<p>I think what people have to ackowledge is that there is always a sense of entitlement component to these things. People who are homeless and have to live on the streets do not play video games at these cafes. They’d be kicked out as vagrants. They aren’t likely doing it at libraries either due to time limits and limits on what can be downloaded. In order to sustain these addictions, you need a roof over your head, a computer, an internet connection, and a complicit adult to pay for it all. Take away any of those elements, and it cannot really exist.</p>
<p>I can’t help but think that somewhere in the poorest African country, there is a starving teen sitting with his mother saying “What the heck is WOW. Can I have some clean water today please?”</p>
<p>whatapainthisis…I sympathize with that very sad story, albeit it is one of the more extreme cases, I would think, however terribly heartbreaking I am sure for anyone who really cares for him to watch and see happen. I can’t even imagine losing a son to that.
Tonight was a tough night, we had a big blowup with my son, found out he snuck in a game and found where his computer was hiding and had it in his room since last night. He didnt’ hit me but grabbed my wrists pretty hard and they are very red, my husband at that point intervened and took the computer out again and will take it to his office tomorrow morning. The saddest thing is that he is someone who is at a very important juncture, with his need to do well in school and in the middle of having to apply to colleges and report his midyear grades, this crisis is coming at a horrible time.
I am speaking tomorrow morning with another therapist, someone more local who has come highly recommended, who we are going to try to start seeing. I think professional help at this point is a must, as much as I have tried to do it myself. I am afraid of what could happen in a case where either of us totally loses it to the point where we aren’t using our heads at that time. He has never ever been a violent person but I see a rage in him when the game gets taken that I can only conclude has been fostered by the aggressiveness of the game. God I wish this was banned from human existance. It is just such poision to our youngsters…please if anyone is reading this, is considering letting their own kid play it…BEWARE of what it can do. I hope that next time I write you to update you, things are better.</p>
<p>what…nice!!! Really and as well, parents, step and take back your control and your house</p>
<p>kid too muchtime on WOW, take it away…what is so hard about doing that?</p>
<p>and if you fear your kids rage, then it is very serious indeed</p>
<p>suggestion- do it with others around…an intervention as it were, its time</p>
<p>A good therapist and psychiatrist are indeed in order when trying to break addictive behavior. The son is being deprived of his “drug” and its harder than any non-addict can imagine.I’ve seen this with HS and college kids.</p>
<p>unfortunately,I’ve also seen grown women who spend entire days online with dating services, having 500 contacts (friends) in a few months. Porn addiction is also on the rise.</p>
<p>ctmomof3,
good luck to you. It sounds like you are on the right track with professional help and I applaud you for doing your homework and finding out about all this. My son played WOW on and off, in addition to some other games. At one point years ago he was trying to convince us that it could be a career…fortunately, he got involved in lots of other activities and doesn’t have the time now to really play much. He has a Wii and I think still has some games at college but he is focused on his studies…
At one time though he told me that the gamers call everquest, “Everclear” because it is addictive like the alcohol everclear (grain alcohol).
