Addiction – The First Step
Posted on 28 May, 2009 by Sam | 
6 Comments to Read
I was chatting to a friend for the first time in a few months, on MSN today. He is a dear friend I originally met through WoW (World of Warcraft) gaming, and whom I am in contact with irl (in real life).
We chatted for a bit, then he asked me the ‘big question’ – “Are you still playing?” I admitted, yes – that I was but that I was more aware of when I chose to play these days. He has been cold-turkey for quite a while now, so he sent me a link, and mentioned that it may inspire me to write a blog post. The site is www.wowdetox.com, and whilst I realised it was a link aimed to help people overcome their WoW addiction, I didn’t really expect it to have a lot of immediate relevance to me.
Paul and I have mentioned WoW on podcasts and blog posts from time to time – which is why I felt this dedicated post was appropriate. And for the record, I’d like to state that whilst I talk openly about my own gaming experience, in NO circumstances would I recommend WoW to anyone. In fact, I’d say ‘avoid it if you want to have any life’.
To give a bit of history, I’ve been playing WoW since it first came out ~ Feb/Mar 2005. Sure, I’ve had a few blocks of between 1-6 months of quitting it, but at its peak – I was playing >8hrs per day… this was on top of working 8-9hrs in my day-job, and commuting another 1-2hrs a day as well. You can imagine, that didn’t leave a lot of time for sleeping, socialising or anything much else! I jokingly referred to it as my 2nd fulltime role. After all, I was a high ranking ‘officer’ in a successful guild (invite-only community) – and my sense of obligation and duty to lead by example was a stunning display of commitment. I even used to boast about the fact that I had been in every raid organised by our guild minus only a couple, and only my dear friend Mem had a better attendance record than me!
With hindsight, I felt totally unfulfilled in my corporate role, and incredibly under-appreciated. WoW, and more so the community I felt I belonged to, fed my need for achievement and appreciation. It was only a very personal falling-out with the leader of the guild (another friend) that drew me out of that ever-worsening cycle. I took a 6 month break.
Still, I returned. And still I do.
Today, spending only a few minutes reading a couple of posts by fellow WoW-addicts on the Detox site, and watching the short video on there had me in tears.
I confess, I am a WoW addict. I may play a lot less hours per week now, and I’ve avoided getting caught up in any organised raiding anymore. But there is a pull that brings me ever back.
After 4+ years, I’ve developed some strong and wonderful relationships with people I’ve met through WoW. A lot have left the game & moved on; many, like myself, have had time-out but ultimately returned. The creators of the game did what real life has failed to do for many of us. They have created an environment wherein for the most part, you can put in time & effort, and you are guaranteed a reward or result.
Leaving University, I was totally disparaged in my first year of ‘the real world’ – because I learnt the hard way that in ‘Corporate’, the time & effort you put in very rarely equate to the reward and recognition you receive. Having been very academically gifted (where applied studiousness guarantees high results), that was an unpleasant shock!
But WoW delivers in this way that real-life largely fails to. And they charge us for this ‘pleasure’!
There are a myriad other reasons why WoW has been so popularly successful across the world – social sense of belonging, being judged by a face you choose to show (avatar) rather than the one you were born with, a fresh start where people don’t know your background or mistakes, not wanting to miss out on something new or fun, and I could go on. And to be fair, there is a lot about the game itself that I actually do enjoy!
The cost, however, is much MUCH higher than the monthly subscription fee I’ve been paying for over 4 years now and the initial game purchase price.
I always knew it was a form of escapism for me, and thought this was ok because my life after all was quite stressful! But today, I was reminded that WoW is a serious addiction for many people – and in some cases, a life-destroying one.
The Detox video asks you to consider if you are ready to cut back your game-time, or quit. And it reminds you that it is ok if you aren’t ready for that yet. The most important message they deliver is simply awareness.
I am not ready yet.
I really value the friendships I’ve built with certain people over time; and I know that the important ones will persist post-game if they’re meant to. But until I can replace WoW’s achievement-fulfilling ability with my own internal structure of reward and recognition – I’m still going to be drawn back. Even as a Coach, I’ve long recognised that I tend to miss out on the acknowledging of my progress and celebrating it (ideally with occasional rewards). This is something I easily help my clients with though and I see the amazing impact it has – so I’m having to be more conscious in applying it to my own life! It’s not just high-achievers who often overlook this.
