Addicted, ashamed and proud

Have you ever been so obsessed with a video or computer game that you dreamt about it? Not just one time, but night after night, with some daydreaming thrown in for good measure? And were you so smitten you had trouble focusing on work or school? And you didn’t stop to eat or―much to the chagrin of your friends and loved ones―attend to basic hygiene? Yes, every minute you spent apart from your beloved game was like an eternity. You were hooked all right, and you lived to grab that controller, mouse or smartphone so you could satisfy that maddening craving one more time.

Did I say hooked? No, more like totally obsessed. Actually… addicted.

You liked to joke about it with your friends. Heck, maybe it was even a point of pride. What an impressively absurd level of dedication you showed! YOU were TRULY hardcore!

For some people, however, such passion is more like a curse. Though that favorite game brings satisfaction underneath the trance-like state it induces, the pursuit of that feeling can be carried to an unhealthy extreme.  If the “want to play” turns to a “need to play”, there’s likely a problem.

Video game addiction as a recognized, “legitimate” disorder is slowly gaining traction. It falls under the category of a process (or behavioral) addiction, much like a gambling or shopping addiction. Popular online medical resource WebMD quotes Kimberly Young, PsyD, clinical director of the Center for On-Line Addiction: “It’s a clinical impulse control disorder…  it’s not just physical. There’s a psychological component to the addiction, knowing ‘I can escape or feel good about my life.'”

Addiction is a term that’s often bandied about loosely, especially when it is applied to the hobby of video gaming, which many people still consider mostly harmless. Addiction is, however, far from harmless.

It’s not a simple affliction, and the brain activity involved is still not fully understood (or agreed upon). People with certain neurochemical disorders are more prone to addiction; for example, if the dopamine levels in their brains are regularly low and can only raised by certain drugs. Many also argue that the issue is to a large degree a behavioral one, as the predisposition to addictive behaviors starts with upbringing and the unhealthy habits of role models.

There are support groups for gaming addiction.  On-Line Gamers Anonymous, DailyStrength, SupportGroups.com, just to name a few that are at least partially dedicated to the issue. Visit these sites to read some truly tragic stories about addiction and the havoc it wreaks upon lives.

Studies on the topic abound. One entitled Video Game Addiction Among Adolescents: Associations with Academic Performance and Aggression found that self-identified video game addicts “revealed more reports of involvement in physical fights in the last year, more arguments with friends and teachers, higher hostile attribution scores, and lower grades. These results suggest that video game ‘addiction’ is a problem among adolescents, particularly among males, and that addiction is associated with adjustment problems such as school performance and aggressive attitudes and behaviors.”

But… hey, wait… does a lot of this sound like old news to you? Well it is… older than you might think. See, I’m not just talking about MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, I’m talking about any kind of video or computer game, ever since the dawn of the pastime. Sure, due to the fast growth of the game industry and the exponential growth of digital and social media, it’s not hard to find stories these days about online gaming addicts who die during the act or collapse due to dangerously long sessions at play. But what about “the good ol’ days” of gaming, when a quarter would buy you a few minutes with a greasy joystick, tinny sound effects and 256 colors?

I was an impressionable young gamer back then, right in the thick of the video arcade boom and the introduction of console gaming. It dawned on me as the years passed that I was more than just an enthusiast. In fact, here’s a confession (or four):

• I planned my weekends around the arcade. I saved my money for the arcade. I ditched school for the arcade. When I went on vacations (Hawaii, London, Australia, etc.), the first thing I did was scout out the “exotic” local arcades. I can name several arcade games I played so much I could last for hours on one credit. Note that arcade games are designed to be difficult enough to play for only a few minutes so that others would have a turn (and therefore keep the money rolling in for the business).
• I was once so obsessed with the arcade game Punch Out! that I could think of nothing else for three months straight. I would beg my mom for trips to the arcade (I was 13 at the time), sweat and shake as we approached the building, and stack rows upon rows of tokens at the bottom of the screen in order to secure “my” machine for the next several hours. (For the uninitiated out there, placing a quarter or token against the video screen meant you had next game. Bad form, I admit, but in my defense I did that when there was more than one Punch Out! machine and the place was sparsely populated.) In the end, I got so good at the game I could play it literally backwards, facing away from it, with my hands crossed behind me.
• I consider the best birthday present I ever got to be an Intellivision 2. I had never been so excited in my life, and I doubt I got a wink of sleep for two weeks after. About eight years later, I got my second most favorite birthday present ever: an Apple IIgs. My mom offered to buy me a Chevy Camaro that a family friend was selling (which would have been my first car), but I choose the computer  instead. I mean, come on… did you SEE the graphics on that thing?!?
• I once spent every day of the two-week winter break my sophomore year in college shut away in my room with beer, pizza, and Civilization. Completely alone, of course. Was that healthy? Probably not, in any sense of the word. Was it fun? Oh hell yeah, and I remember it clearly even though it was 20 years ago. Conversely, I don’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning (I’m sure it was cereal, which I eat every day, but I forgot which one).

Oddly (and sadly?), I do feel some twisted sort of pride for these “accomplishments”. They are something akin to war stories, designed to build cred within the gaming community (whether it does or not is a different matter). That only makes the problem worse, of course, as it gives me a feeling of justification. The fact is, I realize that I’ve missed out on many wonderful things life has to offer. Note that I don’t think gaming is a total waste of time, I still do it a quite a lot and I think some good comes from it, but I can now admit I spent waaayyy too much time and money on it in the past.

So I guess I have only one more thing to say: My name is Jason, and I’m an addict.