Treating Online Addictions

Dr. Hilarie Cash has been working on treating internet addiction since the 90’s. In 2009, she co-founded reSTART Life which is the nation’s first and foremost treatment program for different online addictions and underlying mental health conditions. Currently, Dr. Cash serves as the Chief Clinical Officer at reSTART Life and she’ll share more about why she finds this field so important and how digital addiction impacts the mental health of millions of people today.
Learn more about reSTART Life & follow them on social media: www.restartlife.com/ / therestartcenter / restartyourlife
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00:00 Intro
00:58 This week's guest
02:24 The rise of digital addiction & treatment
04:50 How to combat digital addiction
06:35 Age groups at risk for internet addiction
08:05 How to prevent internet addiction
22:39 The dangers of virtual reality
26:02 How to spot the symptoms of digital addiction
33:51 How treatment works - reSTART Life
39:57 What to do when your job is online
42:50 Federal / state regulations for digital addiction
47:59 How to get back to normal life after treatment
52:30 The power of AA meetings for digital addiction
59:01 Understanding the brain of someone battling digital addiction
01:02:07 Jackie's recap
#mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #livedexperience #videogameaddict #gamingaddiction #internetaddiction #socialmediaaddiction #addiction #rehab #psychology #podcast

[@Mystic_Light]

Given the state of the world today, is it any surprise that we are addicted to VR? I think it has the potential to replace the physical world in many ways, which is, frankly, quite scary.

[@lm3582]

Fantastic insight into unhealthy digital use. I am a mental health practitioner for young people in schools, and addiction to phones, internet and social media is a prominent issue. There is a strong link to the pandemic making these issues worse, especially for kids from the most deprived areas. However, the pandemic is not solely responsible for this. I think content like this needs to be widely shared within parenting communities, and the parents I work with really appreciate the opportunity to be educated on healthy lifestyles.

[@mindykatz3651]

In the 90s.. i coudl only use the internet from 10pm to 10 am . and round 9 i was getting weird and cleaning to make time go faster. but yes there is major addiction.. u go into a place where there is not internet and its feels strange. but that was then. im gad i didnt have internet the way it is today., back then .

[@thefc3671]

It was a great talk and Doctor Cash has put in a lot of effort to studying the patterns. Can you consider continuing on the same topic? The topic and talk provided a lot of food for thought. You know what I am thinking is, and this sort of goes a long with what fatty fat fat, has said, is that now the screens are assuring our education. I think that if the basics had simply been taught, in the beginning, the quality of life would have been 10x to 100x greater, than a life in the upper echelon of society. We are all to blame. We are all to blame for the fact that there is no focus on natural living. There is no focus on living in harmony with mother earth. The very basics. And we cannot deny that homelessness is still a way to shame people. If you drive through Tent city, you see that the most artificial materials are being used to shelter the people in emergencies. We are all clowns that when a person becomes homeless they are building their emergency shelters out of plastics.

[@thefc3671]

Let's face it our society looks like a society of clowns. We have avoided, avoided, avoided the very basics, in the name of "quality of life." And we are not living anywhere near the quality of life that comes when humans are in harmony with mother earth and are spiritually attuned. And in tent city the most artificial materials are allowed to be used to shelter people in need of tiny shelter. Why are natural materials not allowed? Natural materials in the state of Nevada destroyed by the government. Looks like the entire society is clowning.

[@WNH3]

re: "Lived Experience" - is there another kind?

[@gissethhernandez9335]

I met someone 30 years old, a doctor, and a play vr chat. he showed me what it was about, but I innocently didn't understand the background until I started to investigate. These people are behind a screen, and that world even have partner and sexual relationships and are what they can not be in real life.

[@sorchaoreilly2633]

This is what concerns me about talk about using VR as therapy for the likes of depression. Is that not just the same as self-numbing using internet and gaming? Isn'tit just a dopamine hit that'll wear off and need more and more?

