If being online is threatening your job or ruining your marriage, you may have to remove your computer, modem and internet user manuals from your home -- similar to the drastic steps an alcoholic takes when he/she throws out all the booze -- to recover, according to the first study conducted to examine the pathological uses of the internet which will be presented at the American Psychological Association's (APA) 104th annual convention.

In a study conducted by psychologist Kimberly S. Young, Psy.D., behavior of 496 heavy on-line users was compared to the clinical criteria used to classify pathological gambling as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Addition (DSM-IV). Pathological gambling is considered the closest type of addiction to internet addiction because it involves failed impulse control without involving an intoxicant.

The term internet in this study is defined as any on-line system or network (the actual internet, America on-line, Compuserve or Prodigy, bulletin board systems and freenet systems). Subjects who were active internet users and answered an ad were eligible for the study. Each subject was classified as dependent internet users if they met four or more of the following criteria over a 12 month period:

Feel preoccupied with the internet (think about while offline).
Feel a need to use the internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction.
Have an inability to control your internet use.
Feel restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use.
Use the Internet as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a poor mood (feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety or depression).
Lie to family members or friends to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet.
Jeopardize or risk the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the Internet.
Keep returning even after spending an excessive amount of money on on-line fees.
Go through withdrawal when offline (increased depression, anxiety).
Stay on-line longer than originally intended.

Subjects that did not meet three or more of these criteria over a 12 month period were classified as non-dependent users.

Of the active internet users who volunteered for the study, 396 (239 female and 157 male) were classified as dependent users and 100 (54 female and 46 male) volunteers were classified as nondependent users.

Those who were classified as dependent internet users, said Dr. Young, "exhibited significant addictive behavior patterns. We also discovered that the use of the internet can definitely disrupt one's academic, social, financial and occupational life the same way other well-documented addictions like pathological gambling, eating disorder and alcoholism can."

Even though previous research found that men mostly developed technology-based addictions, said Dr. Young, "our present results show that the largest of respondents who met this adapted criteria and were most likely to develop an addiction to the internet were middle aged females and those (both men and women) who were currently unemployed."

With the increasingly expanding market of Internet users, Dr. Young suggests using a checklist to screen for Internet addiction and concentrate future research on the prevalence, incidence and implications of potential epidemic of those who develop an addiction to the Internet to prevent the addiction from proliferating.