Caught in the Web

Sherry Cusumano, director of Green Oaks' adolescent unit, says the hospital uses the 12-step program (devised by Alcoholics Anonymous and used by other groups such as Overeaters Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous) as a "framework" or a "map" for addressing a variety of problems, not just addiction. "It's a tool patients can use outside of the hospital, on their own. Some people are addicts, others have bad habits. Green Oaks defines addiction as a behavior that causes consequences in a person's life--if there are dramatic and sudden changes in their peer group, if they went from being quiet to being openly rebellious, if their grades drop, if they abandon family ties that used to be close." By this definition, Zach is an addict. "It's harder to tell with kids; it's more cut and dried when they're adults. The need for privacy is normal, but secrecy is not."

Of course, it's easy to be flip and say that most parents would be thrilled if Internet "addiction" were their kid's biggest pitfall, but depression, dependence, and self-destructive behavior are dangerous problems--no matter how they manifest. Dr. Jerry Lewis, a Dallas psychiatrist who works with children, adolescents, and adults, agrees with Cusumano that "An avid interest becomes an obsession when it interferes with normal activities...when the relationship to the addiction is more important than other relationships." He adds, "Addictions end up as replacements for relationships. Usually an addict is experiencing some kind of pain in their relationships--not necessarily because of the environment; it could be their needs are excessive. So they withdraw from the interpersonal into the perverse relationship--eating, drugs, or whatever--while they continue to starve emotionally." The result is depression.

The first thing to establish to overcome traditional depression is a network of friends to keep yourself balanced. Zach had an Internet full of friends, yet that's what he had to give up. Lewis points out, "The Net is a web of relationships, of course, but they're really just a sliver of a physical relationship, and they require a very intense intimacy."

Levy counters that "physical relationships can be a 'sliver' of a real relationship. You can have a sexual relationship, for instance, where you're not mentally engaged. Lots of relationships are a 'sliver' of a whole relationship."

Zach's craving wasn't for a controlled substance--it was for greater knowledge and for involvement with a peer group, a truer peer group, perhaps, than the one in his physical world. But this drive on the Superhighway was a dead end. He'd lost interest in school; in the hospital, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to go back to St. Mark's at all. His mother says at this point she "shut up, backed off, and let him find his own path" even though she felt strongly that Zach should stick with St. Mark's and go to college--because the things he needs to learn, the tools he needs to use, are there. It's one thing to drop out of college, like Microsoft's Bill Gates did; it would be disaster for Zach to crash before he got there.

"There are all kinds of addictions. Some you can control. Some you have to give up completely. You can't give up food, for instance," says Zach, repeating what he learned in the hospital. And for a family like the Loafmans, and a boy like Zach, it's as unthinkable to turn off the computer as it is to throw out everything in the pantry. We're already a computer-dependent society, and for Zach's generation, computers and the Internet will be as vital as the telephone or the car is now. He comes from a family of computer people. After his time at Green Oaks, Zach moved back with his mom again, a programmer for TI. She's married to a programmer, a former ham radio junkie who remembers that his own teenage passion for hardwiring was similar to Zach's obsession with computers.

"Zach was raised with the computer," says his mother Jeri. "It's hard to say when it got to be an obsession. During the summer, he had extra spare time, so the computer seemed like a good thing for him to concentrate on. MUD presented a programming challenge he hadn't experienced before." Like most hackers, Zach has always had a voracious appetite for new computer challenges. And during school, as long as his grades were good, she didn't worry too much. "How do you tell when your child is going through normal teenage ups and down and when he's depressed? He got real grumpy and he wouldn't do his schoolwork."