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WoW Addict Trying to Quit
Grundlestiltskin
Behind you!Registered User regular
Behind you!Registered User regular
So a little background. I started playing World of Warcraft on November 27th, 2004. Though I haven't looked at my characters playing times in a while (Lvls 70, 70, 70, 68, 45 [deleted], 44, 44, 40, 38 [deleted] and others), I estimated it the other day to be between 150-200 days of playing time.
I started playing my senior year of college. My grades slipped slightly, but I still graduated with a 3.0 which wasn't horrendous (I've never been academically inclined to start). The year after that I spent living at home and working for my father. I didn't have a lot of friends back home, so I would basically come home from work and play WoW until I went to sleep. I would go out every other weekend or so.
The next (and present) year, I moved to Boston and got an apartment with a friend from school. We went out a lot more, I spent a lot of time hanging out with him and other people, but I was probably still clocking a good 40+ hours of WoW a week.
My girlfriend, still in college, moved in with me over the summer. She hates WoW, gets irritated when I play over hanging out with her, etc etc. My WoW time went down from 40+ hours a week to around 10 hours per week. I would try to schedule time to raid ("Sweetheart, I'm going to hang out with you for a few hours but at 10 I'm going to raid for a bit, ok?" "Ok") but 1-2 hours into it she would start bitching that I was ignoring her for my "internet friends." Whatever.
Anyways, we were having a conversation about what I was going to do with my life, and she suggested I take the first actuarial exam and see if I like it (she's interning as an actuary this summer). I was reading about it and it said that most of these exams take 400 hours of study time. I said to myself "400 hours? Fuck that, that's way too much time. That's almost as much time as I spend playing WoW." It then dawned on me that no, it wasn't. It was nowhere near as much time as the 3600+ hours I'd dumped into this game. I realized it was sick that I was frowning at the idea of putting 400 hours into something that would advance my career, but dropped 9 times that many hours into something that got me nowhere.
So, I cancelled my account. GF was very proud, etc etc. However, I'm now stuck with this problem of what to do with the time I used to spend playing WoW/reading WoW forums. The slow times at work seem even slower. I picked up a few single player games I hadn't played in a while, but they just don't seem as satisfying for some reason. My GF is gone this weekend, my friends are out of town, and all I can think is "well, maybe 1 more weekend of WoW won't hurt. Maybe if I just play an alt, or PvP, it won't be so bad," which I recognize as rationalizing my addiction.
In any case, I'm here looking for advice from people who found themselves similarly addicted and got over it. How'd you go cold turkey? What'd you do with your free time that really helped you forget about it?
I started playing my senior year of college. My grades slipped slightly, but I still graduated with a 3.0 which wasn't horrendous (I've never been academically inclined to start). The year after that I spent living at home and working for my father. I didn't have a lot of friends back home, so I would basically come home from work and play WoW until I went to sleep. I would go out every other weekend or so.
The next (and present) year, I moved to Boston and got an apartment with a friend from school. We went out a lot more, I spent a lot of time hanging out with him and other people, but I was probably still clocking a good 40+ hours of WoW a week.
My girlfriend, still in college, moved in with me over the summer. She hates WoW, gets irritated when I play over hanging out with her, etc etc. My WoW time went down from 40+ hours a week to around 10 hours per week. I would try to schedule time to raid ("Sweetheart, I'm going to hang out with you for a few hours but at 10 I'm going to raid for a bit, ok?" "Ok") but 1-2 hours into it she would start bitching that I was ignoring her for my "internet friends." Whatever.
Anyways, we were having a conversation about what I was going to do with my life, and she suggested I take the first actuarial exam and see if I like it (she's interning as an actuary this summer). I was reading about it and it said that most of these exams take 400 hours of study time. I said to myself "400 hours? Fuck that, that's way too much time. That's almost as much time as I spend playing WoW." It then dawned on me that no, it wasn't. It was nowhere near as much time as the 3600+ hours I'd dumped into this game. I realized it was sick that I was frowning at the idea of putting 400 hours into something that would advance my career, but dropped 9 times that many hours into something that got me nowhere.
