Game Over

The World Health Organization recently declared video game addiction as a mental health disorder. Cam Adair shares his personal story of life-changing addiction and the efforts to better understand and provide help for this issue.
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[@GameQuitters]

Hi everyone, Cam here. Thank you for watching my story. If anyone is struggling with a video game addiction, either yourself or a loved one, you are not alone and there is a lot of support available for you. Never give up, you too can turn your life around.

[@DavidRachfordFitness]

Awesome to see this up! Much success to you and your mission! Sharing!

[@lime31373]

I think it's an interesting video. However, the video itself is made in such a way to pull in the viewer in almost the same way which game sometimes might do. The flashy editing makes it more interesting and to make the viewer want to see more, where as most of the information is sprinkled throughout the video. That way, the viewer doesn't quite know when the relevant information will come next and has to watch more of the video to find out. The way that a lot of videos and youtube is constructed could easily cause a huge time-sink as well. I do think that one of the better parts of the video was at the end around 26:17, since it didn't have a lot of music and was more like a regular lecture. As you mentioned at the end, it's usually not a problem if you can control how much you consume the media. However, I do think that it's better if the creators of the Games and Videos do not make their content with material that would make people want to consume more than what is healthy.

[@DavidRachfordFitness]

@@lime31373 , LOL, that, my friend is called "Story Telling" and of course it's one of the reasons why good videos (and games) are so addictive. We as humans are wired for story. We're also capable of pulling ourselves out of stories that don't serve us, and creating our own new/better/triumphant hero's journey stories.

[@jmoney-z5561]

Cam, awesome that u have a documentary to spread this message. I’ll share this message to spread awareness. Like always, keep it up!

[@InfraredGod]

This isn't my case, but if it is for other people it'll help out a lot.

[@resetsummercamp4117]

Bravo Cam! ~ We were honored to participate in this incredibly important project. Looking forward to sharing your message with our campers for years to come! -Michael Jacobus | Reset Summer Camp (formerly Summerland)

[@maxxmittelstadt4798]

This documentary is more about mental health and addiction. I think modern day video games are becoming more addicting and costly than ever before. My only complaint is this documentary aims at video games being a gateway drug. Modern day parents and kids lack the knowledge of good mental health practices and habits.

[@ThePathoftheSavior]

Thank you for Telus and Cam for this documentary. I had read much of your story before, but having pictures to go with it has allowed me to understand even more. I've been trying to quit gaming for seven years. The past few years its gotten better, and having been a member of your forum for the past two years has definitely helped. I have found replacement activities that I enjoy very much, so the main fight now is to make them more accessible than gaming, and to remember that they have long-term benefits whereas gaming does not. Keep up the good work brother.

[@HolliKenley]

Thank you, Cam. This is beautifully "balanced" in its presentation highlighting that the constitution of each child, along with his environment, past experiences, social stressors, as well as motivations for gaming are all important factors to consider. Along with your full TEDX Talk, I will be incorporating this video into my workshops.

[@PaulineNarvas]

I absolutely love this, Cam. It is more than just video game addiction, it's about mental health and addiction generally! Thank you so much for sharing your message and light to the world ✨

[@ayosgsauce]

God bless you guys for making this documentary. Truly life changing!!!! Know that you've had an everlasting impact on me.

[@Thedarkj0ker]

Good Job to both Cam and Telus. Great Documentary!

[@lukorianraekor7226]

Awesome Insights, pretty much nailed it. Hope this will go a long way! Thanks for everything, Cam. It's almost three years game free and you played a big role in it. Keep going. Wish you the best and greetings from Germany

[@GameQuitters]

Super proud of you!

[@megavegeta2588]

The problem is that therapists used to tell parents that gaming was "therapeutic". I see many people use that as an excuse for gaming addiction. Also, the older the individual and the more experience they have gaming, makes it even harder for them to quit or cut back.

[@animatedchristians9485]

excellent documentary

[@nathanericschwabenland88888]

Ever since last year I am a dragon ball Kai fanboy because I have noticed a pattern in my life that needed to be worked on

[@miltosLaz]

I think the hardest part it's to realise the problem so you can act on it. It's easy to lie to your self and find excuses that it's not a problem until something big happens in you life and wakes you up.

[@kylec8950]

Good stuff. I used to be addicted to WoW for about 6 years playing 10 hours a day. I also showed a lot of those deceitful actions like Cam did to my parents. I no longer game as I have a family now. But I always regret all the time I wasted. I don't think gaming is "bad" but we should not just be zombies , forever thirsting for the next game we play.

