It’s a Friday night, and the TV blares with an announcement of the 20th “triple kill” of the night. Garfield High School junior AJ Ostrow is sprawled across his couch, an Xbox 360 controller between his commanding fingers. Ostrow’s schedule for the weekend is relatively vacant, and chances are he’ll spend around 20 hours playing Halo 3. Ostrow, unlike many of his Halo-playing friends, isn’t ashamed of his time-eating habit, and believes he’s in control of his playing.

Video game addiction is an under-addressed but increasingly prevalent problem, as people put more and more hours into their next Call of Duty achievement. But recently, Seattle has been at the trailblazing forefront in terms of tackling this obsession.

Last July, the ReStart center opened just outside of Redmond. A treatment center for gaming, internet and texting addictions, ReStart is the first clinic of its kind to be opened in the United States.

Patients voluntarily enroll in ReStart’s 45-day program based on their own self-assessment of their problem. Logically, the center advertises its programs via their website which lists symptoms such as cravings, withdrawal and neglect of friends and family and offers a quiz to determine your level of addiction in addition to people’s stories of overuse of everything from Facebook to Minesweeper.

Ostrow doesn’t view his Halo playing as an addiction, but the hour and a half daily minimum that he puts in is considerably more than most.

“There are times when I could call people up, but instead I choose to just play video games,” says Ostrow.

Senior Tommy Dietrich is another Garfild student who spends considerable time exercising his thumbs behind the video game console. Dietrich, a member of the competitive video game team Check M8, is another gamer who prefers Halo 3 on Xbox 360. He doesn’t think that ReStart is something he needs, but has experienced a number of the symptoms brought up when talking about any addiction.

“The most negative effect it had on me was lack of motivation in school and soccer, which I’d been working hard at all my life,” says Dietrich.

Upon enrolling, addicts pay $14,500 which goes partially to cover the wages of the on-site therapists and life skills coaches. The ReStart program takes addicts out to the nature-surr-ounded setting of Heavensfield Retreat Center in Fall City, Wash., with the goal of decreasing the patients reliance on the internet and video games. This is approached via fitness programs, counseling, and vocational coaching, all while trying to restore their previous interests.

Fellow junior and Halo 3 player Max Willis, a team member of Dietrich’s who plays on Xbox Live and has probably come across the same sort of people, sees time with the controller as completely controllable.

“I don’t think there is such a thing as being addicted — to video games at least,” says Willis.

Willis, one of the more skilled gamers in the Garfield community, doesn’t think he or any of his friends will ever pay $14,500 for a program like ReStart. But a study by University of Medicine Berlin psychologist Dr. S.M. Grüsser found that 12 percent of study participants would have received a diagnosis of addiction for their gaming habits if their rounds of “Social Slayer” were replaced with rounds of vodka. As someone with firsthand experience, Willis sees a gap between what he does and the routines of an alcoholic.

“When someone is addicted to alcohol they may bring it to school, so they can get that feeling all the time. I don’t bring my Xbox to school, or drive all the way home just to hear ‘double kill!’,” says Willis.

Nottingham Trent University psychologist Darren Chappell was the first to classify video game addiction, but nothing about video game addiction has yet been added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a standard manual published by the American Psychiatric Association.

These addictions along with attempts at solutions are rapidly spreading across Asia. South Korea considers this one of it’s top public health issues, estimating over 200,000 addicted youth. According to an article in the American Journal of Psychology, around 10 million Chinese teens are addicted to the internet. One primary way to access video games is through internet cafes.

China has opened about 300 camps devoted to adressing internet addiction. Their methods are heavy-handed compared to those used at ReStart, but the cost of receiving treatment at a camp is much lower. Mountain climbs, military marches, and electroshock therapy are commonplace at the institutions.

After another night of clutch snipes, plasma sticks and assassinations, Willis shuts off his TV and Xbox, and puts any lingering thoughts of addiction to rest. The reason he keeps playing?

“I’m good at them. Who doesn’t like doing things they’re good at?”