Slashdot Mirror
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.
"Addiction Consultants" - is that what we are calling drug dealers now?
A latent existence
I can't leave mine alone either.
Hi, my name is Mo and I'm a Quake addict...
A whole three days ago...
They need to get treated for... ummmm. What's it called now... Some condition where you can't remember things. It's like you can't remember what you just did. Wait remember what? What was I talking about? Oh that's right the editors need to go to a clinic for.... something... can't remember the name....
:P
Seriously. You'd think they'd try their own search or something
can't we technically qualify anything as an addiction? I mean if you define an addiction as a habbit that leads to anti-social behavior, then anything from excessive porn watching to video-games to overeating can count as an addiction. Maybe we (as in everyone) have to realise that anything and everything we do in life can potentially be an addiction (ie something we do excessively to divert our attention from the problems in our lives) Just ask the workaholics who work 14 hours a day instead of playing quake 14 hours a day. BTW, I'm a "recovering" game addict as it were. I was in the top 10% of my law school class, then i picked up WOW, big mistake. I passed, but boy did my grades fall. That game litteraly came close to ruining me financially. I ditched it and deleted my char's. Bottom line with games like WOW is thins, if a friend calls you and asks you if you want to go out and you say no because you want to lvl your 55 lvl druid to 56 by grinding in an instance with you guild, then you have a problem.
Fool me once...shame on you, fool me twice...won't be fooled again (our president)
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)
i think "dupe" is the only appropriate tag, as your tag would make more sense on the previous posting of this article. apparently slashdot has never heard of "six sigma".
1. Overclockers Anonymous 2. The Overcoming Soda Pop Foundation 3. The Surpassing Forum-Trolling Group 4. How to not hate the world is 86463 easy steps
Great Intellect...
how about just linking to all funny comments from 3 days ago? i'm not addicted to dupes
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.
...to escape my Slashdot addiction, but Slashdot itself has almost cured me. Just another couple of dupes and some more of this retina-searing CSS and I'll be free. FREE!
...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
Stick them in a room with Daikatana.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/08/28
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Now they just need to open up one for slashdot addictions and I'll be all set...
That seems to be a relatively small market. Why not open a clinic for internet "addiction." MMORG playing could fall under that. To me, at least, it seems this is a much bigger market to tap and one more readily seen. Or maybe even just generic computer "addiction."
If I wanted to make money selling quack medicine, that's what I would do. Not only would parents be sending me their kids who are doing crappy in school, but companies their low productivity workers (in some parts of Europe, where this clinic is at, it's very hard to fire workers for almost any reason) who tend to surf a lot.
I CAN QUIT ANY TIME I WANT TO!
This guy might, or just some anger management courses...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTwgNhX4BSo
A wife-beating drunk like Andy Sipowicz can start going to meetings and eventually become a responsible husband and father. But some guy who plays Quake in his bedroom every day—what does he want to do, find a desk job and a wife? Lonesome game-playing may simply be his lifestyle of choice.
You can't "detox" from a non-chemical addiction. A detox clinic is somewhere you go to make it nigh-on impossible to obtain whatever chemical it is that your body is used to and, thus, craves.
While clinics do also have programs and counsellors to help deal with the underlying cause of the addiction - eg emotional stress, habit or associative behaviour - these are to help prevent addicts from returning to their chemical addiction. These services are also available outside of a detox clinic.
For a purely habitual addiction - whether it be sex, gaming, work or anything else without a direct chemical impact - you can only provide the counselling. Detoxing, making the object of your obsession unavailable, is just a way of providing a stop-gap for weak-willed people to break their habit while they're in counselling, and calling it a detox clinic is a way for those same people to legitimise their pathetic behaviour. I really don't have much sympathy, and I wouldn't expect any if I were in that situation.
Don't talk to me about adrenaline highs or any of the self-induced psychosomatic hormonal impacts of addiction; that's just the physiological aspect of a neural, habit-forming process. It's a million miles from chemical addiction. They really can't be compared.
Meta will eat itself
... is probably an activity that a person carries out so often that it becomes
detrimental to their physical and/or mental wellbeing and also they would find
it very hard to stop the activity if they tried because of withdrawal symptoms.
This could be drug taking, sexual addiction, extreme sports , lots of things really...
"We have kids who don't know how to communicate with people face-to-face because they've spent the last three years talking to somebody in Korea through a computer," Bakker said. "Their social network has completely disappeared."
Annyeonghasewhat?
