First American Internet Addiction Treatment Center

An anonymous reader writes "Taking their lead from China, two Americans have opened the first US-based Internet Addiction treatment center in Fall City, Wash. — ironically close to Redmond (Microsoft's hometown). The center, called reStart: Internet Addiction Recovery Program, is a 45-day treatment center where, for a steep set of fees, people can be cured of their addiction to the Web. After paying the $200 application fee, addicts are charged $14,500 for the 45 days, an additional $800 for a screening, and more for extra services, like kayaking ($1,575)."

Comments

money

[wizardforce]

it very well sounds like the goal here isn't so much to actually "treat" people so much as to make large sums of money by catering to those of us who have access to lots of cash.

Odd

[mcgrew]

It's odd how they've conveniently changed the meaning of "addiction". The definition used to be that for something to be addictive, it had to have physical withdrawal symptoms, like alcohol, caffiene, niccotine, heroin, etc. What used to be separately termed "habituation" is now termed "addiction".

However, as I learned when quitting cigarettes, the habituation can be as bad as the addiction. Two years after I stopped, and didn't even WANT a cigarette, I still slapped the shirt pocket that used to hold the cigarettes when I left work. Do anything for thirty years and you'll miss it, even if "it" is being hit on the head with a stick.