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I met up with a friend of mine after a long time. I was shocked to see him. The smartly groomed lad had put on weight, grown a beard and his eyes were sunken deep. My first concern was that he had taken to drugs and could not come out of it.

With a little prodding, I found out that he had recently got a broadband connection and was spending hours surfing the Internet. For what? Yes, you guessed it — porn. And then the typical cycle followed. He started visiting chat rooms and indulging in all his kinky fantasies.

Net addiction starts off innocuously. You strike a friendship with someone with common interests. Then you get to know his or her friends and before you know it one thing leads to another. And God help you if your spouse finds out. A friend abroad even separated with his wife after she started visiting chat rooms and, worse, set up dates with complete strangers.

But my bearded friend was smart. He realised he had a problem. He is not a sex fiend but a movie freak. So he had some hope. The first thing he did was to discontinue his broadband. For essential work he would visit cyber cafes.

The Internet need not be something that will destroy your life. In fact, used wisely, it is a very useful tool for getting quick information and research. My advice to you is that you stay focused. Concentrate on what you are a looking for and let nothing — not even the most enticing of links — distract you. But first, let’s find out whether are you a net addict.

• Do you spend more hours surfing than you intend to?

• Does the excitement of the Internet excite you more than your partner does?

• Do you neglect your work and spend more time online?

• Does your office work suffer?

• Do you form relationships with unknown people and get intimate with them?

• Do you become defensive and secretive about your online activity?

• Do you check you email, or just start surfing and chatting?

• Do you lose sleep staying up all night surfing?

• Do you prefer to spend time online rather that socialise?

If the answers to at least some of the above questions are “Yes”, you definitely need help to kick the habit.

Fortunately, Internet addiction is completely curable unlike some forms of drug or alcohol addiction that take months or even years to cure.

For one, if you find you are visiting sex sites too often, get hold of software like Net Nanny and have all sex sites blocked. If you use Internet Explorer, go to Tools—Internet Options and click on the Content tab. Then move the slider to block out sites that keep you hooked to the Net. Then go to the General tab and put a Content Advisor password. I would suggest you ask your partner to type the password and to NEVER give it to you.

Shut down your computer each day at a specific time. Use an alarm clock or something similar to physically remind you to do just that.

If you are on the net six hours a day, for example, try to reduce the time to a more reasonable three hours a day, and then make a schedule of when you want to go online. To decrease the pain of net withdrawal, make your sessions brief, but frequent.

Finally, “Just say No”. If you find yourself hooked on to chat rooms instead of productive net activity, just say “no” and refrain from chat rooms altogether.

Ideally, a net addict should join a support group. But, in Calcutta, there are hardly any hospitals or clinics that offer treatment and support groups for net addicts. If your obsession with the net has gone beyond reasonable limits, visit a psychiatrist.

There is a wonderful site called the Centre for Internet Addiction Recovery. You should register there and then take the treatment that is relevant to you. Take your partner into confidence when you start your treatment. Believe me, you really need to talk to at least one person freely about your problem and the progress you are making. Remember there will be setbacks, but in the end you will turn out to be a winner. The site is called http://netaddiction.com.

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