So. Action: I’m going to talk to some of my gaming friends, and explain to them that if they need me for something, they can send me a text. If I’m available, I’ll log on. This way, I’ll start addressing the false sense of obligation I have to log in and play – ‘just in case one of them needs my help’.
And perhaps there’s a podcast in the wings here, where Paul and I can explore the nature of addiction and the importance of awareness – and choice.
Not all addictions are as debilitating as alcohol or as sinister as drugs. Food, sex, smoking, crises, WoW – whatever it is… the first step on the path to freedom is acknowledging your addiction (being honest with yourself), and to start noticing that is not serving you as well as you’d thought – and is likely doing you great disservice.
I don’t want to simply quit WoW, and end up replacing it with another addiction because I didn’t address the underlying cause.
Wow! (Pun intended) I didn’t realise how hard it would be to write this, or publish it.
I hope it helps someone as much as it’s helped me. I’d love you to share your comment if it has.
Pia | Taunaki said,
Great post and well written. I can relate having been addicted to an online roleplaying game myself. This one was text based and much more social minded than WoW. One reason I never even tried WoW, it never gave enough impression of social network, real roleplay and all that which I needed for my escapism.
These online networks can be amazingly good at a period in life, but they take a lot as well. I use my gaming to get out of a violent marriage, the success of my character gave me the belief and courage to break free and that I could. Creating friendships online had me visit a bunch of them in the US for 5 weeks, probably the best holiday in my life, I met some very deep friends, which I still have contact with, and one became my coach helping me get control of my life, break my tendency to self-destruction, helped me change behaviours and move forward.
About half a year ago I practically stopped playing, I would log on, wait for my close friends/those fun to RP with to get online, but in general I felt very unfulfilled and dissatisfied. Eventually I just let my subscription run out and haven’t missed it since.
I realized it was the social aspect I was longing for and missing when I took breaks. But leaving and not playing showed me how shallow many of them were. It was a false sense of company to be online with people. I guess I learned it the hard way when people stopped talking to me when I stopped playing. The few true friends I have this way still talk, but the social need wasn’t covered after I stopped.
I built my own RL social circles instead, and the more I go out to networking events, visiting people, working on Taunaki, being in contact due to Taunaki and so on, the less I miss the online world and the friendships there.
I’ve learned a lot from it and while it’s been an escape, it’s also been a good lesson and valuable at the time. It gave me the belief that I could be loved and appreciated, that I have value and all those things.
My advice is:
~ Work with stuff RL that’s your passion. I love my work with Taunaki and it’s very fulfilling. It’s my passion and drive. It makes me happy, makes me feel I accomplish things, it’s a wonderful challenge, huge life lesson and professional lesson as well and so on.
~ Be social. Get out and meet new people. Attend a local networking event where everybody are there to meet new people and create contacts. I do it both for Taunaki and looking for potential partners and investors, but just as much for me to get out and be social.
Combining the two, my passion and networking pretty much gives me the same fulfilment as playing did. My roles are perhaps somewhat the same now as what my characters did in many ways, so that might be why.
I hope this helps. Gaming and escaping can be good, but only in moderation. A short period of life to get a chance to breathe, feel success and then you face the real world again and conquer it.
Good luck, you’ll get there!
Pia
Stephanie Butcher said,
I agree with Pia, Sam’s post was very well written and honest (as you always are Sam). I would love you to cover addictions in a future podcast as I think most of us can relate in one way or another to some level of addiction. As you said there’s a need to escape from real life where we don’t always get that instant gratification for our hard work, suffering, selflessness or whatever it is we feel we are giving to the world.
Sam said,
Hi Pia!
I really want to start by acknowledging the tremendous changes you’ve made, and your honesty in sharing your story with us too – thank you! It is inspiring to hear from someone who has moved on successfully!
