Hooked on the Web: Help Is on the Way
The waiting room for Hilarie Cash's practice has the look and feel of many a therapist's office, with comforting classical music, paintings of gentle swans and colorful flowers and on the bookshelves piles of brochures on how to get help.
But along with her patients, Dr. Cash, who runs Internet/Computer Addiction Services here in the city that is home to Microsoft, is a pioneer in a growing trend in mental health care and addiction(上瘾) recovery. The patients, including Mike, 34, are what Dr. Cash and other mental health professionals call onlineaholics. They even have a diagnosis(诊断结果): Internet addiction disorder.
These specialists estimate that 6 percent to 10 percent of the around 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction, and they are rushing to treat it. Most of such users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography(色情资料). But other users have a broader dependency and spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks or instant messaging and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games.
Dr. Cash and other professionals say that people who abuse the Internet are typically struggling with other problems, like depression and anxiety. But, they say, the Internet's offer of escape from reality, and the opportunity for keeping unknown can also attract otherwise healthy people into an addiction.
Dr. Cash and other therapists say they are seeing a growing number of teenagers and young adults as patients, who grew up spending hours on the computer, playing games and sending instant messages. These patients appear to have significant developmental problems, including attention disorder and a lack of social skills.
A report released during the summer by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teenagers did spend an increasing amount of time online: 51 percent of teenage Internet users are online daily, up from 42 percent in 2000. But the report did not find a fading of social skills. Most teenagers 'maintain energetic networks of friends', it noted.
A growing number of therapists and recovery centers are often treating Web addicts with the same approaches used to treat chemical addictions. There is one inpatient program, at Proctor Hospital in Peoria, Illinois, which accepts patients to recover from online addiction. Experts there said they see similar signs in those patients as in alcoholics or drug addicts, including sweating, severe anxiety, etc. The hospital's treatment program places all its clients together for group therapy and other recovery work, whether the addiction is to drugs or the computer.
Several counselors and other experts said time spent on the computer was not important in diagnosing an addiction to the Internet. The question, they say, is whether Internet use is causing serious problems, including the loss of a job, marital difficulties, depression, isolation and anxiety, and still the user cannot stop. 'The line is drawn with Internet addiction,' said Mr. Zehr of Proctor Hospital, 'When I'm no longer controlling my Internet use, it's controlling me'.
Some therapists and Internet addiction treatment centers offer online counseling, including at least one 12-step program for video game addicts, which is controversial. Critics say that although it may be a way to catch the attention of someone who needs face-to-face treatment, it is more like to treat an alcoholic in a wine factory, mostly because Internet addicts need to break the cycle of living in cyberspace.
A crucial difference between treating alcoholics and drug addicts, however, is that total prohibition ban is usually recommended for recovery from substance abuse, whereas moderate and manageable use is the goal for behavioral addi
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