Real Stories of Gaming Addiction

I got addicted to gaming from a very young age. Gaming was my escape from the world. Escape from bullying, from bad family communication, from bad parenting, failed relationships, and psychological issues.

My psychology started to change. I became more bored of real life, more avoidant of people, and sports started to get less interesting and more tiring. I became less fit and more fat. I had bad eating and sleeping habits, and poor posture.

I started to fight with parents a lot more due to them putting pressure on me for too much gaming. Sometimes our fights were escalating too much, and they would shut down the internet or electricity and I would rage. Boy those were really bad times but that game was my life.

It is 2010, I am graduating high school and my “/played” in World of Warcraft reveals a combined 650 days of game time across all my characters. I have conquered Azeroth numerous times, I am notorious across servers, and my stats suggest I am one of the best PVPers to grace the pixelated landscape we call home.

My high school peers have conquered something entirely different. College acceptance letters sweep through the halls, pumping up and down in excited palms. Where they are physically holding achievement, my achievement is relegated to some intangible world, one that will inevitably be washed over with the next series of updates.

I had casually tried to quit a bunch of times, and then ‘seriously’ some more times, but I never made the cut and I’d always go back. I would unplug my PC from my room, move it to another room with my monitors, and then put a laptop in its place. Then within two weeks, I would replug-in my PC and all of my monitors, and then proceed to binge on gaming for the next 10 days.

I finally had enough, and quit for good. Today I’m over 90 days without playing video games. How has my life improved?