One day at a time.
So yesterday I’m sitting at my computer and like a not very bright person I went to one of my old World of Warcraft websites. Then BAM! It feels like someone has punched me in the stomach and I get this compulsion to play it again. Which upsets the hell out of me because I hate not being in control of myself. One of the reasons I don’t really drink anymore. I do want to thank everyone on twitter who helped me through it, I ended up going for a run and seeing a movie and by the time I got back the urge was gone.
Now I’m sure there are people out there that can sit down and play WoW for a set amount of time, logout, and move on with their lives. I am not such a person. If I get going on it I can log up to 80-90 hours a week just moving pixels around for no other purpose then to get my Pavlovian reward at the end. After two months I was hoping that it would be easier to view it and not have that urge but I guess I’m still not ready for that.
Another person who has gone through this and has turned it around and also get into a fitness quest of his own is over at http://wrathofnino.wordpress.com/ I would highly suggest giving that a read. Its funny when I found his blog it was like someone had almost copied my life and also written a blog about it so I find it really awesome to have the support of someone else who has gone through the same struggle that I do.
Will of Iron 
HAHA! Stop stalking me!! 😉
No no! I kid! In all seriousness though, I think everyone who has OUR type of problem, (a past, debilitating addiction to Online Gaming, specifically World of Warcraft), realize that we can NEVER go back now… not after we see how much life has to offer to us now that we have quit and how much we missed out on when we WERE playing.
On the same note, we also realize that the urge to play will probably NEVER go away, it will only grow less and less insistent over time. I am 8 months clean from WoW and I definitely STILL struggle with wanting to play 😦
I’m glad to hear you were able to resist the urge to relapse yesterday! Most people are saved from relapses by just what you did:
1. Asked for help/support from others (i.e. Twitter)
2. Distracting yourself with some other, more healthy activities (jogging, movies)
Kudos to you for slapping the ugly WoW Monster across the face! I will, of course, continue to read along and cheer you on as possible!
(Note – in case readers out there haven’t been reading BOTH our blogs, (shame shame!), it really is funny how similar our situations seem to be, (albeit he is involved in the military and seems to be getting ripped like a beast from his Tuesday progress photos, and I am from the ivory towers of education and am just trying to get the equivalence of the weight of two 5-year olds off my body ;)… just a testament to how far-reaching and devastating WoW Addiction is.)
Thanks for the mention of my blog! 😀
Heh… I play WoW, and I don’t have a problem with *not* playing WoW… When I need to keep an eye on the time, I use the ingame alarm. Usually, if I have housework or something to do, I play for 45 minutes, then do 15-20 minutes of cleaning/chores, and then play a bit more.
It’s much like anything else, all in how much you work on it. I mean, chocolate isn’t great for you, but there’s no reason to never have it again. On the other hand, if you ate all chocolate, all the time, well, that would be a problem.
I don’t think an addiction is truly broken if you avoid the thing you’re addicted to as if it’s the plague. That’s not a beaten addiction, it’s only an evaded one. There are things in which that’s probably for the best; if you had a cocaine addiction, it’s probably better for you to never, ever snort it again. But say, a soda addiction, or a gaming “addiction” or, heaven forfend a “sex addiction” then you know, indulging in it from time to time never hurt anyone.
The question to ask yourself is this: Am I happier NOT playing (eating/having sex/drinking soda) than I am when I’m playing? If you are happier when you’re playing (as opposed to me, because sometimes I find that Warcraft drives me from zero to completely pissed off in 4.5 seconds… not all the time, but sometimes) then perhaps you could try to limit your play time. Say, if you get all your chores done, eat well, and work out twice this week, you’ll give yourself 4 hours of playtime next week (or whatever works for you…)
I mean, honestly, I don’t think going to the movies, which costs $10 a ticket, plus anything you eat running into the $5-10 range, plus gas to get there and babysitter if you need one… is a “healthier” past time than playing warcraft, especially in a cost to time ratio. I pay $15 a MONTH for warcraft and probably get upwards of 10 hours a week in entertainment… by that ratio, warcraft “costs” less than fifty cents an hour; whereas going to the movies runs from $5 to $8 an hour…
Of course, having fought off some actual addictions; smoking and drugs, I get a little wonked out when people say they are “addicted” to a game, or reading, or watching TV, or painting team logos on their skin and acting like idiots at football games. And, if you really can get that wrapped up in a game that you avoid your whole life in order to play it; you may want to ask yourself not what is wrong with this game, but what is wrong with my LIFE that I want to avoid it so much?
(On the other hand, I don’t skip workouts or use co-payments for my doctor to pay for my wow subscription – yes I know someone who really did that! – or avoid my friends to raid or anything like that, so I might be just blowing it out my ***… and, personally, rather liking the game, I hate to see anyone avoiding it as “bad”. It’s not bad. Like most other things in the universe, it’s what you make of it!)
😉 Anyway, I’m back off to azeroth… my DK is calling my name!
Like I said I am sure there are people out there that can handle playing it. And you certainly seem to be able to. And it makes sense economically to play a MMORPG instead of paying for another kind of entertainment. But I think the best explination I have of it comes from Randy Marsh (stans dad in southpark for the non-nerds among us. In the episode where they trick Stan by having futuretech have a fake stan come back from the future randy sums it up about pot and it works pretty well for how WoW was affecting me. WoW probably wouldn’t have made me leave my fiance, or stop functioning as a human being but at 60 hours a week it was making me be ok with being bored, and I was existing but not succeding at anything.
Long story short I really hope you enjoy WoW, and I hope the millions of people that play enjoy it. But in my personal life I can’t handle it. /shrug
Loved that South Park.
Cartman: Now, I want you to take a look at some of these poop swatches.
Butters: Poo…p-poop swatches?
Cartman: Poop comes in a lot of varieties, Butters. I want to find the perfect one, tailored to your revenge on your parents.
—
Ok ok! But seriously, I totally agree that there ARE people, (a majority I would even imagine), who are able to handle WoW in moderation… I have failed miserably at this time and time again…
I think beating an addiction is to NOT do it anymore, just like if you quit smoking you quit, you don’t “go have only ONE cigarette a day”… know what I mean? Not sure if this is evading or just simply not giving it anymore of my time…
Well, whatever, I have better things to do now… like getting ripped like a beast 😉
I had forgotten the poop swatches part. I’ll have to go through and watch it again lol.
Some people can play in moderation, and some cannot. I am in the camp that cannot, so I do not play anymore.
And I disagree on your “breaking the addiction” definition. I define successful breaking of an addiction as not engaging in the destructive behavior anymore. Nino has therefore successfully broken his addiction. It would be even nicer if we WoW addicts could learn to play in moderation, but alas, that is not in the cards for most of us.
Congrats to you for being able to step away! I didn’t have WoW addiction, rather a similiar addiction for about two years (several years ago) with a chat/forum. I never realized how much of my time posting consumed until I moved to NC and was without a PC at home for a few months. I’m amazed now that when I look back at that period of my life that I spent every waking minute on a PC.. Thankfully I was able to step away from that addiction!
Awesome Geegs 😉 Glad to hear of your success!
Maybe somethings are better left unremembered 😀 LOL!!