If you live in Beijing, surfing the Web and playing online video games too much could land you in rehab.

In March the city became host to China's first government-run clinic dedicated to the treatment of Internet addiction, according to The Associated Press. Nearly two dozen nurses and doctors on the top floor of the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital administer to patients ages 14 to 24. Some patients come of their own volition; others are brought by their parents.

For as long as two weeks, patients undergo a full-day routine that can include recreation, therapy, acupuncture, 30-volt electric shocks to pressure points and what was described to the AP by one nurse as an intravenous drip intended to "adjust the unbalanced status of brain secretions."

At the Beijing clinic, the AP talked to a 20-year-old patient from Beijing who spent 10 hours a day playing hack-and-slash games. "I wasn't normal," he said. Another claimed to use his computer for 24-hour stretches, eating his meals at his keyboard.

News of the clinic comes less than a month after the widely reported case of Qiu Chengwei, a 41-year-old Shanghai man who received a suspended death sentence after murdering a friend following a dispute over a virtual sword earned in the game "Legend of Mir 3." The judgment provoked international headlines and discussion in the Chinese press about the effects of excessive online gaming. In the past few years, the nation's media has reported several instances of online-gaming-related addiction, delinquency and suicide. Similar stories have emerged from South Korea, one of the leading nations in online gaming.

Internet and online-gaming addiction isn't an affliction restricted to Asia. The Bradford, Pennsylvania-based Center for Online and Internet Addiction (NetAddiction.com) offers several counseling services for people hooked on such popular diversions as online gambling, Web auctions and cybersex.

More gaming-specific concerns are handled at Web sites such as "Help for Mmorpg addicts" (MmorpgAddictionHelp.blogspot.com), which tracks how and why online games become addictive, and Online Gamers Anonymous (P198.EZBoard.com/bOLGA), which offers a 12-step program and message-board community support.

Consistent in all these programs is the idea that addiction to the Internet and online games can be as destructive as a dependence on alcohol and gambling. "Compulsive gaming can be an addiction, and it can be very harmful to people and all parts of their lives, when it gets out of control," the OLGA site claims.