- Uncontrollability                           

- Strong needs for approval               

- Feelings of self-worthlessness, shame, or guilt       

- Patterns of substance use/uncontrollable behavior for more than one year                

- Obsessions with a behavior or substance

- Behavior or substance use as a method of anxiety reduction                   

- Negative consequences to self or others                                        

- Increasing patterns of substance  use or behavior over time