Full podcast transcript for our latest podcast episode on Gaming Addiction
Ian: Hi everyone and a warm welcome to a milestone episode of the Talk Room series of podcasts. This is the 50th episode where Wendy and I have had the immense pleasure and privilege of joining together to examine the question of how to be your best self by examining various areas of mental health and wellbeing and how this applies to people’s daily lives .
For those people who’ have yet to see any of our previous podcasts, I’d like to once again introduce my co-presenter Wendy. Wendy is a fully accredited Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist & EMDR therapist as well as this, she’s been in private practice and working in the field of mental health and well-being for well over 35 years.
Wendy: Thank you so much Ian and to introduce you. You are a Senior Accredited National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society member and also the founder of Hope Therapy and Counselling Services so a warm welcome to you.
Ian: Thank you Wendy, and for today’s episode of the Talk Room I’d also like to welcome back Simon.
People who have watched our podcasts previously may remember Simon from some of our previous episodes of the Talk Room where he talked on the incredibly important subjects of Death Anxiety and also on Sensory Sensitivities in autism, tinnitus, and brain injury.
Simon is an experienced Person Centred Counsellor with us here at Hope Therapy & Counselling Services; as well as a content creator himself which he will tell us a little more about later.
Simon has also worked within addiction, both as a counsellor & within homelessness for well over a decade, so a warm welcome once again to you Simon – it’s really lovely to have you back with us once again.
Simon: Thanks Ian & Wendy, genuinely lovely to be back with you today
Wendy: Yes, great to have you back Simon.
So today’s topic is an incredibly important one, that we perhaps don’t hear spoken about often enough, and that’s Video Game Addiction.
I understand that this is a topic that’s close to your heart Simon?
Simon: Yes, professionally I’m part of a few Geek Therapy communities, and therapeutically, I’m interested in the videogames that people play and the needs that they’re meeting in gaming.
Personally, Gaming has also been quite important to me as a coping strategy, and I wonder if it would be appropriate to talk a bit more about that before we distinguish what Addiction might look like in gaming.
Ian: yes, go ahead Simon; I’d love to hear about that personal experience – especially you describing gaming as a coping strategy.
Simon: Thanks Ian.
So, growing up things could be quite hard at home.
My parents – they loved me dearly, and were doing their best, but mum very much struggled with her mental health and without going into too much detail about that, I found this really difficult as a child.
It pushed responsibilities onto me that were just too adult, and didn’t really give space for my own feelings.
I found things too intense, but as a dependent child (as well as a young-carer), I didn’t really have an escape and found my mind would often wonder to worrying about my care-giver’s welfare.
I needed that escape, something that would take up my attention, a brief holiday from the strain of home-life, and then came my first games console: a Sega Genesis.
Gaming gave me an escape from the intensity of what was going on a home, I could switch on a game and switch off from the intense thoughts or feelings that my childhood self didn’t know how to process – and immerse myself into the game that captivated my mind and gave me that pause from life.
Then as the gaming consoles evolved, so did life.
My sister and I would structure so much of our time to Pokemon battles – a solace for both of us in a Pokemon World that was understandable, and we could advance in.
I met friends in school, who would come over and we’d have an all-nighter playing Super Smash Bros or Golden Eye 64.
At GCSEs, we’d sit round playing FIFA together on the PS2, which was such a simple and beautiful way to connect with friends that took off any pressures of social interaction & facilitated connection as my mates yet again thrashed me.
It didn’t matter that I lost at FIFA though – video games taught me to lose, they taught me to grind and work towards advancement, that I could try again if I failed – to Git Gud at Dark Souls;
they taught co-operation and forged friendships as me & my mate Mark Webster swapped controller after each life lost in Sonic,
they watered my creativity as we designed levels in Tenchu or songs in Music 2000,
They allowed me to be competent at uni, where reinventing yourself is hard, but I could have that competence by being the best at Super Smash Bros Melee on the Gamecube,
and they still provide this when
- I’m dysregulated or tired, need to passively process, or just have a break from the usual structure in life.
