Gaming Addicts Anonymous is a fellowship of people who support each other in recovering from the problems resulting from excessive game playing. GAA is not affiliated with any political agenda, religion, or outside interests. Our single purpose is to abstain from video gaming and to help others find freedom from compulsive gaming.

Our groups share their collective experience and the principles that helped them, but GAA has no experts, hierarchy, or required beliefs. We have etiquette and traditions, but no strict rules. We have no membership requirements beyond the simple desire to stop video gaming. We welcome all who wish to recover from the destructive effects of obsessive compulsive gaming.

Our members generally do not advise each other. We share personal experience, strength and hope, and are free to try out or disregard the suggestions of the program and other members. Our members use a variety of tools, including a Twelve Step program of recovery.

Our program includes finding helpful sources of strength, guidance, and healthy principles, and each of us chooses our own path. Some members simply rely on the fellowship for support and guidance, along with principles like honesty, open-mindedness and willingness. Some also use their religious beliefs or other spiritual practices. Some seek the support of counselors and other professionals.

Our meetings are run entirely by recovering members who volunteer their time in the spirit of service. We have no professionals and no affiliation with any professional or government services. Our groups are financed by voluntary contributions from members and accept no outside funding.

The history of our fellowship of gaming addicts in recovery goes back to about 2004. Our earliest members met through an online forum for problem gamers. Without any particular format or program of recovery, they did their best to support each other in getting their lives under control.

Over the next ten years, many problem gamers found success by using the principles and methods of other recovery fellowships in their efforts to halt their obsessive, compulsive gaming. Many members have abstained from gaming completely for years. The more that they shared and learned from each other, the more surely convinced they became of the condition of addiction, their need for abstinence, and the effectiveness of recovery principles in treating it.

While our little fellowship grew and thrived at times, we also had some downturns. We experienced firsthand some of the controversies and problems that had hindered other recovery fellowships like AA and NA in their early days. Those fellowships learned that they must have a singleness of purpose in carrying the message of recovery to others, no affiliation with other organizations, no opinions on outside issues, anonymity in the press, no funding from the outside, and no organization of the fellowship (other than a separate service structure of volunteers handling literature and inquiries.) The lessons learned were set down by AA’s co-founder as the Twelve Traditions. GAA has had to learn many of the same lessons and apply similar solutions.

We saw that we needed to solve our problems in order for GAA to grow into a large support network for gaming addicts everywhere. We decided to adopt the guiding principles that made it possible for the largest recovery fellowships to unite, thrive, and grow into millions of members around the globe. We decided to fully embrace the Twelve Traditions, which guided us to take full responsibility for ourselves. Our recovery fellowship needed its own service organization, main guiding purpose, name, resources, literature, and website. We chose the name Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous in 2014 (and changed to Gaming Addicts Anonymous in 2022.)

Our single purpose is to carry the message of hope and recovery to fellow sufferers. We are committed to learning from the past mistakes of our own and other recovery fellowships, and are taking very seriously the Traditions, service structure, and principles that have guided AA and NA to unity, health and fantastic growth. We have grown to several hundred members around the world, with face-to-face groups forming in numerous cities. Phone and online meetings are available several times per day. Through the outreach efforts of our groups, website, and literature, we hope for continued growth that will lead to greater accessibility through in-person meetings. Our members continue to start groups around the globe and online in several different languages. Our aim is to help make available helpful literature, local support groups, and our message of recovery to gaming addicts everywhere.

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon G.A.A. unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—our group conscience as guided by power greater than ourselves. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for G.A.A. membership is a desire to stop computer/video gaming.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or G.A.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the gaming addict who still suffers.
6. A G.A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the G.A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every G.A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Gaming Addicts Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. G.A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Gaming Addicts Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the G.A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films and internet.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.