Hi. I'm getting desparate as to what I can do to turn my sons life around. He was constantly bullied and be-littled through his school years. My life has been filled with councellors and therapists who I've gone to with and without him to try and get him help. He won't open up and talk about anything. He began gaming when he was a pre-teen. I didn't think it was something to worry about back then. He didn't do homework (that I ever saw) but he got through highschool in the alloted time frame. He then took a year off and tried a job at McDonald's but didn't make it through the probation period. That fall him and his cousin went to college. He graduated almost four years ago with a business diploma. Through that time, even though he still played the games (WOW mostly) I thought he was finally on the road to a life. Well, obviously not. I've tried taking the computer away from him but then he just ignores me and stays in his room. It scares me. I'm worried that he'll do something stupid. I know he's had a rough life mentally. How can I get him to see past it and to try to put his gaming into perspective? I love him and kicking him out is not an option. The computer stopped him from having to learn the coping skills he needed to deal with his life. He can't seem to stop himself now and I have no idea what to do.
If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them.
Welcome to OLGA Worrying constantly! I am glad you found the web site.
You are definitely not alone...We parents here all had similar experiences with our children. Different ages but similar problems..
When I first discovered OLGA over a year and a half ago , I was desperate too...All my son did was gaming...From the moment he got up till the time he went to bed.. We tried everything like you said. Taking away his computer, etc etc. We were also worried about him doing something stupid. My son also wouldn't open up and talk about his issues, feeling etc.
After joining OLGA,the first thing I did was learn as much as I can about this nasty addiction. I read other parents stories. I listened to gamers' perspectives and read books recommended here and watched youtube videos about the detrimental effect of gaming. Finally I realized that my son was addicted to gaming and it wasn't easy to come out of it by himself. I learned that gaming addiction effects the brain the same way as drugs and gambling...Would I allow my son use drugs at home? Then why was I allowing him to game at home?
I tried to explain him in a very short summary form what I learned from this site. We finally said to him that "it is unethical for us as parents to enable you with something which is detrimental to your well being" and gave him a notice and cut down the internet gradually to nil. The idea was keeping him away from gaming and internet long enough so that his brain would have a chance to recover. Normally it takes at least 6 months experts say.
To cut the long story short, that is how we tackled the problem. It was a slow and painful process and we still are not completely out of the woods since I don't believe his brain is functioning at the pre-gaming level yet...But declaring our home game free was the best thing we did to tackle this issue.
We have parent's chat meeting every Thursday at 9pm EST if you would like to join us. Please ask us if you have any specific questions or would like us to share more.
Stay strong. We totally understand what you are going through.
All the best!
"The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches." "The first step toward change is acceptance." "Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do." "Change is not something you do, it's something you allow."- Will Garcia
Thanks for your encouraging words. I'm on my own with him and it's hard to know what to do when there isn't anyone to give me support. He's a great guy and I enjoy his company. (when he comes out of his room) I agree that I'm enabling him. I've told him that and how it makes me feel. It's difficult for me to take a stand with him because he rebels by completely ignoring me. I guess what my main issue is right now is that I need to know how to begin the process without completely alienating him from me......(or is this just something I'm going to have to accept as part of the process)?
Hi WC
Welcome to you! The best advice I can give you is to keep coming back to read these forums and what we can do to 'help' our kids. We can only do our best not to enable them, but eventually it must be they who make the steps they need to embrance change to a better, more grown up life. Once you get your bearings here, you can start to make your own plan to make changes in your house. You may want to start to make changes in the amount of support you have to help you, and improve those relationships first before you make drastic changes that your son will notice. So read, read, read, ask questions, plan and when ready, execute your plan.
I think all the moms here identify with the child displaying signs of discontent with their 'interference' when access is withdrawn. We try to say it is not punishment, it's because we see the bad effects it is having and as parents we have to help our children to grow up and get jobs to support themselves, and not waste their lives. Some really bad behaviours can show up so you need to be prepared and strong.
Its very possible that your relationship will suffer in the short term, but we are fighting for their future, which to me is more important. We will not be here to help them later in life. They must learn to make their own way and its healthy to let them go and make their own choices.
