下载It all started out as a simple, you know, Nintendo system. Derek Chambers. Super Nintendo 64, Nintendo, 20 years old, Playstation, PS2, and a self-confessed addict.
It started out for that half hour and then it got worse and worse to the point where it became my new life, I had another life. And…
How many hours a day were you doing it?
Eight to plus, that 8, anyway, from 8 to 14 hours a day.
All those hours spent in the virtual world of a game called "World of Warcraft", a game of intrigue, guile and frequent violence linked via the internet to millions of other players across the globe. Many of them just casual players, but at a clinic in Amsterdam that normally deals with drug addicts and alcoholics, they have been seeing more and more people who become addicted to gaming.
Well, concerning that they have almost every system.
Derek has been here for 6 weeks and still has a way to go.
I can't ever play.
You are telling you must now… what we think we wanna hear.
Keith Bakker is a transplant to the American and former addict who runs the clinic. I'm sure of a simple guy and I mean if it looks like a dog, if it barks like a dog, and it wags tail like a dog, it's probably a dog, and gaming addiction shows all of the same symptoms, all of the same progression. And I think even worse, the consequence is even worse from gaming addiction.
The addicted show some of the same changes in brain chemistry that a drag addict shows. Their family or work or school lives can fall apart. They turn inward. Their life becomes all about getting their next gaming fixed. A special committee of the American Medical Association has now recognized gaming addiction and recommends it be treated like any other type.
I just could not stop. And I mean I wasn't even taking care of my own health, I, just a Snickers bar for lunch, or dinner or breakfast.
At some point getting into these games moves from diversion to obsession to addiction. This is the world of World of Warcraft, and to the truly hooked, this becomes their real world, these become their real friends. They don't just play here, they live here.
So we, you know, identify with you.
The therapy being pioneered here involves "going cold turkey" and dealing with the life problems that produce the game problems. But there's another difficulty. The drug dependant can learn to stay away from drugs and the alcoholic can stay out of bars. But sooner or later, every body is going to have to use a computer.
Somebody used to hook on computer, or hook on gaming, as you see that there is nothing wrong with the computer. But we have to help them get to the point where they don't find it necessary to go over to their dealer. And that's as quick as they, they, you know, just one-hand movement, and they are, and they are in the crack house.
The manufacturer denies its game is deliberately addictive. But to some, that is exactly what it's become.
How scary is it to give up a game for you?
It's pretty scary.
You're terrified?
Yeah.
Mark Phillips, CBS news Amsterdam
------------------------------------------------------
Nintendo: 任天堂（日本游戏机公司）
cold turkey: Immediate, complete withdrawal from something on which one has become dependent, such as an addictive drug and here refers to addictive gaming.
