Holodeck addiction makes no sense (this title does, I promise!)

It may seem a bit weird to talk about 'Holodeck' when it comes to a movie what was made long before 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' was even made.

However, I do have a point, so please bear with me. OK, you can raccoon with me for all I care, just (some animal) with me..

Now, I am using the term 'holodeck' not just to refer to a TV show, but because it is such a well-known, almost 'cultural knowledge', that it goes beyond just a TV show - it has become an everyday term, a 'household name', if you will.

What would happen to a kid that has trouble keeping his 'feet on the ground' because his life sucks*, the power of 'unlimited Holodeck', but better?

*(His father is a distant work-o-holic (or is it 'work-a-holic'?) jerk that has NO clue about child psychology, plus he has no empathy or understanding of how imagination works or what his own son needs psychologically, emotionally and so on, his mom just died, he has no friends, he's bullied every day, etc. etc. etc... )

He can basically live rent-free in endless holodeck as much as he wants, creating his own fantasies into reality every day and all the time. He can pilot a luck dragon for fast traveling, he can befriend racing snails and rock monsters, in lands that have beautiful ivory towers (though how did they get the ivory, I don't want to think about) and amazing music.

This kid was already troubled, he already had his 'head in the clouds' and struggled to focus on 'real life' and the mundane, neverending minutia of everyday existence on this dull rock.

Psychologically speaking, he would be 100% addicted to Fantasia and all he can do in it, and all it can do for him. It would be better for him than our wildest Holodeck fantasies and dreams would be for us.

Now, you bring that child, maybe as a teenager, back to the 'real world'.

How is he going to function? How is he going to get some corporate wage slave job so he can be paid minimum wage while he's being bullied again and then return every day to an empty, too small apartment in some problematic part of the city and pay his bills and do his taxes and all the chores and..

I mean, imagine someone living in Holodeck for years, indulging in every single possible fantasy they might have, and living the most optimal, most comfortable, most luxurious, most satisfying and fulfilling life.

HOW is that individual going to 'come down' back to the level of 'reality' and regular people'? How are they going to perform their repetitive, dull duties and not constantly think of the riches of Holodeck?

This child would be -absolutely- addicted to Fantasia, even more than Riker was addicted to Minuet and Holodeck.

Creating an intervention for him would be harder than for the worst meth-addict, and there's absolutely NO way he could ever become 'well-adjusted' to the 'real world' and not think about Fantasia anymore. Fantasia is his holodeck, he is thoroughly addicted to it, and 'real world' would look like a massive nuisance, a prison cell that only exists so he can escape it.

He would be more addicted to his holodeck than anyone has ever been addicted to anything, if not more. It's the perfect drug with no physical side-effects, and he has absolutely NO incentive to 'get better' and 'keep his feet on the ground' whatsoever.

Why would he 'return to real world', and how could he adjust to it without completely cracking up mentally, emotionally and psychologically? He would need like 20 years of therapy just to pay one bill in the real world, because of all the despair that task would cause him (chain reaction).

This is a problem with SO many movies, TV shows and stories, that people often ignore completely. Think about Marty McFly - can HE live a 'normal life' after all he has been through? (You can even erase the so-called 'sequels' and it would still be problematic, maybe even more so)

Think about pretty much any kid/teen or even adult that has gone through ABSOLUTELY fantastic or cosmic adventures, 'returning to the real world' and just being completely OK with something like that never happening to them again?

Who can live in the gray, dull, mundane world of 'reality' if they have just lived the most amazingly fantastic events they could've ever imagined?

It makes no sense that they would make this kid so addicted in the story, then end the story so abruptly, no one has time to think about the consequences.

Bastian would either become completely crazy and do horrible things, commit one of the 'cides' of the 'sui' variety, fall head first into all kinds of drug addictions and never be rehabilitated, or something else just as bad or worse.

There's ABSOLUTELY no way he could ever just become a 'productive member of a society' (I said 'a' deliberately), because that addiction is soul-deep, he can never be cured or rehabilitated.

This kind of horror makes no sense in a movie that's supposedly made for kids.