Posted by uncouth on July 29, 2008, at 9:28:38
In reply to Re: Internet addiction - help! » Marty, posted by yxibow on July 29, 2008, at 2:27:54
This was mean to be a serious question and thread with hopes for some serious solutions, pharmaceutical or otherwise.
"Addiction" may not be the best term -- perhaps compulsion is. All I know is that for the last five years the first thing I do when I wake up is grab my laptop, and get back into bed. Sometimes it's for 10 minutes, othertiens (say on weekends) its for 2 hours. It happens before I even know what I'm doing. And what I do on it usually has no predetermined goal or aim.
Seems like classlic defensive/compulsive behavior, and in some form it's gone on since highschool probably.
I did notice that on a 3 month trial of Emsam, the amount of time I used the computer decreased, and the sense of being "stuck" or zombified was reduced. Almost like I had more choice or an increase in will....which i'm sure is how an alchoholic or any other addict would describe any med that helped his/her addiction.
So now that i'm not on Emsam anymore, and am looking for other pharmaceutical interventions, can anyone provide any useful suggestions? Willing to try buprenorphine or naltrexone, but not sure if those have ever been used for internet addiction, although they seem to have some positive effects for depression.
General idea is to treat a compulsion to use the internet that is likely a manifestation of both a depressive defense against negative affect, depressive boredom, and an attentional problem (need those squirts of dopamine).
Internet/computer use is complex and I was hoping to get some more helpful responses here!
Uncouth
poster:uncouth
thread:842485
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080727/msgs/842792.html