EDMONTON—Eleanor Runnalls, 33, knows she’s been playing video games too much when the dishes start piling in the sink.

“Usually what’s the tipping point for me to notice that I’ve been gaming too much, would be the little things like the kitchen is a mess, I haven’t done anything about that because I was playing a game,” she said.

Runnalls has played games since she was a kid, but in the last few years she said she’s had to start limiting her time in front of the screen. She suffers from depression and anxiety, which can make it hard to turn away from the escape gaming offers.

Last December, the World Health Organization added “gaming disorder” to their draft 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases, which is due for publication in mid-2018.

They define the disorder as gaming to the point where it “takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.”

This isn’t the first time concerns have been raised about the effects of over-gaming: a 2009 study by Iowa State University and National Institute on Media and the Family surveyed 1,178 American kids between the ages of 8 and 18 and concluded as many as 8 per cent of them exhibited “pathological patterns of play.”

The study showed that the youth were skipping homework and lying about how much they were playing, as well as struggled to cut back.

But those who say video games are affecting their lives also say getting help isn’t easy.

In 2011, Calgarian Cameron Adair created a website called Game Quitters to help people quit video games after his own addiction nearly destroyed his life.

“I dropped out of high school. I never graduated while my friends were all off to college. I was playing video games for up to 15 hours a day,” he said.

“I was very depressed. I even pretended to have jobs to deceive my family and eventually it got to a point where I wrote a suicide note and that’s when I realize that I needed to make a change.”

The 29-year-old said he took to video games to “escape from dealing with life” as he was getting bullied in 8th and 9th grade.

Now a keynote speaker on the issue, Adair said the difference between passion and addiction is the negative impact it has on a person’s life.

“Addiction is not classified by the number of hours,” he said. “It’s causing you to not go to school, it’s causing you to lose relationships, to lose career opportunities. I have heard from students who say they are flunking exams, from people who are getting divorced.”

Adair said after he wrote the note, he went to a counsellor and although he said the counsellor helped, he wanted to talk to someone who knew exactly what he was going through.

“I was looking for help online and I couldn’t find any help,” he said. “I just knew that if I was searching for help, then there were probably others who did it too.”

Runnalls said she believes the games are designed to keep you hooked.

“They make you feel like if you don’t log in every day you’re missing out,” she said. She managed to handle her own gaming by making sure to take care of herself.

“Recognizing that it’s okay to do things just for the sake of them being good for you. Doing the dishes is good for me on so many levels,” she said.

She added that although she doesn’t consider video games a negative hobby, people need to learn “how to interact with games in a healthy and responsible way.”

Adair said it’s a real issue and it’s about time people recognize it as one. He said with WHO recognizing it as a real disease, he hopes more help will be available.

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“It encourages more professionals to train and specialize in it,” he said.

His website has 50,000 subscribers from 86 countries, over 200 videos and a community forum where people can journal, interact and meet. The website also includes a program called the “90 day detox” that walks people through a step-by-step process for how to quit.

Adair added he had recently added resources for parents as well, as he heard many stories from parents who didn’t know how to deal with their kids who were addicted to video games.

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