strategies, also during my first year of playing online poker I played mostly with playmoney. It's a good way to learn and get used to casino layouts, the problem is that the winnings are not real. It felt like a missed opportunity every time I made a big win and players seemed to play a differently when it was not real money. In poker there were some players who only went all in or fold their cards, a bit boring to play against.