Web has help for gaming, Internet addicts

Addicted to drugs, alcohol or love?

Are you addicted to the Internet? To gambling?

To Internet gambling?

Counseling and other help are available. On the Internet, of course.

One of the leading providers of mental health care to gambling industry employees is setting up an Internet site to promote emotional health and to help people identify and overcome various addictions.

PHC Inc. of Peabody, Mass., announced this month it will use the site to promote its expertise in fields ranging from chemical dependency programs to behavioral health services.

PHC does business as Pioneer Behavioral Health in some states and in Nevada as Harmony Healthcare. PHC says it covers about 250,000 people in Nevada. Many work for casino companies including Mirage Resorts, MGM Grand, Boyd Gaming, Station Casinos, Stratosphere, the Rio and the Resort at Summerlin.

PHC intends to charge fees to users of the Internet site for access to resources like bulletin boards, news groups and forums on topics like stress management, financial planning and parenting.

PHC said it will include "self-evaluation questionnaires, compatibility profiles and may provide clinical and medical questions and answers addressing such problems as Internet, computer and gambling addictions."

PHC President Bruce Shear said in an interview that the site will be educational and won't directly refer users to PHC services.

But the added exposure will likely generate business for PHC. And besides collecting fees for its services, the site itself will bring in revenue by referring users to buy books or other resources about their particular maladies. Suppliers of these resources would pay commissions or fees to PHC.

These types of arrangements are already common on the Internet. Someone searching the online portal Yahoo! for information about online addictions, for example, sees an ad for books on that topic sold by online bookseller Amazon.com.

Shear said part of the Internet site will be a value-added service for existing customers.

"Am employee of a casino who has a computer at home who had gone through a treatment program can communicate with his therapist," Shear said. "We'll use that as a way to e-mail ex-patients about upcoming events. It's just amazing the speed of communications and the messages we can get to people."

And people who think they have problems can go to the site for quick, online testing for a fee that Shear said would be less than $50.

"Someone in the comfort of their home who thinks they may have an addiction to gambling, they would fill out a profile, which would be scored immediately and tell them whether they're at risk," Shear said. "That goes for all the addictions. Internet and gambling are probably the fastest-growing addictions."

Shear said PHC's site will not provide actual counseling or therapy online, but would refer users to appropriate resources.

But online mental health counseling is already being sold on the Internet and the counseling industry expects such services to grow.

Internet addictions, especially, are expected to grow right along with use of the Internet. The American Psychological Association reported in 1996 that research showed the Internet can be as addicting as alcohol, drugs and gambling.

Courtland Lee, president of the American Counseling Association, wrote last year that there are legitimate concerns about the quality of counseling over the Internet.

But he said an emerging generation of clients is used to communicating via e-mail and Internet discussion groups and it would be foolish not to expect this generation to desire Internet counseling services. He said the industry must make online counseling "safe, effective and ethically sound."

Carol O'Hare, executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, reserved judgment on PHC's new Internet site until she sees it.

But she noted gamblers can avoid fees and learn if they have a problem for free by answering Gamblers Anonymous's 20 questions, which are widely available and posted on the Nevada council's website nevadacouncil.org. They are questions like "Have you ever lost time from work or school due to gambling?" and "Have you ever felt guilty after gambling?"

Critics may complain online counseling for Internet or Internet gambling addicts is like having an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in a tavern and a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in a casino.

But O'Hare hopes the Internet can help gambling addicts.

"That has interesting applications in a state like Nevada with small communities where they may not have the facilities a city has. The big question is 'Can you do it in a regulated way. Is the individual protected? Does the person have the credentials and training to provide counseling?"'

archive