Gaming addiction needs to be taken seriously, I've seen it in my own home - Jayne Dowle

Some patients have been so obsessed with gaming that they’ve threatened family members, or even said they will take their own lives if denied access to their consoles. One kid broke out of his own home in the middle of the night because his parents switched off the internet and walked to his grandmother’s house in the dark. Many others have stolen their parents’ credit cards so they can top up their in-game ‘loot boxes’, which promise in-game rewards in exchange for cash sums. I wish I’d known about gaming addiction a decade ago, when my son was just starting out on his online journey. In a fairly tech-savvy family – his father was a sound engineer and played Crash Bandicoot, one of the first widely-available video games, back in the 1990s – Jack grew up with screens and keyboards.

We believed that technology could empower creativity, and so both Jack and his younger sister had their own iPads from a young age and used them to make films with their friends. However, gaming - as in computer games, online, on a console, in the privacy of his own bedroom - was a different matter. Starting out on the FIFA series of football games, at which he became a master, and then moving onto Call of Duty and Fortnite, Jack gamed compulsively for years.

He was part of international gaming networks, and made virtual friends with people all over the world. Obviously this worried me, so I’d check as far as I could that they were legit and not paedophiles in disguise. But I never knew for absolute sure.

At one point, Jack actually moved out of his own bedroom and into the dining room because it was closer to the internet router. And I let him, because he told me that his room was smelling musty and making him sneeze. Only now, and after I spent ages fumigating his wardrobes, does he confess that it was so he could game faster and for longer, when the rest of the house was asleep upstairs. Only recently has he admitted that he felt addicted. Jack still plays FIFA and various war-type games, but with a job, football commitments and a girlfriend, he’s learned to balance out his enjoyment with the requirements of living a fairly normal life.

His teenage addiction, he also admits, did impact on his GCSEs and concentration levels. If he could turn the clock back, he would pull out the plug at midnight. And so would I.

I was far too lenient, because like so many parents I didn’t realise the extent of his dependence on these dopamine hits until it was far too late. Thankfully, he was strong-minded enough to regulate himself. When I’ve read some of the extremes young people find themselves in, I realise that Jack escaped the worst excesses. However, as a parent, I do believe that gaming addiction needs to be taken far more seriously.

Winning at gaming is a way for young men, in particular, to gain much-needed self-esteem. However, fuelled by aggression and hyper-competitiveness, this does not translate well into real life relationships.

Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones, a psychiatrist and founder and director of the clinic, the NHS gaming disorders centre, says teachers and GPs should be trained to spot signs of gaming addiction and refer children for help.

This is definitely a positive move, if you can actually get the addicted child in front of a teacher or GP.

She also believes that gaming companies should implement self-exclusion mechanisms so people can limit their play, and urges an official ban on loot boxes.

I’m glad that this senior NHS professional is speaking out, because for so long, admitting yourself that your child might have a problem with gaming was very difficult, an admission of parental failure even.

Yet, the latest data, from the UK Safer Internet Centre, shows that 77 per cent of eight to 17-year-olds play games online at least once a week. The possibility of gaming addiction is not someone else’s problem now. It can happen in any family, believe me.