Life of a WOW Addict

Ok this was written 1 year after the event .. I was the wow addict in question in case you wasn't too sure. Wow enough and you will see a pattern either in yourself or people you know. This applies to raiders and altoholics who level alt after alt across servers.

Raiders who raid because they're trying to avoid RL responsibilities .. then their RL falls apart and they raid more to avoid feeling pain and the negative thoughts that go with it. Family life goes to hell because someone isn't pulling their weight. Next thing you know that WOWer is clocking in 16-20 hour wow days raiding up instances, then farming to pay for raiding and more times to socialize with their wow friends whom they couldn't' talk to because they were raiding. In order to raid this much you'd be on the computer the moment you wake up, eat breakfast at your desk while you check you wow mail, toons, dailies, then lunch then dinner and take very fast breaks for bio break aka toilet break. Food is eaten in front of the computer leaving crumbs all over the places along with accidental spills therefore attracting roaches and other vermin. Shower becomes optional and you can't remember if you showered or not and if you did was it yesterday or a few days a go. You ignore your phone, email, aim, skype, real paper mail because you're always busy instancing. Family .. they' soon become annoying background noise as you no longer join them for meals since you're too busy with wow to notice that you are the one acting weird being holed up in your room glued to your computer nonstop

Weird? oh definitely you live to wow from wake up until sometime in the early am hours when everyone's finally logging off and then you remember oh .. maybe I'll see what everyone else is up to but then they're asleep and you're too tired to give it much more thought.

when you are exhausted and pass out to sleep either on your bed or at your desk. After a while your RL friends forget about you because every time they call you can't talk, when they make plans you forget or don't respond .. all because you're busy raiding or wowing something up. God forbid you have a significant other .. soon you'll be a singleton cuz he' or she would have had enough of being ignored for pixels and dumped your ass. Work if you had a job you'd have been fired or no the way because wowing 10 hours after work means you're putting in 3-4 hours of sleep and have poor work performance and hopefully you're not also surfing the web on work time looking at wow sites.

Oh i forgot to mention mail. Your real life paper mail piles up which you can't get to anyways, bills don't get paid unless they're on auto deduct from your checking, Late to work, poor work, get fired, you're actually relieved now you can wow a bit, if you're lucky you'll have unemployment checks which is bad now you have no reason to work until one day the bank calls to say you've not paid your credit cards in a while and can you make a payment now otherwise they will be forced to send it to a collections agency. Oh yah and need i say you ignore your phone because it cant be good if people are calling can it? either you owe monies or possibly friends or family trying to get you to log off?

Whoever thinks wow is not an addiction is wrong it is.. but as with any recreational substance controlled use is required. I will post some signs of wow addiction and if you fit the category then you know what you need to do. Either you make something of your life or you will have spend years if not decades on wow and be living in the basement of your parents apartment. Should one day you wake up .. you'll look in the mirror and go OMG how did I get so old? Why haven't I anything to show for my time, no monies, no job, no good job, career, family.


HELPLINE INFO:
http://www.wikihow.com/Break-a-World-of-Warcraft-Addiction
http://www.squidoo.com/wowaddicts

Solution?
1.) admit you have a problem then go fix it. Come on that's what school was for to teach you problem solving skills.
2.) identify career goals and steps to take.
3.) get into a schedule and stick with it. wake up 7am, work out 8am,

When you do take some time to think about your life .. which mind you has now become a mess it gets very depressing and it hurts. What to do? is it to be dirt poor and play games all day until they cut your electricity and Internet for lack of payment? No? good think again what do you want to do? I'm sure it has an answer because back in 3rd, 5th grade or even high school they'd have asked you what do you want to do and I'm sure you gave an answer and it wasn't to be a bum game player living off other people because he cant' afford to work due to gaming.

bite the bullet go log off, shower, make and eat real meal at the dinner table, sleep 7 hours, jog for 1-2 hours then sit down and really think what do you want to do in life? look at your finances, open your mail, fix up your resume, and lastly go get a job in your career path if not any will do. If you still have unemployment checks left good for you now you can get paid to retrain. If no unemployment checks then any temp or FT job will do. Sure you'll hate the job and that's the point .. and you will work hard in that hated job, do excellent work, get paid minimum wage and while you're working think about what skills do you have that can get you a better job. if the answer is none then think where do i want to be and what do i want to do and how do i get there. The monies from this crappy job is going to pay for schooling or training to get you where you need to be. Yes work hard, do good work, impress your bosses and only leave when you have something better lined up. Keep at your goal and one day you'll have arrived at the goal and can look back and go wow i have come far.

Support system? family and close friends .. WOW friends you'll have to keep at a distance as they are actually part of the problem. Get their off line info aim or what not and chat there if there's nothing to talk about other than wow then that's that.

So in short .. Wow in moderation. ERm maybe I should change it to Blog in moderation too? WTF it's 3:15am and I'm still talking .. i logged off wow at 2am! geez