40, married, gaming addict
It's not just teenagers in the basement: Adult addiction is growing, but the stigma remains
SARAH BOESVELD AND ZOSIA BIELSKI
From Friday's Globe and Mail
October 31, 2008 at 3:49 AM EDT
For years, high-school science teacher Pauline Harvey went to work thinking her unemployed husband spent all day job-hunting on their home computer.
He was hunting, all right - Brad Dorrance would shoot down opponents for more than 12 hours a day in a virtual world that had gradually become more real to him than his wife.
Since her husband was battling depression as well as bipolar and attention-deficit disorders at the time, she believed it was just a symptom of his illness.
"I thought this was just the behaviour of a depressed person," Ms. Harvey, 47, said from her London, Ont., home.
But in a hospital room after Mr. Dorrance, 40, tried to kill himself with a handful of sedatives, she heard the truth: Her husband was addicted to gaming and pornography, and had racked up $24,000 in debt on five credit cards she knew nothing about.
"I was really angry and felt betrayed," she said. "I was scared, but at the same time I thought you can only go up from here."
While the recent disappearance of 15-year-old Brandon Crisp has put a spotlight on teenage video-game addiction, the phenomenon of adult gaming addiction is largely ignored, experts say.
It's a growing problem as the age of the average gamer has risen to 32, said Liz Woolley, founder of Online Gamers Anonymous. And because gaming has more social acceptability than alcohol or drugs, most adult addicts don't realize they have a problem. But it can have a similarly destructive effect on family and relationships.
"People are just sort of living on these things," said Kimberly Young, director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery in Bradford, Pa., adding that most gamers have a family and a good job.
"Because it's so new, we haven't really said, 'Well, gee, we have a lot of stuff going on with dad.' And nobody knows how to deal with it because it's a game. It's not like he's doing drugs every day."
Indeed, that's the excuse many gamers use when confronted by worried spouses. In games such as World of Warcraft, battles take hours and the games don't end, she said.
"You can't leave the computer because then you're disappointing your teammates. It becomes a whole psychology of 'You create a character, you live through this character, this character has responsibilities and duties within the game.' "
Dr. Young compares the most extreme gamers with heroin addicts who eventually disengage from work and their relationships.
Dr. Young said it usually takes a "rock bottom experience" such as a divorce, a pink slip or traumatized children to wake up an addict.
For John Blakely, who asked that his name be changed, it was the birth of his daughter that finally moved him to seek treatment. For six years, the Bay Street banker was hooked on online gaming, while battling a sex addiction he says developed in his youth.
"If it wasn't for her, I don't think I would've actually gone [to rehab]. ... I was really fearful in terms of what kind of parent I was going to be."
The 37-year-old, who already suffered from depression and anxiety, said one addiction bled easily into the other.
"As an adult, I would use video games so I wouldn't act out sexually. If I'm at home and my wife's in the next room, I can't be surfing pornography," he said. "Video gaming was kind of an easy way because it's not like I'm piss drunk, it's not like I'm smoking up, but it's still a way for me to escape, numb out and lose track of reality."
Since video games are still viewed as a kids' activity, many adults feel a stigma surrounds their addiction. Mr. Blakely said he'd rather admit to his sex addiction than tell colleagues about his urges to play EverQuest.
For Mr. Dorrance, gaming afforded a chance to be a leader again after he felt he lost control of his life. Games, he said, offered a self-medicating adrenalin rush.
"We're wired to gain that kind of acceptance and acclaim from our peers," he said. "It preys on people's sense of belonging. ... If they're looking to replace a hole in their lives, they find that very quickly."
The gaming soon spilled over into his life with Ms. Harvey.
"I think it was a painful time for her, lonely. She knew the back of my head better than she knew my face."
By November, 2007, after almost a decade of gaming, Mr. Dorrance had "cocooned" himself in the basement in front of his computer. One month later, he attempted suicide.
Today, Mr. Dorrance works as a technical support representative for an Internet service provider. He believes addicted gamers are predisposed to their disorders: "The rest of your life can be crashing down around you, and you can be who you want 12 hours a day."
