Addicted

By Vermouth

Addiction. It’s a word that gets thrown around a whole lot in this industry. Typically it’s used in a very positive way. For instance Civilization is often described as having addictive gameplay which makes you really want one-more-turn. I know I’ve been guilty of using that word to describe lots of games. However now I know different, I know what addiction is—it’s something that’s really quite different. I’m Andrew ‘Vermouth’ Martin and I’m a recovering World of WarCraft addict.

It’s probably worth qualifying what I mean by addiction. I’m going to use the traditional definition that I’ve always known for it. That is compulsion with consequence. Not only was I unable to stop playing World of WarCraft, I was unable to stop even at times when I knew that the level of commitment I had to WoW was unhealthy.

So I know what you’re thinking, what kind of consequences am I talking about? I mean after all I was just playing a game a lot. I didn’t lose a job, girlfriend or wreck my education in the process. However first of all I played the game for around 131 days. That is, each day being 24 hours of WoW. If I look at that as days played out of days I had an active account it was 131 days out of roughly 12 months. This hits right around ¼ of the time I had an active account. The amount of time wasted by WoW was staggering.

But the consequences didn’t stop there. My sleeping habits were utterly destroyed by late night World of WarCraft sessions. I remember going to bed at the same time as Cyrris (and he’s on a 14 hour time difference) as I became downright vampiric for extended periods. There were days where I’d wake up, play WoW till meal times, eat and then go back to playing WoW. And of course when I ate I didn’t grab the dishes right after—I had raids to get to. I didn’t see friends for a long time. Only my online friends did I really keep in touch with while I was playing WoW. Since I’ve quit I had to go about the process of making new friends as it’s been slow going.

I also gained a bunch of weight. I think about ten pounds as going out and playing WoW at the highest level isn’t really compatible. Probably the biggest consequence though was I let my apartment go to hell. There were always dishes piling up like I said, the floors were a mess, and it kind of smelled but it didn’t bother me. As a result of this I was nearly evicted from my apartment but for a last second stay of execution. Nowadays I treat my apartment like a responsible person does.

All in all the WoW experience was a hell of a lot of fun, but a lot of former cocaine users would tell you the same thing. I loved the game, I met a lot of people who I really liked — if you’re reading this you know who you are. But for some reason I wasn’t able to play the game in a responsible way. One of the scariest things about the whole experience is I still want to be playing WoW. I’ve done all kinds of things to replace WoW but at the same time it must have struck a real nerve because I still desire to play the game. I know it’s bad for me, I know I shouldn’t, I do other things both gaming-wise and in real life, but then some nights I really want to be running behind a group healing my little butt off. That’s kind of scary.

I don’t know if there is anything that could be done about WoW. I mean it really does come down to being personally responsible and doing what it is you have to do for yourself. I had to throw my first 3 CDs in the trash, I kept disc 4 as a memento of how I spent many days in 2005 and 2006. Perhaps some warning labels would be justified but I don’t think they’d do a whole lot of good. Everyone knows that when you’re playing 12+ hours in a day again and again that it’s not healthy, but it’s up to that person to get help. I’m not inclined to blame anyone for my shortage of willpower