Many people have had a brush with video-game obsession, whether it was Super Mario 3 instead of homework in Grade 5, or Call of Duty: Black Ops – all of last weekend.

However, for a growing number video-game addiction is a serious problem.

Video game audiences have ballooned in recent years thanks to advances in computer technology, the advent of online gaming, and an adapting games industry whose games engage individuals in extended gameplay, said Bruce Alexander, an expert on addiction from Simon Fraser University.

Recent studies have shown that around nine per cent of school-aged children in several countries, including the United States., show unhealthy video-gaming behaviour.

Vancouverites are no exception. Alexander said addiction counselors from across Metro Vancouver are “struggling to deal with a flood of video-game addiction and related computer addictions.”

Richard Dubras, a counselor at Richmond Addiction Services Society (RASS) who specializes in technology-based addictions, said video game addictions now make up 5-10 per cent of the organization’s caseload and mainly affect youths aged 12 to 24.

RASS patients dealing with video-game addiction tend to be from middle- to high-income homes and are high-functioning, often academically motivated people.

One of these patients is 18-year-old Mark (not his real name), who plays World of Warcraft (WOW) like it’s a full-time job – five days a week or more from about 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Mark is articulate and confident, but has always felt like an outsider at school.

“It’s not that I’m so into the fantasy aspect that I’m losing myself in another character,” Mark reflected. “It’s more like I just don’t have anything in my life that is really so amazing. And I just use WOW to replace that. Right now WOW is the thing that brings me the most joy in my life. I would rather play WOW than go on a date.”

Mark feels WOW’s online universe is limitless. “You feel like you’re always building on something. It never really ends,” he said.

He also thinks WOW’s addictive power comes from the fact that “it’s such a social experience.” Players need to cooperate with each other to get ahead.

As a result, many members of Mark’s guild – a team that plays WOW together online – consider their online friends closer than their in-person ones, he said.

It’s a social connection he feels every time he plays. “As soon as I log in to my character I’ll get a couple of different whispers (personal messages) from my guild.”

When he first started playing, Mark had a school average of more than 90 per cent, was a high-achieving athlete and played trumpet in the school band.

Soon he was skipping class to keep appointments with his WOW guild. His father banned him from playing the game in the house, so Mark started playing at internet cafes instead.

Since then, Mark’s home life has fallen apart, he stopped going to school, and his non-WOW social circle has dwindled. “Since I don’t go to school and they don’t play WOW,” he said of his old friends, “there’s not very much that can keep us together anymore.”

Mark started going for counseling at Richmond Addiction Services to appease his parents, but feels the term “video-game addiction” hardly sums up his problems.

He said what he really wants is a well-rounded life, with WOW included, but said he finds it difficult to find a middle ground when his parents have zero tolerance for his playing. He can’t wait to move out.

What causes video game addiction and who is at risk?
Members of the medical community have not yet agreed on a definition for video game addiction, let alone its causes. The American Psychiatric Association said in 2007 that more data on video game addiction needed to be gathered before it would formally consider the addiction as a mental disorder.

In his video-game addiction patients Dubras sees common causes like trauma, school failure and peer pressure. But one factor stands out.

“The biggest thing I get is that our young people are bored. These kids have a lack of meaning (in life),” Dubras said.

It hasn’t always been this way, said Bruce Alexander. He believes addiction is a product of the disintegration of traditional tribal-type communities that has occurred in recent times. “We’re socially dislocated in the sense that we have nothing like the complexity of social fabric that (our ancestors) have always had,” said Alexander.

“In the hypothetical good old days you never had to go out and meet people – you grew up into a community,” he said.

Alexander claims that addiction was virtually nonexistent in the tribal societies of our ancestors.

“Addiction is a life when you don’t really have a life. It’s an adaptation to an inner void. If you’ve got no life, you construct a life,” said Alexander.

Dubras has observed similar phenomena on the counseling level. Like Mark, many of his patients report feeling disconnected from their families.

“Our grandparents no longer live in our communities,” says Dubras. “Our whole culture is peer-oriented. A lot of people don’t call their moms and dads for support – they call their peers. Parents are two-income, not at home, and we’ve got kids spending massive amounts of time in school or daycare. Our culture is cultivating this in an epidemic type of way.”

Dubras feels a root cause of video game addiction lies in the North American ethos. “If we believe in the American Dream, it’s individualism, not collectivism,” he said.

How can video game addiction be treated?
Video game addiction patients at RASS are treated with much the same methods patients with other addictions. The most important part of any treatment, said Dubras, is to forge trust between counsellor and patient. The counsellor works toward helping the patient come to the realization that what they’re doing is causing harm, and helps look into options to change that behaviour.

In the end, it’s all about taking control of your own behaviour, said Dubras. “The internet is not evil. Marijuana is not evil. It’s how you use it.”

Alexander, too, dismissed the idea of so-called demon substances that possess the addict. Even though it might feel this way to addicts, Alexander thinks addiction comes from within.

He also rejected the idea of public bans on video game use to quell addiction. “Anybody can use (video games) safely, but if you don’t have a life, then you might decide to make your life playing World Of Warcraft.”

How is video game addiction similar to drug addiction?
Though video game and drug addicts may be very different, the addictions have surprising similarities.

Cocaine, PCP and some anti-depressants are substances that increase the pleasurable effects of dopamine in the brain, just like playing video games can.

Dubras sees his drug addicted patients motivated by the same factors that influence his video game addicted patients, especially turmoil with family and peer relationships. No matter what his patients are addicted to, Dubras sees them all searching for “respite, relaxation, distraction, and intimacy” in the substances or activities they overuse.

Social dislocation appears to be a common thread among addictions, said Alexander. In 2009 a 317-person study by Ulric Wong from the Department of Psychology at SFU found that the more addicted participants were to video games, the more socially isolated they felt.

Similar studies have found that people who were addicted to cocaine or other drugs also tended to experience social dislocation, said Alexander.

Can we play without getting addicted?
A study released on Jan. 17 by the American Academy of Pediatrics indicates that risk factors for video game addiction include impulsivity, lower than average social competence and empathy, and poor ability to regulate emotions.

But not all people who play video games are addicted to them, just like not everyone who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic.

The SFU video game study found that players could be engaged in playing, but not addicted.

And the vast majority of players in the American Academy of Pediatrics study were not addicted to the games they played.

Mark is confident his future will be a little more balanced. He works out every morning, has an active dating life and is determined to become a lawyer. “I love other aspects of my life,” Mark said, but added “I know for a fact that WOW is not leaving my life any time soon.”

Bruce Alexander’s recent book on addiction is called The Globalization Of Addiction (2008).