Safety First: Tackling Tough Topics with Teens
Sep 25, 2026 · 27 min · 10 segments
In this episode, Amanda talks to Hilarie Cash, PhD, Co-founder and Chief Clinical Officer of reSTART Life, PLLC, about adolescent gaming addiction. They discuss the addictive features of gaming…
Hilarie CashGuest
Amanda GiordanoHost
I was a generalist in private practice when I moved up to the Seattle area in 1993.
I opened my private practice up here in 94, and one of the early clients I had was a young man of 25 who was addicted to video games, those early online multiplayer video games, kind of referred to as MUDs.
He is the one who really opened a window, letting me in on what the Internet was really about.
And it was through him that I began to understand that playing a video game could be addictive.
And after him came others into my practice who were addicted to online pornography, online chat rooms, online day trading.
And, you know, the common variable was the Internet and access to all of these things.
My own child was very young at the time, and I wanted to understand what this thing was that was clearly in its early stages but going to be developing.
And so I began specializing throughout the 90s in internet addiction and always frustrated that there wasn't a place to send clients who needed a residential treatment program.
And that's why when I met Cosette and she and I put our heads together, we decided we should give it a try, which we did in 2009.
And so if I'm not mistaken, Restart was the first residential facility for gaming addiction in the U.S. Is that correct? It was
And honestly, in all of the Western hemisphere, the Western world, we were the first to be a truly specialized, singularly focused on Internet addiction and its concomitant, you know, co-occurring problems of depression, anxiety, and all the rest.
Now, in the other hemisphere, there was China and Korea were well ahead of us in developing treatment for this, recognizing it and developing treatment for it.
I was a generalist in private practice when I moved up to the Seattle area in 1993.
I opened my private practice up here in 94, and one of the early clients I had was a young man of 25 who was addicted to video games, those early online multiplayer video games, kind of referred to as MUDs.
He is the one who really opened a window, letting me in on what the Internet was really about.
And it was through him that I began to understand that playing a video game could be addictive.
And after him came others into my practice who were addicted to online pornography, online chat rooms, online day trading.
And, you know, the common variable was the Internet and access to all of these things.
My own child was very young at the time, and I wanted to understand what this thing was that was clearly in its early stages but going to be developing.
And so I began specializing throughout the 90s in internet addiction and always frustrated that there wasn't a place to send clients who needed a residential treatment program.
And that's why when I met Cosette and she and I put our heads together, we decided we should give it a try, which we did in 2009.
And so if I'm not mistaken, Restart was the first residential facility for gaming addiction in the U.S. Is that correct? It was
And honestly, in all of the Western hemisphere, the Western world, we were the first to be a truly specialized, singularly focused on Internet addiction and its concomitant, you know, co-occurring problems of depression, anxiety, and all the rest.
Now, in the other hemisphere, there was China and Korea were well ahead of us in developing treatment for this, recognizing it and developing treatment for it.
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