online-addiction
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Addicted gamer shares his struggle to find balance between the real world and the virtual world
While Tucson's KVOA may not be so well-versed in MMOs as to distinguish between Gears of War and Dark Age of Camelot, the local news station put together an interesting little piece on online game addiction nevertheless. The brief report highlights the story of Elijah Oster, a father and husband who got so pulled into MMOs that he began to neglect his family and suffer from insomnia. He admits that he failed to "budget enough time" for his loved ones, and would grow irritable when his wife interrupted his play sessions. Behavioral health counselor Jeffrey Friedman was brought in to comment on game addiction, which he says is similar to most forms of addition in that people's actions are dictated by what will cause them the least emotional pain. In this case, it's becoming overly dependent on an online world instead of the real one. Friedman works at the Cottonwood Tucson center. The report concludes with Oster sharing what he realized after treatment: "I started understanding the concept of balance."
CNN on WoW addiction
Last week CNN ran an editorial story about online game addictions. Its the typical story about how bad online games can be, and how this addiction can destroy a person's life. The article itself has some good examples of this, from both Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft. In particular, a specialist at the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery at Proctor Hospital, talks about a young man in his twenties. This poor fellow has lost numerous jobs, his girlfriend, and is quite the recluse since he became addicted to World of Warcraft. It's quite the unfortunate tale, and I'm sure we're all sympathetic to his plight.Many of us have someone in our family, or otherwise know someone who has dealt with an addiction. They can be a difficult period in everyone's life to deal with. Addictions to WoW and other games in the genera can be no less serious than an addiction to gambling. The results are all the same: people loose their jobs, their families, and can become severely depressed. When that happens disastrous things take place, such as the young man that lost his life in South Korea last year.The article on CNN doesn't go into any great detail about what you can do if you think you or a loved one has an addiction to WoW. It does give some tips to family members, but CNN is hardly the place to go to for medical advice. Instead, don't bother with anything else then going right to your doctor. Any doctor, at any clinic, anywhere, can at least point you in the right direction.I'm sure a few of our readers out there have dealt with this in the past, either directly or indirectly. What have you done? What stories do you have to tell?
