WoW Addiction Story (WoWS) form
WoW ruins another friendship
Two of my co-workers play wow. One is 45, lives alone, and that's all I care to know about him. Another, who's around my age, I was hoping to save. I'm a good friend, or at least I try to be. But I'm giving up on him. The last straw was when I tried to hook him up with one of my wife's co-workers. 3rd girl I've thrown his way mind you. She was only available Friday, the day after I told him about her. He said he couldn't join us that night because he had to play WoW. He has a strict schedule of 4 hours a day for 4 days a week, and every Friday night just happens to be one of them. He said there is no way he could let his guild down. I understand to an extent, but when you promise someone 4 hours a day for 4 days a week, they have to give you some understanding when life happens. It was kind of a slap in the face. Me and my wife go out of our way to try to help him, but he doesn't care. It's not that he doesn't want it. He probably doesn't remember, but when we first started working together, I took him out and we got sh1t faced drunk. I passed out on his bathroom floor. But before I cozzied up next to the pee stains, I remember him saying how sad and alone he was, and how he was so ready for a girlfriend. My wife was out with us that night, and he could see how happy we were together. I knew then that I had to try to help him. But WoW got in the way of that. He spends more time leveling his character than leveling himself. Physically, socially, mentally, economically. I took him to the gym with me, and the poor guy can barely lift the bar. That's bad for a 6'2" 25-year-old, but his character can slay any beast in one blow. He's in debt up to his eyes, but his character has all the best gear and over 5k gold on any given day. He never wants to hang out with people in real life, but his in-game his character hangs out with other characters of people also sitting alone at home in front of their computers. I think me and him have the potential to be really good friends, but he doesn't see friendship beyond the game. I'm not in his guild. Any girl I try to introduce him to won't be in his guild. He'd never set aside 4 hours a day 4 days a week for either of us. He lost a good friend today, and I won't be responsible for ruining any innocent young girls life by trying to hook him up.
I actually have another friend addicted to WoW, but he's not so bad. He ditches the hell out of me for the game, but is otherwise rather social and has his life together.
I've tried WoW twice and deleted my accounts both times. I got a dwarf hunter up to lvl 20 two times, and a druid to lvl 16. But after that, it starts to get really fun, and I found myself playing more. So I quit because of fear of becoming addicted. I have a very strong will, but don't want to test it with something that has ruined so many lives. I have a wife, a baby, am trying to learn to play the guitar, and can almost bench 315lbs. That's two achievements, an almost completed quest, +140 strength(pounds I can lift more than my body weight), and I'm only lvl 29! ;-)
Nothing left to do... But play wow
I started playing Wow in 2004 when I got it for my Birth Day. I was just turning 15. I've always been alone in real life, Never had any friends. A girlfriend here or there, but no guy friends. Normally my girlfriends lasted shortly too. When I started playing Wow I immediately met a network of friends who made me feel amazing. We did things together and talked and had fun. I was more addicted to Wow the first year. I wanted so badly to explore. I had to see everything. I did. The second and third year was all about my online friends. I loved them. I was involved in there personal (real) lives and them mine. Hell, at one point me and a friend even talked about moving in together. Our guild even planned on getting a house... Seems silly now, but at the time I wanted that so much. Anyways, Eventually between server Xfers and friends quiting I lost touch with all of them. Now I have literally no friends in or out of the game.
I don't even really try anymore to play the game. My gear is under par and my friends list is empty. I run heroics for badges. I try to get on Wow as much as I can even now. I think it's been four years? I am 19 years old now. The only difference in my life is that I go to work all day then come home and play all night. I use to go to school then come home and play all night. I just moved out and it seems it's harder now than ever. Even though I have nothing in game I still sit there all night. Sometimes I just go to the old zones and hope that I can feel something close to the feeling I had when I first started playing. I wish I could feel that good again, so badly. All of my Ex wow friends have quit and moved on, I just wish I had something to quit for. I spent so much of my life on this god damn video game I can't even remember what it was like before I started playing. It just doesn't feel right when I'm home and not on Wow. Like on my free time. I keep thinking to myself "I could have ran 5 heroics in the time I have been watching this movie." "Get on wow, you are wasting time." Any time I'm on vacation with my family I am freaking out I took a week off work I COULD be playing wow, and I am just wasting it vacationing.