So, I cancelled my account. GF was very proud, etc etc. However, I'm now stuck with this problem of what to do with the time I used to spend playing WoW/reading WoW forums. The slow times at work seem even slower. I picked up a few single player games I hadn't played in a while, but they just don't seem as satisfying for some reason. My GF is gone this weekend, my friends are out of town, and all I can think is "well, maybe 1 more weekend of WoW won't hurt. Maybe if I just play an alt, or PvP, it won't be so bad," which I recognize as rationalizing my addiction.
In any case, I'm here looking for advice from people who found themselves similarly addicted and got over it. How'd you go cold turkey? What'd you do with your free time that really helped you forget about it?
3DS FC: 2079-6424-8577 | PSN: KaeruX65 | Steam: Karulytic | FFXIV: Wonder Boy
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Delete you characters. ALL of your characters. Uninstall the game. Break the CDs. Don't go into ANY WoW forum.
Go to the gym and buy some books.
This is pretty much what you have to do.
Yeah, I'm not really worried about the guildy/friend thing. The two RL friends I have that play are on the verge of quitting anyway, and I've been distant from my guild ever since the GF moved in. I can't currently play regardless, because my HD died. I just got a new one but I'm not installing WoW on it.
I'm not much of a reader. I have a gym membership, but I rarely use it. Not because there's stuff I'd rather do, just because I'm really lazy.
I think you just stated what the core of your issue really is. Laziness. I had the same exact problem. It's hard to coax yourself into doing other things when you can be entertained by something as easy and low-input as WoW.
The first thing you need to do is stop making excuses for not doing things like reading and exercising. You shouldn't need a whole lot of motivation to want to better yourself mentally and physically, so those are two great activities to get you started. If you need a video game fix once in awhile, find something that you can pick up and play for short periods of time. Counter-Strike and Marvel UA really helped fill the gap for me when I quit and still wanted to put my gaming rig to good use.
But basically that's what helped it. Not only did I have a bunch of work to do due to, you know.. the whole college thing, but also I had this giant work thing sucking up a majority of time and effort. Basically... that's the best way to get it out of your mind. Find other hobbies, and find other ways to spend time. Once my show was done, I decided that I was really undereducated on electronic sound techniques and mixing, so I spent pretty much the entire rest of the year getting to a reasonable degree of proficiency on that.
You know that thing you've always wanted to learn, but didn't have the time? Now you do. Do that.
so I basically just quit, told everyone I was leaving. And it felt good to not be playing. The things I found about it tho is that WoW saves me money, cause I dont buy as many xbox 360 games and such.
Id recommend you not play the WoW TCG. some of my friends got into it, and it really is a fun game to play, but the card game makes you want to play the real game. Specifically I missed playing my warlock cause it was just fun.
I did end up going back to playing WoW, but I'm a lot more controlled about it. I only play a few nights a week and the other nights I just dont even turn it on. This probably wont work for everyone, I guess just having it there would make people start going nuts and they just want to play it.
I think the big point came for me when you figure I'm spending all this time doing the same thing over and over and I'm not really getting anything out of it.
But if you can get yourself to the point where you control your playing, I find that the few times a week I do play WoW, I really actually enjoy it, and then the nights I go and hang out with my friends doing whatever, I really enjoy that time too. Its just like a balance.
Just tell yourself, I'm not really enjoying playing and doing nothing, and there are thigns I would much rather be doing. Or break your CDs and such if you want to be really extreme.
Yeah, I never really got the whole "breaking your CDs" thing. You can just download the client online, so I don't see that as particularly effective
Think of it like taking out your crack pipe and smashing it against the ground. Sure, you can get another, but you made the effort to smash that first one.
C'mon, Grundle...smash that pipe.
Working out and doing cardio are great ways to burn stress and maintain higher energy levels. Both of which will help works towards keeping your mind off your WoW addiction. The biggest thing is you have to keep yourself motivated to do it consistently.
As well, if you are already done with school and have no interest in more education, perhaps you could offer time as a volunteer when you know you are going to have goobs of free time. Or pick up a hobby that is fun but that doesn't absolutely 100% require a batshit insane amount of your time. Go play disc golf, ride a bike, basically anything that you can stop doing when your old lady calls you on the cell.