As I said the beginning good luck to you.</p>
<p>I never had video games in my house- the sound just annoyed me too much</p>
<p>ctmom, I’m so sorry about the setback, and I’m glad you have a lead on a local therapist. I hope you can get your son there soon. I take it the visiting relatives have left? Is there anyone who can come to stay? Having others around could help defuse what sounds like a very frightening situation. </p>
<p>Could you enlist the help of the guidance counselor for the college-related things? An outside voice reminding your son about the consequences of letting grades slip or missing deadlines could be more effective than yours at this point.</p>
<p>nymom, actually yes all the relatives have gone, but one of them may be coming who was particularly helpful. I am going to meet with his guidance counselor as soon as they go back to school, I feel having someone who he would be embarrased in front of help us out could be helpful in this situation plus she would be a great person to have on hand to remind him of the serious consequences if his grades slip,etc…it is a upsetting situation which is testing every thread of patience and perserverance I have but I am determined. Thanks again…</p>
<p>ctmom, I’ve been following this thread, and my heart goes out to you and your family. Best wishes- there are a lot of people in your court.</p>
<p>When my sons were 5 and 6, we had the earlier version of some nintendo-type system. This is back when they were playing little games with animals and cartoon characters jumping around. Anyway, they played for about 3-6 months, and became more and more enamoured with the game. I noticed more fighting and bad moods. Finally one day, youngest son came to the breakfast table, cranky and crying. Upon investigation, it seemed that he had failed to beat a certain ‘level’. H was so fed up, he said “That’s it!” and went in the room and took the machine out. For the next 6 years, we had no game systems in our house. I saw two happy little active boys become recluses at the tender age of 6- foregoing outside activities and activities and socializing with neighbor kids. After the machine was out, they were back outside, catching toads and playing ball with the rest of the kids.</p>
<p>Today, they have a game system, but they don’t play WoW or Everclear. They’re in college now, and would rather socialize in their spare time. We have pingpong, a pool table, and the beach nearby. I don’t know if the lack of gaming throughout elementary/middle school had anything to do with it, but they are more or less balanced with their leisure activities. </p>
<p>I really feel bad for what you are going through. Personally, I think ‘addiction’ depends on the definition. As far as I’m concerned, sitting in a dark room on a Friday night playing a game, instead of socializing with friends, is addicted, but that’s just me. I didn’t grow up with gaming. When I was a teen/college student, we wouldn’t have been caught dead sitting alone in our rooms if there were any alternatives at all.</p>
<p>Well, this has been an interesting thread, but it looks like no one really changed their minds based on the exchanges. </p>
<p>Ctmom, here’s my two cents worth. If you’re going to have a counselor talk to your son, I would suggest a man rather than a woman, and preferably someone who has played online games. The vast majority of WoW players are male; researcher Nick Yee suggests 84% are male, based on surveys of players. Since few women seem to deem this type of game a worthwhile activity (as further evidenced by this thread), a call for moderation would probably be more effective coming from someone who was not predisposed to dismiss the activity altogether.</p>
<p>Good luck, I hope it works out well for you and your family!</p>
<p>Hi all yes the two people that came highly recommended are male so now I am waiting to hear back from them to see how soon we can get in to see them. This has indeed been a major life experience and I will continue to keep you all abreast of the situation as it unfolds. I thank you all again for your well meaning advice and am grateful to you for taking the time to keep up with this thread and be there for me. Happy New Year!</p>
<p>ctmom -</p>
<p>I am sending you a big hug.</p>
<p>It broke my heart to read of the grabbing the wrists thing. Please know it wan’t your som who did that - it was the 500 pound silverback (my metaphor for the addict voice) wreaking havoc in his brain. His true self would never have acted aggressively towards you, I am sure.</p>
<p>Someone suggested speaking to his guidance counselor. I would not do that - they write recommendations to colleges.</p>
<p>I sympathize with the bad timing point you made. It is often during the most inopportune times that a problem with addiction surfaces (those inopportune times are usually the most important, stressful junctures in life). It is difficult to accept that without being free of harmful addictive tendancies, no life at all is possible anyway (but it is true). People with substance abuse problems, for example, are often reluctant to take time off from jobs or school in order to enter treatment. If they don’t have their sobriety, however, the jobs and school will disappear anyway.</p>
<p>Counselors…findiong them and going through treatment can take so much time. I wonder if your son could go daily for a while to speed up the process? It might not be easy to do so but perhaps you could find someone who would see him daily for a while?</p>
