Beating a computer game addiction

Jan 21, 2010, 16:24 GMT

Hamburg - Addicted to computer games is a description that fits the lifestyle of more and more children, particularly boys.

They sit at their computers for hours on end playing games, paying little attention to everything else going on in the world. The addiction often creeps up on people, similar to the way other dependencies develop. Torben Berger, a German teenager using a fictitious name to tell his story, said initially playing computer games was just a way to kill time.

'I didn't have much else to do,' the 18-year-old said from a town near the north-western city of Osnabrueck. For more than a year he was addicted to the infamous online game Counterstrike. In the final stages of his addiction he didn't want to leave his room, talk with other people, go to work or even eat or take a shower. All he wanted to do was play the game.

Counterstrike involves fighting between terrorists and members of a special police unit. The opponents kill each other by shooting guns of all shapes and sizes and by using knives and grenades. What makes it so fascinating?

'Looking back on it, actually nothing at all. It's just a meaningless killing spree,' said Berger. When he discovered Counterstrike about one and a half years ago, he saw it differently. Back then he felt bullied in the job he had in which he was completing his apprenticeship. This aggravated him to the point where he withdrew to his room, put on a headset and let himself be distracted from his troubles by the melody and sounds of the game.

His escape from reality lasted longer every day. Soon it was up to nine hours beginning from the time he got home from work. All the money he earned as an apprentice systems mechanic went toward supporting his gaming, leaving no money for going out in the evening. He had little interest anyway in real life friends. Fellow competitors in the virtual group he belonged to put him under pressure.

'If you are not regularly online, you would be thrown out and get points deducted or you would drop in the rankings,' he said.

Eventually, he recognized himself that something was wrong. 'Outwardly, I was alive, but on the inside I was dead,' Berger admitted to his mother one day. His parents were shocked. A few days later he came down with a serious illness and had to undergo intestinal surgery. When his doctor wrote a note excusing him from work for several weeks, he was pleased to have the extra time to play.

'We talked until we were blue in the face, but nothing reached him,' said his mother, who with Berger's father tried to find help, but came up initially with no answers. 'The doctors just wanted to write him off sick and let it start over again.'

Their search led the family to Rainer Wonke of the addiction information centre of the deaconry of Osnabrueck. Wonke, an expert in pathological use of media, had no doubt that the youth needed to check into a clinic and undergo therapy. But the family's insurer didn't agree.

'We were told what our son had was not a recognized illness. If some people are not able to deal with a PC, then they have themselves to blame,' said the teenager's father.

With his apprenticeship forfeited and the beginning of a new school year threatening to come and go without Berger getting a new start on a career, Berger's parents independently organized a place for their son in the clinic. They also threatened to take the story about the insurer's rejection to the press. The insurer ultimately gave in.

Under treatment he had to learn to open up and go from 100 to zero - to slow his life down. At the beginning he didn't know where to channel his aggression. Then he discovered fitness and body- building. Three and a half weeks later when his parents were allowed to visit him for the first time, the 18-year-old had changed.

'He could hold a conversation again and he was approachable. There was life in his expression. Laughing and crying were only things he couldn't do yet,' his father said.

Although at this point Berger doesn't know what's next in his life, at least he can say that he managed to beat his addiction to computer games.