If you declare it an affliction, they will come.
Where there is a trendy new affliction, there is an expert with the answer. Thus it is that Britain became now host to the very first “game addiction” clinic in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
Broadway Lodge treats about four hundred patients every year for drug abuse, alcoholism and gambling problems, but has recently extended its reach to video games, adopting the Minnesota Method Twelve-Step program to ween youngsters off those crazy video games.
“… I would stick my neck out and say between five and ten per cent of parents or partners would say they know of someone addicted to an online game,” says chief executive Brian Dudley. “However, you can’t simply say to a 23-year-old male ‘you should never use the Internet again’. It’s just not practical. So we go through all the issues surrounding gaming use and ensure there are triggers through which an addict recognizes their usage has become a problem.
And your reasoning being?
”Behavioural shifts include users becoming aggressive, with chaotic lifestyles that result in irregular eating and sleeping patterns as well as social exclusion. I don’t know anybody else who is treating such cases in this country. There’s no helpline.”
If you live in Britain and can’t stop playing World of Warcraft, then you can breathe a sigh of relief because help has finally arrived. And then we will laugh at you.