Weed, Coke, Crack, Warcraft?

Yahoo - If Dr. Richard Graham has his way, massively popular online game World of Warcraft will soon get an unofficial new character class: the therapist.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the London psychiatrist is spearheading a movement that would let mental health workers join online game worlds as avatars in order to better treat players suffering from game addiction.

Dr. Graham believes the key is reaching at-risk players on their own turf.

Those affected don't exhibit the same outward warning signs as most teenage anti-social behaviour issues do because they're in their bedrooms most of the time, seemingly out of trouble," he told the Telegraph. "Because of this we can't get through to them in the traditional educational environment or intrude on their actual bedrooms -- we need to turn to the Internet itself to tackle these problems."

The issue of game addiction itself is still quite thorny. The American Medical Association still doesn't consider game addiction to be a legitimate disorder, while other reports -- including a Swedish study claiming that Warcraft is "more addictive than crack cocaine" -- say otherwise.

Graham hopes to launch the project "by the end of the year," and has called on Warcraft maker Blizzard to possibly give therapists free access to the game. He also notes that since most therapists probably aren't Warcraft experts, the project could potentially recruit gamers to act as "peer mentors" and help identify troubled players.

So this is what it has come to? Shrinks joining World of Warcraft as "avatars" (whatever the F that is) to reach out to addicted players? What ever happened to parents telling their kids to get off the computer, go outside and play some ball, read a book, or go have sex for God's sake? There is an obvious problem (see earlier posts regarding Steven, one of our favorite W.O.W freak out culprits) as kids seem to sit their asses in front of a computer playing a virtual game for hours at a time instead of going out and socializing with their peers, drinking underage, smoking pot and just getting into normal young adult and teenager trouble. All the American Medical Association has to do is YouTube "W.O.W Freak Out" to see that this is a growing problem. The Swedes know that an addiction to W.O.W can start at a young age, just like an addiction to Swedish Fish. And if a gamer isn't careful, both can be "more addictive than crack cocaine." Let's hope that World of Warcraft doesn't reach its tentacles into the minds of these therapists. Let's all hope they are prepared for what lurks in virtual reality. Let's hope that someone contacts poor Steven before he tries to shove another remote up his ass again.

And to all you W.O.W player who aren't addicted yet, be careful so you don't end up like this.

Special thanks to my favorite Sooner for the heads-up on this article.