I don’t seem to game quite as much these days, and maybe that’s part of the peace that I’m discovering in life, but I still love video games – even today I look forwards to continuing The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC in Elden Ring, or seeing if my wife fancies local co-oping though Balder’s Gate 3.
Today’s TalkRoom episode is about Video Game Addiction, but from the forefront I want to really highlight that you are not broken if you’re listening to this and find yourself powerless over your gaming – you’re doing the best you can to cope, & gaming is helping you to do that.
Ian: Thanks Simon, that was brave and, I imagine, also helpful for our listeners. To know both in theory, and personally, that our aim today isn’t to try to judge or take away gaming but to understand how those needs you describe are being met or coped with, and to help a person find control over their gaming.
Wendy, Simon has given a personal account of gaming, I wonder if it would be helpful to look at the “bigger picture” about both gaming as well as gaming addiction, and I believe you have some statistics that might help with that bigger picture.
Wendy: Thanks Ian – yes, I do have some stats
- In the UK apparently 10.84 million people enjoy gaming, so it really is a very normal activity enjoyed by around one in every seven people.
- The average age of a gamer in the UK is 28, which is actually younger than many other countries such as New Zealand with an average age of 35 –the point is a significant amount of adults enjoying gaming, so this isn’t to be seen as young person’s hobby, but actually something that everyone can enjoy
- 48% of Gamers are Female so gaming also isn’t something that is only enjoyed by men, who are actually only about half of the gamers out there.
- Internet Gaming Disorder was recently added to the ICD-11 which is a manual that psychiatrists use to diagnose mental health issues so Video Game Addiction is a real medical condition
- Figures are fairly wide but an estimated 1.7-10% of the US is reported to have an issue with Gaming Addiction.
- In the UK, there are an estimated 700,000 – 1 million people with Video Game Addiction, which means that up to one in every 11 gamers could be considered Addicted.
Ian: Thanks Wendy, that really helps together with Simon’s testimony to paint a picture of gaming and maybe take away some of the stigma in talking about how common gaming is, but also to touch on addiction.
Simon, I understand that a lot of your work is in addiction and recovery. I wonder if you could give us an idea of what addiction is, and how we might apply that specifically to Gaming.
Simon: Cheers Ian, and I appreciate Wendy’s statistics to give us a sense of the prevalence of both addiction and on the gaming population in general.
The definition of addiction really varies depending on what model you approach it from.
The NHS’s site refers to addiction as (“and I’m going to quote”) [look at screen] “not having control over doing, taking, or using something to the point where it could be harmful to you.”
Now, this fits in quite nicely with 12 Step Programs like AA that would define it almost like a disease – Step 1: “we admitted that we were powerless over our gaming – that our lives had become unmanageable”.
Addiction is a bit like being allergic to a substance or behaviour: most folks, for example, will have a glass of wine with a meal, whereas the addict will find themselves unable to stop drinking, and the same with gaming: addiction means being unable to pull ourselves away from our gaming habits – even though we want to, to be powerless over our gaming.
“To use another quote”, The National Institute of Drug Abuse’s definition of addiction includes: “A chronic relapsing disorder, characterised by compulsive drug seeking and use, despite adverse consequences” which emphasises just how much space the addiction takes up and the painful result of that – almost like gaming becomes part of us, and neurologically it does. It changes our brain structures around control, reward, & impulsivity.
Now, if we picture alcohol or drugs – we are likely to also begin to build tolerance to that substance such that we need more of the substance to have the same effect, and eventually we need copious amounts of the substance just to feel normal.
This is the same with behavioural addictions: whether that be shopping, gambling, porn, eating or gaming.
We might start using gaming to feel good or meet our needs, but with Addiction, it gets to a point where we need to game just to feel normal.
Ian: Thanks Simon, that paints a picture of addiction, and how we might apply it to gaming. And with that… could you perhaps touch on some symptoms that we might experience with Gaming Addiction?
