We coexist uneasily, today, the voice and I; she tells me to procrastinate over my work, to start fights, to give up. If I am unwary, she can plunge me into the deepest despair, and I have learned to construct an obstacle course to thwart her. It is made only of ordinary human love. Nothing else works. I listened and thought about how much, then, I hated being an alcoholic. I mourned the lives I could have lived if I had not been cursed with this condition. I could have been an MEP! I could have been a chef! I wondered, in a broad way, what had happened, and what I could do. I became aware, quite suddenly in the quiet by the graveyard, of the constancy of the voice. I had waited, every day for 15 years, to wake up and find she had gone, and that was my error. The report was led by MEP Adriana Maldonado López, and secured 577 votes in favour, with 56 against and 15 abstentions. Other actions recommended include proritising data protection, improving the gender imbalance on the industry's workforce, and making it as easy for consumers to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up.

I built a career in journalism but I felt, always, that the person in print had nothing to do with me. She looked like me, but she was my ghost, and she was not reliable. I could never stop working, but I could never stay in any job; as soon as I arrived, I yearned to leave. I became marvellous at being fired and learned to soothe, and even thank, the person who was firing me, the better to start again at the beginning. It was a game I played with myself. I would procrastinate over my work to stoke the fear, but I was not lazy. I met a sensitive, clever man and married him, but I worked on my wedding day. I worked on my honeymoon. I worked in the labour ward, until I was offered the morphine. I was terrified of losing things and I would try to lose them so I could be, momentarily, at peace. My husband, at least, knew that, which is probably why I chose him. I am not a complete idiot. I mourned the lives I could have lived We need to harmonise EU rules, ensuring strengthened consumer protection with a focus on minors" Adriana Maldonado López, MEP To collect EU-wide data on the average time spent playing games, average in-game spending, socio-psychological effects, present a yearly report to Parliament on itTo support the promotion of public and private education and information campaigns directed at parents and caretakers to inform them of the tools in place, such as the PEGI app, and to encourage usage Disclaimer: There is no affiliation to any perfume brand or manufacturer, this list is based on opinion only* The European Parliament also recognised the value of the video games sector, as well as its potential to help with education, mental health and other aspects of life. European consumer protection laws are extensive and flexible to cover and sanction practices that are deemed misleading, unfair, or aggressive," the statement read. "As recognised by several studies, the problem lies with insufficient enforcement, which undermines the effectiveness of the legal framework."

I did know I needed a new soul, the old one having broken, and I chose to build it with ink. I thought that I should be a famous journalist, so I stood outside the Daily Mail building and offered up a prayer, like Salieri: Lord, make me a great short-form showbusiness columnist, and then, if you think it right, Lord, may I progress to features. I got a job on the features desk, a job I called “Idiot Girl”. I was required to report in fancy dress – Saxon peasant, old woman – and I loved it. It was evidence of my survival: she mugs, she pratfalls, she lives! The voice was impressed, and temporarily silenced. (I believe everyone is a secret Daily Mail reader, even the voice.) López made more than a dozen recommendations in her report, including a call for harmonised rules across the European Union's single market when providing clear information about games content, as well as systems that help parents understand and control how much time and money their children spend on games. Gold Dust Woman’ was really my symbolic look about somebody going through a bad relationship, and doing a lot of drugs, and trying to… just make it, trying to live, trying to get through it to the next thing. – October 1997 Spin

To assess how the PEGI system is being implemented in the different types of games available, and to consider enshrining it in EU law to make PEGI its Code of Conduct the mandatory age-rating system for all games in the single market To assess the possibility of requiring providers of online games targeting minors to develop child impact assessments Our report highlights the positives of this pioneering industry, but also social risks we need to bear in mind, like the impact of gaming on mental health," said López when introducing her report to the plenary today. I was, for a while, a columnist, but that was no good, either. To write a good column, I had to work myself into such a state of rage that the week was empty of anything else. I had a schedule of rage, which I followed dutifully; if I wrote on Wednesday, I would be numb on Thursday and would then stoke the rage over the weekend. On Monday, the rage would ebb, to be replaced by terror, which would reach a pitch on Tuesday night, after which I would write what seemed to me not sentences, but tiny, insistent stabs. That is not a job; it is a condition. One morning in early 2002, at perhaps 5am, which is, as all addicts know, when the night breaks, leaving you with mashed lips and mad eyes, I stood in front of the mirror in my mother’s house. I had been drinking alcoholically – that is, without stopping – for almost nine years, and I was very near the end. I pointed at myself – I remember myself as a very attractive drunk, red-lipped and irresistible, but this is the voice again, for I was nothing of the sort – and I said, very clearly, “I hate you and I wish you would die.” I knew then what the voice in my head wanted, and how powerful it was. It made a mistake by being honest and, because it made a mistake, I lived.