You raise a really important point about addictions – that at some point in our lives, they have SERVED us in some way. For me, my WoW addiction brought a sense of achievement; for you, your online roleplaying brought a sense of social connection (which helped you rebuild your confidence & find the courage for change).
What happens though, is that even once we’ve moved through the point in our lives where our addiction served us (I left the corporate world I found so unfulfilling; you broke free from your violent marriage), the addictive components of it (chemical, habitual etc) still remain. So we are left with an addiction that is now doing us a DISSERVICE.
There is definitely a lot of opportunity for learning, awareness & understanding that this can offer us!
The pointers you shared with us are a great example of how you identified the underlying need that was being met by your addiction, and built some great and positive sources of that into your life instead! By combining your passion and your social networking into your work, you’ve given yourself a wonderfully supportive foundation to continue building on – and one that motivates you to remain on that path.
They say ‘all things in moderation’, and this could well be another aspect of addiction worth exploring. Does recovery need to be ‘all or nothing’ through either a cold-turkey approach or a gradual reduction? Or is moderation in the face of addiction possible? More intriguingly, once we fulfill the underlying need positively, can the allure of the addiction disappear entirely?
I really appreciate you joining us and adding so much to this discussion!
With love & curiosity,
Sam
Sam said,
Hi Stephanie,
Thanks again for joining us here, and especially for adding your comments on this topic!
It certainly does seem like there is scope for much more exploration of Addiction, and I’ll be aiming to tackle another couple of angles on it over the next few weeks. One of the things that occurred to me today, is that whilst there is often a primary need that the addiction is serving (at least initially), there are likely to be secondary needs that also must be addressed or at least considered, when looking to dissolve an addiction & it’s effects.
Also – you touched on the fact that most of us can relate to some level of addiction, and this is important too. Not all addictions are as ‘serious’ as some of the ones I’ve mentioned in my post above. Many of us can relate to needing that initial cup of coffee to ‘get going in the morning’, or of having a favourite ‘comfort’ food that we turn to in times of stress, or even surfing the internet daily (where we seem to lose quantities of time to it, or feel disconnected if we can’t keep up-to-date with our favourite news website or forum etc).
Do let me know if there are other areas of it you’d like to see explored too!
With love & curiosity,
Sam
Pia | Taunaki said,
Hi Sam,
I believe it depends on personality if you need to quit an addiction all together or can nipple it so to speak
I know that for my smoking I needed to cut it hard, completely and utterly. It simply took way too much energy for me to argue with myself over and over if it now was time to get that first or 2nd cigarette of the day that I had allowed myself. It took way too much energy and time and struggle to stop myself from telling myself: well, you can get another one, it doesn’t matter anyway.
So I think, if you’re really good at keeping promises for yourself, then you can quit partially and at a level that’s healthy for you. But if you’re not good at keeping promises for yourself, or at least obey yourself without argument, then it’s no go and you should quit completely.
I have friends who can manage the one-two smokes a day without any problems what so ever. If I try that, I just slowly start to smoke more and more as I break one promise to myself after another. I’m not good at keeping them when it’s only myself it relies on.
Also, I’m the type who’ll eat the entire candy-bag once it’s opened in a very short time. I’m not good at saving pleasures for later. Other people are the opposite and I think they can easier manage to quit an addiction partially.
There’s a danger with partial quitting. That you in essence fool yourself. “Sure, I can’t be addicted when I only play one hour a day, can I?” Typical argument. Fact is that yes, you can be addicted even if you only play 5 min a day. It all comes down to why you play and how you do it. My ex, who is an alcoholic, didn’t drink every day, but once in a while. According to himself he weren’t addicted any longer. Bullshit I say, because he still drank for all the same reasons and had all the same behaviours around it. He was merely fooling himself because he wasn’t ready to face reality and take responsibility for his own life and actions.
Addictions are very interesting, the topic is fascinating and there’s so many aspects to it. Just think about it, many of us are addicted to our habits and morning routines. The whole thing of not being able to wake up properly without that shower and that cup of tea in that order
Hopelessly Stuck said,
[...] of all, have a read of this post. Addiction – The First Step | Action Podcast where someone forced herself to face the fact she was an addict of WoW (for several years!) and [...]
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