They should think about making one of these for internet addiction too. Think I'm joking? try going a week without going online, or even visiting slashdot for that matter. It has become integral to our lives, but to a point where people can spend all day surfing instead of getting sunlight or exercise. Not that I'm complaining, it suits me just fine.
Business Voyeur
As long as you have enough lube there is no problem. I mean hey now, it a lot cheaper then crack or heroin. Probably a lot healthier too..
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
They'll just be trading a gaming addiction for another kind of addiction, like AA does swapping alcohol for Jesus
:-)
As part of the detox program, they should add a course to help these gamers on their re-entrance to "normal" society. I would suggest a course along the lines of "How to Pick Up Chicks".
That way, these game-junkies could trade their gaming addiction with another: Sex. It might not solve the addiction problem, but at least these nerds would be a whole lot happier!
Let's dangle a few PSPs in front of these addicts. It'll amke them grow stronger.
Wait, I shouldn't joke about this, my father almost died from pac man fever.
Hi, i am Phill and I am an overclocker. I cant help it, just the rush of an AMD 64 running ttiwce its speed! But last week i put a hole thrugh my mums motherboard. And thats why im here
Welcome Phill!
That's quite a distance to travel for addiction councelling. Of course, if I travelled atop my Undead Steed then I'd arrive there 100% faster!
Life freezes when the servers crash.
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
PWNT!
As a safe alternative for sober computer gamers, I recommend...
FRAG!
'Frag is a computer game without a computer. It's a "first-person shooter" on a tabletop. Move your fighter and frag your foes; draw cards for weapons, armor, and gadgets; move through the blood spatters to restore your own health! If you die, you respawn and come back shooting!'
http://www.sjgames.com/frag/
I was addicted to MTV back in the 80's. when they played 'music videos' 24X7, no reality shows. in fact no 'shows' at all. Just very cheesy, very 80's music videos all day-all night.
"99 luftballons" then "Thriller" then "Come on Eileen" then "Der Komissar" then "In a Big Country" then "Take on me" then "Rockit" etc.
only minor disturbance was the goofy news flashes by the very creepy and perverted looking Kurt Loder.
do they still have VJ's. haven't looked in awhile.
The best way to get over an addiction is to replace it with a slighlty better one.
The only fear I have is having to interact with the recently cured videogame addict.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19980308
This is pathetic. Really. In my humble opinions most of the worlds problems like this are a matter of dicipline. You tell a heroine addict that there's a rehab centre for game addicts, he wont understand it (for a number of reasons ;p).
Chilhood obesity? Bad behaviour? Game 'addiction'? The best cure for all the these ailments is a hard fucking slap and being told you get off your ass and get a life.
I have no time for these people, neither should be rest of the world.
Better yet, lets just take off every safty label in existance and let the problems with self discipline and stupidity sort itself out.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
And who can forget the Record Industry's take on this back in the 80s (as depicted by SNL):
r i%20snl
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xAc_MQgFEds&search=ata
"A QUARTER AT A TIME"
Seriously. Why is it anyone's business? You want to spend 18+ hours a day playing WoW? Ok. I don't understand, but then, few people understand some of my pastimes.
What's the problem? That he becomes "anti-social", that he "has no life", that he "wastes his time senselessly"? If that's the concern, why do we still have TVs?
If you're a "concerned parent" (read: worried that your neighbors might think you're a bad parent), you can't simply take away something and not replace it. It's like pulling the pacifyer out of your baby's mouth and wonder why the child's screaming while you walk away to return to doing whatever you prefer doing instead of spending time with your kids.
I think it's the usual "I don't understand it and especially not why it's fun to do it for a lenghty period of time, I can't enjoy it for a longer period of time, so the conclusion is it must be an addiction and they don't really WANT to do it" bullshit.
If you want your kids to turn away from computer games, give them a reason. Don't only pull the plug, or you could be REALLY dealing with addiction problems soon when they're looking for substitutes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
One of the better definitions of Addiction is not only some habitual, constant behavior that you have difficulty stopping, but that causes harm to you or those around you. Obviously in your situation your grades slipped tremendously. Drug addition is usually simple in that severe physical harm takes place to your body, but also one begins to let the drug control your actions, perhaps stealing money to get more of the drug, or not showing up to work because you have to go out to get a fix, or whatever.
