Dear Pradeep:

When it comes to a serious addiction to a substance or an activity (like gaming), it is most often futile to try moderation and the only way to put a stop to the addiction is to remove access to the substance or the activity. After some time of no access, the very strong habit, aka addiction, comes to an end.

There is a website, olganon. org, standing for On-Line Gamers Anonymous. It has a section called: “For parents of adult children (18+) with video game problems“. In it, it reads: “What to do?… There are parental control programs, though most adult children who are computer-savvy will hack right around these… Cancel your internet access if you feel that you and the rest of the family can get along without it. If you cannot cancel the access entirely, consider switching to dial-up. This does make it more difficult, though not completely impossible, to play most sophisticated (games)”.

It also reads: “You and all the other adults in the house (spouse, significant other, grandparents) must be on the same page as much as possible about this“-  which means your wife needs to be on the same page as you.

And it reads: “Be sympathetic to your child. These games were designed by experts using well-known (psychological) principles to draw your child in and keep him there. This is not his/her fault. It is also not your fault so don’t waste time beating up on yourself with what ifs…  Welcome to OLG-Anon. We are here for you“.

I hope to read more from you, maybe together we can figure things out.

anita