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DOCUMENT 1 ILL BEHAVIOUR Page after page, chapter after chapter, when Lucy started reading she simply couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t sleep, eat or speak to anyone until she had completed the story. Then, she’d begin another one. Lucy was addicted to ebooks. At her worst, the 23 year-old student would
DOCUMENT 1 ILL BEHAVIOUR Page after page, chapter after chapter, when Lucy started reading she simply couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t sleep, eat or speak to anyone until she had completed the story. Then, she’d begin another one. Lucy was addicted to ebooks. At her worst, the 23 year-old student would spend 30 hours at a time alone in her bedroom, reading online novels on her laptop. Her head 5 would hurt, her eyes would ache and the hunger would be painful, but she was unable to tear herself away from the screen. (…) Lucy is one of a growing number of people suffering from behavioural addictions. This modern phenomenon manifests itself in the compulsive and repeated actions of an individual from the seemingly mundane, to the understandably thrilling. Gambling is the most well known: 10 pornography, gaming, shopping, and, in Lucy’s case, ebooks, are far less known. Despite the serious damage these conditions can do to people’s lives, there is little to no public funding for treatment and they are often misunderstood. Many do not consider these to be “proper addictions”.(…) Alex, 18, a college student, is a typical example. He has been receiving treatment for his 15 gaming addiction since he was kicked out of school in January. “I was in denial,’ he says. “I’d be going home from school and saying to myself, I can do my homework at school the next day, then I’d just go upstairs and play League of Legends with my friends all evening, for nine hours, until 3am.” Consequently, Alex was “exhausted” at school. “There were times when I’d actually fall asleep in class,” he says. “Rather than thinking about lessons, I was thinking about 20 how I’d improve my performance in video games.” (…) Treatment for behavioural addictions involves a combination of counselling, therapy and abstinence.(…) “My mum took apart my computer and put it away,” Alex says. (…) Alex started having weekly counselling sessions at Broadway Lodge, a rehabilitation centre 25 that in 2009 became the first clinic in the UK to offer treatment specifically for gaming addicts, based on the 12-step abstinence programme popularised by Alcoholics Anonymous. (…) Now, six months on, Alex’s counselling sessions have been reduced and he is beginning to use his computer on weekends. “It’s still a hobby but I wouldn’t let it take over everything else, like personal hygiene, or sleep,” he says. 30 For