<p>From what I have seen in my travels, until a person is detoxed in some way (and again, I don’t know how you would do that in your situation), the counseling will not take.</p>
<p>I think your son needs a big yet LOVING intervention (so hard to do, when a family is madder at someone then they have ever been in their lives).</p>
<p>He then needs guaranteed, significant time away from his substance of choice (by any means necessary and meticulously enforced). Can someone take him away to a cabin? What about an outward bound trip?</p>
<p>Only after he has “detoxed” and can hear what people are saying to him will the counseling take.</p>
<p>spideygirl, your hug came at a good time. I agree an outward bound type program is exactly what I think he needs right now…to bond with people again, to be outside and breath fresh air, to do something productive, to be with other kids his age, interacting in a way that is healthy. The thing is if I did do something like that, it would totally interfere with school and then he would have to kiss any chance of going to college goodbye in the fall, and clearly this is a HUGE HUGE step to take. I am not sure if I am ready to do that, frankly but as this ugly nightmare continues, I get closer believe me. I wish you a happy and peaceful new year, safe and joyful journeys for everyone out there, and I will certainly keep you posted. I pray that 2008 will bring much needed happiness, and hope into our household and all families. HAPPY NEW YEAR!</p>
<p>I am the one who suggested enlisting the guidance counsellor. I’m sorry that I was not clear - I certainly did not mean to confide about the violent incident or even the addiction to the GC, but only to ask for help in motivating ctmom’s son to keep his grades up and get his applications in. I’m sure he is not the only one in the school having senior-year problems, and I don’t think the GC would see anything unusual in this request. I was definitely NOT recommending that anyone at the school be informed about the addiction.</p>
<p>Happy New Year to you, too, ctmom, and to everyone else on this thread.</p>
<p>im a senior in high school and two years i had this problem though only around 2-3 hours a day with a very very simlar game to wow. </p>
<p>what any therapist will have to make him do is to actually realize that there are much more important things in life than computer games</p>
<p>i realized after a while with much yelling from my parents which helped me realize in the long run that my social life sports and maybe even academics were things that would influence my life in the long run.</p>
<p>i couldnt come to this realization while my parents allowed me to play all day, they dropped my internet time down to like 2 hours a WEEK, at first i was extremely mad but then i realized playing wouldnt be a help to me in the long run and have definitely refrained from playing WOW, especially after people told me how addictive it was.</p>
<p>i think you need to not tell your son , but ask him about his goals for the future and he just needs to keep those goals in mind.</p>
<p>worked for me, dont know if that helps goodluck</p>
<p>I’m glad to see this thread move away from a discussion about whether most people can play WOW without becoming addicted. It’s IRRELEVANT. The OP’s son has become withdrawn, seen his hygiene and grades drop because of this game. He clearly has a problem. Even if he were the only person to have this problem (and he’s CLEARLY not), she is here seeking help for HIM. If the rest of you don’t have a problem with WOW, goody for you, but that’s not helping her with her son. Anything that completely takes over your life to the exclusion of all else is an obsessive/addictive problem (except a newborn baby, haha, but they eventually grow up!).</p>
<p>CTMomof3, unfortunately I think setbacks are normal when dealing with a problem like this. But it does seem that overall your son is in a better place than he was a few weeks ago. Try to keep that in mind! And good luck with the therapist, it seems to me that this is something that a well-trained and experienced therapist could definitely help with.</p>
<p>Keep us posted! We’re all rooting for you - and for your son!</p>
<p>Oh, yes, the newborn baby. Could there be anything more consuming?</p>
<p>Happy New Year to you all too, may it bring me much needed happiness and less stress and I wish a joyous and healthy one for you all as well.</p>
<p>I will keep you posted, last night he told my husband and I he has decided it is over, that it cannot continue to ruin his life, our relationships,etc…that he knows his priorities and wants to tackle them again,etc…BELIEVE ME I desperately want to believe him, but having gone through this cycle over and over before I am reluctant though will have one eye on his promise with every hope in my being that it is for real this time. I pray for him, not even for what I have gone through, I want to see my good looking, intelligent, happy go lucky, son caring about himself, interacting with others, taking girls up on their offers to go out,etc…just want to see him become the person he once was, that is all. I will certainly keep you all posted, hope you had a wonderful and safe New Year’s Eve!</p>
