This post was originally titled NA MEETINGS, but others pointed out that all F2F 12 Step Meetings are valuable.
Friday night at my weekly NA meeting we had a speaker. Ronald*, 23 years old, and a recovering gaming addict.
He grew up in a town of 80,000. His parents divorced when he was young. His mother remarried.
Ronald's childhood was a familiar mix of game-boy followed by Nintendo and Playstation. He bonded with his stepfather who became an important influence in his life. Ronald completed University preparation secondary school. His stepfather died of cancer when he was 17.
Ronald's life began to go off the rails. He began gaming more and more. He discovered MMORPGs.
He had the accumulated grades to be accepted at University. He chose to study IT for a career in gaming or game design.
At University he went off the rails. His gaming grew out of control. He was gaming 24/7. He failed his first year (in this country Universities use the first year as weeding out process).
Ronald returned home and worked in a supermarket for 6 months. He was accepted into a Vocational College level Computer Design Course. The following year was a repeat of his first year after High School. He failed all his courses because of uncontrolled gaming.
He found himself once more at home, having failed school, and gaming out of control. He was 22 years old.
His mother gave him an ultimatum. Get help or leave the house. Ronald went to a 10 week rehab/wilderness programme for teens and young adults.
A condition for his discharge from the clinic was that he join a 12 Step Face-to-Face programme. Ronald chose NA (Narcotics Anonymous), the same group I attend. He attended twice weekly without fail. He got a sponsor. Did service work. Started working the 12 Steps.
Ronald is 9 months clean. Not only is he clean, but he has undergone a 'psychic change'. His life has purpose. He has a girlfriend for the first time. He is working.
My message to those who are addicted and want to stop:
Get help wherever you can (including Rehab)
Go to Face-to-Face meetings (Online is OK but should be considered a supplement, not substitute)
NA (Narcotics Anonymous) is your best chance. The only requirement for membership is admitting you are an addict. At NA Meetings are not permitted to share openly about which substance you are addicted to or tell 'war stories'.
It is a 12 Step programme.
It should not be hard to find a sponsor in NA.
* Not his real name
Olga/non member since Dec. 2008 Check out my latest video on Gaming Addiction and public awareness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-6JZLnQ29o
Tommi--great points about NA, and you are not the only one who has found a home here.
Personally, I have an OLGA sponsor and a sponsor in my other fellowship (GA) and also I go to open AA meetings. They are wonderful. I always go away with something, it always calms me, I have a good day.
Face-to-face meetings are wonderful. They bring me a kind of peace that I don't get online. I love OLGA meetings and I need them, I need this fellowship. But I'm headed to my open AA meeting tomorrow, too....
I am a recovering computer game and gambling addict. My recovery birthday: On May 6, 2012 I quit games and began working a program of recovery through OLGA No computer games or slot games for me since December 12, 2012. No solitaire games with real cards since June 2013.
Thanks Dan.
In the absence of F2F Olga/anon meeting I would like see more encouragement of others to attend other (F2F) Fellowships.
At ITR meetings both NA and AA, required announcements by chairs are:
"We strongly recommend you attend Face-to-Face Meetings. Video Meetings are a great supplement but they ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE for Face-to-Face Meetings.
Olga/non member since Dec. 2008 Check out my latest video on Gaming Addiction and public awareness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-6JZLnQ29o
I strongly agree that no virtual meeting can replace face-to-face meetings. OLGA is a great help, and yet it pales in comparison to the healing effects of physically carrying our bodies to meet with others in the flesh.
And be willing to keep looking and find a meeting that fits you. In the first 90 days I attended any 12 Step meeting I could get to, and I'm very grateful for each of those fellowships. I needed every single one of them at that time. They cracked open my hard heart that desperately needed a dousing in humility. Not all those groups were a fit me, though. The local NA groups I attended were predominantly folks who'd experienced / were experiencing the devastating effects of hard and heavy drug use. While I totally identified with the brokenness and addict thinking, I didn't relate to their life experience, nor they mine. Ultimately, very thankfully I settled into an "all addictions" group that's a good fit.
