Gaming addiction to be added to DSM!?

I remember when they added a reminder to EQ to log off or to walk around/stand up after so many hours.

Ok so back to the original couple objections: In your opinion, why should video games be medically classified as a "mental health issue or addiction" but television or any of the other hobbies that people spend just as much time on shouldn't.

blow everything on loot boxes and sketchy founders packs
file for disability
???
profit

ZyyzYzzy said:

I can see video game addiction. It is feasible to design a video game (like gambling) to activate similar neurological pathways that certain drugs (hi cocaine) or gambling do relatively easy.

TV can be addicting, yes. What is your point?

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My point is the WHO isn't trying to get television watching classified as a mental health issue or addiction and they shouldn't be trying to do it with video games (or maybe they are and I just haven't heard about it cause nobody linked an article here on it).

in my opinion, it's not about classifying video games as addictive vs NOT classifying tv, book reading, model airplane building or WHATEVER as addictive. it's about identifying an individual's behavior as harmful and making sure there is a support system set up for them to get the kind of help that will.. you know... actually help. i'm a substance abuse counselor, so that's where all of this is coming from. understand i don't care if you do drugs. do you really think i don't have anything better to do with my time than to stop you from getting high? i couldn't care less. what i DO care about is what kind of harm you cause.

some guy wants to go get drunk after a fight with his girlfriend? go for it man, just don't drive. i don't care if he drinks. i care that he drives and smashes into a family driving home after Christmas. some guy wants to play some mobile games on his phone? go for it. STOP GODDAMN DOING IT WHILE YOU'RE DRIVING. you want to catch some pokeymans? LOOK AROUND BEFORE YOU WALK INTO THE ROAD.

right, not everyone who uses kills someone, not everyone who plays video games does it addictively, not everyone who build model airplanes melts his brain with model glue in a poorly ventilated room. those are not the people we are talking about. i just want someone to be able to say "hey, i think video games are really starting to affect my work performance because there's no immediate return when i do a good job at work." (i've actually counseled someone who said this exact thing about mmo's vs real life) without someone making a joke about it. i want someone to be able to say, "hey, porn is really starting to negatively affect my marriage." without getting laughed at and/or huddled into a cement basement in hushed voices "this is the sex addicts group, we have to be quiet or people will know"

j00t said:

in my opinion, it's not about classifying video games as addictive vs NOT classifying tv, book reading, model airplane building or WHATEVER as addictive. it's about identifying an individual's behavior as harmful and making sure there is a support system set up for them to get the kind of help that will.. you know... actually help. i'm a substance abuse counselor, so that's where all of this is coming from. understand i don't care if you do drugs. do you really think i don't have anything better to do with my time than to stop you from getting high? i couldn't care less. what i DO care about is what kind of harm you cause.

some guy wants to go get drunk after a fight with his girlfriend? go for it man, just don't drive. i don't care if he drinks. i care that he drives and smashes into a family driving home after Christmas. some guy wants to play some mobile games on his phone? go for it. STOP GODDAMN DOING IT WHILE YOU'RE DRIVING. you want to catch some pokeymans? LOOK AROUND BEFORE YOU WALK INTO THE ROAD.

right, not everyone who uses kills someone, not everyone who plays video games does it addictively, not everyone who build model airplanes melts his brain with model glue in a poorly ventilated room. those are not the people we are talking about. i just want someone to be able to say "hey, i think video games are really starting to affect my work performance because there's no immediate return when i do a good job at work." (i've actually counseled someone who said this exact thing about mmo's vs real life) without someone making a joke about it. i want someone to be able to say, "hey, porn is really starting to negatively affect my marriage." without getting laughed at and/or huddled into a cement basement in hushed voices "this is the sex addicts group, we have to be quiet or people will know"

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Playing video games while driving is already illegal i'm assuming, since texting and driving is...

What is stopping you from counseling someone who says that about video games? The fact that WHO doesn't have video gaming classified as a mental health issue and therefore isn't covered by insurance/government aid? Is the tranny push going to stop people from making fun of trannies?

zombiewizardhawk said:

Playing video games while driving is already illegal i'm assuming, since texting and driving is...

What is stopping you from counseling someone who says that about video games? The fact that WHO doesn't have video gaming classified as a mental health issue and therefore isn't covered by insurance/government aid? Is the tranny push going to stop people from making fun of trannies?

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nothing stops me from counseling them once they actually GET to me. problem is there's very little precedence. the ones that i've counseled in the past had other issues, the video games or whatever tended to be reactionary responses to not having drugs to dive headfirst into.

if people actually talked openly about needing help in whatever areas they need help in, things would be a lot different.

Big Phoenix said:

Oh look some elitest morons are going to try and ruin another fun hobby. Brought to you by the same retards who said homosexuality was a mental illness.

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there is a grand canyon of middle ground here, man. video game addiction isn't about banning video games. and playing video games doesn't equate to problematic behavior. it is 100% about creating a system that supports treatment for those who need it.

How do people actually get to you? Through government subsidized medical processes or anything insurance related?

Borzak said:

I remember when they added a reminder to EQ to log off or to walk around/stand up after so many hours.

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And we all got up stretched and walked around, collectively reducing our s-stroke ris..k....oh wait.

