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Detox Clinic Opening for Video Game Addicts
Blue6 writes "An addiction center is opening Europe's first detox clinic for game addicts, offering in-house treatment for people who can't leave their joysticks alone.
Video games may look innocent, but they can be as addictive as gambling or drugs, and just as hard to kick, says Keith Bakker, director of Amsterdam-based Smith & Jones Addiction Consultants." I'm pretty sure the amount of time I've spent in the world of Azeroth in the past year counts as addiction. Someone tell my parents I still love them, while I mine this ore.
Seriously. You'd think they'd try their own search or something :P
Why would they do that? It gives us the opportunity to repost smart things someone else said in the other discussion without getting modded Redundant.
For instance, I might state:
- I'm sure Jack Thompson will use this to leverage his arguments
- It'll be sandwiched between two hash-bars on Main street
- They'll just be trading a gaming addiction for another kind of addiction, like AA does swapping alcohol for Jesus
- Most "12 step" programs are quacky and don't work
- That if you're in Amsterdam and you can't find anything more interesting to get addicted to than games, you really do need help
- Gaming isn't a "drug," but it does stimulate pleasure centers and thus can be addictive (like sugary foods, I guess)
- You could probably pay Chinese and Korean powerlevelers to shoot you right up through that 12-step program for a small fee
But I'd just be karma-whoring.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
you are probably thinking of sex addicts :)
You know, you can be a sex addict even if you don't have "sex" per se since masturbation technically counts, so if you are..playing with your joystick... twice a day, then you just might qualify for some sort of program.
Fool me once...shame on you, fool me twice...won't be fooled again (our president)
This is just dumb, we should not look at games as addictive, but rather the environment that causes people to escape into the games, as it stands, taking games away from people is just asking for trouble, and takes away the only thing that provides them an ounce of enjoyment in an otherwise stressful existance.
...pays taxes and creates jobs in key congressional ridings. It cannot therfore be producing anything synonymous with drug addiction.
Ask big-pharma how this concept works:--)
"If you don't have eyes you shouldn't have wings" -- Carl Pilkington
An addition takes place when you keep doing something despite known and persistent consequences.
An if my undergrad psyc classes serve me correct, it is absolutely possible to become addicted to something that is not an ingested chemical of some sort. It's not like you experience a video game, sex, passively. You're brain released serotonin, dopamine, etc through experiencing things.
That said, to become addicted to something like a game or sex you usually have some other problems in your life. You usually need to be set up for an addition like that. At least that's what Dr. Drew would have me believe while I'm listening to Love Line while being a workaholic at midnight.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
can't we technically qualify anything as an addiction?
I read recently that the concept of addiction is not a well defined one. One persons addiction is anothers mild indulgence. Frequently addiction is only applied to socially undesireable or prohibited indulgences. For example, despite its frequent use to excess, users of alcohol are rarely described as "addicted", and are instead given a specific label of "alocoholic".
The argument I read traced the origins of the concept of addiction back to the the Enlightenment. Essentially, the author argued that the concept of addiction was a direct successor to the concept of demonic possession. Where previously someone was regarded as being posessed as an explanation for their behaviour, now in the new, rational world, they were described as being "addicted" to a substance or behaviour.
People often tell me I'm addicted to video games. These same people can spend up to six hours a night, three nights a week, consuming alcohol and other substances. Some smoke, some watch an hour of football seven days a week. Some buy dozens of specialist magazines, spend hours on hobbies, go to car shows. Most watch ten times the amount of television I do.
There's always been a question of when an avid interest ends, and an addiction begins. In my expierience, nine times out of ten, it begins in the eye of the beholder.
May the Maths Be with you!
I agree with much of what you say. I think you don't understand the meaning of Detox though.
A detox clinic is somewhere you go to make it nigh-on impossible to obtain whatever chemical
Not true. The body becomes dependant on the drug (homeostasis etc), and therefore stopping taking the drug can be dangerous, as the body has become adapted to the constant supply of the drug. Not being able to obtain the drug in Detox is irrelevent. Benzodiazapemes probably _would_ be available in a detox for that drug.The point of detox is to reaccustom the body to a life without drugs. And this is different to all the psychological stuff.A better definition would be: A detox clinic is somewhere you go until the chemical is gone from the body and the physical effects of withdrawal are gone.
4. How to not hate the world is 86463 easy steps
Step 1: Get laid.
One million reasons to hate the world...
Sure it's a funny comment, but there's a hint of truth underlying it. Gaming addiction is now being recognised as something that stops people from living their lives properly, and I hope porn addiction gets that sort of recognition soon too. Everyone likes to laugh about it, because for a lot of people it's harmless occasional release. But sex hormones are some of the most powerfully addictive chemicals in your body, and it's easy to see how people could form a habit of it - especially given today's easy availability of porn. I wish porn addiction would come into the light, and a scientific, non-religious program developed to help addicts to break the habit.
Damn man, it's really funny when a self-confessed pedantry post is completely wrong. If "detoxing" means making it impossible to obtain whatever you're addicted to, it's pretty damn logical to consider a place helping people get over a non-chemical addiction as a "detox" clinic.
And non-chemical addictions can most definitely be as strong or stronger than chemical ones. Just because it is different, does not mean it is "a million miles" away.
instead ??!?? huh ?
So playing billiards, cards, golf and so at every opportunity does not count as addiction, but gaming does ?
Watching tv passively for 8 hours like an empty bag does not count as an addiction but playing games instead does ?
Ooooooh. Well. Then we better take up gambling or drinking. Then at least, the term addiction will have a meaning for meaning's sake.
Read radical news here
All changes in behavior are equivalent to changes in brain chemistry. Therefore all addictions are chemical.
However I think the chemical addiction you refer to is where a person is addicted to a foreign chemical substance. Yet the only difference between addiction to a foreign substance and a foreign stimuli is the external contributing factor which changes brain chemistry. The root of addiction lies in the change of brain chemistry.
Heroin is addictive because of the change in brain chemistry that results from adding heroin into your system. The same could be said for external stimuli, like video games. The external stimulation results in a change in brain chemistry. This change is what is addictive, not the substance or stimuli itself.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Addiction hurts others either directly (e.g., your DUI example) or indirectly (e.g., skipping work so you can mine that ore or beat it to Jenna Jameson for the 5th time today...). Or leaving your little kid alone in the bathtub so you can squeeze in "just 5 minutes" more computer time (for either of the above). Or neglecting "insert responsibility here" so you can "insert addictive activity here", adversely affecting others around you, usually familiy members who depend on you in some way. Sure, you didn't plow through a crowded sidewalk with your car, but it doesn't mean your addiction doesn't hurt anyone else.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
Now that the "War on Smoking" (I never have, btw) is in it's final stages, and the "War on videogames" is well underway, we are starting the "War on Food".
First, they came for the smokers, but I did not speak out because I was not a smoker.
Then they came for the foi gras eaters, the people who use "unhealthy" frying oil, drinkers of Mountain Dew, eaters of Doritos.
Most of this is already happening/happened in Chicago. The logical limit of this slippery slope is that foods deemed "unhealthy" are going to be prohibited by law. The argument will be made in two parts. First, that people who "selfishly" consume these foods are burdening the rest of society. Further, it will be claimed that the price of bacon does not reflect its true cost, since bacon consumers use more public services due to poorer health. The second part of the attack will be to claim that bacon is "addictive", and that since people are powerless to avoid eating it, it must be banned. When bacon is outlawed, only outlaws will have bacon.