Modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, GA is a twelve-step program that emphasizes a mutual-support approach. However, no one treatment is considered to be most efficacious and, in the United States, no medications have been approved for the treatment of pathological gambling by the U.S. The most common instrument used to screen for “probable pathological gambling” behavior is the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) developed by Lesieur and Blume (1987) at the South Oaks Hospital in New York City.