Simon: Thanks Ian:
The most obvious one is a compulsion to game and a need to spend increasing amounts of time gaming. Addiction, and spending all of our time gaming, then means that we lose our ability to do other things:
- we might struggle with interoceptive needs like remembering to get enough food, water, and sleep.
- our self-care might decline such as we aren’t bathing or going to the GP. There are physical health impacts from our static posture or staring at a screen, as well as difficulties getting the exercise and daylight that our bodies need.
- We will likely neglect other parts of our lives such as our family & relationships, or work and school which can have financial and developmental consequences. We may also have financial impacts from the game itself such as spending loads of money on loot boxes or new skins which can mirror gambling addiction.
- Our social exposure may be filtered through the games we play, which can make social interaction outside of the game harder, and not give us practice to develop those social skills outside of that game. This can lead to a deep sense of loneliness and only push us deeper into gaming and increase our fears of socialising.
Cravings –when we aren’t gaming, cravings make us think of gaming, like our whole selves are driven towards returning to our consoles. This can rob us of our presence and cause us to get quite frustrated with people close to us that block us from gaming. A common symptom of addiction is also lying or manipulating those around us so that we can use the substance more – for example, we might pull a sicky at work when we’ve just downloaded a new game.
For me, the scariest symptom of addiction, is anhedonia, which means an inability to find joy in anything else besides gaming because nothing else quite fills that hole, making the rest of life seem dull. It mirrors depression, and is sad because with tolerance even the game doesn’t make us happy, but nothing else does either.
Then finally there are risks of it leading into other mental health conditions such as dissociation, concentration difficulties, mood disorders such as depression & anxiety, social phobias, loneliness, paranoia, and existential issues on purpose in life.
Simon: So, these are some of the symptoms of Video Game Addiction, whilst also acknowledging the role gaming can have in our lives.
I recognise that we have three experienced therapists in this room, with thousands of client hours between us.
I also recognise that we all have slightly different ways of working, and would likely all work differently with a client who presented with Video Game Addiction.
So I’m genuinely curious Wendy and Ian, would you be able to say a bit about how you work as a therapist and a bit about how you’d help a person who was struggling with VGA, then perhaps I could also answer?
I think this might also help the audience get a sense of the diversity of approaches that Hope Therapy and Counselling offer, and ‘just as there are loads of philosophies for addiction treatment & we need to find the approach for us. So too, there are lots of different approaches to therapy, & Hope help clients find the right one for them when you make that intro call.
So how about you Ian? How would you work with VGA?
Ian: Thank you, Simon. You’re absolutely right—there are many different approaches to supporting people with gaming addiction.
At Hope Therapy, one of our core values is recognising that every individual is unique. We know that what works for one person may not be helpful for another. That’s why we focus on finding the right form of support for each person we work with, rather than taking a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
For example, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy—or CBT—can be an effective tool for some people struggling with gaming behaviours. CBT helps clients notice the connections between their thoughts, feelings, and actions around gaming. Together, we might explore what triggers a gaming session—perhaps it’s stress, boredom, or social pressures. CBT is very practical in that it teaches you how to challenge automatic thoughts like, “I need to game now to cope,” and develop healthier coping strategies for those moments.
We might also draw on a programme like SMART Recovery, which focuses on building balanced routines, finding other meaningful activities, and regaining a sense of control in your life.
For some, mindfulness can be a powerful addition, helping increase awareness of cravings and learning how to pause before acting. This approach isn’t about simply taking away gaming, but rather exploring ways to meet your needs outside the digital world and finding a healthier balance in your life—always at a pace that’s comfortable for you.
In addition to CBT, SMART Recovery, and mindfulness, there are several other approaches organisations such as Hope may draw upon, always tailored to both the evidence base but also what feels right for the individual. For some clients, counselling or talking therapies offer a supportive space to explore the underlying emotions or challenges connected to gaming. Others may benefit from EMDR, a therapy that can be helpful if past traumatic experiences contribute to gaming as a way to cope. Hypnotherapy can be a useful tool for those wishing to address habits or cravings at a subconscious level.
