ABSTRACT
When I first started the clinic, a young man came to me in great distress. This was his story. He was a self-employed designer. He owned his flat. He lived a relaxed lifestyle. He would get up in the morning, go to the computer. He would spend the next four to five hours searching for sex. Eventually he would find someone for sex. This happened regularly. He was doing little work because he spent so much time in pursuit of sexual engagement that there was little motivation to do anything else. He had remortgaged his flat to maintain his financial position. This man had no structure in his day and little self-discipline; he was caught up in a vortex. He was addicted to the internet and, through the internet, to offline encounters. This had been continuing for many years. As Greenfield notes in an early book on internet addiction, Virtual Addiction, ‘It is an attractive and easy way to immediately alter your reality’ (1999: 35). Greenfield also writes that ‘it creates power, exhilaration and intensity’ (1999: 27). It can also create disaster.
