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Recovery

Written by Andrew Doan, MD, PhD on .

The video game addict must address the root causes leading to the behavioral addiction. Otherwise, relapse will occur. Over the years of training and working with my church in the marriage mentor program and recently as a Celebrate Recovery leader, the root causes of addictions are profound personal hurts, habits, and hang-ups. We all have varying degrees of emotional baggage, some we can let go but others we hold-on to. The ones we hold-on to will affect us until we identify and address them. For instance, if the individual was abused as a child and unable to develop self-confidence in real life, then the person may turn to video games where he has control and power. Unless the issue of abuse is addressed, the video game addict will relapse and continue to turn to the digital world for escape. I encourage everyone to try the options offered by the secular world if God is not yet part of your life and you’re not willing to consider God as an option. If the secular world alone does not succeed in helping with the video game addiction or addictive behavior, then please consider the following 12-steps with an open mind and heart to allow God to help. God will get rid of past hurts, habits, and hang-ups associated with the root causes of video game addiction and behavioral addictions.

We recommend you find a local Celebrate Recovery group for weekly face-to-face meetings: http://www.celebraterecovery.com/

Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered recovery program for people with addictive behaviors. The twelve-step program helps people with hurts, hang-ups, and habits. This recovery program has been launched in over seventeen thousand churches and has had over seven hundred thousand graduates of the program.

Celebrate Recovery 12 Step Program

  1. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors. That our lives have become unmanageable. (Romans 7:18 NIV- I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.)
  2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. (Philippians 2:13 NIV - For it is God who is at work in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.)
  3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. (Romans 12:1 NIV - Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.)
  4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. (Lamentations 3:40 NIV - Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.)
  5. We admitted to God, ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. (James 5:16 NIV – Therefore, confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed.)
  6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. (James 4:10 – Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.)
  7. We humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings. (1 John 1:9 NIV – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.)
  8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. (Luke 6:31 NIV – Do to others as you would have them do to you.)
  9. We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. (Matthew 5:23-24 NIV – Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.)
  10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. (1 Corinthians 10:12 NIV – So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!)
  11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and power to carry that out. (Colossians 3:16a NIV – Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.)
  12. Having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others, and practice these principles in all our affairs. (Galatians 6:1 NIV – Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.)