We work with adults from all backgrounds, including those who are neurodiverse or identify as LGBTQIA+.
Our commitment is always to match you with an approach and a therapist that fits you as an individual, so support feels personal and meaningful.
Wendy, would you like to share how you might approach working with someone experiencing gaming addiction?
Wendy: Thanks, Ian. And for me, As someone who specialises in trauma work, I often see that addictive behaviours—including problematic gaming—can be rooted in past experiences of pain or adversity.
Many clients I work with have lived through difficult situations, whether that’s childhood neglect, bullying, sudden loss, or family instability. Sometimes, gaming becomes a way to numb those overwhelming feelings or to reclaim a sense of safety and control. From a trauma-informed perspective, we make sure to offer a space where you feel safe, not judged, and completely accepted.
Therapies like EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, can be very helpful for those who feel ‘stuck’ in old memories or emotions that fuel their need to escape into games. We can also work gently to notice the links between past hurts and present gaming habits, always at your own pace.
The goal isn’t just to stop the behaviour, but to build healthier strategies for coping with strong emotions or memories, and to help you really understand yourself with kindness. We can explore other trauma-informed approaches too, like the Rewind technique, always checking in with what feels manageable for you.
Above all, my ethos, and the ethos at Hope, is that you’re not alone on this journey—help is always possible, whatever your starting point.
And for you Simon, how would you work with gaming addiction in a Person-Centred way?
Simon: Thanks Wendy and Gosh, Thank you both for your answers. I hope this gives the audience chance to recognise that there are many different approaches to therapy and research seems to fairly consistently prove something called The Dodo Bird Verdict – that all of the different schools of therapy can be fairly equally effective at what they do, & what’s most important is finding an approach that works for you and your preferences, which Hope can help people to find during their introductory calls.
Like you said Ian, Mindfulness can be hugely helpful with cravings and self-awareness of fresh feelings that come up in recovery, and structured approaches like SMART of CBT can be a helpful evidence-based means of working with any addiction, including gaming. You’re also absolutely correct Wendy, that trauma predisposes us to addiction and things like EMDR, Rewind, and Compassion can absolutely help on those things that contribute to our problematic use of gaming.
For me, as you say, I’m a Person Centred Counsellor, which is a relational approach to therapy – very much tailored to you, at your pace, and equipping you to lead the therapy so that you can access that ability to lead your own life out of difficulties.
Person Centred philosophy has three attitudes behind it:
- Firstly radical acceptance –you will be seen as doing your best and wholeheartedly valued throughout the therapy, which has a contagiousness about it, until you can start to find that same value & self-compassion for yourself.
- Secondly, with deep empathy – being curious about your experience, because your world makes sense from your perspective. Being open to how you communicate, whether that be more emotionally, or in a different way. Empathy helps you build connection with yourself.
- thirdly, with realness, helping you to face things that are uncomfortable, and being open to whatever comes up.
To use DnD as an example;
As a therapist, I’d like to form an adventuring party with you, journeying with you to face the BBEG of Video Game Addiction, and recognising that you have your own abilities & skills that will be invaluable in this adventure.
To talk more generally on gaming, I also have a YouTube Channel called Simon’s Listening, and on there, or my website, at www.simonslistening.co.uk , you’ll find two videos on Why Do You Play Videogames.
They expand on the needs you might be meeting in gaming, to see if there are other ways to meet those needs outside of the game, which can help reduce our dependence on gaming.
To summarise those videos, I suggest some needs being met including
To Pause & Escape
Mastery
Levelling up
Optimising
Exploration
Role play
Social Skills & loneliness
Testing Morality
Competition & failure
Fun & Stimulation
Mood regulation
To build empathy
To make decisions
Or because of trauma
Recognising some of the needs we are meeting can help us to meet those needs outside of gaming because your addiction to gaming makes sense when you understand why you’re gaming.
I’d also be interested where you are at in the Stages of Change.
