Aboutvanessaoz Expertise I have been online for five years now and I come in contact everyday with people online who have all kinds of stories about why they are online and the time spent here. I feel confident that i can guide someone with an addiction on the right path or help someone know if they are addicted or not.
Experience I spend many hours a day online and spoken to people who have been addicted to the net. When i first discovered the internet, i know i became very addicted to it so i speak from personal experience about how it effected my friends and family.
Question This is my first time using this website, so hopefully I'll come up with some help in all this mess.
So, basically my boyfriend, now 26, is addicted to his computer - not just web surfing, but also playing videogames, as well as overeating. His food habits are appauling. The guy seems to think fat is a food group, and the sheer quantity of food he eats is unreal. His father has had liposuction about a half dozen times, and both his sister and ex-girlfriend have struggled with eating disorders in the past. I realise his family isn't the healthiest environment when it comes to eating right, but the worst thing is he is constantly trying to get me to eat all the same junk he's slowly killing himself with, despite having told him my feelings on several occasions. A while ago I literally told him that his cooking made me want to throw up, because after almost 2 years of asking him nicely to stop offering me greasy, sugary, fatty foods I really don't enjoy, he still brings me breakfast in bed, well over 2000 calories at a shot. Which puts me in a situation where I can't complain that I have a man willing to make me breakfast in bed, but it seems his kind gesture is really an attempt to make me fat, despite the countless times I've told him I neither enjoy this kind of food, not have any desire to try it, especially first thing in the morning! And if he's not eating, he's sitting in front of his computer playing videogames, chatting with other "gamers", or watching videos of everything from cartoons to youtube injury compilations. When he's not sitting on his backside, clicking a mouse and shovelling 87000 calories into his mouth, he's being a total workaholic (he's a chef, no less), spending 18 hour days in the kitchen and getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night, 6 or 7 nights a week. He seems to live in the extremes, and it's impossible for someone like me to adapt to the neverending series of problems he presents. One minute he's killing himself with work, the next with food, the next with his computer. Granted, the computer is probably the least dangerous of all his weird little habits, but watching him decay like this is killing me. I have tried everything I possibly could to help him get on track, but the fact is, I also have a life and responsibilities, and it's not my job to be the mother his own mom couldn't be. I can't just quit my job or drop out of school to be his full time food and internet police. The guy has no self-discipline, and although I do see him trying, it seems his addictions are stronger than to two of us combined.
I don't know what more to do. He's talked about seeing a councellor and a dietician, but part of his addictions of being totally lazy and I know actually making an appointment and keeping it may or may not materialize. Also, he complains he never has any money, but he can pay per month to play a videogame, buy a new computer or videocard, or he can spend five times what I spend on groceries and go to restaraunts, but he can't find the money to get help. It's a never-ending cycle!!
Yesterday I was ready to leave him. I don't want to break up, because despite all this, he really is a wonderful, caring man who I'm fortunate enough to say is also one of my best friends. We have a very honest relationship and we've been through alot together travelling and sharing some major life milestones in such a short time.
I need to understand why someone would allow themselves to rot like this! He says he doesn't know why he does what he does, but to me it just seems like he's got a wound that just won't heal, and he's trying to bury it under pixelated demons and chat rooms and a half a pound of bacon.
Please help. I haven't the energy or the time to watch over him and monitor him. His willpowers isn't enough to beat this thing, and getting him to take the first step seems impossible. I can't stage an intervention because his family are all a bunch of food / drug addicts themselves and probably wouldn't know destructive behavious if it bit them in the face. His only other friends are internet pals or fellow chefs and that really doesn't help me one bit.
Any advice you can offer would be most appreciated. Thanks for reading this little rant of mine. I've really no one else to talk to.
Answer hi,
thanks for emailing me and i will try to offer you the best advice i can give.
i know what your going through to some extent. my story doesnt have a happy ending because the love of my life passed away in august of this year because he had numerous problems with his health due to not getting enough exercise ( spending too much time on pc ) and eating the wrong foods.
it was made harder because i live on the other side of the world and over the last six years he has been in an out of the hospital, once going to a clinic in new york for obesity problems. he lost weight and gained weight and eventually his heart and organs just couldnt take it anymore and he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure at 32 and passed away just after his 34th birthday.
im not writing this to scare you but to tell you that this is a problem just as you typed it to me and im know you care about him very much and i dont want this to happen to you also.
you brought tears to my eyes because i could feel the pain your going through, i tried so much to get him to do the right thing and he promised me he would, but he never did. its not too late for you boyfriend to make those changes and live a wonderful life with you.
the main problem is that your trying hard and he isnt listening to you. i would say to let him read this but im not sure if you want him to know you have gone to this length to get advice to help him through this.
he has to be the one who wants to make the changes to both is eating habits and his internet addiction. other then pulling the plug on his pc ( which i would be tempted to do) there isnt much you can do. being on his back isnt going to help, men have very good selective hearing and what you say wont mean a thing as i feel you are seeing this for yourself now.
being a chef, im suprised he doesnt have better eating habits but he shouldnt be forcing them onto you. again, he has to make the changes and only if he wants to change.
i was accused of nagging at times because i would ask him if he got any exercise or what he ate today, eventually we did break up just a few months before he died and im sure it was over my constant questioning him on this issue. i just wanted him alive, but that was not to be.
if you feel showing this to your boyfriend might snap him out of his addictions then please show him. if i can help one person by sharing my story, then it will be worth it and darrell want died in vain.
