A REDLYNCH teenager is so addicted to computer games he has only attended school intermittently during the past two years and violently resists attempts to remove him from in front of the screen.

His mother has spoken out in anguish, desperately seeking help for the 13-year-old.

"He starts punching holes through the walls, throwing things around and threatening you … all this has to do with the most addictive game World of Warcraft,’’ she said.

She and her husband have even called the police when the boy’s violence has got out of control.

Distressed families are contacting psychiatrists with pleas for help for children dangerously hooked on computer games and the internet.

The condition, known as "pathological internet misuse’’, is growing so rapidly it could soon be formally recognised as a mental health disorder.

The Cairns Post has learned that international mental health experts are considering including "video game addiction and internet addiction" in the next edition of the globally recognised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) "to encourage further study".

The mother said she regretted buying the game for the boy.

"Our problems started about two years ago," she said.

"My 13-year-old boy just doesn’t get off the computer. He is on it non-stop.

"He won’t go to school. He missed most of this year and most of last year.

"I can’t get him out the door.

"We have spoken to the school and they have come out and spoken to him but he is not worried about it at all.

"We have had the police on to him because he becomes quite aggressive when you take the computer off him. He starts punching holes through the walls, throwing things around and threatening you – and this all has to do with the game World of Warcraft, the most addictive game.

"I wish I had never bought it for him.

"I let him have it and now here we are nearly two years later, him not getting out of the room much.

"There’s no help or support. Alcoholics and drug addicts have been around for years and there are facilities for those people.

"But this is a new thing, computer addiction, and people don’t realise how severe it is.

"When parents talk to people they say, ‘Take the bloody thing off him and he’ll get over it’, but it’s not like that.

"You are dealing with aggression, anger, the swearing, pushing, punching.

"We need support from the Government to open up facilities around Australia, places for children to wean off it.

"A psychiatrist was all for picking him up and basically putting him into hospital because his health is deteriorating.

"He has been sitting in a seat for so long his back is curved and we are now having to take him to a chiropractor to get it fixed.

"He has missed a lot of this year at school. This term he has been for one week only and last term he did about two weeks.

"We can get charged (with an offence for failing to attend school) and that’s been explained to him.

"But the school is supporting us because we’ve gone through it, had them out to our house and explained what is going on."

Australian mental health specialists believe formal recognition of internet addiction will put pressure on governments to make more treatment options available.

Leading researchers this week will launch the first online education program aimed at weaning youngsters off their addiction.

Sydney psychiatrist Philip Tam and psychologist Andrew Campbell from the University of Sydney believe internet addiction should be classified as a disorder.

Share this article