There are substantial communities online devoted to helping people find personal and communal solutions to dealing with gaming addiction, including addiction to World of Warcraft. I want to take the time to share what has been helpful to me. Keep in mind, I think that WoW is a great game and is not a pure time suck. If I didn’t have people, hobbies, or work that I cared about; if I didn’t have the real desire to be free of WoW, I’d be leveling my characters right now, ad infinitum. At a later date I will write about the virtues of WoW and how its structure can inform social media, and help to move forward many forms of online interaction.

For real diametric personal change to take place, you first have to disgust yourself — see that your current way of living is not helping you become a better person, and is in fact hurting you.

To understand game addiction it is first important to dissect why the game is so enjoyable. This will undoubtedly be different for many people depending on play style, if they use the medium to socialize, what their in-game objectives are, etc.

• Simple tasks / reward system
• Vast world to explore
• Interaction with other players
• Simple problem solving / Effieiency
• Desire to figure out the logic and psychology of how/why the game works

People will find that WoW addresses and rewards many facets of their intelligence — and this is very enjoyable but can build addictive behavior. For example, I am a person that strives to be very efficient especially in computer related tasks, and I enjoy problems that challenge me to be more efficient — like programming with a DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) methodology. If I could be satisfied leveling at a slow rate, and if I didn’t mind taking the round-about way to complete a WoW task, then perhaps I would have an easier time turning the game off after 2 hours. Instead, whenever I would stop playing for the day, I would still be thinking about how to make my next day’s playing more efficient, how I could alter my spell sequence, how I should plan my quest route, what it would be like to level this other class using this talent tree? These are fine things to think about while playing, but when I’m not playing WoW, I don’t want to be playing WoW.

In a world of thankless jobs, long and difficult projects, bill payments, debt, high-school (if you’re still there), ennui, depression… it’s so enticing and enjoyable to disconnect from that world and plug into Azeroth where the problems are easy to solve, the tasks don’t take long to finish, and the rewards are frequent. The real challenge and opportunity involved with playing WoW (as it is with any drug) is applying what you have learned and experienced from the fantasy world (inebriated/altered mental state) to your real, sober living to make you a better person. But this task becomes impossible when the fantasy/inebriated world and the real/sober world become inextricably linked because you never really leave the game.

How to Quit

 

At first I thought that by simply understanding how the game worked, by understanding that from 0-80 it’s all the same (kill mob, collect nut, talk to dude, PvP, get on boat, visit trainer, repeat) that I would be able to put WoW down easily… but it didn’t happen that way.

• Play A Private “Fun” Server
  Because my goal was to use all the spells and deep talents of every class, and I knew that I didn’t want to spend every waking hour playing, the solution for me was to play on private “fun” servers that had x20 XP, instant 70, or whatever. If you can get yourself tired of the game this way, then I heartedly recommend it.
• Have Something Interesting and Engrossing At Hand
  When you are quitting it’s important to have something really substantial to take the place of WoW. And it’s equally important to be disciplined about doing it, building this new habit. Reading was very helpful to me because I could pick up a book whenever I wanted. If you haven’t read Dune, by Frank Herbert, get it, have it ready — it would be a great option. This book illustrates a world lightyears more fantastic and rich than Azeroth, and the writing and story is excellent. Other books to consider: Any of the Audubon Field Guides, The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley; Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse; The River Why?, by David James Duncan… have your trusted book friends recommend a few.
• Delete The Game
  Of course Blizzard will keep your characters around should you start up again, but deleting the game is more about keeping the temptation of playing from sucking you back in while you’re involving yourself in something else that’s equally or more interesting.

Postscript

As I was thinking about this post and reflecting on my experience, part of a poem by the late A. R. Ammons came to mind:

the form forms and if you’re

empty space only, the form is open
to artificial, say, irrational, say,

mad fixations that drop into your
bowl: arrange a full life or

the terror of emptiness will fill
emptiness with terror: love’s the

best filler but isn’t cheap and
anyway money can buy only a semblance:

if your forms aren’t full of love it
doesn’t matter what they’re full of:

excerpt from 52 from Glare
by A.R. Ammons