I'm having a terrible problem with my 20 year old son.

[tibbir]

He has severe ADD and possibly mild bipolar - it runs in my family and I have it myself. Since his dad died just before Christmas he's gone off the deep end with his computer game addiction. He has a set of cyber-friends from all over who spend all their waking hours playing this game as well and they all talk together.

Before he had a kind of balance of work, sleep, socializing and playing the computer game. Since his dad died the game has become his life. He doesn't go out with friends any more. He missed so much work that he lost his job. This worked just fine for him in his mind. He now has no responsibllities to take him away from his game. Some times he seems to begrudge having to take time out to go to the bathroom.

A little over 2 weeks ago I gave him an ultimatum: he could enroll for a course at a community college, enroll in a technical school, work with this career coach or find a job - by today, the final day for enrolling in the community college. If he didn't do one of those things I was going to cut out our cable modem come Monday. He finally looked up from his game today at 5:00pm and wanted to know how to enroll online for a s"tupid course" at HCC. I told him it didn't work that way, he'd have to go to the college and meet with the counselor and then they'd let him enroll.

He said forget it, he'd get a job. I told him it was too little too late because he hadn't even tried anything to get a job in the 2 weeks since I gave him the choices. He told me he'd get a router and order cable in his own name. I told him that wouldn't work because it's my house and I wouldn't ok it. He then said he'd move out and get a job. I told him he didn't have enough money to live on his own for a very long time and that he probably couldn't get an apartment without a job. He said he'd move in with a friend; I told him it was up to him, he's over 18.

It's going to be horrible come Monday. His addiction is as powerful as a gambling addiction is for some people. I don't know how he'll react when he's cut off from his precious game and cyber-friends next week. Besides dealing with his reaction I'll have to get used to dialup again myself. Shit.

Maybe some of you have experience dealing with addictions in relatives since they seem to go with bipolar disorder. Believe me, I'd appreciate all the help I can get.

[yardwork]

1. I believe that gaming can be an addiction

I'm concerned that my eleven year old son, who is ADHD, may be addicted to gaming. It's a little easier to deal with an eleven year old than a twenty year old.

You might want to consider arranging for grief counseling for your son. It sounds like his father's death hit him hard. It's possible that he is suffering from severe depression or "complicated grief" or another issue that is preventing him from functioning. The gaming may be a reflex - a symptom more than the core problem.

[tibbir]

3. I agree with you about this being complicated by his dad's death.

My problem is that he's 20 years old and I know he'd never agree to counseling .

I'm waiting for the opportunity to present itself and maybe I can put the idea on the table

[yardwork]

6. It took my sister seven years to agree to counseling

She took our father's death very hard, and she was in her late thirties. Now, seven years later, she finally got so miserable that she went to counseling and she's much much better.

I suggest continuing to suggest this to your son even if he disagrees. You may plant a seed.

[tibbir]

12. I'm not going to give up.

I think he'd get a ton of help from therapy. There are a lot of things that have gone wrong in his life, including my trip down into the depths of depression and a breakdown when he was 9. His dad didn't step up to the plate while I struggled for a couple of years. That had a major impact on his development.

Hopefully he'll see the light like your sister did.

[dsc]

2. You have to stick to your guns

and I also agree with the suggestion of grief counseling. I hope things work out for both of you and I am sorry for your loss.

[tibbir]

4. Thanks a lot for your support.

[dsc]

5. You are quite welcome

You have a tough road ahead. He will use anything he can to manipulate you to back off and you can't do that. It will take strength.

[tibbir]

7. You are so right.

This weekend he's doing the make nice routine, like I won't go ahead and remove broadband if we're getting along. Tomorrow or Tuesday when it happens he'll come unglued.

Then when the second summer session starts , if he still hasn't come through with one of the options I gave him - and I know he won't - I'm cutting the phone line that goes into his room. I'll still have dialup because I'm on the primary line and I've put a password on my computer.

It's not going to be pretty.

Thanks for your support, though.

[dsc]

8. I have been there and know quite a few of the tricks

How are you doing? Has it happened yet?

[tibbir]

9. For the time being it's actually gotten somewhat better.

As I promised my son, I took off broadband internet on Monday. When I told him he blew up and we communicated only through notes until Tuesday afternoon. In my last note I told him that if he didn't enroll in school for the 2nd summer session - or find a job - I would remove the 2nd phone line that goes in his room so he wouldn't have any internet at all. That went over like a brick.

After he had a chance to calm down I went in his room and we had a long conversation. We went back and forth for a while but the long and short of it is that he said that he would enroll for the 2nd session. He wanted to know when he'd get broadband back and I said as soon as he registered.

So things has quieted down for now. This hasn't done anything for his addiction and we'll have another big fight if he can't keep his grades up because of the gaming. Then I'll take off broadband until he can make good grades.

He will come into his inheritance later this year. If things are still as bad as I'm afraid they will be he'll have to move out.

[yardwork]

10. You've done the right thing, difficult as it is

Young people crave limits. They really need the adults in their lives to insist that they show responsibility.

Your time to do this is limited. Once he has financial independence he'll be on his own, more or less. All you can do is enforce the rules in your own home and provide a good example to him in the way you live.

Good luck to you and hugs from one parent to another!

[tibbir]

11. Thanks a lot for the support.

He will become financially independent because of his inheritance in a few months. All I can do right now is to set limits while he lives with me. I don't imagine he'll live here after the money comes. It'll kill me to watch him squander it by not working but I won't let myself be drawn into it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. tibbir,

I've thought about how I would proceed from now on in your situation, and I can only make these suggestions.