He runs a blog, exgamer.net, to help fellow video game addicts, and next Wednesday, he'll launch the London chapter of Online Gamers Anonymous.
Online support is popular among wives of addicted gamers, who call themselves "widows." Sherry Myrow, a 30-year-old mother of two from Toronto, launched gamerwidow.com after her husband got hooked on World of Warcraft. Ms. Myrow said she initially tried to stop him from playing, but one day decided to see for herself what it was like. "My longest stint was 15 hours straight. You forget about time, you want to keep going and going," she said.
Ms. Myrow's strained marriage perked up - the couple were now playing together and she felt like she had her husband back. But one day, she was so consumed by the game that she avoided a phone call from her mother, who had been her lifeline during her husband's addiction. It jolted her.
"I literally pulled the blinders off. I looked around and saw the dishes had piled up, the bills were unopened. That just wasn't me."
Ms. Harvey said she also fell into a depression. Even though Mr. Dorrance has been nine months "sober" and is now helping others fight their addictions, the marriage remains fragile.
"I have forgiven him," she said, "but I don't trust him."
*****
Tips to end game time
Over the past four years, registered social worker Peter Silin has seen a steady trickle of game-addicted husbands at his private counselling practice in Vancouver, mostly at the behest of their wives. He looks at patients' personal and family histories and examines current relationship dynamics. He believes gaming addicts must quit cold turkey, but also offers some basic tips to avoid addictive behaviour online:
Put the computer in a public place.
Agree to log on only when someone else is in the room.
If you log on, make a list of what you intend to do, which sites you will visit and how long you will be online.
Uninstall game programs and trash the CDs.
Consider Net Nanny software for the computer.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Renowned Lecturer Describes Pornography's Addiction
Printer-friendly version Email this articleby Brandon Stewart '08
April 3, 2007
Over 150 students gathered in Salter Hall Monday night to hear Michael Leahy, self-proclaimed recovering sex addict give a presentation entitled, "Porn Nation: Living in a Hypersexual Culture".
Mr. Leahy’s 90 minute presentation covered the influx of sex in our culture and the effect it has had on us all, but especially the current generation of college undergraduates. Leahy identified two of the most common ways people dismiss the effects of pornography: the idea that no one gets hurt and that we have the freedom to choose to be exposed to the material. Leahy declared his lecture would hopefully dispel those myths.
The first few minutes of Leahy’s lecture were spent reciting a listing of startling facts about the porn industry. As he put it at the start, "I want to be open, honest and transparent with you tonight." The world-wide porn market rakes in an estimated $57 billion a year, with a significant portion of that money being generated by the United States. In fact, Leahy shared with the crowd, there are roughly twice as many adult shops in the US than McDonald’s restaurants. The internet has become a huge outlet for growth in the pornography industry attracting nearly 40 million customers at over 4.2 million websites.
But the lecture wasn’t all about citing facts. Leahy gave a personal testimonial about the damage a porn addiction had on his own life. The youngest of five children, Leahy moved around a lot and eventually settled in Spokane, Washington for the majority of his childhood. It was as he hit puberty that he began to be interested in pornography and his addiction began. But he cited an earlier episode, in which he was shown a naked woman on a playing card, as his first experience with the power that sexual imagery can produce.
He then narrated his collegiate and post-graduate life which he described as being completely devoid of any real intimacy. Instead, said Leahy, he had bought into the culture of sex’s myth that "real men are sexual conquerors and that woman are merely sexual objects." But he had thought all of it was over when he married Patti Gail, the woman who he said he fell in love with "in one of those love at first sight moments."
They had a good marriage of 15 years with several children when Michael’s desires began to overcome him. He related how he began to rely more and more on himself for fulfillment and the sexual intimacy between himself and his wife took a violent nosedive. In fact, his life was in a real tailspin and in 1997 he began an affair with a woman. In fact, after his marriage crumbled a year later, he learned that this woman was having affairs with at least five other married men at the same time.
