Addiction is a manifestation of human weaknesses when a person cannot stop in time and this applies not only to gambling. A person by nature is prone to find hobbies for himself, and sometimes these hobbies can be too addictive. For those who play sometimes, as you say once a week or once a month, this is definitely not an addiction, especially since I even admit that such players can win, so it is not worth saying that gambling is bad. It is bad when a player stops controlling his actions in gambling, in the same way you can lose self-control in other hobbies, so these are individual qualities of a person. We are all adults and no one is able to make decisions for us, you need to be responsible, then everything will be fine.
Unfortunately we all have weaknesses, i don't blame those who fall into weakness
I blame those who don't react, those who don't get help
because we can all be tempted, but we can all ask for help and help each other to solve problems and get out of trouble
This is what we should do in fact
There are quite a large number of people who cannot cope with gambling addiction, although they realize that their favorite pastime leads to financial and psychological problems. Some people cannot get rid of gambling addiction even with the help of specialists. I have heard about such people who in a few days after outpatient treatment returned to gambling again. As I understand these people are predisposed to enjoy the risks. Apparently for them life without gambling is meaningless.
Hmmm, when a addiction gets to such a stage where the victim then believes that life without that thing is meaningless, thats the highest height of addiction and apparently, if such a gambler is forced into quiting gambling without first changing that mindset, they end up leading the gambler into committing suicide.
I witness a similar case though not gambling related, where the dude had a serious accident and broke his right leg from the thigh area, the doctors did all the could but concluded they will have to cut off the leg, the accident victim told the doctors not to cut off his leg, that life is meaningless without his two legs working fine, the doctors assured him they weren't going to cut off his leg just to calm him down, the doctors later gave him drugs and he slept off, and the leg was cut off, when the boy woke up and saw that his leg has been cut off, he fell back to sleep immediately and died from there..
Getting someone who have believes life is meaningless without gambling to quit gambling is very tricky, will require such one to come out from such mindset before the process of getting him or her to quit gambling even starts.