Have a heart-to-heart with him, and tell him that the adult world is such a cruel and unforgiving place, that he is in the greatest danger of not just becoming increasingly discontented as he gets older, but of hitting the rock bottom, not just internally, but externally, really heavily, long before he reaches old age.

On the other hand, such dire situations (though he can't see the one he's in), have turned people lives right around; actually so enriched them spiritually, that later, they look upon even an outright tragedy in their lives as a blessing in disguise. But there is a very real danger, nevertheless, that a person will not be able to recover at all, but just keep sinking deeper and deeper.

And one of the principal keys to avoid the latter, is to "think of others", not just what *you* want, at no matter what cost to others, and pursuing it. But the reverse. Some share in a spirit of sacrifice is arguably the "pearl of great price".

If, despite his youthful, self-absorbed ignorance, he could try to think of you, half as lovingly as you, him, he would spend a lot of time asking himself why you are making these constant "demands" on him? What is their purpose? What is your motivation? Do they bear scrutiny and reflection? What if you're right?

There are two soccer players in this country. One called Jimmy Greaves, a great footbaler, who is a "recovering alcoholic", who has never had the least desire to start again, though he knows a drop of alcohol would be enough to set it in motion again. He stopped one day, while grubbing around in a garbage bag for a few remaining drops of hooch. Then he suddenly said to himself that he couldn't keep putting his family through this, and hasn't touched another drop in following decades.

The other was not just a great footballer, but a genius. He was given a new liver several years ago, and began drinking again not long after. A few months ago, he told Jimmy Greaves that his skin had gone all yellow. Jimmy's reply? Well, you could always have a part in the Simpsons! And, frankly, it was well said.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. I must apologise for the anecdote

about the footballer. It seems astonishly insensitive in the context of a thread meant to encourage each other. The fact is that the man in question had so many things going for him - apart from the liver transplant denied to someone else in the queue - that it is difficult to see a single redeemning feature in his continuing shenanigans. Indeed he seems to think it's clever. To say that he was widely *worshipped* throughout Britain would be a tremendous understatement - despite the years and years of the shenanigans.

Another great player suffering from the same alcohol problem, you can have nothing but sympathy and goodwill for, because he knows it to be a weakness and is seriously trying to get his life together again.

[tibbir]

16. I didn't take it as insensitive.

It was just showing how different people can actually get their heads around a problem and come to a good resolution. Would that this would be true for my son.

[tibbir]

15. Thank you for your insight.

I know my son cares a great deal for me and I do believe that on some level he understands that I'm trying to help him make his life easier on him. Then he gets distracted by the stupid game again and he totally zones out.

It'll kill me if it happens to him but I fear that he may have to bottom out to realize what his addiction is doing to him. I hope that this won't be the case but I have to prepare emotionally for the possiblity so that I will do the right thing by him and not enable him.

He has ADD and Tourette Syndome - and may be somewhat bipolar as am I. He's never been an easy child. At every stage of his life he's been at the edge of some cliff in danger of going over. Before I had some control in how things turned out but that's not the case any more at his age .

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. Thank you for your reassurance, tibbir,

and I'm sorry for not checking back earlier. I do feel for you, and for your son. That Tourette's syndrome can't make it any easier for him to be as positive in his outlook as he otherwise might be.

It seems to me, as it does to yardwork, that the best that you can do is to continue what you *are* doing. She's also spot-on about young people craving guidelines, of course, though I suspect in your son's case it might be a little less so, at least as far as his actions and attitude would seem to indicate, but all the more of an absolute requirement for his wellbeing, present and future.

I wonder if it might be a good idea to get him to sit down with you and tell you his opinion, knowing the fears that you have as his very concerned mother, for his future. Maybe, ask him to think about it for a few days first, imagining himself in your shoes.

Tell him that you can see the appeal of escaping from the real world via his computer games, and you wouldn't want to minimise the hard row he has to hoe; but try to see the problem from both angles - his standpoint and yours, i.e. as a joint problem. And muse on how to address the situation. What can be done to minimise the sacrifice he needs to make, in order to minimise much greater problems than he has now, further down the line; but also what should be the minimum sacrifice he neeeds to make for that purpose.

There has to be an optimal balance, but at the moment you are in no doubt at all that the current balance is skewed in the direction of his being too self-indulgent in the matter for his own future wellbeing. Some measure of sacrifice on his part is not an option, but a necessity - unless he is really content to break his mother's heart by bringing immense problems on his own head in the future.
It's fairly normal for the wellbeing of their children to be more precious to mothers than their own life.

No day is ever the same; we don't know what's round the corner. Hope is as important in our life as breathing. Soldiering on in faith, hope and love is what we are called to do in this life, until we receive our reward. Even in this life, we are never without consolations.

[Sugarbleus]

17. I saw a segment on this very thing on "Intervention", the program

on Bravo channel. The guy was an adult child (older than your son) living at home and totally addicted to the internet gaming thing....for hours upon hours with no discourse or contact with living human beings.

I'm not sure, but I think there had been a divorce or the mother left the family..something like that. Perhaps that's what got the guy started, the program didn't say. Anyway they did an intervention on him and gave him ultimatums as serious as moving out on his own. Apparently his father was "weak" so after they sent him to a rehab for this problem, the guy got to feeling a bit better but soon discharged himself and went back home to start his "gaming" all over again...and the father just allowed it. I believe the guy was in his late 20's.

Hope you get better results with your son..