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Editor's note: Ramsen Kasha, of Lincolnwood, is a licensed addiction counselor and regional executive director of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation for East Coast Operations. He manages the organization's facilities in Chicago, serving people from Chicago, the suburbs and the country.
If you are a parent of school-age children, you may have had the same occasional thought as me: all you do all day – play video games? "
Obviously, I do not remember" play "almost as often when I had their age, but at the time, video games were not so intense, immersive and social that they are today.We enjoyed Nintendo! "and we definitely did not have the impression of having a disorder, or an addiction, to play these games.
The World Health Organization has recently stated that the "disorder" of video games is a mental illness, and as a person in the field of drug treatment, this statement has led me to
What does it mean exactly when an organization like the WHO makes a statement about gambling, and perhaps society, in general? most people are playing video games – and games based on smartphone apps – without significant negative consequences So, for the majority of people, it can be hard to understand why others simply can not reduce the controller.
But this is no different from other sources of addiction. Many people can drink alcohol, for example, without consequence, but a significant minority can not.
Addiction does not depend so much on the number of drinks you consume, the number of drugs you use, or the number of video games. It's not even drugs or games per se. It's about people and health. It is the reward system of our brain and how some are genetically and ecologically conditioned to pursue the reward more compulsively than others.
The true marker of addiction is the use or continued behavior despite the negative consequences – compulsions that hold back the people they really appreciate.
From this point of view, it is easier to see the logic of the WHO by stating that gambling is a mental illness. And in countries outside the United States, the problem may be more palpable.
While some make fun of the notion of gambling as an addiction, my colleague, Dr. Joseph Lee, says that the dialogue actually reveals how much our society is "We tend to see addiction in a moralizing light – good against bad, or weak against strong, "says Lee, medical director of the Youth Continuum of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. "Addictions are not moral, but because compulsive behaviors invade a person's life and prevent them from prioritizing things that they know to be really important, such as work, family, and relationships. better understand how gambling and video games can be addictive. On the contrary, the dialogue on gambling disorders, in general, reveals more how stigmatized addiction is in the first place. "
We do not need research to see the negative impact of play in the lives of some people.It is in our families, where young children can isolate themselves. at the expense of almost everything life has to offer.
We also see intersections between gambling and substance use in the patients we treat.
like social media – feeds on the same thought that we see among young people who have a substance use-related disorder: fatalism, impulsiveness and desire for instant gratification – and much more than in the past.
Someone who grew up with " Super Mario Bros. "on the original Nintendo can not really understand how immersive and seductive video games are today.The graphics, social media interface and realism offer a kind of escape who was not there in the '80s and' 90s. [1 9659016] A small percentage of video players buy most video games. Companies know it, and in a competitive field, they are constantly improving the games so that those who play the most play even more.
So we will hear more about gambling disorders and addictions to certain types of technologies
Whether we call it addiction, mental health or whatever, gambling problems are real for some people, and we should help them.
We must go beyond the stigma of our labels diagnosis and talk about people and their entire health. When family members take a loved one to the hospital for a mental health problem, they are often sent to the back annex. They often have trouble using insurance to pay for the help they need. And most do not even go that far – not seeing why their loved one will stop drinking, cheering up, relaxing or lowering the controller.
Stigma is profound when it comes to problems of mind. But we must have this dialogue in our society.
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