[@User6468]

How much time have you wasted reading books, meditating or enjoying music? How much paint did Michaelangelo 'waste' on the Sistine Chapel? ;)

[@kylec8950]

@@User6468 Its a farcry to compare the painting of the Sistine Chapel with playing a virtual game.

[@ShockwavesFTW]

@@User6468 That's a really short-sighted comparison. The difference between Michaelangelo and someone who plays WOW is that Michaelangelo created something that can be enjoyed by others. In a sense, his time spent was almost like an act of service to others. Someone who spends their time on WOW serves no one but themselves. They create something only they can enjoy, which is why in retrospect the time spent seems trivial.

[@bh5817]

Very well produced

[@Blaisem]

Gaming addiction is relatively new as a concept, so it's only natural many people will meet it with doubt and seek out alternative explanations. Especially if you play video games and are happy with them, this probably feels like an attack on your lifestyle. That's why I hope people who game while leading happy lives understand they aren't the target of these messages, that video games aren't being attacked as bad for everyone. If you play 8 hours a day and are happy with your life, then no one is judging you for it. No one is calling you addicted or that your hobby is wrong. This video is for the other people who are unhappy with their lives and held back by an inability to manage their video game use (or are at risk for addictive behavior in general). Importantly for these latter people, it is a major problem to advocate the message that video game overuse is not their problem, to deflect their problem onto other issues or explanations for why their life is in a bad spot. These reassurances are dangerous. Speaking from experience, no one addicted to video games wants to quit at first. If you provide the slightest possibility that video games "are just a symptom" of something else, then hooked gamers will bite. Playing games is relaxing, it's exciting, it gives you a constant short-term purpose. *Addicted gamers want to hear they can continue playing video games* , that they were just bullied or had a bad upbringing or born with some other disorder, and that _these_ are their issues, not video games -- indeed, that video games are even a benefactor in helping them cope with these other real issues. For a real addict, this last statement couldn't be further from the truth. I played video games for over 20 years, often days on end. My life was in a downward spiral for about 4 years when I finally signed up for behavior therapy and medication, lasting a year and a half. I found *you cannot implement solutions to other problems until you take care of the addiction in your life.* It took me a long time to realize this and wasted most of my therapy because I dissembled and downplayed how much video games and internet I was using. We thought the video games were because I was depressed and ADHD. So I wanted to fix the depression/ADHD as the root cause, then assumed the video game usage would naturally solve itself (this allowed me to keep playing video games of course). That's all well and logical. But then I discovered these chicken or the egg arguments don't actually matter. It didn't matter whether I played video games because I was depressed, or depressed because I played video games. After years of trial and error, I realized I was functionally incapable of tackling my ADHD or depression for as long as video games were a part of my life. The addiction had to be solved first, no matter if something else caused it. Understand: *The nature of the problem with video game addiction is how it robs you of your natural tools to improve your life.* You simply cannot tackle other serious issues in your life when you're sleeping 2-6 hours every night because you gamed until 3 am or later in the morning, eating 1 meal a day because you would rather game than obtain food, and devoting half or more of your free time to video games instead of ways to solve major life issues. You're deeply exhausted when it's time to work on yourself, and your days fly by in a fog. If you remove video games and replace it with another addiction, then you have to stop that, too. It's true underlying problems can and very likely do exist. Seek therapy; it's the first step in any addiction anyways. Use this therapy to help you identify any other possible underlying problems, but take solutions for the video game addiction as top priority unless your therapist recommends otherwise. If you can't imagine how video game addiction could be a legitimate problem for others, please take consideration of the _possibility_ that it is real, that the people suffering from it would be very vulnerable toward messages providing hope their gaming isn't a problem. I spent over 5 years in denial, and wasted most of my covered therapy time, much of the reason because I used the mixed commentary on video game addiction as an excuse to not take it seriously. I needed to feel the gravity of a video game addiction as a major threat to my future, before I was inclined to change my habits toward one of my favorite hobbies. If you are one of those who has a severe problem managing video game use and are drowning in life, then regardless whether people guilt trip you with labels like being lazy or lacking willpower, or insult you for claiming their hobby of video games could ever be bad for someone else, know that *none of these explanations or angry backlash matter* . Let others define it however they want. *The only thing that matters is you restore your ability to work towards solving your problems every day.* By hell or high water, get help; do anything you can to stop. You can deal with the insulting labels, skepticism that your problem was legitimate, or your wounded pride over having needed therapy later. It's hard to quit, and easy to deny reasons to quit, but it improved my life so much, in ways I could not imagine while I was binging video games. Once I quit, I was able to focus on higher-order life-management, like building a daily structure to manage ADHD. I still have an extremely addictive personality that I have to work with constantly to manage. Another thing that helped me take the leap was to look up addiction and its symptoms. In the DSM V for example, I checked off 8 or 9 of the 11 reasons from their list (can't link URLs here, but google "DSM 5 criteria for substance abuse disorders"). Once you see it as an addiction, your mind opens up to the urgency of quitting. It also helped me that I began to notice a lot of the people I knew who gamed as much as I did all had big difficulties in their lives. I don't know for which of them the gaming caused those big difficulties, or for which the big difficulties came first and the gaming obsession after. But again, chicken or the egg arguments and other deflections don't change things. At the end of the day, if you know you have big problems in your life, and instead of solving them, you are spending the bulk of your free time and mental energy on video games or similarly unproductive tasks, that's all that matters. Your life isn't moving forward. Until you stop these activities, you won't have the tools to address whatever other reasons you might have come up with for your issues. Treat it like an addiction; get help however you can. Just get that tumorous black hole of your time out of your life. It takes about 1-2 months of cold turkey before you start to feel really good about the decision to quit. Also, Game Quitters was founded by Cam in this video and is a great community. Super supportive.