[@Mystic_Light]

Given that we now know depression is caused by the situation one may be in or experiencing, yes, using VR as therapy is problematic, though I suppose preferable to drugs. However, the real solution is to eliminate greed and hoarding in order to improve the lives of all. Depression caused by poverty and its associated maladies would be a thing of the past. If we are using VR to assist with reprogramming one's tendency to linger in negativity as opposed to seeking an upside or something positive to shift our mentality, then perhaps it may be useful.

[@lanefaurot]

TikTok songs used to make videos include songs with major profanity and sexual innuendos. Psychologists help structure Tictok to be like this?

[@fattyfat-fat6639]

Like opioid addiction in the inner cities, this "problem" is being addressed here without due consideration to social environments. By that, we mean to say created, wholly artificial environments: human society. Arguably, we exist in a "Huxleyan" environment (a narcotic-like surplus of choice) built upon conjured norms and mores that have no actual connection to Earthly reality, no actual analog in nature, or even palpable viability beyond the city limits, so to speak. A rule by bureaucracy, more Kafkaesque than egalitarian, more bromide than inspiration. Society is an invented, social world in which we live our daily lives. Invented in the same manner that an isolationist cult invents its tailored "world" in order to retain its members. Commendably, society doesn't want its tribal members to indulge in negative or harmful practices, while simultaneously discouraging them from any deviation from its invented, social structures/strictures: discouraging them from looking out the window that they might discover that there is an entire universe beyond itz modular feedlots that "wee" humans have deftly prefabricated. In short, to keep folks from experiencing a "Truman Show" type of awakening, if you will. Opioid and VR addictions cannot be successfully treated by simply applying another iteration of methadone, counseling, or redirection. There is far too great a "herd" mentality within our "cult" for any such vacant "fix" to be practical (teenage bullying and its resultant suicides can't be addressed by taking their cell phones away). There are only so many ways in which one can circumvate the built-in design errors of our modern society before one comes full-circle back to the inevitable; we're too ponderous, too self-serving to be of good health and virtue. VR, like opioid addiction, is Huxleyan "Soma," designed to numb the herd into taxable compliance. That is a foregone inevitability for "wee" societal "cultists." If not this particular form of "Soma," then some other will be popularized to re-direct the "herd" from looking beyond the feedlots that hold us all in such intestinal thrall. Though unlikely, we may even see a resurgence of neo-religiosities that will distract the curious from peering over the fences. Whaterever the "fix," it will be an opioid for the masses, and there will be an army of highly paid "counselors" taxed with attempting to return the predictable deviants back to compliance, back to the communal troughs we all love so dearly. So, is there an alternative to being "circular filed" in our rather "creepy" culture of herds and feedlots? Well, yes there is, butt.........it's not an easy one: just walk away from the herd and build a new life beyond the archipelagos of concrete and compliance. Basically, it's fleeing a cult, albeit a rather enormous, all-encompassing, gratuitous cult of our own making. Though seldom considered by "societal cultists," children need not be subjected to the tidal, peer pressures cavorting in public schools. They can be homeschooled, instead. And NOT within urban/suburban environs. They don't need to constitute a "body count" for marketing barons, voting with their parent's credit cards, or by means of their Nielsen Rating toilet flushes. They CAN have a life where nature has not been denatured, where they can pursue meaning, rather than mere preening. But not if it's done within the maximum security that defines our "culture." Families can live entire lives that are "owner-built" in green places that most folks only dream about. Media, networking, cell phones, feedlot sensibilities, need not have power over anyone who chooses to be a "Fremen." Granted, it takes some effort to wean oneself from the titanium "tit" that nurses the herd, but it can be done. Many have already done it and would welcome and assist other "refugees" from the herd. Such families are everywhere. It only takes "real" determination and a will to succeed. Freedom's not free. It never has been. The alternative, of course, is to become a statistic, to "meld-in," to color oneself in the muted, anesthetized tones of the herd, or at the extreme, to become an iconoclast, futilely turning-over feed troughs. It's a choice, and it CAN be done -- for your children, regardless of what the "doughnut dollies" passing out bandaids promote. Simply walking away will also have the effect of putting not a few of those very high-paid "counselors," who also nurse from that cold, feedlot tit, o-u-t o-f w-o-r-k!! Heartbreaking🙄!! P.S. If you can do it - escape the herd - then do so. In my 75 years, 👁've met no one who has "escaped" that regrets having done so. i did it with three small children and a newborn, with little more than gas money for the trip. Kids are now grown, living from East to West coast, grandchildren delightful, none of us in debt, tons of canning jars & bird feeders, prospering in mind, soul and body. But most of all, free and with no regrets - all of us. That's pretty good for an L.A. boy who came out of the Vietnam war a virtual basket case, neh? 🐴