I think at this point I could TOTALLY quit. I know how dumb this is. I just ... I have nothing else. What is the point? At least I have goals in Wow? If I wasn't playing what would I be doing on my spare time? sitting alone watching movies? Screw it. /wrist lol
/played 400+
Let me start by saying that WoW was not my first MMO to get into. I use to play DAOC and pretty much missed out on my senior year because of that game. Anyways here is my story.
I started WoW 5yrs ago when me and my friend from DAOC decided we wanted to sell our souls to another game, I had 4 other friends also joining and already had 5 or 6 friends from RL that played. Seemed like it would be a fun thing to do with friend. We played we lvled we got to 60 and then i "took a break".
I say take a break specifically because if anyone has ever tried to quit WoW they know you don't EVER actually quit you "take a break", like a true addiction if you leave everything there ready to take you back you will run back to it eventually.
BC came out and i started up again (new content) played to 70 and then tried started "alting". After the geniouses at Blizzard got the idea to make it easier to lvl all you had to do was get a friend to play with you who had never played before......spreading the poison. I lost my job and really didn't care to look to hard for a new one because it just gave me more time to play. I ran end game raiding content on two different characters and didn't care about a thing in the world. I finally ran out of money so i had to stop and get a job. I "took a break" again.
Things in my life got pretty straighted out, i got a good job. Finally found a lady who I fell in love with, lost 50lb of weight, it was nice. Then one day i was around my friends that still played and they were talking about the game and I decided i was going to give it another whirl and convinced myself that i could control it this time.
In short i wasn't able to control it, i began to neglect my girlfriend, i began to neglect work and i was always frustrated and tired. There is one thing people fail to realize with WoW there is never a sense of "completion" so because there is not that sense of wow i'm finished, you are almost always frustrated your didn't finish or distracted. Even when your off the game your not really "off" the game you are still thinking of what you can do next when you get to sign on or how if you run this raid this is where you can get such and such upgrades. It IS the game that never ends. Finally after another night of running through Icecrown Citadel with one of my no 5 raid worthy lvl 80s till 5:30am on a Friday night rather then spending it with a girl that I love. I went to sleep and in my dreams had dreams of Raids and thought of what i should be doing when i wake up in the game. At 9am i woke up drove home from my friends house sat and laid on my girlfriends bed and informed i need some help quiting.
I deleted it ALL. All 5yrs worth of WoW is now gone for good this time. No going back. And i can say after two weeks of being free its like a giant weight is off my back, I'm happier and enjoying hanging out with friends and finally seeing the world out said of the world of warcraft.
I'm telling you that typing in those letters D-E-L-E-T-E was not the easiest thing I have done espically when you have guildies and friends that you know are going to be mad at you for it. And you have spent sooooo much time working on them. But its like putting a turnicate on a wound if you don't stop it somewhere you are likely to lose more then just a limb. After 5yrs and logging over a full year of actually being in the game if I can do it anyone can.
My friend has an addiction to WoW
Being that I am a photographer, I understand having a passion. However, when one of my closest friends talks about WoW, it's as though nothing else in the world matters. His eyes light up and he talks for hours about it. We all know that this has to stop. During our computer classes, his internet page stays only on wowarmory. He won't hang out with us outside of school on raid nights and he only cares about being home in time to do 2v2. It is getting sad. Any conversation somehow gets turned into, 'so we raided... last night.' We are all worried about our friend. I jokingly showed him the WoW addiction test posted on this site. He scored with two yes answers. This did not convince him at all. All we want is our friend back :/ He is a level 80 death knight and now he is on a mission of leveling up his level 65 druid. He even skipped school yesterday just to gain five levels on the druid. Instead of realizing that he is missing out on memories from his senior year, he finds himself being cool, bad, and awesome. He doesn't even want to go to his prom! Right now he is on wowheroes.com with the thought of what I am writing as simply a joke. I don't care if he wants to have fun, that is fine, but when he chooses a game that is more than repetitive over his friends, it's a whole different story. Help me find a way to get our friend.
