Video game and gaming addiction treatment: signs, therapy and how to stop

In this article

1. What is video game addiction?
2. Signs of gaming addiction: video game addiction symptoms at home
3. Effects of gaming addiction
4. When does gaming become a problem?
5. When do you need professional treatment for gaming addiction?
6. Video game addiction treatment: what works
7. How to stop gaming addiction: habits that help
8. Where to get help for gaming addiction
9. Gaming addiction treatment in Cape Town at Renewed Life Center
10. Questions people ask

The World Health Organization lists gaming disorder in ICD-11, so it is a recognised condition with a treatment that has been tested. Renewed Life Center in Lakeside, Cape Town, treats gaming addiction in a two-month residential programme, with the anxiety or low mood under the gaming on the same plan.

What is video game addiction?

Video game addiction, which the WHO calls gaming disorder, is gaming you can no longer control, that comes before almost everything else and carries on despite the damage. The WHO’s ICD-11 adds that the harm to family, study, work or social life would normally have been evident for at least 12 months before a diagnosis is made.

Three features define it: impaired control over gaming, gaming taking priority over other interests and daily activities, and continuing or escalating despite negative consequences. Hours alone do not make the diagnosis. A student who plays all weekend and still sits his exams does not have it; one who has stopped going to lectures to play does.

Is video game addiction real?

Yes. A 2021 review of 53 studies in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (Stevens and colleagues) put gaming disorder at 3.05% of people worldwide, or 1.96% when only the most rigorous samples were counted. Rates were about 2.5 times higher in males and higher in adolescent samples. The WHO recognises it in ICD-11, and the DSM-5 lists internet gaming disorder as an emerging condition.

Signs of gaming addiction: video game addiction symptoms at home

The clearest sign is losing control: playing far longer than planned, again and again, and failing every time you try to cut down. At home, someone addicted to video games tends to look like this:

• “One more match” at 11 pm that ends at 4 am, several nights a week.
• Lectures, shifts or school mornings missed because of the night before.
• Meals eaten at the desk, showers skipped, friends who stopped calling.
• Anger or panic when the console is switched off or the Wi-Fi goes down.
• Money spent on in-game items that nobody can account for.
• Gaming as the only way to stop feeling anxious, bored or low.

A study from England’s National Centre for Gaming Disorders shows how far it goes before people get help. Across 380 referrals presented at the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ 2024 congress, the average age was 19, 60% were aged 13 to 18, and people gamed 10 hours a day on average. When someone interrupted their gaming, 46% became aggressive and 30% were physically violent towards family members.

Effects of gaming addiction

Gaming addiction hits sleep first, then study or work, then relationships and money. Nights at the screen leave the next day for sleeping or for being exhausted, and marks or performance reviews slide before anyone names the cause.

Money is a quieter effect. In the same group of 380 referrals, the average spent on in-game purchases by the time of referral was £4,500. Mental health is often tangled in: 1 in 8 had an existing mental health condition and 1 in 10 had a diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorder. Isolation feeds the cycle as online friends slowly replace the ones at home.

Physical effects come from the hours themselves: tiredness, skipped meals, little movement and a body that has not been outside for days.

When does gaming become a problem?

Gaming is an addiction when you cannot stop when you want to and it starts costing you something you care about. Plenty of people play for hours and are fine; what separates them is control and harm.

Healthy play or problem gaming?

Ask yourself three questions. Can you cut your gaming when you need to? Do you get upset when you cannot play? Are your marks, work or relationships getting worse? Yes to all three, kept up over months, is the pattern the WHO describes.

When do you need professional treatment for gaming addiction?

You need professional treatment when you have tried to cut down and could not, when gaming is damaging study, work or family, or when it has become the way you cope with anxiety or low mood. The last one matters most. Gaming is often doing a job: it switches off worry, fills a lonely evening, or keeps something painful out of reach. Take the console away without treating that, and the urge is likely to come back.

That reason is what we treat. Ruby Weber, our psychologist, has spent more than 20 years in the addictions field with South African and international clients, treating both chemical and process addictions, with a particular interest in how trauma feeds them. She leads the psychological side of our dual diagnosis work, so the anxiety, depression or trauma under the gaming is treated in the same place and on the same plan. Around her are people who know the pull from the inside: John Roberts has 39 years in recovery, and Nikki Edwards, our Programme Director and Clinical Manager, has 11. People choose us because we work on why someone games, as well as on the hours.

Video game addiction treatment: what works

Treatment of video game addiction combines individual CBT, group work, a rebuilt daily routine and family involvement, with depression or anxiety treated alongside. There is no pill for gaming disorder; the work is done in therapy and in the hours that gaming used to fill.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

CBT is the best-studied treatment for gaming addiction. A 2019 meta-analysis of 12 studies by Stevens and colleagues found CBT cut gaming disorder symptoms strongly (g = 0.92), and also lowered depression (g = 0.80) and anxiety (g = 0.55). In CBT you log when and why you play, find the triggers, test the thoughts that say “one more round is fine”, and build other ways to handle stress and boredom.

