The Al-Dana Centre for Girls affiliated to Ministry of Culture and Sports has organized a remotely-conducted course for its members via its social media platforms entitled (Role of Family in protecting its children from danger of Behavioural Addiction.) The course tackled many topics, including foundations of family upbringing to prevent deviations, methods of developing a sense of perception and mental awareness, role of social media and movies, signs of approaching the state of addiction, psychological handling of cases of addiction.
In the beginning, psychologist Dr. Muhammad Al-Anzi, emphasized the need for families to monitor their children against symptoms of behavioural addiction. During the workshop organized by Centre, Al-Anzi defined Behavioural Addiction as one of the internationally recognized types of addiction diseases. This includes forced participation in a certain behaviour that results in a fake feeling of happiness. It occurs in a manner that is similar to that of the reward system. It is activated in the brain when consuming drugs or alcohol. An individual continues to practice behavioural addiction despite the risks and symptoms he/she becomes exposed to when doing that and as a result. During the workshop, Dr. Al-Anzi discussed Daniel Patrick’s case. This was a 16-year-old who, in 2007, was considered one of the most notorious victims of behavioural addiction in the world. His addiction had reached the extent that he shot his parents for being deprived of the video game that he was addicted to. Naturally, neither him nor his family predicted that such an effect would result from his behavioural addiction leading to the complete devastation of his future. Dr. Al-Anzi further provided an explanation of the psychology of drug addicts. He pointed out that they tend to like people who are interested in new experiences, looking for pleasure, prone to disorder and lack of discipline and willing to ignore social norms. Moreover, drug users may be to some extent emotionally disturbed as well.