LEYDEN — A national behavioral health care organization is seeking to open a retreat for young adults with compulsive internet and video game use.
Odyssey Behavioral Healthcare went before the Planning Board last week regarding its plan to buy and convert Angels’ Rest Retreat Center at 63 North County Road into a specialized treatment facility.
After much deliberation between residents and representatives of Odyssey at Town Hall, the Planning Board adjourned without making a decision. The board will meet again for its regularly scheduled meeting Aug. 14.
Bill Parsons, vice president of development, said the center would serve young adults, mostly men ages 18 to 25, who experience compulsive internet use, specifically compulsive internet gaming.
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognized “gaming disorder” or “video game addiction” as a mental health disorder on May 25, 2019. Gaming disorder is defined by WHO as “a pattern of gaming behavior (‘digital-gaming’ or ‘video-gaming’) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.”
The proposed center’s mission is “to provide the tools and coping skills needed to interact with the internet and technology in a healthier and more balanced way,” Parsons said.
The program would launch housing five patients but could expand to 30 patients over the next few years. Patients would live at the center for 45 to 90 days. At least two employees would be on the grounds 24 hours a day to moderate the facility.
Currently, Angels’ Rest, which hosts retreats and events, operates under a special permit granted in 2003. Odyssey needs the Planning Board to grant it a necessary extension for the new center to operate.
In addition to purchasing the property at Angels’ Rest, Odyssey hopes to buy the home of Angels’ Rest owner Jennifer Paris, at 155 Mid County Road, to be used for “counseling and therapeutic services” and off-site office space.
The new center would be dubbed The Greenfield Center, after Dr. David Greenfield, who attended last week’s Planning Board meeting. Greenfield is the founder of The Center for Internet and Technology Addiction, and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
“The problem of technology and gaming addiction is hitting its tipping point,” Greenfield said.
Greenfield outlined a number of factors that contribute to internet and video game addiction. Internet and video game use tends to spur increases in dopamine activity in the brain, he said. Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that triggers feelings of pleasure, reward and compulsion. Additionally, people tend to suffer from time distortion and lose time while looking at screens. This combination of time distortion and increased dopamine activity prove to be a dangerous combination.
Denise Paul, the mother of one of Greenfield’s patients, also spoke at the meeting. She said her son struggled with video game addiction and sought help from Greenfield. Before struggling with his addiction, he was recruited to Stonehill College for baseball as a left-handed pitcher.
“In six months, he lost his scholarship and had to medically withdraw from school — not from drugs, just video games,” Paul said. “We are the first generation of parents raising kids with all of this technology, we didn’t know how bad it could be.”
After seeking help, Paul said the only treatment program for video game addiction in the country was in Washington state. According to Paul, the treatment center helped her son “fall back in love with what life is supposed to be.” A year after leaving for treatment, her son is now working and has registered for classes this fall.
Academic difficulty is the number one reason young adults and their parents call Greenfield for advice and treatment, he said. They are struggling with behavioral and process addiction, which differs from substance addiction.
According to Greenfield, the time it takes for patients to detox from video game and technology abuse is shorter than those dealing with substance addictions. While he has worked with thousands of patients struggling with internet and gaming addiction, Greenfield said he has never seen a patient act violently in response to this type of program.
Many Leyden residents spoke following the presentation portion of the meeting, expressing concerns with how the facility may impact the town.
Parsons said Odyssey is interested in the town of Leyden because of its “peaceful” wooded surroundings and the area’s connection to nature. They looked at locations in Lenox, Hadley, Pittsfield and Springfield, but Angels’ Rest is best suited for this type of program, he said.
When asked about the screening process for the program, Greenfield said patients with serious psychiatric illnesses would not be compatible, and therefore they would not be treated at this location.
“The most likely thing you will see with these patients is Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD),” Greenfield said.
Multiple residents inquired about the supervision of patients, and their ability to leave the property. One person asked about the possibility of increasing the facility’s security. In light of their concerns, Greenfield said they would make a plan to add cameras to the area’s perimeter, and implement an alert system for the doors.
One resident spoke up to say his daughter has struggled with opioid addiction since she was a teenager. He said it would be an “amazing” opportunity to combat a form of addiction in town, especially when he has seen comparable struggles among so many people in the region.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 264.