Swedish Radio News reports the creation of Sweden’s first support group for the relatives of computer game addicts.

The group, in the southern city of Trelleborg, has been started by the mother of a 19 year old who threatened to kill himself and her, and then ran away from home so he could continue to play computer games.

The story comes originally from the newspaper “Sydsvenska Dagbladet” which reports that the teen’s family became aware of the problem in the first year of high school, when the son began to receive failing grades, followed by a series of “lies, game playing at night, truancy” and then the threat to kill himself and his mother, before he ran away.

The mother and another parent started the group after listening to a lecture about gambling addiction. They recognized that the problems were similar, and tried in vain to get help from the social services authorities, who refused to even provide a place for the support group to meet. They finally found help from the Swedish equivalent of Gamblers Anonymous in nearby Malmö.

The group has offered to provide information to the local social services about the dangers of computer game addiction, but the authorities have shown no interest.

The mother tells “Sydsvenska Dagbladet” that longer holidays, such as the recent Christmas vacation, are the most dangerous periods for computer game dependence. Parental control is minimal, kids daily rhythms are fluid, and there are no demands for them to get up early in the morning to go to school.

In November, Swedish Radio News reported that a 15 year old has been placed in foster care by social welfare workers in the province of Dalsland, because of his addiction to computer games. This was apparently the first case of its kind in Sweden.

The teen had stopped going to school and spent whole nights playing games. When his parents tried to get him to stop, he reportedly turned aggressive.