Here are a couple of threads you might find helpful to start with if you haven't seen them already.
http://www.olganon.org/?q=node/4231
http://www.olganon.org/?q=node/49250
INFO
Help for gamers here
Help for parents of gamers here
Help for spouses/SO's of gamers here
Parent's online meeting THURSDAY 9pmEST/EDT click here
Online meetings gaming addicts click here
Please help! Donate here
I can relate so much to your feelings and worries...My son also is a nice person with a good heart. He has a very good sense of humour when he is in a mood to talk! But gaming makes them isolated. Because majority of their time is spent concentrated on their games, we hardly have a chance to talk. Even when he was not playing ,since most of the time his mind was occupied with the game, my son preferred to keep quiet or watch TV when not playing. After reading about the affects of addiction on the brain, I could understand why he was acting like this. The only way for him to start acting normal again was to stop gaming and to give his brain a chance to recover.
The first explained him about addiction and the detrimentall affects. We made sure he understood that what we were about to do was not to punish him but because we love him. We showed our love to him... The whole process was not easy. They are not in a state of mind to see their situation objectively. Therefore he may try to manipulate you, talk you into it etc. Especially first month or two was really hard. He kept trying to find alternative ways to game. We were like his biggest obstacle between him and his favourite thing. But this time we stayed firm. There were many times before when we simply gave in. Because at that time we didn't know the detrimental affects on the brain and didn't know much about addiction.
I guess to answer your question, what I am trying to say is, yes it will be hard..yes he may distance himself more from you...yes, you need to be very firm..But, it is all worth it at the end and he will appreciate you at the end..If you are worried about self harm or violence, please make sure you and him are covered somehow. Maybe you can get a therapist on board. My son wouldn't go to a therapist..Or there may be other services available where you are, which you can use as a back up.
I can understand your concerns about finding the optimum way to tackle this. But every family is different, every child is different. What may work for us may not work for you. Please don't sweat on it if your approach doesn't work in the first try . You can always change your plan and find a better one for as long as you don't give in by enabling him. If he himself accepts to come to OLGA and join the recovering gamers here, that would be ideal. Maybe that is how you can start. Telling him about this web site and all the people in similar situations. Even if he doesn't join in, he may just read some posts. When I mentioned my son about OLGA, he said he wouldn't join ...Much later he told me that he did visit the web sites many times and read recovering gamers' posts as well as mine and the replies to my post!
If you can effort, there are residential treatment centres like ReSTART where he can stay for 45 days and regularly receive therapy. There will be no technology available for them and they learn to connect with real world ...
What I found most beneficial is keep coming back here ,sharing my concerns and listening to other mom's experiences and the gamer's perspective on how to handle this issue. I attended the meetings and learned a lot from other moms.
It is a tough journey but it is the only way out of this darkness..
I am more than happy to share the details of our approach if you would like to find out about them. I can send you the link of my original post if you like.
Take care! Hugs!
"The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches." "The first step toward change is acceptance." "Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do." "Change is not something you do, it's something you allow."- Will Garcia
Thank you all so much. It's probably not nice to say...but....I'm so glad I'm not alone! I haven't been back to this site for awhile because to add to the issues with my son - I lost my job of 22 years a couple of weeks ago. I guess the good thing that may come out of it is that I now have all the time in the world to focus on this (when I'm not worrying about my own future). I know he's also worried now...and we've had a few discussions about him looking for work. He doesn't seem to be as completely against it as in the past but...that could be just my imagination. I really do need his help now. I hope something good comes of all this. I'll keep checking in with you guys and again Thank You!
I am really sorry about your job Worrying. But as you said something good may come out of this. He may start looking for a job. Who knows..
Good luck. Please keep us updated and let us know if we could be of any help.
All the best!
"The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches." "The first step toward change is acceptance." "Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do." "Change is not something you do, it's something you allow."- Will Garcia
Hi, I have a son who dropped out of school when he was 16, he is now 22.