The same review found the gains were no longer statistically significant at follow-up, so every discharge from our programme includes a written plan for life back home. A 2025 systematic review of 22 studies in adolescents and young adults also found CBT the most effective intervention, and the results were better still when CBT was combined with physical exercise or mindfulness.

Group therapy and support

Groups replace the online squad with people in the room. In group, people hear their own excuses in someone else’s voice, get honest feedback and are held to their goals. In our programme that means daily groups, including schema therapy, DBT, relapse prevention and process group, plus a 12-step meeting every evening.

Routine, movement and the body

Gaming often takes over the body’s clock, so treatment rebuilds it. A residential day gives sleep, meals and movement a fixed shape: up at 07:00, therapy through the morning, yoga, pilates, Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), walks and, on Saturdays, an outing such as a hike or pottery. This is the “CBT plus exercise or mindfulness” combination from the 2025 review, built into the week.

Family involvement

Family support makes new limits stick at home. The family learns what to expect, how to react to anger at a switched-off screen, and how to keep house rules without a war every night. Our family support group meets every Wednesday at 18:00 on Zoom, so parents and partners can join from anywhere.

Is medication used for gaming disorder?

Medication is not the treatment for gaming disorder itself. When depression, anxiety or ADHD sits underneath, a psychiatrist selects medication where it is needed, and it goes on the same plan as the therapy.

How to stop gaming addiction: habits that help

How to stop video game addiction starts with the setting: take the console or PC out of the bedroom, set fixed hours and tell someone your limit so they can hold you to it. Willpower alone loses to a device in arm’s reach.

• Decide the hours in advance, for example weekends only, or never after dinner, and use the timers built into consoles and phones.
• Log out, delete saved passwords, remove payment cards from game accounts, uninstall the one game that always runs late.
• No gaming at meals or in the hour before bed.
• Plan what fills the old gaming hours: sport, a walk, a class, people in person.
• Write down hours and spending each week. Numbers on paper cut through “it was only a bit”.

If you have tried these more than once and slid back each time, that is the loss of control the WHO describes, and the point to get help with the reason behind it.

Where to get help for gaming addiction

Help for gaming addiction comes from therapists trained in behavioural addictions, specialist clinics, and residential programmes when outpatient help has not held. In the UK, the NHS runs the National Centre for Gaming Disorders, the first NHS clinic to accept referrals from both adults and young people. It opened in 2019 and had received over 1,000 referrals by 2024; it treats people in England aged 13 and over.

Weekly sessions work for some people. Others go home after each session to the same room, the same console and the same routine, and nothing changes. A residential stay takes the setting away while the work on the cause gets done.

Gaming addiction treatment in Cape Town at Renewed Life Center

At Renewed Life Center, gaming addiction is treated as what it is: a way of coping that has stopped working. We are a residential rehab in Lakeside, in Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs, close to Muizenberg beach, with the mountain ridge right behind the house. It sits on our published list of treated conditions, next to gambling, sex and love addiction and other behavioural addictions.

The first month is residential: you live at the centre, get steady, and have therapy every weekday, with individual psychotherapy typically three sessions a week and group therapy five or more. The second month is deeper work on what the gaming was covering. Our standard stay is two months, followed by a transition month or sober living if you need a gradual return home. Every discharge includes a written relapse-prevention plan built for your home.

Admission can be immediate and typically happens within three days of first contact. We are paid directly, so no scheme decides how long you stay. The fee depends on the programme and its length; we give it on the free first call and send it in writing the same day.

International clients, including from the UK and the US, come to us regularly. Treatment costs around €3,000 to €4,000 a month, we meet you at Cape Town airport and take you back when you leave, and flights are booked separately.

Nobody arrives with the right words. A parent can write for a son who will not, and a partner can write about the nights that end at dawn. Tell us who is gaming, how old they are and what has changed, and we will tell you the first step. Tell us who is gaming.

More on how a week runs in what happens in rehab, day by day, and on treating the anxiety or depression underneath in why dual diagnosis treatment matters. If betting has joined the gaming, read gambling addiction help in South Africa; for the brain’s reward side, see dopamine addiction.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. World Health Organization, Gaming disorder (ICD-11 frequently asked questions)
2. Stevens et al., Global prevalence of gaming disorder, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2021
3. Stevens et al., Cognitive-behavioral treatment for internet gaming disorder: a meta-analysis, 2019
4. Systematic review of interventions for internet gaming disorder in adolescents and young adults, 2025 (PMC12025817)
5. National Centre for Gaming Disorders, RCPsych International Congress 2024 abstract, BJPsych Open (PMC11738663)
6. Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, National Centre for Gaming Disorders

This article is general information, not medical advice.