Julio's story

I knew it was going to be hard... It started with everquest and the insane amount of hours i put into it. Finally I dont know how, but i realized just how bad it was, my partner was always pointing out how I'd rather miss out on my own birthday parties or events just so i could recoup my level or spells lost everytime i died in the game.

 

I gave that up, but soon my nephew talked about World of Warcraft and all the differences between it.  No more death penalty, no more waiting in line to get critical quests done.

It was so different that I dove in full speed. 

 

I played Wow for more than 3 years, every time knowing my character was getting better and I was really making progress.  Then it dawned on me on year that after all the hours and hard work I did was nearly nullified with the release of a new expansion.  We were all excited to see the massive upgrades available to us, but again, this required a lot of time on all our parts to do.  Then yes, another expansion, and the same thing.  Finally, I started to play less and less and would be EXTREMLY proud of myself if I didnt play the game for 2 or 3 days in a row.

 

Fate came in handy these last months, the game was going through some changes and It was offering more chances for casual players to join in and keep up.  During this time, I found myself doing a lot of solo quests, repeating them every day to earn small rewards.  That's when I heard there was a new expansion pack coming out.  My mind told me that It no longer wanted to do this, I would have to wait over a year for the expansion, but in the meantime put in massive amount of hours for minimal upgrades that soon, as in every expansion, would mean new gear and better upgrades.  

 

 

Don't know what the final straw was, I guess repeating quests in order to get more reputation to get some silly item was what did it.  I realized that most of the time, I was actually bored while I played, and that the people (guilds) that I hung around with a lot where diving into the new content spending at least 6 hours a day trying to gear up with items that were not much better than I had. 

 

Luckily for me, I had the account linked to be paid with my bank visa checking.  One day, my funds were low and the system froze my account and erased the billing info (by default) so it would require me to update that.  I kept on thinking how bored i was and weeks passed into months, where the thought was, I will get back on again soon, just not yet.  And so far I am happy with the results, although I find it difficult at times to fill in some of the hours I devoted to gameplay.

 

I read a lot on how this is or is not an addiction.   Players will eagerly and blatently defend the game as simply as form of entertainment.  But as a player, and friends of players, family of players, I know the anxiety to log on to try to get a new item, or new gear.  My partner always told me that he could tell when I was having those fits, how I couldnt wait to a particular tv show was over so i could run upstairs and log in.   I even managed to dedicate Every thursday to WOW raid day, where i would extend my hours gaming by 3 or 4 more than normal.

 

So what is this story about.. I guess it's my ranting, or perhaps my therapy.  I have been going through therapy for other problems, never about gaming addiction, but I learned that sometimes I have to write down my frustrations.  Am I afraid that perhaps I will suddenly wake up on day and say, screw it, i'm gonna play wow again?  Yes, I am man enough to admit that.  I also admit that sometimes the only way to keep NOT wanting to log on is to read the site forums or other fan sites and see just how ridicoulous things still are, the new things happening, the old issues.. It would now take me litterally 3 or 4 weeks of 40-60 hours of gameplay just so I could feel satisfied in my progression of my pixel character and how strong he could become.  But, I realized, and very shortly after I stopped playing, that wow was simply a way of ignoring a lot of issues, it was an escape, and the anxiety I had to escape seemed to me like an addiction, like any things you can do when you are obsessed over something to forget about real life.

 

I might just take a lot of this and just put it into my therapy journal.  I think I pointed out some things that reinforce that not being forced to play is good, and I feel this is a little reinforcement to myself to keep at it, which means, that most likely, there is a part of me is still addicted, or recovering from it, which in itself, is good.

Julio