It started with the Nintendo 64.
Lauren recalls feverishly playing the ’90s gaming console − and how it took priority over making friends or doing homework − when she was 8. Then, she says, it was her family’s home computer. Her tech use continued to take over her life, she says. She barely graduated from high school due to late arrivals, absences and missed assignments.
“I was so confused, because I knew I was a driven person,” Lauren says. “I knew that I had ambitions and goals for my life. And so, I was very confused why I seemed to just keep blowing off the things that were important to me.”
At the time, Lauren didn’t know what was wrong. Now, she says she sees it clear as day: She had a burgeoning internet and technology addiction, one that continued to plague her into adulthood and, ultimately, drove her to contemplate suicide.
At the height of her addiction, Lauren says, she’d scroll for hours on end. She didn’t take care of her apartment, which became infested with fleas. She didn’t take care of herself, either. She put off eating, drinking water and going to the bathroom. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t get out of bed. Life, she says, felt unbearable.
“It just felt like this kind of living nightmare,” Lauren says. “I felt like I had no quality of life. I was miserable the whole time, and I couldn’t really explain to people why I was so unhappy.”
Now, Lauren is on the road to recovery, thanks to a new and little-known 12-step program called Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous, or ITAA. Borrowing from the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, ITAA hosts regular meetings and encourages members to follow the 12 steps outlined by AA to achieve sobriety. Like other members of ITAA, Lauren doesn’t share her last name when speaking to media about the group, out of respect for its chief principle of anonymity.
One of the biggest challenges to getting her addiction under control, Lauren says, was recognizing it as an addiction in the first place. Had she seen her internet use for what it was sooner, perhaps she could have saved herself years of suffering.
“I didn’t understand that I was suffering from an actual addiction,” Lauren says. “I thought that maybe I had an anxiety disorder or it was depression. But none of that ever seemed to really explain what I was experiencing, which was that every morning I would get up. I would have a plan for the day, goals that I wanted to accomplish. But then, it was really not up to me. It just was always up to my addiction.”
‘Like heroin to me’
Per the organization’s website, ITAA began in 2017, when a group came together after finding their internet and technology use had gotten out of hand. Its membership has grown since. Now, ITAA hosts support meetings over Zoom and in-person each week.
During one virtual meeting in November, which was open for journalists and others to observe, about 45 people attended, ranging in age from college students to retirees. They joined from across the country and around the world. Like in AA, they celebrated their milestones, and many have sponsors.
The goal of ITAA isn’t to abstain from the internet or technology entirely – in today’s society, that’s not realistic. Instead, members identify their “bottom lines” – the particular websites or devices that spiral them into addiction – and cut those out.
One member named Tom says the irony of internet addicts meeting over Zoom isn’t lost on him. (“We’re like alcoholics meeting at a bar,” he jokes in an interview with USA TODAY.) Still, he finds the meetings supremely helpful. Thanks to ITAA, he’s been sober from compulsive internet use for four months. Getting there wasn’t easy.
There’s a rule during the meeting not to name specific bottom lines. Yet, when people start sharing their stories, some inevitably slip out. Instagram. Google. Fan fiction. Pornography. For Tom, it’s video games, YouTube and smart phones.
During his worst benders, he’d use technology for up to 20 hours straight. Like Lauren, he says his addiction made him suicidal.
“It doesn’t really act like a behavioral addiction,” he says. “It more acts like a substance addiction. So it’s kind of like a drug. It’s (like) heroin to me.”
For Lauren, Reddit, YouTube and social media have a similar effect.
“I was using screens compulsively for the same reasons that other kids turned to substances,” she says. “In my family of origin, there was a lot of abuse and trauma. And so, to just try to cope and escape from the challenges that I was facing, I was compulsively using the internet and video games and television.”
‘The phone is the syringe’
Dr. Timothy Fong, a UCLA addiction psychiatrist, says it’s unclear how widespread internet and technology addiction actually is. That’s partly because these addictions often get overshadowed by other addictions that may be at play, he says. For instance, a compulsive online gambler might get treated just for gambling addiction. Someone addicted to internet pornography might only get diagnosed with hypersexual disorder.
As a result, Fong says, “we really don’t have a range for the scope of the problem.” Yet, he says it’s clear that, for some, the internet can prove highly addictive – as if “the phone is the syringe.”
“I had one patient say to me, ‘My goal is to reach the end of the internet,’ “ Fong says. “He literally said, ‘I want to see every webpage created.’ And we were just imagining this infinitive loop that can never be satisfied. And it was kind like, ‘I want every drug on earth.'”
Fong says it’s important to take stock of your internet and technology use. Is it impacting your sleep? Your relationships? How about your mental health?
Before ITAA, Lauren took drastic steps to curb her addiction − to no avail. She tried locking her devices away. She wrote letters to herself, begging herself to stop.
Since finding ITAA, she says she’s been in recovery for three years and has finally achieved sobriety.
“Now, in recovery, I understand that I can use my computer and I can use the internet and technology in a way that really serves my life and my recovery from addiction,” she says. “There’s no reason for me to avoid computers. I’m able to use them in a way that supports my life.”
