Facing Internet Technology and Gaming Addiction: A Gentle Path to Beginning Recovery from Internet and Video Game Addiction

The authors of this book are the cofounders of the first rehab for internet addiction. This book was listed for sale on Amazon over a year ago, when I first ordered it thinking it would be coming out in a couple weeks, on the sale date they listed. They have a web site for Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous. It lists a contact form, but no meetings. They didn't even list the meeting started by one of their alumni of their rehab, in their own city. So the meeting shut down six months before the pandemic. They didn't list the New York, Los Angeles, Singapore, Amsterdam, Orlando or Berlin meetings either. Those were not started by the members of their rehab. Restart didn't even know that the Colorado meeting had shut down a couple years after it happened. And god forbid they would list the meetings that poor desperate people like me were attending over the phone. On my flip phone. The ITAA meetings eventually transitioned to Zoom when the pandemic started. Instead they wanted people to come to their rehab. I forget whether it was for 2 or 3 months. At something like $60,000 or $90,000. No insurance taken, since it wasn't even licensed as a rehab, but as a resort. Less oversight that way. And oh yeah, they don't take people over 30, weren't taking women for most of the time the treatment center was open. I was in another meeting in a different fellowship. I mentioned to someone that I was going to online meetings of ITAA. She said "Oh yeah, I need that too." I'm not sure how old she was, but she was collecting Social Security while working part time. So at least 62. Apparently most of the people in their rehab were under 21 and gamers. Gamers don't have to deal with the issues that general internet addicts have to deal with, of having to negotiate which activities are problematic. What happens when someone who has YouTube addiction (the most frequent issue among members of online ITAA during the pandemic) and is in college and has to transition to online school? With videos on - you guessed it - YouTube. And they don't even teach you how to transition back into using the internet again. If you want that, you have to pay another $5,000 a month, while living in their halfway house. I asked if I could just live in their halfway house. I can do cold turkey not using the internet with no problem, but I had problems with transitioning back into using the internet again, and needed help with that. They said no. It turns out the solution for me is not to have internet at home. I'm writing this from a cafe. I don't know if the sponsor I had a little over a year ago suggested that to me. I know that when he wrote stuff for the ITAA website, that's one of the things he suggested. And it's what he personally was doing at the time I joined ITAA.