Sexism, Gamers Contd. Discussion

I too always thought of cocaine are a rich person, expensive drug. When I think "poor person's drug" I think alcohol, maybe marijuana.
 
I personally have never heard of prescription drugs being referred to as "Mommy's Little Helper" and to hear that people do causes me sadness. But you're right that the average person doesn't really have an understanding of addiction, and that can lead to substance abuse and problem behaviour that people don't recognize as unacceptable.
Its quite a persistent cultural idea.

As I said, addiction is overwhelmingly couched as a "poor people's problem." Something that's a problem for junkies and other social rejects. Even the gamer addict's popular image is in the same visual category as a crack addict or heroin junkie.

I thought cocaine was thought of as a rich man's drug? In movies, it's romanticized as classy. Meth and crack are what I think of as the low-class drugs.
That used to be the case, not so much anymore.

And I agree that diagnosing someone you don't even know is not acceptable. I realize it probably seems like that's what I was doing, but I wasn't. My intention was to point out a behaviour that sounded like it could be a problem, in order to trigger your conscious analysis of whether it is or not. I don't know you, and I accept you as the authority on you, so I accept your analysis.
I dont think you were, but I want to try and highlight how easy it is to drop that label on someone and how impossible it is to get rid of it once that's done.

I do have problems with addiction, just not to games.

This whole conversation got me thinking and talking to my girlfriend, who unlike either of us DOES have a degree in Psychology. She agrees that my behaviour is probably not an addiction, more of a compulsion or habit. I'm inclined to agree, since I don't spend every waking moment thinking about the internet, I don't arrange my schedule and life around it, nor do I reject all other activities in favour of it.
If I may use your experiences for a moment to demonstrate, it could easily be said by someone that you were addicted to the internet.

Someone who had read a little bit about internet addiction could take your situation and come to some conclusions:

1. You've got a high post count here.
2. You talked about your own concerns about being addicted to the internet.
3. You've got a close support system that discourages thinking about it as an addiction.
4. You admit you spend a great deal of time on the internet already.

So you must be addicted. What can you say? Those points are technically true, they're just lacking context. But that doesnt matter when you've got essentially a system outside of the normal mental health system that operates treatment centers, writes books and articles, and gives press interviews all to create the idea that there is an epidemic of people being addicted to something and if you just give them money, they can help.

I think you've hit on a good point: the difference between "abusing" something and "being addicted" to it. I've always thought of them both as "a problem" and lumped them together, but you make a good point about the distinction.
I'm very happy that you see it because the vast majority of people do not. And this goes far beyond just videogames, that attitude carries over to all sorts of different places in our lives.
 
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