[@thefc3671]

Daughter of a Vietnam vet here. He married down but his wife wound up becoming a multi millionaire and so he lived up. He could eat any health food desired and go camping, canoeing, kayaking snowshoeing hiking, etc. anywhere with the best gear. He taught me computer programming at 9. The internet became a replacement for mom. Remember the Vietnam vet? His wife was a workaholic,emotional neglect was routine, and the Vet did a lot of gaslighting and forcing us to love her despite her wicked ways. Internet became replacement for bio mom. Most of what I feel I'm working for, is to live in harmony with heaven and earth, in a semi off grid or off grid lifestyle.

[@fattyfat-fat6639]

Nice to read your reply. As much as i really hate everything associated with that heartbreaking war, had i not trudged through it (i was a grunt), i would likely never have broken my umbilical ties to the system that created it. My kids might then have grown up in a city (likely L.A.), and i would have "experienced" life in an ulcerated fast lane instead of in the foothills of the Rockies. But that transition did not happen overnight, nor without a certain amount of anguish. But it did happen, and i am no longer entangled with the madness that is presently driving the nation to chaos. i still care for what i left behind and hope it too can find a better path, but not to the degree that i would ever entertain "re-enlisting" in it. i can actually drink the creek water that flows past my home. i wouldn't trade that for anything. 🐴

[@IvanDmitriev1]

It's a function of the population numbers, the population density and ideology. All the things you are talking about are single-person or single-family solution for massively privileged families. Like survivalism, it is a dead end, because survivalists, like the "Fremen" depend on the industrial and industrialized society for everything. Like libertarians they're house cats who don't understand Living a real self-isolated and self-reliant rural farming/community life is drudgery, requires limiting the wants, beyond of what most people are capable of doing, but also - unnecessary and is a luxury basically, becuase even though you're farming for yourself, you're doing that at the expense of others. Social reform, and the disappearance of the deleterious capitalism, theocracy, imperialism, communism etc. is the solution, but it's a progressive one, and humans will not share wealth or change their thinking, unless are forced to do so in dyre circumstances.

[@wilhelm1311]

maby she just new to this... but her expression to Dr hilarie is to exaggerated, like acting, hope she get more Comfortable with this

[@lanefaurot]

I wonder if…one day the internet will be reorganized because it seems like a loose cannon the way it is.

[@IvanDmitriev1]

The problem, as usual, lies with the real world and the fused worst traits it had taken from capitalist, imperialist, fascist, theocratic, and communist workbooks altogether. The world is the problem, not the VR. Changing the world will lead to better outcomes.

[@AWEdio]

I am really interested to watch this but that voice is so unbelievably grating...

[@theforensicbadass]

She talks about coping strategies. But yet, neither one of you women addressed any cultural or environmental issues. Do you know how exceedingly difficult this is living in the borough or an inner-city environment for instance? What about fatherless children? What about latchkey kids? And neither one of you addressed the covid issue which close down an entire world for two years that increase the psychopathy levels and online usage. You are giving General basic Solutions which don't apply to 99% of the population. When you can apply coping skills to inner-city kids for instance or fatherless children, or latchkey kids, then maybe we can form some real solutions and real coping techniques.