My son is 30 years old and addicted to video games. He is currently living with us (parents and one sibling). He has become increasingly withdrawn and is not attempting to hide his excessive gaming as he previously had. He will not admit that he has a problem, but his life has turned upside down. The only thing that is normal in his life is his job. In the past few months his fiance has ended their relationship and has not communicated with him at all. He has no car, therefore he takes public transportation, and has many bills and obligations that have been neglected for most of his adult life. We have repeatedly confronted him on the excessive nature of his gaming, but he continues down this road. We have informed him he must find a place to live and have confiscated his gaming system. However, he still has a laptop computer and cellphone, and continues to play or watch games on these devices with no attempt to conceal this activity. I want to give him a reasonable amount of time to secure alternative living arrangements, but I feel that I'm still enabling in the meantime because of the devices. He is 30 years old, as I've stated, so I am having difficulty deciding if it is even realistic to expect him to hand over his cellphone and laptop when he is home. I am deeply saddened by all of this as I love him very much, but I want to do the right thing. Any thoughts or support would be greatly appreciated.
AmyC.
Hi amyc
Your house, your rules. You have to stop enabling him if he is to change.
I have been where you are. I said to my son (23 at the time) if he wants to live here he will have to give me his phone, his laptiop, he will not have access to his gaming computer. If he wants those things he needs to move out. We locked his stuff awayand secured our internet connection ( he may have hidden stuff) He acted up and said we were ruining our relationship. It hurts, but you have to stand firm, for the greater good. He moved out. He had savings to live on.
If you son does not hand over those articles when you ask, then you say if you do not do that you will call the police. Or you get two big guys to take him in car and drop him at a hotel or homeless shelter.
My advice to you is to think it through very carefully and plan for things that may go wrong at any stage. Try and be kind to him and let him know your reasons. It is so easy to start shouting and get upset. Try not to do that. Plan in case he should get into a rage.
You may want to give him some advance notice his things will have to go; so he can think about adjusting.
Welcome to Olganon ! Hugs xx
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Hi Amy
What you can do is depended on your son’s personality and how his behaviour affecting the hous. I would say to wait for a time where you see he is depressed and not gaming and tell him that if he wants to stop, there is a way out. Tell him about our website and explain to him that gaming is not a habit and its like drinking.
If nothing have worked, stop cleaning his room and say he has to come to the dinner table if he wants to eat. Start putting some rules that will reduce his playing time such as no internet use after said hour.
I don’t know if moving him out of the house is good or not. He may realise that gaming is damaging his life (first his finance and now his family) or he may get more isolated which means he will play more but this will also mean he will reach his bottom rock more often. What i want to say, we don’t know what life will bring but you should try something to help him. You should know that you can’t fix him if he doesn’t want!
"Recovery is not about dealing with gaming. Recovery is about dealing with Life"