Acceptance. When I am disturbed, it is because a person, place, thing, or situation is unacceptable to me. I find no serenity until I accept my life as being exactly the way it is meant to be. Nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Acknowledge the problem, but live the solution!
I go to CODA meetings and find them the most helpful for me. Not everyone fits in every fellowship and it took me a few tries before I found one that felt right to me.
"Even when you think it's about you, it's not about you." Dr. Bill
I agree. My meetings of choice are AA, Alanon, and sometimes NA.
I highly recommend CODA and Adult Children of Alcoholics also. I've known many recovering people who found those meetings helpful.
Alanon works for me very well since most of my family and friends are either in recovery or need recovery.
Does the face to face really help? Which one seems to be the most beniticial for gaming adicts?
Let me answer the question in several parts:
If you threatened by a disease which would put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, what possible cure would you not try?In the 1930s, roughly 90% of those suffering from addiction were alcoholics. It was thought to be more or less a) incurable b) due to moral failure. A group of alcoholics discovered a way for addicts to cure each other based on the 12 steps. This was the basis for every other 12 Step programme including this one.
Olga/non member since Dec. 2008 Check out my latest video on Gaming Addiction and public awareness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-6JZLnQ29o
Yes, face-to-face meetings are vital for me. That's where I make real connections, where I have real accountability. I see other people whose hands I shake, whose real names I learn, who I can see smile and nod when I'm sharing about where addiction takes me and what I need to do to recover.
Open meetings of NA and AA can be helpful. Most AA and some NA meetings discourage non-members from sharing during the discussion part of the meeting. Still, it can help so much to listen and learn. Some NA meetings do allow people with non-drug addictions to participate. You'd have to ask to find out.
In a few places, there are general meetings for any type of addict. One is called "Overcomers Twelve Step Group" and another is "All Addicts Anonymous".
If one meeting doesn't feel right, there's always others to try out.
What you feed grows, and what you starve withers away.
I would suggest getting to open AA or open NA meetings also. If you can, try the ones early in the day where the oldtimers happen to go (most oldtimers don't like going out at night). In open meetings you don't have to identify or share, you can just listen.
Meetings (face to face) are essential to me. I love the online meetings of both OLGA (chat) and Intherooms.com (video meetings), but I need real people around me at least once or twice a week. I need real hugs.
f2f meetings are great, and I highly recommend them. Different people find different meetings to be more helpful than others...I've found help in NA meetings when I've gone, but other gaming addicts have found them to be less helpful. I've also found the AA meetings I've tried out to be helpful, so I, personally, don't recommend one over the other. There is definitely something good about being with fellow gaming addicts, but there's also something about the real-world interaction you can get in a f2f that a virtual meeting simply can't match. Hopefully, enough people will wake up to the reality of gaming addiction that we can have regular f2f gamers meetings, but until then, I'll go to a mix of virtual gamers meetings and f2f meetings for other addictions...
When you're going through hell...keep going. --Winston Churchill There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still --Corrie ten Boom
I believe that there are good things out there in all the F2F 12 step meetings.
I've found a ton of benefit in going to Al-Anon and AA meetings. I identify myself as an addict at open AA meetings, and am usually welcomed with open arms.
Also, my experience has been that meetings vary A LOT from place to place. If you don't like a meeting, don't put the fellowship that the meeting is a part of into a hole: it may just be that meeting.
For example, I've been at open AA meetings were I've been harranged for not saying I'm an alcoholic, and I've been at other meetings where I've been completely welcome (even a women's meeting once lol)
So my suggestion is to try out as many F2F meetings as you can, and hit as many olga meetings as you can. And don't forget, you can do more than one meeting a day :)
Last game played: April 24th 2014