Non-chemical addiction could be the same way, though it's a lot harder to define the harm. If you have a steady job that you have good performance at and okay health and game 6 hours a day and you aren't hurting anyone else, is that addiction? That's when it gets hard to define.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
But this may not be the worst idea. A lot of people seem to be laughing at this, and I can understand why, but let's at least make sure we have a few things clear. The fact that there is now a detox center for gaming addicts suggests that at least some people accept that a person can become addicted to video games. A lot of you seem to disagree with that. People can become addicted to gambling, why not games? It's the same kind of thing, a purely psychological addiction, but those can be nearly as bad as chemical addictions. Sure, it may remind all of us of that famous scene in Half Baked, where Dave Chappell goes to the rehab center and proclaims that he's addicted to marijuana, only to be laughed at and informed by Bob Sagat that unless he's sucked a dick for some weed, it's not a real addiction. Sure. And no one in his right mind would put this at the level of heroin or cocaine. But it's hard to listen to people who just brush off the notion that there is a possibility that people could become addicted to a game. You have to be able to distinguish, however, between the people who play for 12 hours a day because it's fun, and because they have nothing better to do and don't feel much like going out and searching for something to do and the people who couldn't bring themselves to leave their consoles if the house was burning down around them. I wouldn't say I was 'addicted' to World of Warcraft, though I certainly played a lot. But when the time came to decide between, say, a job interview or herb farming, the choice was clear. So, sure, you may think the people who have lost their job because of an 'addiction' to a game are really just idiots, sure, and that does seem reasonable to a degree. Same with the people who's families have left them (and yes, it has happened). But you have to understand one thing. Many of the super nerds in games like WoW and FFXI and EQ find a different kind of acceptance in these games. It does feel good to run around in shinies and have everyone checking you out. It does feel good when people you've never interacted with whisper you and ask what makes you a great healer, and it's nice to know that there is a group of people in your online gaming community that actually care whether you show up or not. Sadly, there are some people that need this degree of fulfillment, and crave it to the extent that they waste away from reality. These are the kind of people a place like this is for. Not for the college kid that fails a test because killing the Twin Emperors is more interesting than studying weather patterns. For the guy whose wife leaves him, and he doesn't even notice for three days.
Annyong!
his girlfriend had left him and his dog was dead!
... started playing Live for Speed and got engaged in Australian racing leagues. May my level 60 paladin RIP.
I can't quite quote those monthly fees. New hardware aquired so far: advantage1.com.au GTR pedals, naturalpoint trackir4 pro system - at a total cost of A$700. Now I'm hoping to score a manual shifter somewhere. Already had the momo wheel.
Seriously, while I may put the same amount of time into the thing for practicing etc, learning about proper race car control sure feels alot healthier than the endless grinding for more XP and that next Lightforge set item. The race goes for a set number of laps, and when done, all you can do is post about it and prepare for the next round. No more of that staying up till 03am in the morning just to get a little bit more - with alcohol or tiredness in your system, you lap times WILL go down.
ISO certified == THX certified
The "Zimbabwe Center for the Elimination of Duplicate Post Addiction" says you should read the article you guys posted on this not a few days ago:
Gaming DeTox Center Opens In Netherlands
I can't believe I'm reading this. It is a video game, get off your butt and go outside. Don't you have anything to do? If this get's to be too much the government will take my tax money to start clinics so that people can get this "addiction" taken care of. It is really hard to be employed when you spend 20 hrs a day on gaming. Our society will go into a major recession, and unemployment will sky rocket. What will we ever do.
The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. ->JB Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ. 1709
I just powerleveled to step 12, all in under 5 hours. Too bad end game sucks, I going to reroll.
A dude I work with (who shall remain nameless) who told me yesterd that he spends 72 hours per week in World of Warcraft.
72 hours . I shit you not.
That's hard core. But, is it addiction or a hobby? Does he like reality? Apparently, he'd rather spend his free time trinkin' and spellin' than with his wife or anyone or doing anything else. I thought "Ever-crack" was bad. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned by TNG Episode 106: The Game.
I finished Call of Duty 2 in less than a week--my wife says that I have a Nazi killing habit.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
From the article: "Bakker said he has seen signs of addiction in children as young as 8." If you watch anything/anyone long enough, you'll see little things that look like addiction. Persistence and a need for closure is human behaviour.
"The flogging will continue until moral improves!"
