My Brother’s Addiction?

Question by Mystery: My brother’s addiction?
When you read the question, I bet you thought of “addiction” as either drugs, alcohol, or smoking. Nope! My brother has a different addiction: computers. He is CONSTANTLY online. Not for just an hour or two, but for 6 hours a day AT LEAST! He is always in his room playing online games. When the slightest lag happens, he rushes down the stairs and starts yelling at me for it. Even if I’m not on the computer! My parents are aware of this, but do nothing to help him. He is 21 now and he has been obsessing over computers for years. When I touch his laptop, he FREAKS out. He cleans his computer 24/7 and if there is some dust, he’d go out of his way to buy some cleaner and clean it…His computer is more important than family. Whenever we have a Sunday family dinner, my dad goes, “Hey. C’mon over here and eat with us.” and he says, “I’m good.” and rushes up stairs to eat in his room with his beloved computer. He’s addicted! He’s on from when he wakes up until he goes to bed. What can I do?

Best answer:

Answer by Magichal
I’ve had this problem myself. You think 6 hours is bad, try days on end. And I’m only 15, haha.

My parents realized it was a problem for me, and they started to wean me off of it. Well okay not so much “wean” as “completely take away, cold turkey”. But it worked. I now go on the computer like an hour or two a day, and it’s only to play an online game if I’m bored. I don’t meet potentially dangerous people online, I don’t get into anything I’m not supposed to, and I’m much more social.

If you want to do this casually, I suggest maybe helping him get some friends. Maybe tell him to go to a LAN party (a gathering of people where each person gets their laptop and goes to a little party to play games with usually 10+ people). That would be a good way for him to get social and still be feeding his addiction.

Then once he gets more social, you can suggest starting to go meet more people, or maybe get a job involving computers. Being paid to work with a computer would probably motivate him to go out and get a job. Hope I helped.

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