[@tomjones2348]

Well done.

[@mimosa27]

The problem with this approach is that it blames victims of a sick society, and doesn't ask what it is that is so wrong with such a society within which people cope by escaping into virtual reality. Ultimately, everything is interconnected. This is akin to blaming obese people for their dietary habits, instead of seeing that corporations have been pushing sugar on people for the past few decades, prior to which obesity was not even such a problem. Does anyone see what I'm saying?

[@AbdelrahmanMohamed383]

I was overweight, I started looking at the food labels and I decided I would never put any sugar in my body, fast forward one year later and I'm a 9:00/M half a marathon runner(Ran my last HM @ 15Mar2019) Taking personal responsibility for your Goddamn life gives you results, playing the victim gets you nowhere, only adds to your suffering.

[@PhillDrakeEntertainment]

The problem lies in game companies trying to build the most realistic worlds ever and playing with costumers to buy ps4,ps5,ps6,ps7 and ruined their lives literally technology never sleeps and will never stop sadly.

[@lfxtv]

this is some real heavy stuff guys, harder than the game itself, the tsunami is alerady here, what you gonna do now?

[@Sophie-hn6hk]

Can I ask - does this video contain inappropriate language or themes? I would like to share it with my class.

[@rileymckenna1431]

You could, perhaps, watch it before sharing with your class

[@nathanericschwabenland88888]

As for video games I support Pokémon generation two but not so much as other franchises…

[@singing4hope]

Wow. 15 hours a day,

[@bambooindark1]

How can I play with my programming skills? Can someone help me? I know basic HTML, PHP, JavaScript, Database, and what project can I build, is MEANINGFUL and also FUN? So I can quit gaming entirely because if I can found the idea (what I can build), maybe I don't need to play game anymore? What side project can I build, CONTSTAINTLY, so it can become my hobby?

[@mobilek432]

Hi well i think the solution is simple ask your friends, family or even strangers on a shopping centre(good way to improve social skills)what they would want to see on webpages or in their smartphones. You will be suprised about how many people have good ideas even if they arent familiar with programming at all. E.g. my gf once said to me she would like to have an ap on android that will show her what schedule has on the particular day and this would appear on blockscreen. That is simple example but you get the point.I am know basic HTML PHP learning C++ and in future want to learn JavaScript and Msql and so on . Wish you the best and i know you can do this. ps I am struggling with 2 addictions at once . First is gaming second is Pornography . But i am keep fighting with this.

[@bambooindark1]