I suppose one of the major factors would be the aspect of health detriment, in terms of self or dependants. Buying lots of magazines isn't an addiction unless it puts you in an unhealthy financial situation (say, you can't afford proper food). Spending hours on activity X could be considered addiction if your own health suffers (lack of nourishment) or that of your dependants (ignored, unhealthy children). Plenty of people watch 2-4h of TV a day... it's comparable to gaming, less interactive in fact, but not really an addiction unless they are neglecting themselves or their children etc in a critical way.
Now, somebody who comes home from work (or misses work) orders pizza every day, doesn't maintain proper hygeine, and absolutely must login to WoW every day, is an addict. TV is less easy to define as it's a more passive engagement (what's on depends on a specific time), but if you're watching re-runs all day or DVD's, etc... again neglecting your personal situation, then it is also addiction.
Car shows and hobbies etc tend to be an incorporated part of one's life. It's when they start massively overruling the other parts that they move into becoming addiction.
Playing lots of video games is not a problem. It's just a way to amuse yourself like any other, and actually more healthy than many (like going to a bar). Nothing wrong with it. The problem with it is the same problem with anything: If you do it to the point the rest of your life suffers. I'm not talking about being anti-social, I'm talking about actually losing things that are important to you. Like you play WoW so much that you start missing work so you can play more and get fired. Or you neglect your responsabilities to your family.
In one of the WoW guilds I was in there was a mother like this. She literally played WoW about 12-16 hours a day. Now ok so you think maybe this is fine, stay at home mom, maybe she's just always logged on, but really doing other things. No, we'd do Molten Core raids, things that took 6 hours of focused attention. She'd be leading them so it's not like she was wandering off. One has to wonder who was taking care of her 2-year old kid at that time (her dad, it turns out).
Now, like it or not, when you have a family you have responsabilityes to that family. You cannot be selfish and say tha tyou should be allowed to spend as much time on yourself as you want. You kids needs you, you need to be there for them.
That's when gaming crosses the point to being a problem, when you do it to the neglect of other important things. If you cannot control the amount you play games, you have a problem.
Barring someone who's independantly wealthy and can just hire people to take care of all their needs, we all have responsabilites. Some have more, some have less, but we all have them. So long as your gaming doesn't interfere with those, it's no big deal. However when it does regularly, you have a problem that needs addressing.
These ever expanding new "addictions" are ridiculous. Its a jobs program for third rate psychologists and treatment centers. Here is an excellent book on the subject which says it all: "The Diseasing of America" by Stanton Peele.
I personally stay away from the "self help" sections of book stores. Who knows what new "disease" I might find that I have, lol.
Super Mario Brothers.
Down the tubes, to the underground, to get some loot.
New Super Mario Bros.
Eat a mushroom, turn into the 50' man, to kick the tube habbit.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I started playing an MMORPG about a month ago in order to "medicate" the bad feelings of a recent breakup. It works wonders. Some people would consider my gaming habits to be addictive and dangerous. I say they can go screw themselves. I work my 8 hours a day, I pay my taxes, I still hang out with my friends. I just watch less tv and play more on the computer. And I have something fun to look forward to during the day, instead of feeling all mopey about the breakup. When the next semester starts I'll go to school more and play less, but at least by that time I'll be over her.
If I start skipping classes and my 4.0 GPA starts slipping cause of my gaming habits, then you can talk to me about having an "addiction" but if I want to spend 12 hours on a Saturday in front of my PC and I'm not hurting anybody, so what? If I spent that time at a bar getting liquored up (taking a cab home of course) would you--read as: society--have more or less respect for me?
People who run around labeling behaviors "addictions" and addictions "diseases" need to be smacked in the head with a clue-by-four.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
http://www.geocities.com/icaddict.geo/index.html
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
...its own addictive chemicals. Take a look at the following chemicals released into the brain during sex:
Dopamine
Norepinephrine
Testosterone
Oxytocin
My point isn't that there are lots of chemicals released during sex or that sex is bad (I love it!). My point is that we sometimes overlook addictions simply because they don't involve injecting/consuming foreign chemicals. Video games are plenty capable of causing a surge in various chemicals produced by your own body. These levels are different for every person and aren't dangerous in and of themselves. What is dangerous is when you form a habit and your body depends on the constant production of certain chemicals.
The best way to stay clear of addictions you may be susceptible to is to look for patterns/trends in your life, be honest with yourself, and have honest supportive friends. If certain elements of your lifestyle prevent you from functioning normally then you have a problem no matter how harmless the activity may seem.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
b3hold teh lingua franca of intl. c0mmerce
And I only raised the issue in order to mention my favorite television character and make depressing comments about society.