Editor’s note: First of a three-part series on the effects of the playing video games at a high volume, and how one Wisconsin man overcame his addiction and is now thriving.

APPLETON, Wis. — Adam Holman hid it well. The addiction that was controlling his life, the one he’d successfully concealed from friends and family, had its arms wrapped around his ankles and he was about to go down.

He knew this would hurt like hell. And not just him.

This wasn’t about drugs, or alcohol, or gambling. Holman’s addiction was video games.

“When you compare video games to real life,” said Holman, a native of West Bend, “real life ends up feeling extremely boring.”

But let’s pump the brakes for a second. Being addicted to playing video games doesn’t mean you have an addiction. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR), which is used by mental health professionals to diagnose mental disorders, refers to the condition as Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). As of now, IGD is in the section recommending further research, as is caffeine use disorder.

However, in 2019 the World Health Organization included “gaming disorder” as a behavioral addiction. In the DSM, they consider only gambling a behavioral addiction.

It may be hard to believe, but video game addiction is a relatively new field of study. And the number of parents seeking help is growing.

“Absolutely, yes,” said Dr. Mike Bishop, a psychologist who operates Summerland Camps, the first residential treatment program designed for treatment of video game and screen addiction in children and adolescents.

“It’s a fact. These games and devices and websites are all made to be habit forming. The most successful ones are the most habit forming, and you can easily see that with TikTok and YouTube, where the game never ends. The scrolling never ends. And it’s always a competition for your time.”

‘They knew my mom’s voice'

The problem was clear in high school, as Holman’s parents tried to convince him he was addicted to video games.

“I would push back on that really hard,” he said. “I just felt like they didn’t understand.”

In Holman’s corner was the fact he always managed to get by.

“I missed a lot of days of school, notoriously,” he said. “I got called out (sick) so much by my mom, they knew my mom’s voice. I was just able to skate by because it wasn’t difficult enough. I actually could get by without going to school all the time.”

Then it was time for college.

“That just doesn’t work the same way in college,” Holman said. “Also, I was completely on my own, which changed things.”

He enrolled at UW-Milwaukee, where playing video games continued to be more important than attending classes.

“I surrounded myself with a lot of people that were doing the same thing,” he said. “So, it just seemed normal and acceptable to me. In fact, a lot of my friends even encouraged it. Especially when I was getting good. I would get a lot of praise for playing well.”

But success on the gaming console was butting heads with the knowledge he was failing in school. And failing was the one thing he feared most.

“And when I’m playing video games,” he said, “I don’t think of any of this.”

He attended UWM for a year and a half before opting for a change in scenery, enrolling what was then UW-Fond du Lac.

With UWM transcripts in hand, the first thing his advisor asked him is how he was going to approach things differently. Holman said he would dutifully attend his classes and do his homework.

That semester, knowing he was failing again, he dropped all his classes. He was playing up to 16 hours in a day. He tried to re-enroll the next semester but couldn’t because he was on academic suspension. So, he appealed.

“It got to the point,” Holman said, “where they were, ‘Adam, we’re not going to let you go forward from here. You’ve just failed a bunch of semesters. You keep telling us every time you come back, you’re going to do things differently.’

“And I would. It was always the same script.”

Holman understood the secret he held for years was about to be revealed.

“I felt so much shame around the fact that I was failing, because it was a fear of mine,” he said. “That I hid it from everyone, too. So, at that point, no one in my life knew that I was even failing. In fact, I had convinced people I was doing really well, which made it even more scary. Because now, as I’m realizing that there’s a possibility that I drop out of college completely, I’ve told everyone that I’m doing well. And I would have to explain to everyone that I’ve actually been failing this whole time.

“My parents were completely unaware of my grades. The only one who was aware of it was me.”

The realization he may get booted from college forced him to him to face his demons.

“Instead of beating myself up,” he said. “I finally asked the question, ‘What is the reason I don’t want to go to my classes?’ It was at that moment that there was no other path forward that I could see. I had to actually think about the video game use.”

Story idea? You can reach Mike Woods at 920-246-6321 or at: michael.t.woods1@charter.com