The World Of Addiction

Rob Wright: You have experience with addiction and recovery with alcohol. How would you compare it to game and Internet addiction?

Liz Woolley: I almost think game addiction is worse. With alcohol, once you take the bottle away, you still have your personality. Obviously, alcohol can kill you. But you're still the same person after your hangover. You don't change into a different person. But with game addiction, the people actually change and their behavior and personalities are different. For example, I had a gamer who was staying with me temporarily and he didn't have a job, a place to live or any money. But he believed he was doing great and that there was nothing wrong with him because he was doing well in his online game world. But he had lost 25 jobs that year because he spent all his time playing the game. And that's what happens. There is just a denial of the rest of their life outside of the game.

Rob Wright: What do you think ultimately drove your son to take his own life? Was there something that happened within EverQuest that made him suicidal or was it because he had become so withdrawn and depressed in real life?

Liz Woolley: I think it was both. He certainly had withdrawn from reality so much that he wouldn't even let me into his apartment. He cut off his phone. He wouldn't visit his family anymore, and he had lost contact with all of his friends. So he didn't have anything in his life besides the game. He was diagnosed with low-grade depression and schizoid personality disorder. And something did happen within the game at the end of October [about a month before Shawn committed suicide]. I believe he was in some type of relationship with another player in EverQuest. Shawn created a new character called "iluveyou" for a new player vs. player server, which is unusual because he had been playing on another server since he first started EverQuest and typically players don't go jumping around from server to server. But he created this character and I believe he had some kind of romantic interest in another person playing on that server, and he apparently was rejected or betrayed somehow because he never went back on that server. And two weeks later he killed himself. So whatever happened was so horrible that he didn't want to live anymore.

Rob Wright: Having dealt with your son as well as other people who are addicted to games, do you think most of the blame should be placed on the games themselves or the players for not being able to exhibit self control?

Liz Woolley: I think most of the blame goes on the game. These companies design the games to make them more addictive and stay online. To me, that's the core of the problem. It's not about making the game fun necessarily. The objective is to keep people playing and renewing their subscriptions every month. And I think that shows that some companies care more about the stockholders than the customers. That said, it's not all about the game. One thing we've noticed is that an overwhelming majority of gamers we've dealt with at Olganon have some type of attention deficit disorder. My son had ADD, too. It just seems like people with ADD are very vulnerable to game addiction. Another trend we've seen is that, like with other addictions, a lot of the people who become addicted to games don't seem to have a good foothold on their lives. Something in their life seems to be lacking and that drives them to live in this online fantasy world.

Rob Wright: What other things have you noticed in your work with On-Line Gamers Anonymous?

Liz Woolley: For one thing, it's mostly males that we've dealt with. That may be because more males play computers games than females. But another difference is that the women we talk to play MMOs for a different reason. They get into the games for relationships and the social aspects of playing with people online. Most of the males we deal with play because in these games, you can create a fantasy world where you are extremely powerful and successful. With drugs and alcohol addiction, usually your sober life is much better than your life on drugs and alcohol. With game addiction, it's the opposite. In the game world, you have all the power and control because you're at level 100 or whatever. But meanwhile your real life is boring and tedious and it's falling apart because you're neglecting your job, your friends and your relationships.