Video Game Addiction Support Group

I play counter strike 1.6 competitively. I don't see it as a video game or alternative fantasy world, I view it as a sport. I have been playing for the past 5 years and in that time I have won a decent amount of money and merchandise at local LAN events and played for teams that in the community on IRC are considered famous. The only way to play at this top level in counter strike is to practice with your team AT LEAST 2 hours a day (similar to other sports in my opinion)

In middle school I had a lot of friends and was very into athletics and skateboarding, I did very well in pretty much anything with a competitive atmosphere, I even skipped seventh grade.

Around the time I entered high school I broke both of my feet, taking me out of sports permanently; and the group of friends I had been with started smoking a lot of pot. So I made new friends, a couple of which were gamers, they got me into the community, into the game and I started playing a lot. I became suicidally depressed during this time and my grades slipped. My mother the doctor misdiagnosed me with ADD and prescribed me concerta (which increases depression). I was in a rut for about a year where I would come home and just lie on my floor or play counter strike. My self-esteem suffered very greatly.

Junior year came around and I was put on lexapro (A drug with which I still have a love/hate relationship because it makes you fuzzy between the ears) THANKS MOM. So I'm on a new drug cocktail and a 4.0GPA is expected out of me, I get a 3.2 both semesters, parents kind of get off my back, I'm happy, I play cs in the evenings (about 3 hours a night), they still hate it. This was the year that I got very serious about playing competitively and I first introduced the idea of LAN events to my parents, I won 2 LANs this year and came in second at an international LAN (all of which held in the Seattle area), I don't think my parents had any idea what I was doing.

Senior year I went cold turkey off all the drugs without telling anyone, it was basically a repeat of sophomore year, and I played cs heavily. I almost didn't graduate high school. Yet due to my highs school's backward standards (I took 11 AP classes) I got to walk because I had an AP scarf. I managed to get into Arizona State University off of automatic admittance due to my SAT scores.

When I went to college (Arizona State party school = mistake) I decided to take a break from games to make friends but instead made the mistake of doing too many drugs and drinking too much my first semester. My grades were less than stellar. Second semester my grandpa died, the girl I thought I was in love with dumped me (Ive always been a dumb ass with women), and I drank a lot more. I started playing cs again in this same time period and got back into it very quickly. I managed to pass almost all my classes but my GPA was too low to warrant paying out of state tuition.

This summer I came home and worked a temporary job in construction the first two months, gaming very little. Once that job ended I had a good amount of money saved up and took a few weeks vacation before finding another job. In those weeks I started playing a lot of cs, 8 hours a day or so. I joined a new team that asked if I wanted to go to a LAN tournament in the San Jose area with them. Without even notifying my parents (who are totally supporting me) I said yes due to the fact that I could hit the LAN on my way back up while moving back home from Arizona. It all timed out perfectly 1 week before starting a new job.

Upon telling my parents about this they freaked out. They started yelling at me for wanting to meet people from online at LAN, and the irresponsibility and risks of spending the night at a strangers house. They also couldn't believe I had made plans to do this "behind their back". They instantly accused me of being a game addict due to the fact that I had been gaming VERY heavily those 3-4 weeks I was unemployed. They told me that if I want to play CS anymore then I can leave the house and if they find me playing it then they'll kick me out.

(my dad is a sober alcoholic/user and my mom had issues with drugs when she was my age, they're both clean now but they're fast to call everyone an addict.)

I think the reason for the sudden increase in my CS activity was a result of delaying the starting date at my new job because I thought I was moving and going to this LAN, so I start in the next few days (4-5 weeks without a job). Basically, I had nothing to do for a really long time so why not play video games.

In this time period I avoided a lot of old friends, mainly because they party a lot during the summer and I'm pretty afraid of getting back into that scene, I see gaming as the lesser of evils.

As the son of a mother who is continually psycho-analyzing me, and a Lutheran father that always calls me apathetic I would say that I am using gaming as a way to avoid situations where I put myself at risk from falling back into the pitfalls of alcohol/drug abuse and heartache.

As a reader of the AMA report on gaming addiction, I fit right in with the description of psychological disorders that pertain to excessive game play: depression and social anxiety.

How I see myself:

I see myself as someone that lives with parents that care too much about their jobs, and want to quick fix me by popping pills in my mouth so they don't have to deal with me. The lines of communication have always been there, but when my mom went back to school (right before I went to high school) the effort went out the window. All they do is criticize me for not doing laundry lists of chores every day. I think its easier for me to just game a whole bunch when I'm home than deal with my parents. However, in-game the draw is the same it has always been, competition, and safe friendships with teammates. I don't find the need to play more and more and more. As a matter of fact I'm pretty sick of it, I just don't want to see my parents. I think the best thing for me to do would be to move out and support myself.


===============================================


I'm asking this as someone that has been to 100 AA meetings and realizes that addicts CANNOT classify themselves without hitting ROCK BOTTOM. The best indicator of addiction is the family around you, when they say you need to get help, you usually need to get help. However, my dad sent me an article about a guy that killed himself over everquest and I don't think the psychological background or motives even come close to pertaining to my psychological background or motive for gaming. So I'm putting this out there, I know its long but I would love to hear what you guys have to say.

PS, I'm also going to seek help for these issues listed above.
Posted on 08/30/07, 06:08 am