Stopping something we are addicted to is a long journey, and a lot of the decisions happens whilst we are still actively using.
We can’t stop using Gaming if we have nothing to replace it with, so I’d be curious where you’re at and interventions vary depending on this stage.
For example,
- if you’re spending 12 hours a day gaming, and most of your life centres on it, we might be looking at just reducing the harmful effects and seeing how we can build in time for other aspects of self-care or little breaks. We will likely navigate this by talking about your games in session with curiosity rather than any judgement.
- If you’ve stopped gaming, we might be looking at something called Relapse Prevention – which means looking at what might risk you heading back into destructive cycles of Video Game Addiction, risky situations, little cues that we are heading towards a relapse, and how to cope with triggering events. We may also be working out whether abstinence from gaming is what you need, or if you’re able to develop a healthy balance where you can still enjoy gaming in moderation.
- Maybe you feel you have that healthy balance. You’re quite happy with playing Call of Duty for a few hours in the evening, but your partner feels neglected and wants you to reduce your screen time. We might talk about communication, boundaries, and compromise.
- Maybe you’re contemplating change, but there are comorbidities you’d like to work on like social anxiety – you like the thought of a meet-up but you’ve only been able to do it online before, and a face to face fills you with dread, so you are looking to build skills before you are ready to reduce your gaming.
I’d also suggest that addiction is best treated holistically. Addiction thrives in secret and without community. Counselling can be an intervention, but you’ll likely find more success if you can build a network outside of gaming that you can talk with when you’re struggling, and will both support you as well as hold you accountable in your recovery.
I mentioned the 12 steps when I discussed the definition of Powerlessness and there is a 12 Step Program called Gaming Addicts Anonymous which has a few face to face meetings in the UK, and many multinational online meetings.
Wendy Wow, thanks Simon. Really good to explore the different approaches to working with Videogame Addiction, and highlighting the importance of working with people where they are at, alongside other sources of support.
What I’m really hearing from the three of us, is that support is available if you are struggling with Videogame Addiction, so no one needs to face this alone and that organisations like Hope or yourself offer that support that you might need in your recovery.
I noticed you mentioned your website & YouTube Channel, and I wondered if you wanted to again mention how people could get in touch with you or other trained counsellors on the team with Hope Simon.
Simon Thanks Wendy. So you can find out more about me personally on Facebook at Simon’s Listening Counselling Services, my website is www.simonslistening.co.uk, and finally I’m on YouTube at Simon’s Listening where you’ll find a whole playlist on things like autism, video gaming, and geek culture.
I’m also a counsellor on the team with Hope, so you can get in contact with Hope directly if you’d like to work with me or one of the other experienced counsellors, CBT Therapists, Mindfulness coaches, or other professionals who can support you if you feel alone & stuck in your gaming.
Wendy – I have very much enjoyed your own YouTube channel, and wondered if you would also like to plug how viewers might be able to find out more about you?
[Wendy]
Simon Thanks Wendy, well worth people finding out more.
I mentioned being part of the team with Hope. Hope have counsellors across the UK who will have a variety of ways of working that can be adapted to you. As the founder of Hope, I wondered if you wanted to say any more Ian?
Ian Thanks Simon. Yes, as you say, we have a team of highly trained therapists working with various mental health and wellbeing need that can help with things like Videogame Addiction: whether that be using mindfulness to build tolerance to cravings and time away from a game, trauma therapy to address some of the underlying issues that might predispose people to addiction, CBT for a more structured approach to recovery, or a more relational approach like you provide Simon.
People are welcome to look at our website; we have various free resources and a team of really experienced counsellors who are available. We also run groups, courses, and have specialist resources on addiction and many other mental health concerns.
People can look at www.hopefulminds.co.uk
And we also have a YouTube channel (where you may well be listening to this podcast, if not on Spotify) at Hope Therapy and Counselling Services.
Wendy Well, thank you for coming on the podcast Simon, and do listen in next time where we continue with another podcast exploring mental health and wellbeing.