<p>As a former World of Warcraft player, perhaps I can shed some helpful light on this issue. The better you are able to understand how the game works, the better you are able to deal with or assist an addicted son or daughter. The most important thing to understand is that playing the game for 6-7 hours at a time, several times a week, is considered perfectly normal in the WoW community. When you are at the endgame, it is expected that you be able to commit 3-4 uninterrupted hours during major guild ‘raids’ (events involving 30-40 people) which usually occur several times a week. The more frequently you play, the higher esteemed you are to your guildmates. Those who often shirk their commitments are usually not held in high regard. Thus, players often feel obligated to play, night after night, regardless of whether there be more important, real-life obligations. You see, the game never really ends, even if your character has reached the highest level achievable - during these guild raids you encounter opportunities to obtain extremely covetous items (‘epic loot’) that make your character more powerful and cool-looking, and whether or not your guild rewards you one of these items is dependent upon how much of your time you have contributed to the guild’s progression. The largely irrational desire to improve your character with new weapons, trinkets and armor, combined with the amount of time you are required to invest in order to obtain them, creates an irresistible incentive to play. It is a formula that has been mastered by companies like Blizzard; their revenue is dependent upon how long and how frequently they are able to keep people playing their game, and they make obscene amounts of money in doing so. I don’t know if this has changed or not, but when I played the game the PvP system (as distinct from the general raiding system) pitted player against player for some disastrous effects; many people, including myself, would play the game at every moment we could spare (sometimes ~14 hours a day during winter or summer break, I have heard cases of people spending 16+ hours) to chase after that elusive #1 spot, no matter how mundane or repetitive the required tasks may be.</p>
<p>Make no mistake, WoW is a very social game. It is typically envisioned that the average player is an introverted, anti-social nerd, but the game attracts people of all personalities, ages, aptitudes, and walks of life. Naturally, you become good friends with the members of your guild, since you are spending several hours a night playing with them. You generally have a good time, and gradually find that your WoW friends supplant some of your real-life ones. Because the game is nation-wide, you have a good chance of finding someone whom you have more in common with than anyone you know in real-life. You might even find someone you are sexually attracted to (this is dangerous - many men will pretend to be females, maybe vice versa as well, i don’t know). The game derives its element of fun mostly from its social components, though it also can be very fun on its face, despite its appearance to some of being deathly dull and boring. Cliques develop, loyalties and rivalries form, just as in a high school or in a workplace. Your character’s reputation is a big deal. You might be surprised at how emotionally involved some players can become. Jealousy, outrage, sorrow, betrayal - far from being absent, these real-life emotions are actually accentuated within the game’s conducive social atmosphere. Outbursts of yelling or crying (yes, I have often heard actual crying) over voice-chat are not uncommon during episodes of guild ‘drama.’ Maybe you have heard a sound bite of an overzealous, boot camp instructor-esque raid leader screaming at the top of his lungs in agony at his group for their incompetence. Yeah, it happens. You become prideful of your guild and its achievements; when you defeat a new boss for the first time, especially after having extreme amounts of difficulty in doing so, you are filled - nay, overwhelmed - with a feeling of ecstatic exuberance. In addition, some players are so highly skilled or integral to the progression of their guild that their presence at raids is virtually required – if they don’t show up and the group of 30-40 people are inconvenienced, people are understandly angered…as you can see, some players might feel that it is incumbent upon them to play and to disregard any interfering real-life commitments. A devotion to one’s guild can become extremely powerful and can encourage one to play the game for hours on end so that they may see their guild succeed and triumph.</p>
<p>When you play the game you are not concerned with how it is affecting your future or your relationships. You do not listen to other people’s advice, though you might pretend to - they do not know what/how you are feeling. The more that people tell you to quit playing, the more irritated, aggressive and irrational you become. You simply care about the gratification that you can achieve now, without much regard to the deleterious effects in the long term. I have witnessed real-life friendships and marriages be destroyed by the game. Luckily I suffered the brunt of my addiction through my freshman and sophmore years in high school. It is definitely not something to mess with during your junior or senior year, when you need to be focused on your ECs, test scores and college applications, as well as on making memories with your real-life friends. If your son or daughter is hopelessly addicted to the game, and his or her marketability to colleges is suffering as a result, my best advice would be to promptly cancel the subscription. Your kid might hate you intensely, but only temporarily, as they realize the benefits of no longer being committed to the game. He or she might even thank you later. Good luck to all (and a belated Happy New Year!)</p>