TREATMENT
Principles of treatment
- No one method worksfor all addictions or individual
- Treatment must be individualized.
- No one single method can be effective. More than one method needs to be used.
- Remaining in treatment for an adequate amount of time is necessary.
- Family members must be involved.
- Recovery from addiction is a long term process and further monitoring and treatment may be necessary.
Who and what are we treating?
There are different degrees of the severity of the problem when the computer is used excessively. Each of these may need to be managed differently. The first point to be noted is that the use of computers for more than 5 hours a day is generally used as indicating excessive computer use. Not all who use for more than 5 hours are addicted and those who use less than 5 hours are not generally considered addicted. I will use my own descriptive labels to show the severity of this problem.
The Regular Gamer
A child who uses less than 5 hours may give parents problem like throwing tantrums, be demanding or simply difficult to manage. As the use of the computer is not excessive, this is more an issue of behavioral management. Parents who are concerned are usually aware of the dangers of addiction and try to take steps to prevent this. Parents can work on parenting skills or go for counselling to deal with other family issues.
The Heavy Gamer
A child who uses the computer for more than 5 hours a day is using it excessively but may not be “misusing” the computer. This category is a bit harder to define as misuse can be quite subjective. An example of this may be a child being bored or playing games to avoid conflict situations at home. Studies may or may not be affected and the child may still put in some effort in studies. Helping such a child is similar to the above. Family counselling may be helpful.
The High Functioning Addict
This term may be a misnomer as it is used in the addiction field to indicate someone who is heavily dependent on the “drug of choice” (usually alcohol) and who is able to function almost normally in daily life. Technically, this person may not be addicted but the condition may be severe enough to be life threatening. An article on treating the high function addict can be found here.
A child who uses the computer for more than 5 hours a day and is “misusing” or “abusing” the computer is what a typical layman would consider as addicted. Studies are usually affected but the child can still be fairly responsive in relating to others. The vast majority of reported problems would probably fall in this category. It would be difficult to manage such problems as denial and attachment to the games is very strong. The treatment approach would be to aim for moderation and this could be accomplished by introducing alternatives and managing the social and family environment. Family counselling and co-dependency treatment would be required in the majority of cases.
In some ways, helping the high functioning addict may be more difficult than helping an addict who is unable to function normally. Not only is the level of denial extremely high, it is very hard to convince this person that there is a problem. In fact, the high functioning addict is able to point out the positive things that can be done and gaming is a very good excuse as a stress reliever.
Addicted
A child who is diagnosed as addicted would require treatment. Abstinence as a treatment approach may need to be considered but treatment programs are generally limited in Singapore. It is not as comprehensive as compared to other countries which are more experienced in this area. In-patient treatment would be ideal and co-dependency treatment would also be required in the majority of cases.
In the general addiction field, most experts believe that abstinence (rather than moderation) is the only way to manage addiction. For computer addiction, the view is fairly divided with the majority (in my observation) tending to advocate moderation for practical reasons.