@@mobilek432 Thanks for some suggestion. Madjuggler recently found a great movie called "Peaceful Warrior". It is so meaningful and I suggest you watch it too. Ask me for the file or get it somewhere yourself, but it worth it, at least for me. This is what I learned in this movie. 1. Book and movie: The book is called Way of the Peaceful Warrior, while the movie is called Peaceful Warrior. 2. Live in "now", the "current moment": Never live in past, in the future. The only experience and purpose of life come from "now", not other two. At every moment you are doing meditation. 3. Everything have it's purpose: Enjoy and experience the "current moment", this is the purpose of life, you are just experiencing the purpose of life. 4. Life is about the journey, not the result: Life, or every small things or story is about the journey and experience, not the result, don't care too much about the result, it is not so important. 5. All choices come with it's own pleasure and price: Be responsible for that and enjoy your choice. 6. Accept that you can't "control": Everything will not stay, they change, change a lot through time. Don't hold the beauty side of something because it will fail, the beauty can't stay forever, they will go away eventually at some time. Experience and enjoy the current moment. 7. Focus on being persistence and resilience: Find your goal, and stick on it. The purpose of life also come from this. 8. And finally you get peace, the "current moment": Honestly, this is out of what I expect. When I was watching this movie, I feel like I was highly focus, into the "flow" state, I also have very strong "peace" feeling, it's real. I don't expect this movie bring me this when I was watching. The biggest thing I learned is the concept of "now", "current moment". It is basically doing meditation, but while doing it constantly at any time and non stop.

[@aspicy]

@@bambooindark1 Saw the movie. Loved it. Probably will also read the book.

[@dplayar4744]

background music anyone

[@romirshrestha6586]

Help

[@ShockwavesFTW]

Man, that kid is too young to be talking so somberly about addiction and depression.

[@htth613]

Search for sensus fidelium and churchmilitant.

[@bujdosogyula3429]

Religion is even worse addiction than gaming. Basically the two are the same: escapism to fantasy worlds.

[@phatb14]

I’m donut like this docmutpry

[@richardcocklin]

that's how Fortnite is very addictive

[@Freeman35350]

you tell things like: i was anxious i was depressed, but depressed people dont play games, they just get depressed, and anxious people are not anxious because of playing video games, its not like this magical sickness that controlls the universe or some shit like that, its just when you get addicted to that too much, that lefts you no time to do other things, and not doing other things create a need to do them, when you don't do, you just suffer the consequenses of NOT doing something you should be doing, its not so much games are punisment bringers, its NOT doing other things does. Many people married confident have financial success and other hobbies and still play at least 8 hours of game per day, is that supposed to be wrong? Well then, if thats wrong for you, go live your own life, you just telling some shit to make your own way to gain money and status, nothing much more

[@Silas-Inservio-Pax]

your first observations are correct. Gaming is almost never the source, or a creator of any of these negative effects. It is merely, upon a person unable to deal with something, a style to cope and an amplifier. However, Cam is not doing this for himself. You just made a huge jump from those observations to saying that Cam is doing this for his own gain, and you are also saying "you just telling some shit.....". It is not shit. It is not "gaming are the source of gaming additions and therefore, gaming is bad". A gaming addiction is something you are stuck in as a person, because you cannot deal with something. It is a person, STUCK in gaming. Stuck. Gaming itself, is keeping a person stuck. Here is where Cam, and the declaring it as a mental disorder comes in. It is about that phase where a person cannot move anymore, because they have no ability anymore to do so, because of gaming. Because of gaming, keeping them stuck, and influencing their entire life. Now, to summarize what i am saying; gaming is not bad. gaming is keeping some people in a frozen state. recognizing that gaming is an addiction for that person, is the way to move on for a person, and start retaking his own life.

[@Blaisem]

@Baki If games are preventing you from being in control of your life which leads to problems, what does it matter whether games are the direct or indirect source? The craving for games is real, the time wasted on them is real, and the consequences are real. Gaming addiction is real and a problem _for some people_ .

[@mikemike5208]

Clearly this guy was bullied and found video games as a way to cope with that. Saying that video games are addictive is a copout for what he really was dealing with. And that was likely bullies and social awkwardness that came from that. Make a video about the dangers of bullying not video games.

[@wisdomfeeteverywhere4389]

any kind of escapism that is used to not deal with problems is a cop out in a way and everyone does it but for a multitude of reasons he (cam) may have but not most boys around the world including me hey i was bullied but thats not what made me go home and play comp games, but i agree with you deal with the problem or the why people go to it or any addiction

[@etienned2261]

You haven't paid attention.

[@sunrisewolfy]

Wasn't bullied. Also became addicted to video games. He quit hockey because of bullying, not went to games. They were already a part of his life.

[@mikemike5208]

novaburger That’s garbage and you know it. Have you seen his social media? He’s in love with himself. All he cares about is media and attention.

[@FinalGaiden]

​@@mikemike5208 Just because its not a literal drug doesn't mean its not an addiction. WIth videogaming, its a behavior which people can get addicted to. Working, gambling, and exercising are other behaviors that can be addictive. It is true that people that are unhealthy are more likely to become addicts, but most of the time you cant simply "fix" yourself. Even something like loneliness can lead people to addiction.