With a sad laugh, Leahy said that at that point he realized "that I had gotten everything I asked for." He had found a woman who embodied all of his sexual fantasies, but at the cost of his marriage. As the marriage began to dissolve, his wife even became suicidal, having blamed herself for failing to be a good wife. But as Leahy openly admitted, "I was an affair waiting to happen." Indeed, "the seeds were sown long before that" when he began to rely on focus on his own sexual gratification at the expense of the other aspects of his life.
Interspersed between Leahy’s lecture were video clips from a number of psychologists, counselors, recovering sex addicts, and a former prostitute. There was even a testimonial from a former Playboy playmate. Each addressed the issue of sexual addiction in different ways, but were almost unanimous in their description using words like "high" and "buzz". In fact, throughout the night, sexual addiction was compared to the experience of a junky attempting to get a fix from some narcotic.
The testimonials provided sage advice for those who are in similar situations. As a former sex addict stated, "What you do currently will affect your ability to have intimacy in the future." This sentiment was echoed by many throughout the video clips. The sexual liberation which has been proclaimed so proudly by many in our culture has had many serious deleterious results.
Indeed, the incidence of on-campus rapes has not declined and roughly one in four college females are reported to be suffering from some sort of eating disorder.
Towards the end of the lecture, Leahy offered up a four minute intermission and invited people to stick with him but that the rest of the lecture would be more grounded in a spiritual message and that those that wanted to leave could do so. He then launched into a series of video clips and personal testimony which presented the idea that the best way out of this sex addiction was through Christ.
The lecture was hosted by the Wabash Christian Men, the Newman Center, the Religion Department and the Gender Issues Committee.
There were mixed reactions in the crowd. Brian Deyo, President of the Wabash Christian Men was pleased with how the event turned out. "Wabash Christian Men brought Michael Leahy to campus to help address what we see as a serious issue in our lives as students, and present the idea that Jesus Christ is the only way to find true pleasure and intimacy in life."
Others had slightly different views. Zafer Ahmed ’08 said, "I didn't quite buy Leahy's contention of a "Sex Syndrome." I agree and accept his points about the hypersexualization of American society (and the subsequent influence porn has had on it), but I saw "Porn Nation" as Leahy's justification for having an extramarital affair." For Zafer and others, there was not enough focus on personal responsibility and too much emphasis on the effect pornography had on people.
Mike Karam, president of the Newman Center was particularly pleased to have the opportunity to co-sponsor this event. "We were pleased that the WCM approached us with this opportunity. It was special for us to have this opportunity to show our Christian solidarity across Protestant/Catholic lines."
"
Everyone understands the potential for disease, however, the Newman Club's concern – like the concern of the Church – are the emotional and spiritual dangers of pornography and unchaste behavior period. Leahy's talk was an exciting opportunity for us to bring someone in who could level with our secular culture on its own terms-- speaking from personal experience, with physical examples of the destructiveness of pornography-- and to help to make it aware of the objective reality of the grave dangers of unchaste behavior."
Wabash College - Crawfordsville, IN
Printer-friendly version Email this articleby Brandon Stewart '08
April 3, 2007
Over 150 students gathered in Salter Hall Monday night to hear Michael Leahy, self-proclaimed recovering sex addict give a presentation entitled, "Porn Nation: Living in a Hypersexual Culture".
Mr. Leahy’s 90 minute presentation covered the influx of sex in our culture and the effect it has had on us all, but especially the current generation of college undergraduates. Leahy identified two of the most common ways people dismiss the effects of pornography: the idea that no one gets hurt and that we have the freedom to choose to be exposed to the material. Leahy declared his lecture would hopefully dispel those myths.
The first few minutes of Leahy’s lecture were spent reciting a listing of startling facts about the porn industry. As he put it at the start, "I want to be open, honest and transparent with you tonight." The world-wide porn market rakes in an estimated $57 billion a year, with a significant portion of that money being generated by the United States. In fact, Leahy shared with the crowd, there are roughly twice as many adult shops in the US than McDonald’s restaurants. The internet has become a huge outlet for growth in the pornography industry attracting nearly 40 million customers at over 4.2 million websites.