My husband is Addicted
About 5 years ago I met the man of my dreams. Everything about him was perfect. As we got to know eachother he introduced me to WOW. Ive never really played any games faithfully, but being something that we can do together, I tried it out. I was raiding and had completed all of my quest. Him being competative I would make us loose everytime we did arenas, it got to the point where he would be come so upset at me for not playing like a pro. I then began to loose interest in the game where I felt so obligated to play. In 2008 we got married and I still played with him as much as I could besides doing the wife duties and going to school. With no time and constantly being yelled at for not being so involved in the game I lostinterest and my account was canceld. I had told him that if the weekends were mine just to spend time together I was fine with him playing during he week. I then began to play because that was our agreement. But he never kept up with the agreement because now he became good friends with a guildie and plays with a realife friend. As I write this I sit here and watch him raid and pay no mind to me. I am rejected and put aside so that he can play his game. I wish I never started to play or told him that it was ok for him to play. This hurts so much and makes me wonder if its worth all the tears and heartache. we dont have any children but I always wonder how will things be if we ever do have them. I know for a fact that he will ignore them like he does to me. All I know is that if you are a addict of this game or are becoming one Dont get Married and Do get involved in a relationship because you will be hurting someone. The feeling of thinking that you dont interest your husband and you have to compete with a computer is horrible. Its just like being cheated on right in front of you! maybe someday my husband will stop and realize that what hes doing to his wife was the biggest mistake ever.
I've finally quit WoW after 5 years
My story started when my daughter was born (I already had a 4 year old son). She slept well but it changed our social life, with the wife and I going out rarely.
I started playing Matrix Online just to while away some of the evenings whilst the missus watched Eastenders and the like....
A friend then introducced me to WoW, we used to quest together, chatted online and made some new friends. Fridays down the pub with friends changed to Friday night gaming... well it was a lot cheaper than buying several rounds of drink.. and better for my health... and the wife knew where I was... (sound familiar?)
Some 5 years on the pattern was the same, except worse. I'd get home from work tired, and switch on the PC to 'unwind' and take out the stresses of the day by killing mobs and doing my dailies. I'd then get called for tea and usually turn up late just as my family were finishing. I'd be a bit grumpy cos I didn't quite finish what i was doing. After tea I'd make an excuse to go back upstairs and run the kids bath (putting it on nice and slow of course). I could fit in a couple of random instances if I was quick. Once the kids were in bed the evening was mine... I could often get a good 3-4 hours in and maybe get another epic or two before I crashed out around midnight.
I'd rinse and repeat this every night.
I'd tried several times to cut down, but was still spending most of my spare time on Saturdays & Sundays grinding emblems or running instances. Nothing I tried worked and each time a new part of the game came out I just had to keep up with the other guys in my Guild.
By the end I had 10 level 80s on the same server, one of each class and all geared for raiding.
I'd lie awake at night worrying about the effect on my family. My kids kept asking if I'd do things with them, and my answer was usually "just let me finish this" or "I'll be 5 minutes", and of course I never spent time with them. If my wife went out during the day, my kids would be left watching TV and playing their own games without me.
I've had to see an Osteopath recently to sort out severe cramps and seizures in my neck and shoulders and my hands have started to hurt. I have a beer belly now (although I don't drink beer) and my posture looks like I'm always sitting at a pc.
I've worked out I've been spending best part of 4-6 hours a day playing WoW and I'm now 42 years old. That means probably 1-2 years of my life has gone. My duagther is 6 and I love her to pieces but I'm not really the dad I want to be. What will she remember me for? That bloke sitting at his computer.
Then this morning, about 4am, I lay there thinking about all these things. It was hard realising this to myself. I felt guilty, unhappy and trapped. I threatened to quit WoW lots of times and always talked myself out of it. My wife is understanding and patient (maybe too much soo), and she doesn't mind me playing in the evenings.
I broke out into yet another cld sweat as I thought about stopping playing again.
Then at 4.30am I woke my wife and told her I was quitting for good. I explained all of the above, about how I was missing my children growing up and what a bad influence I was on them - surely they would copy me. I started my pc and then one by one I deleted my characters - all ten of them. The first was really hard, the others easier, but the last (my first character) was a real wrench. Should I just keep the one and only play that one I thought?!
As I typed the final word 'delete' and hit return I gave a big sigh. 5 years of effort wiped out in 5 minutes.
I logged onto the Battlenet site, cancelled my subscription, found the WoW folders on the PC and deleted them, thank god they were too big for the recycle bin. I found the game boxes and cut through the disks.
It was done.
I went back to bed, my wife telling me how proud she was of me.
It's now 5.20pm the following day, just about the time I'd start playing. I've been out with my family today and it's been fun. I'm finding it very hard now, especially when I've run out of other things to do, but I know it's the right thing for me.
I've stopped justifying it to myself, stopped making excuses, and writing this is helping a lot. I'm looking forward to not feeling guilty, getting my health back and helping my children grow up as they should.
If a hard-line raider like me can bite the bullet, then I'm sure you can too.
(13 hours and counting)
