How To Help a Friend With an MMO Addiction? 811
sammydee writes "I have a friend who is addicted to an MMO (Pirates of the Burning Sea). On a typical day, he will wake up around 9am, browse the forums for a bit, then go online and stay online all day, playing until about 3am the following morning, taking only toilet breaks and stopping to eat ready-meals. While the rest of the house works hard revising for exams, this friend will be playing his MMO instead. Now, I am pretty confident that this comprises an unhealthy addiction; unfortunately, I have no idea what to do about it. Any attempt to physically prevent him from playing the game would most likely result in an outburst of anger and possibly physical violence. Attempts at telling him he has a problem have been met with derision and angry retorts. Slashdotters, what would you do to help out a friend in this situation? Perhaps you are a reformed addict yourself — if so, how did you break out of the habit? Or maybe I should just leave well enough alone and allow him to continue? Any thoughts are gratefully received."
You can;t save someone from their self. (Score:5, Informative)
I learned that with my regular old drug junkie friends.
Re:Grief (Score:3, Informative)
Pirates of the Burning Seas? Unknown? Not really. It's not a huge one, but if you pay attention to games at all, you'd hear about it a few times. Pirate-based MMO? On the internet? And you expect it to go unnoticed?
That is retarded (Score:5, Informative)
For one, all the MMO companies I've ever encountered have plenty of records of what has happened with an account. That was if something goes wrong, they can restore it. If it gets hacked, they'll just roll it back to where it was before then. So the company will fix the problem and he'll just get to keep going. Now if you keep doing it, you WILL get caught. That's how criminals, and make no mistake that's what you'd be, get caught: They keep doing it. Each time there's more chance you slip up, each time there's more patterns to look for.
In this case you'd get found out fairly quickly because those involved would realize the only way someone could keep getting his password is to have physical access to his computer.
So this is an excellent way to not fix the problem, and to land your ass in jail. Hacking can be a very serious offense if they want it to be.
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:5, Informative)
A girlfriend will want to evaluate his character, tell her friends, make him want to go out on dates and shit like that... and if all is good, will "perform".
You're doing it wrong.
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:5, Informative)
And not only from games. A friend of mine, a successful accountant almost died some months ago from a clot, formed in her legs from sitting too may hours.
What ever else you are doing, get up and walk some every hour or so
Seek professional resources to help you with this (Score:3, Informative)
Having a friend on such a deep and downward spiral is difficult to watch. Clearly, since you're asking here, you care. I'm assuming your educational institution has mental health professionals. Make an appointment and talk to one of them - about how YOU feel about this and what you are experiencing. They have a lot more experience with this and, unlike virtually anyone whose postings I have read so far, actual training. You can get insight into the problem, understand the pressures and the meaning of it for you, and understand what you may need to do. This might help you engage with him and help him out.
I'm glad you care enough to ask. Good luck
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:5, Informative)
Poker machines and MMO are very similar. The both have similar audio visual stimulus, the same payoff / reward systems. They are both engineered to be addictive. Psychologists will be divided over whether that counts as an addiction, but it's certainly a problem.
There are lots of resources for gambling, see The Gambling Addiction Patient Workbook By Robert R. Perkinson, or the Gambling Anonymous website. Or just google it.
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:3, Informative)
Re:firewall, fdisk, or just wait it out... (Score:1, Informative)
Of course it can haunt you for life. Flunking out once usually means you can't go back and try again for competitive things like medical school. Doors in your life close.
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:4, Informative)
Girlfriend is not enough! (Score:5, Informative)
I have a girlfriend, and no, it's not enough to get you out of an MMO addiction. It can be added incentive. Usually, you have to wait until it starts hurting their job and their wallet. If that doesn't do it, good luck!
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:5, Informative)
Meh, I'll just have to waste the mod points I've used in this discussion, to clear up this misunderstanding.
Addiction and withdrawal symptoms are quite independent.
Even for drugs, s.c. physical addiction isn't very serious in itself. People get physically addicted to morphine in hospitals all the time, but they will accept the withdrawal pains, and will be no more likely to become morphine addicts than other people (there are studies on this, which is why morphine-based painkillers are still used.)
Some of the nastiest street drugs have very little actual physical addictiveness.
It's psychological addiction that matters, for drugs as for anything else. Addicted people like doing what they do. And it's not based on a single chemical in the brain, as some people assume, because although both WoW and doing drugs may increase your dopamine levels, you can't just easily switch from one addiction to another.
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:5, Informative)
It's amazing what people with rate as +1 informative these days.
Re:Seek professional help (Score:2, Informative)
No, no and no!
Everyone should be responsible for their own actions. Yes, a MMO can ruin your life. But either they're old enough to ruin their own lives - or they're not, and their parents can simply take their computer away.
So can driving your car with 250 mph into a wall of concrete. That doesn't mean that car manufacturers should be held reliable for your stupidity.
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's Called S.E.X (Score:1, Informative)
Warning: cigarette smoke is harmful.
Sources of Help (Score:2, Informative)
However, remember that you are far from alone and that there are many sources of help available for both you and your friend. This Slashdot site is one of them, but some other good ones that I am aware of are On-Line Gamers Anonymous (OLGA) at http://www.olganon.org/ [olganon.org] , Gamer Widow at http://gamerwidow.com/ [gamerwidow.com] (note that despite it's name, it also has support for gamers as well), DailyStrength Video Game Addiction (VGA) support group at http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Video-Game-Addiction/support-group [dailystrength.org] , and WoW Detox at http://www.wowdetox.com/ [wowdetox.com] . I am a recovering video game addict myself. For me, I used counseling from a friend as well as the OLGA Website (such as informally following their 12 steps) and, to a lesser extent, the DailyStrength one.
Note that even if you cannot get your friend to directly get help himself, the first 2 sites listed above (i.e., OLGA and Gamer Widow) have sections specifically for family and friends of gamers. I am sure that you can find something already previously posted that would be useful, or can get specific help by repeating your query.