This is an interesting article on treatment for problem gambling. Instead of just guessing at motives -- craving? thrill-seeking? lashing out? -- the researchers used "tasks that measure cognition" to sort out the likely underlying problem.
http://phys.org/news179671274.htmlThis is probably the wave of the future for alcohol addiction as well. Eventually we'll be able to measure, or at least take a solid guess at, the underlying problem which needs to be fixed.
I think I'll look up the actual research to find out what these tasks were (and to verify that the article reports accurately, of course).