According to a recent statement from the WHO, “pathological online gambling” should make its entry into the new version of the “ICD” (international classification of diseases). Lack of sleep, sedentary lifestyle, violent behavior, epilepsy … it should be possible to no longer wait for these extreme disorders to treat patients.
The WHO international classification of diseases will not be published until June, but it seems that addiction to video games, that is to say “pathological online gambling”, is making a big splash. This is what a spokesperson for the body announced on Friday January 5 in Geneva. Nearly 1 million French women and men would suffer from it.
As with all addictions, it is the loss of control and the continuation of the behavior despite the negative consequences for the person that must alert. Because play is first and foremost a hobby, therefore an activity useful for social and psychological balance. However, some go from “recreational social play” to “excessive gambling” with the first loss of control, then to truly “pathological” gambling. And there, we understand well, that life becomes impossible.
Video games also have a positive impact
For a large majority of players, video games remain recreational and useful: they increase the size and efficiency of areas of the brain associated with visio-spatial capacities, which, for example, make it possible to orientate oneself in space, to perceive objects of the environment or to imagine an object physically absent. And it’s not just in seasoned “gamers”: these changes can even be observed in volunteers who have followed a training program of a few weeks.
Functionally, video games in particular develop sustained attention and selective attention. Players are therefore more vigilant, and better at isolating an action from the environment, such as listening to a conversation without being distracted. All these benefits are used to re-educate certain patients (stroke, beginner Alzheimer’s …).
How do you become addicted to video games?
These structural and functional benefits are real, but they have a counterpart: video games can be addicting.
By acting on the brain’s reward circuit, they expose some players to irrepressible cravings, as is the case with other addictive disorders.
These cravings are explained by a progressive deregulation of dopamine and the secretion of pleasure hormones such as endorphins. Substances similar to morphine, for example secreted by long-distance runners to suffer less and which make them addicted to kilometers. Even if gambling addiction is slower than with hard drugs, as with sport addiction, it is the repetition of the behavior despite the negative consequences that confirms entry into the disease.
How to define pathological online gambling?
Pathological online gambling, like other behavioral addictions, first manifests itself in persistent and frequent gambling, with a loss of control which results in increasingly severe difficulties in stopping, working, having fun. other hobbies, seeing friends or family.
The pathological gambler gradually gives priority to the game, to the point of invading his thoughts and his daily life to the detriment of the most basic needs such as eating, sleeping or bathing.
This definition serves as a guideline for the WHO in its classification of the new pathology that is “Internet Gaming Disorder”. It is the collapse of the frontal executive control, responsible for our choices and our decisions, combined with the disruption of the reward system at the origin of the irrepressible cravings and the lack, which are the common denominator of all the scientific theories on addictions.
Fortunately this addiction can be treated. This is the work of specialized psychiatrists and addictologists, working in the CSAPA (Addictology care, support and prevention centers) or the specialized services of certain hospitals. You should know that the pathological online player asks for help late, often in the phase of despair. This classification will make it possible to make the diagnosis earlier and to help him before the personal professional and family consequences.
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