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.

Comments

Newspeak

[lga]

"Addiction Consultants" - is that what we are calling drug dealers now?

Joysticks

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't leave mine alone either.

Re:Joysticks

[AstrumPreliator]

They have a different clinic for that joystick problem.

Re:Joysticks

[sa1lnr]

And we are all here posting on it. ;)

Re:Joysticks

[jank1887]

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.

Re:Joysticks

[Walt Dismal]

I'm not addicted to porn. I could have stopped *any time* I wanted to since puberty, in the last 45 years. I'll demonstrate right now... stopping...stopping... almost stopping...almost stopping..trying to stop... trying ... ARGGGGGGHHH! ARGGGGGHHHH! Give me BACK my pictures of Cmdr Taco, the bearskin rug, and the bullwhip. NOW! {quiver} {pant} Damn your soft, succulent lips, Rob Malda!

Quaking in my boots

[mo'o ahi]

Hi, my name is Mo and I'm a Quake addict...

Re:Quaking in my boots

[scsirob]

Hi Mo..

DUPE

[ClamIAm]

A whole three days ago...

addictions

[Susceptor]

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.

Re:addictions

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

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.

Re:addictions

[Random Destruction]

Annual causes of death in the US:
Tobacco 435,000
Alcohol 85,000
Sexual Behaviors 20,000
Marijuana 0

Well it may be debatable, but I think its a pointless debate. I know more people do these other things than smoke pot, but let's multiply the pot number by five trillion to make up for the difference. Oh look, pot is still safer than sex.

*Taken from drugwarfacts.com, original sources:
Source: Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, "Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000," Journal of the American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol. 291, No. 10, pp. 1238, 1241.
and
Source: Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), available on the web at http://www.samhsa.gov/; also see Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A. Benson, Jr., "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), available on the web at http://www.nap.edu/html/marimed/; and US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition" (Docket #86-22), September 6, 1988, p. 57.

Re:I think the editors need to go to a clinic

[grammar fascist]

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.

funny

[7o9]

how about just linking to all funny comments from 3 days ago? i'm not addicted to dupes

Our Loyal Gaming Industry...

[HotBlackDessiato]

...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:--)

Best way to cure the game addiction.

[forgotten_my_nick]

Stick them in a room with Daikatana.

Pedantry alert

[tygerstripes]

Missed the earlier article, so I'll post in the dupe.

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.

Re:I think the editors need to go to a clinic

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm sure Jack Thompson will use this to leverage his arguments

Gaming is a gateway drug to MURDER ADDICTION!!!!

Re:I think the editors need to go to a clinic

[fatduck]

I went to this "gaming addiction rehab clinic" and they told me that it doesn't matter if I'm addicted to World of Warcraft and sacrifice my relationships with family, friends, co-workers, fellow denizens of planet earth, as long as I think about Jesus all 24 hours of playtime per day.

Leave 'em alone

[Opportunist]

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.