But the lecture wasn’t all about citing facts. Leahy gave a personal testimonial about the damage a porn addiction had on his own life. The youngest of five children, Leahy moved around a lot and eventually settled in Spokane, Washington for the majority of his childhood. It was as he hit puberty that he began to be interested in pornography and his addiction began. But he cited an earlier episode, in which he was shown a naked woman on a playing card, as his first experience with the power that sexual imagery can produce.
He then narrated his collegiate and post-graduate life which he described as being completely devoid of any real intimacy. Instead, said Leahy, he had bought into the culture of sex’s myth that "real men are sexual conquerors and that woman are merely sexual objects." But he had thought all of it was over when he married Patti Gail, the woman who he said he fell in love with "in one of those love at first sight moments."
They had a good marriage of 15 years with several children when Michael’s desires began to overcome him. He related how he began to rely more and more on himself for fulfillment and the sexual intimacy between himself and his wife took a violent nosedive. In fact, his life was in a real tailspin and in 1997 he began an affair with a woman. In fact, after his marriage crumbled a year later, he learned that this woman was having affairs with at least five other married men at the same time.
With a sad laugh, Leahy said that at that point he realized "that I had gotten everything I asked for." He had found a woman who embodied all of his sexual fantasies, but at the cost of his marriage. As the marriage began to dissolve, his wife even became suicidal, having blamed herself for failing to be a good wife. But as Leahy openly admitted, "I was an affair waiting to happen." Indeed, "the seeds were sown long before that" when he began to rely on focus on his own sexual gratification at the expense of the other aspects of his life.
Interspersed between Leahy’s lecture were video clips from a number of psychologists, counselors, recovering sex addicts, and a former prostitute. There was even a testimonial from a former Playboy playmate. Each addressed the issue of sexual addiction in different ways, but were almost unanimous in their description using words like "high" and "buzz". In fact, throughout the night, sexual addiction was compared to the experience of a junky attempting to get a fix from some narcotic.
The testimonials provided sage advice for those who are in similar situations. As a former sex addict stated, "What you do currently will affect your ability to have intimacy in the future." This sentiment was echoed by many throughout the video clips. The sexual liberation which has been proclaimed so proudly by many in our culture has had many serious deleterious results.
Indeed, the incidence of on-campus rapes has not declined and roughly one in four college females are reported to be suffering from some sort of eating disorder.
Towards the end of the lecture, Leahy offered up a four minute intermission and invited people to stick with him but that the rest of the lecture would be more grounded in a spiritual message and that those that wanted to leave could do so. He then launched into a series of video clips and personal testimony which presented the idea that the best way out of this sex addiction was through Christ.
The lecture was hosted by the Wabash Christian Men, the Newman Center, the Religion Department and the Gender Issues Committee.
There were mixed reactions in the crowd. Brian Deyo, President of the Wabash Christian Men was pleased with how the event turned out. "Wabash Christian Men brought Michael Leahy to campus to help address what we see as a serious issue in our lives as students, and present the idea that Jesus Christ is the only way to find true pleasure and intimacy in life."
Others had slightly different views. Zafer Ahmed ’08 said, "I didn't quite buy Leahy's contention of a "Sex Syndrome." I agree and accept his points about the hypersexualization of American society (and the subsequent influence porn has had on it), but I saw "Porn Nation" as Leahy's justification for having an extramarital affair." For Zafer and others, there was not enough focus on personal responsibility and too much emphasis on the effect pornography had on people.
Mike Karam, president of the Newman Center was particularly pleased to have the opportunity to co-sponsor this event. "We were pleased that the WCM approached us with this opportunity. It was special for us to have this opportunity to show our Christian solidarity across Protestant/Catholic lines."
"
Everyone understands the potential for disease, however, the Newman Club's concern – like the concern of the Church – are the emotional and spiritual dangers of pornography and unchaste behavior period. Leahy's talk was an exciting opportunity for us to bring someone in who could level with our secular culture on its own terms-- speaking from personal experience, with physical examples of the destructiveness of pornography-- and to help to make it aware of the objective reality of the grave dangers of unchaste behavior."
Wabash College - Crawfordsville, IN
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