About Net Addiction NZ
I created this site back in 2013 as I'd become aware that there was a lack of quality information about gaming addiction in New Zealand, and that many people were contacting gambling helplines and other services because they didn't know where else to go. It was my hope that this site could be a starting point for people looking to understand gaming addiction, or to get help with their own or someone else's excessive gaming.
My original interest in the topic stems from the fact that I experienced a period of pretty intense gaming addiction myself as a teenager. At the worst of it, I was spending up to 16 hours per day playing online games and as a consequence failed out of University and created a lot of problems for myself and my family. This continued for a number of years until I was able, over time, to manage and moderate my gaming.
About ten years later after I began training as a psychotherapist, I spent some time working at a residential drug and alcohol treatment center and was struck by how common my experiences were to those of other addicts. Almost everything that I had experienced in gaming addiction was similar to what other addicts were reporting around their drug and alcohol use, and so I became interested from a professional perspective in better understanding and treating gaming addiction. Since that time I've done a lot of research and education in this space, and have been able to draw together both my personal experience with clinical data to develop a deeper understanding of how gaming addiction develops and operates.
I've also been involved in a number of interviews and presented at a number of conferences, and some of these are available online:
- Presentation to the International Gambling Conference 2014 on the overlap between gambling and free-to-play computer games
- The Wireless
- NZ Herald
It's my hope that the information on this site proves useful, and if you would like to know more then feel free to get in touch - I'll answer any questions as best I can (and as time permits!)
You can also find some of my other writing on therapy, gender and sexuality here
Site Founder, Abby Driver