If SOE really gave a fuck about us the computer would have exploded and lit the office on fire for good measure.

Eh, it doesn't mean that much, WHO is mostly politics, then it's up to the individual countries to implement and honestly with the amount of lootboxes going up, treating it as an addictive issue is probably faster than hoping the politicians do something. Psychiatry is also famous for reworking their diagnoses as the time goes, literally anybody could be diagnosed with *something*, since there's not much hard data in their evaluation process. Besides it's mostly Asia pushing for this, since they had gaming "rehabs" since the 90s, but nobody likes talking about that, since who the fuck wouldn't rather play games than study and play piano for 18 hours/day.

Tough subject. From my own 20+ years of heavy gaming, i'd say that gaming has fucked me in more ways than i can count. At times physically, because i was capable of eating 1 meal a day while playing (mostly EQ and WoW) 12-14 hours straight, but mostly academically... kuz ya kno, gotta get that FBSS from Frenzy even though i have an exam in a few hours and should at least gloss over my notes (lol what notes, i skipped 80% of my classes kuz said constant 12-14 hour sessions).

At the same time, i'd rather be addicted to gaming than alcohol or drugs, or any other substance, or wtf ever. And i was lucky enough to end up fine in terms of career, wife, kids etc. And i think that most of us did. Those that got fucked were mostly from other substance abuse rather than just gaming itself.

I do see a possible issue in the future though as gaming content becomes more and more profit driven (not that it wasn't before, but rather it's getting way more elaborate i.e. dlcs, loot boxes etc.). However, at this point i put this in the same basket as: Bacon causes cancer. The fuck it does...

When I was 16 I basically played Warcraft 3/original Dota all day every day, but then some shitty stuff happened irl and I was unable to play. I felt very strong withdrawal symptoms for a couple months after that. I experienced dreams, anxiety and depression because I was not able to play. I constantly thought about playing, and my only goal was to play again. I certainly feel like there are situations where it can be a very real thing.

norp said:

When I was 16 I basically played Warcraft 3/original Dota all day every day, but then some shitty stuff happened irl and I was unable to play. I felt very strong withdrawal symptoms for a couple months after that. I experienced dreams, anxiety and depression because I was not able to play. I constantly thought about playing, and my only goal was to play again. I certainly feel like there are situations where it can be a very real thing.

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Was this not a temporary state of being? I feel there was a point when any given game would become "played out". A finite limit to it, unlike some recreational substances. EQ was getting played out after 2-3 years among quasi-normies.

Is anyone hopelessly addicted 18 years later still playing?

Regardless, add me to the Origin skeptics pile. I don't think anyone is simply addicted to games to that degree without being also addicted to drugs to play the game. You saw this in EQ with your 20 bongrips a second crowd, and your core members with heavy adderall scripts. Take the drugs away, let me know if they are still playing.

zombiewizardhawk said:

How do people actually get to you? Through government subsidized medical processes or anything insurance related?

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i've worked for a couple differnet places, non profit in the past, currently a for profit, but the process is pretty similar in that a client just calls the facility looking for treatment. they come in for an evaluation and we take it from there. if there's a need for treatment, they stay, if not they leave. with the non-profit, the majority of the clients that i dealt with were homeless or had fairly extensive legal trouble and were considered legal referrals. with the for profit, probably about half my clients were DWI clients where treatment would reduce their charges and the other half were self-referrals of various clients that were still pretty high functioning users that wanted to get a handle on their life before it went fully down the toilet. about 5% of my clients were self-pay at the for profit, the rest were all covered through insurance as the most basic of treatments (8 weeks of treatment involving one individual outpatient session a week) ran about $700 total but depending on insurance type, they might cover all of it or just a percentage depending on co-pays and deductibles and all that. at the non-profit, probably 99% of the clients were on medicaid so it was all covered in full.

the bottom line, is that they get to us by calling, and they get our number from several different referral sources but if insurance doesn't cover it, most likely they just hang up. and if there's no diagnoses, then insurance won't cover it.

jayrebb said:

Was this not a temporary state of being? I feel there was a point when any given game would become "played out". A finite limit to it, unlike some recreational substances. EQ was getting played out after 2-3 years among quasi-normies.

Is anyone hopelessly addicted 18 years later still playing?

Regardless, add me to the Origin skeptics pile. I don't think anyone is simply addicted to games to that degree without being also addicted to drugs to play the game. You saw this in EQ with your 20 bongrips a second crowd, and your core members with heavy adderall scripts. Take the drugs away, let me know if they are still playing.

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games are a different beast then something like heroin or cocaine or alcohol in that someone can just stick to the same substance their whole life, but honestly? they are coming out with new variations and flavors of those substances several times a year as well. so if you smoke pot for 18 years, you are probably not smoking the same stuff you are today that you did when you started. it's more drastic with video games in that most games have a MUCH shorter shelf life. but that can be part of the problem too... personally, sometimes i find myself looking for that hot new game to play and enjoy but i haven't even finished my backlog. if i'm spending my money on new games instead of paying bills, that's a problem. sure we can say that's silly or irresponsible, but that's the issue. people who are suffering from these issues have basically had their brain high-jacked by chemicals. rational thinking is... compromised