He lives at home still with his mother (we are divorced) he retreated to his room after several attempts to get him to engage with school again. When he was 17 his mother made him stay with me, I tried to restrict his gaming (by this time WOW) even taking days off work to be with him in case he self harmed. He was speaking less and less and went right into himself, eventually locking me out of the flat, hiding the keys, my laptop, mobile phone etc (these are the same things he did at his mother's hence making him moveout). In the end he locked himself in the shower room nad refused to come out so I called a psychiatrist, by this point he had virtually stopped talking. The psychiatrists sectioned him and forced him to spend a month in a unit under supervision. Nothing no good, no help whatsoever (The NHS in the UK does not recognise gaming as a clinical problem). he came out and his mother took him back. Since then (5 years) he has lived a life in cyberspace. He has never spoken a word to his mum, me or his sister. He does speak online because I have heard him. he lives a noctuirnal lifestyle. he does leave the house to go to the corner shop occasionally. his mother has basically given up. She wont take away the internet because she is feared of the consequences and also because she needs it to work from home. She knows if she did though that it would mean intense passive aggressive behaviour and possible slef harm. I feel like I don't have a son anymore and have kind of slipped into an accxeptance that this is the way it is. Interestingly he took driving lessons last year when his mother asked a school to come round. To our astonsihment he came out and did the lesson, and repeated several times, obviously he spoke to the intructor as well. he then refused to take the test. and is back to normal behaviour. We have thought this is not just addiction but a form of aspergers/autism. He obviosuly is capable of mixing in the outside world if he chooses but chooses not to. we have tried various things to entice him out but to no avail. When someone refuses to talk iot's just impossible to get anywhere. I am writing this mainly to see if anyone has a similar experience. I don't have any hopes of solving this though unless he himself decideds to ask for help.
Welcome to OLGA simac099!
There are some similarities between your son's case and mine. My son also dropped out of high school at the age of 16. Similarly we attempted to send him to different high schools but he would only go for a week or two... My son also wouldn't talk to us when he was engaged in gaming. We also ended up calling a psychologist home when he didn't talk to anyone of us and pretty much stayed in his room for two months when we turned the internet off...
He wouldn't engage in any activity and we also felt like we lost our beautiful, intelligent and good hearted son in the cyber world. Tried everything we could think of including leaving him entirely alone for about 18 months. All he did was gaming.
Only after discovering OLGA and listening to recovering gamers and the other parents, we realized that the key word was enabling. After learning about addiction and the affect on the brain and sharing this knowledge with our son, we told him that as parents we can't keep enabling him in something which is detrimental to his well being and declared our home "game free" and gradually cut the internet off.
It certainly wasn't an easy time. But we knew that it was our only hope to save him from this nasty addiction. It was nearly a year and a half ago. He gradually pulled himself out of this hole and started engaging in life. He found a few areas of interest and started taking on responsibilities. He is at much better place now than where he was 18 months ago. There is still a lot of room for improvement no doubt but at least now he engages in life and has some plans for his future. They are not necessarily what we dreamed about him but nevertheless he has some.
I realize the difficulty of taking action. But for as long as we enable them, they will keep playing. Even the roof over their head is enabling...You may consider working with a psycologist who believes in gaming addiction and make a plan and execute it.
You certainly are not alone and we all experienced similar attitudes from our children when they were gaming. It is not them but it is the 'addiction' makes them behave the way they do. They lost control of their lives and this pushes them more into gaming because they are ashamed and they feel guilty, There are some studies suggesting that excessive gaming may even be causing autism/asperges like symptoms.
We are more than happy to share the details of our experiences if you are interested in. It is not an easy problem to deal with but taking action now is better than leaving it to a later date. All the best.
"The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches." "The first step toward change is acceptance." "Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do." "Change is not something you do, it's something you allow."- Will Garcia
Simac,
I'm sorry to hear about your son. Based on the fact that your son has been seemingly addicted to gaming for five years chances are he will continue as such as long as all the comforts of home are available to him. At 22 yo he still has most of his life ahead of him and can more easily learn the skills needed to take care of himself. At 32 yo it's going to be much more difficult, especially if he struggles with Aspergers. Have you and his mother been able to sit down with him and explain to him your concerns? It doesn't matter what he thinks at this point, only that he listen. It's our job as parents to do what's best for our children, not what's most conveninet for us. Many of us have explained to our sons that we love them too much to allow them to continue on this destructive path of mind, body and soul. At some point we have to decide to slowly cut back access or eliminate it all together. There are programs/modems that can help w/ this transition. I might suggest consulting a counselor specializing in the area of addiction as it would be similar to taking drugs or alcohol from an addict. Hopefully a well-trained, highly experienced professional will be able to help you with what to do if "harm to self or others" becomes an issue. I knew I had to eventually let go of the fear that my son would hurt himself and/or perhaps take his life or else I would have to face the idea of him loosing precious time and opportunities to become independent. I wasn't prepared to watch him waste away in front of a computer screen for the rest of his life and not prepared to support him financially forever, either. I didn't spend 18 years of my life raising him to see it all come to that.
