The UK’s first Rehab centre for gaming addictions has opened in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. The Broadway lodge treats 400 patients with a wide range of addictions including drugs, alcohol and gambling. Now its doors are open to those that suffer from Online Gaming addiction

 

 

Broadway Lodge counsellor Peter Smith said "It's not unusual for people to get so obsessed with online gaming that they forget to eat and drift towards an anorexic and undernourished state. You have a relationship with characters in the game that give you an artificial feeling, created by your body's natural endorphins, when you have killed some monster or solved a problem."

 

While Brian Dudley, the centre's chief executive said “I would stick my neck out and say between five and ten per cent of parents or partners would say they know of someone addicted to an online game.”

 

This isn’t the first time gaming, a especially online gaming has been called addictive. In a recent study done by the University of Sydney it was found that one in twelve gamers had an addiction.