June 1, 1998
By MARC SIEGEL
The Eastside Journal
BELLEVUE, Wash. (AP) -- Peter Lambert was running away from a bad marriage when he slammed into an Internet addiction.
"I would be online 16 hours a day, because I would go into work and stay there until midnight, go home and wake up and do it again," said Lambert, 26.
"When I first started it was a way to get away from a bad marriage. We broke up in 1995. All of a sudden I was single and had all this free time. It just became a habit."
It is an affliction infecting more and more people across the nation.
"It is more pervasive than the numbers we see indicate," said Dr. Hilarie Cash, Lambert's former counselor, who treats patients in her Redmond and Duval offices.
"I think it is a growing phenomenon. I hear anecdotes from colleagues and people I know. All the experts are talking about it."
Dr. Kimberly Young, an Internet researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, is one such expert.
Although there is no precise formula, an Internet addict is anyone who logs on for 40 hours or more a week, according to Young.
Lambert, a longtime computer-game user before his addiction, said he has friends who have been on the computer for 48 hours at a time, and that college students, with all their free time, are the heaviest users.
Game sites and chat rooms are the most common destinations for addicts, Cash said. In general, addicts may lack intimacy in their lives because of poor social skills and poor confidence. Most have few hobbies to relieve stress.
And most enjoy the power that comes with a mastery of the Internet.
"It's a highly rewarding, satisfying thing," she said. "It's highly reinforcing learning how to use it quickly. A real element of power and mastery in the technology is very rewarding."
The anonymity also is a strong attraction.
"Anonymity licenses people to become uninhibited," Cash said.
Before coming to Cash, Lambert had lost one job in the computer industry partly because he spent much time online. Then he lost much more. After being fired from a second job at a different computer company, his wife left.
The computer use "went hand in hand with the depression I was feeling," Lambert said. He spent most of his time on multiuser games, MUDs, "which are basically Dungeons and Dragons." They are interactive, purely text games where players follow and give commands with up to 100 other players.
"I was reluctant to go out with my friends," he said. "I felt like I'd be missing out with what's on the computer. Once you're set up you don't want to give up. ... I would procrastinate (on) everything, wouldn't wash my car, wouldn't do the dishes or laundry."
Since beginning to heal in June 1996, Lambert, who now works at a computer help desk for Boeing in Bellevue, socializes more, maintains a cleaner house, and has renewed his interest in guitar and trombone.
Cash said addicts must admit they have a problem before they can get better.
"As long as they are in denial, like any addiction, you can't work on it," she said.
She teaches people to limit their computer time to no more than two hours by using a timer.
"Because it's like a food addiction they are going to have to still use computers," she said. "They have to use them in a healthy way."
Cash said addicts have to learn what their unmet needs are and how to meet them through normal means. That can be achieved through relaxation and visualization work, which teaches them how to relax in normal social settings such as parties, and teaching elements of good conversation and role-playing social situations.
Lambert, who said realizing his problem was the most important step in recovery, has worked hard to pare down his use of MUDs to about four hours a day.
"Definitely over time while seeing (Dr. Cash) I brought it to a level where it wasn't a problem," he said. "It's a choice of how to spend my time, but I no longer feel the need to play. I used to think about it all the time."