I would suggest that you continue to read posts here and there are many books and videos on the topic that may motivate you or his mom to take the next step. Wishing you all the best.
Thank you for sharing your stories. These posts help me to learn more about gaming addiction and what's going on. I appreciate these shares!!!
Andrew P. Doan, MPH, MD, PhD
My Gaming Addiction Videos on YouTube: YouTube.com/@DrAndrewDoan
*The views expressed are of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the U.S. Navy, DHA or Department of Defense.
Andy,
I'm so happy that the pain we have gone through as mothers of excessive gamers can be used to help others avoid similar issues with their families.
Thank you for your tremendous service in educating the public.
You and your family are a tremendous blessing. Thank you!!
I empathize with you and what you going through.
R
While many problem gamers can moderate when properly motivated, some cannot. Our website is intended to provide workable solutions to those who consistently fail to moderate.
We do not recommend trying moderation except as an experiment when moderation has not been tried yet. On our thread http://olganon.org/?q=node/4231 and http://olganon.org/?q=node/4230 we recommend once an agreement with a young person has been broken, that online gaming is totally banned within the parents home. This is based on experience of many parents using the forum over the years. We find that while a child continues to have contact with the object of their addiction, even for a short time, they are still often obsessing over it in their mind in the time when they are not allowed to play. Only removing the object of their addiction will they have a chance to recover and break free.
It's a parents choice whether to try moderation at first. For many it will not be enough so we would rather that parents know that banning games is often the only choice that will bring a lasting resolution.
INFO
Help for gamers here
Help for parents of gamers here
Help for spouses/SO's of gamers here
Parent's online meeting THURSDAY 9pmEST/EDT click here
Online meetings gaming addicts click here
Please help! Donate here
Well said!
My son cannot moderate. I have trouble too with my games of choice. We weened my son down to 3 hours on the weekend, only to see him search YouTube for gaming videos and constantly planning for his gaming sessions. We finally took it all away and only gave him a flip phone. Nick's grades went from below a 3.0 to 3.7. He found running and is signed as a Division 1 distance runner for U of Portland. None of his recent accomplishments would be possible if we had allowed "moderation". Moderation wasn't working. Nick also shared that gaming encouraged him to lie as he often lied in order to game more.
Andrew P. Doan, MPH, MD, PhD
My Gaming Addiction Videos on YouTube: YouTube.com/@DrAndrewDoan
*The views expressed are of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the U.S. Navy, DHA or Department of Defense.
You don't need to worry. If your wants to get out of it by himself then no need to force him. You must try to influence him that the world is so beautiful or make him play outside. History is proof that if you cannot solve your problems by yourself then noone can ever do it for u and it's fact. Everyone has to leave this world someday, so chill, I never wanted to go out of the house because i never liked it but when i wanted to go out i startted liking it, now i have started earning also. Remember when your son will leave the computer by his own heart then you will definetly see the change.
Piyush Sharma
The only person that can change his life is himself, as someone who has played WoW and many other titles, I know that they can be time consuming and an amazing escape to an unenjoyable world. Remember you can't force him to do absolutely anything, he will naturally go towards a path that he believes will make him the happiest. Help him to shred any victimized identity that would allow him to say that he can't succeed for any reason. You can aid in anything as long as he lets you and you can be a positive voice for change in his life, but remember to only be a voice and not a force, because you cannot force a person to change. You can show him the options and paths to potential roads of happiness, he will find which one is right for him and then he will take it.
I believe the mind is stronger than the body. We can move past our struggles.
Please note;
This thread is 2 years old. Advice will not help the OP.
INFO
Help for gamers here
Help for parents of gamers here
Help for spouses/SO's of gamers here
Parent's online meeting THURSDAY 9pmEST/EDT click here
Online meetings gaming addicts click here
Please help! Donate here
I can relate to your feelings. It's really sad. My son is only 18 and he is a game addict and bipolar. I don't know whether it was the gaming addiction lead him to be bipolar or the other way.