"Hi baby, yea im just at the park riding my bike, Oh you wanna get some food at that new restaurant? Heck yes, i'll come pick you up right now."
vs
"Damnit baby, I've already committed this block of 5 hours to my guild and this raid, We are soooo gonna down <such and such> tonight, it means alot, I'll make it up to you later"
RPGs are fun, and MMOs are fun. And I know some people will say that all MMOs are like this, but WoW to me just feels like it absolutely demands all of your free time to experience new and end game content. It's pretty stupid.
Good luck dude!
Quoted for troof. Laziness if the root of your problem, not WoW. Slightly off topic, but also get a girlfriend that isn't a dick about you spending time with someone/thing other than her. If you get addicted to building rockets or whatever, that same conversation is going to come up.
If you want to get rid of wow though these are the steps i would take.
1. in game buy a crapload of a basic item (like thread)on each character.
2. Vendor everything each character has, followed by the thread stacks (to disable buyback)
3. Give all your gold to XXXX random noob.
4. Delete you characters and recreate level 1 characters of the same name - Blizzard wont be able to revert your characters past their roll back time. Even if you wanted them too.
5. Uninstall the game and Close your account.
6. Destroy your disks.
voilà you are wow free.
You could do what i did and spend all the time after you quit with your GF, eventually she said "why dont you go play warcraft" I guess im just annoying in large doses ^^. I dont raid any more i just level alts and Pvp, something that is instantly droppable if you want to go give the GF a kiss or if you only want to play an hour at a time.
Moderation is the Key.
I've also started writing, which is something i really enjoy, my gf still gets annoyed by it , basically if shes bored and im not its my fault. Maybe yours could get a Hobby? Something that interests her that she can do in the evenings.
Whatever you decide, good luck !
You're a smart lad, I'm sure you can see the potential uses for that. The thing that the pic doesn't show you is that the parental controls are administered via a separate e-mail address and password from the rest of the account. So, you can have a friend over, log in to your account, and then have them create the parental control account with their own info that they keep secret from you. Set up whatever play schedule you need to and have them OK it. At that point, there's nothing you can do apart from opening a separate account or calling customer service to regain unrestricted access. And if you don't trust yourself to not do that, well, seek professional help.
Anyway, just wanted to toss that in for your consideration. Not everything can or should be given up cold turkey and I don't think anyone would object to you playing a couple hours each week. If you're intent on going cold turkey, though, just give your account away instead of canceling it. I'm sure you know that, while "I canceled my WoW account" sounds good, it really just means you aren't making payments, and as soon as you start paying again, you'll get everything back. Blizzard can even restore deleted characters pretty easily in most cases. If you turn your info over to someone else and they change your passwords, that's about as quit as you can get.
This is only a game we are talking about. There are no health risks from WoW withdrawals; in fact, he will only see positive results from quitting alltogether at once.
I don't mean to undermine the rest of your advice, but I really think that he needs to at least drop his subscription for awhile to find out what else the world has to offer. Since he's not currently invested in any other constructive activities, that would be setting him up for failure, in my opinion.
I quit one day after realizing that EVERYTHING in wow was a grind. And not only a grind, but you dont really 'get anywhere'
Its like running around on a hamster wheel... no thanks.
All those pretty Naxx epics that took my guild many months of hardcore farming and wiping? Well here is a blue that is just as good.
K, bye.
the solution, GO OUTSIDE
No, it's no an addiction in the DSM sense. It's an addiction in the "I have trouble not playing when I shouldn't, or recognizing that I'm playing way, way too much" sense. I have a compulsive personality, which could just as easily be applied to other activities that aren't videogames (gambling, shopping, etc). I also have impulse control problems, which mostly exhibit themselves with videogames, drinking, and talking to girls who aren't my GF at a bar. Going outside (eh?) isn't really going to help me with that. I'll just stand outside (or read, or play basketball, or whatever the hell else people do in this "outside" they tout as being so much greater than inside) for a while and be like ok...now what?
This post makes me think you are making excuses for your behavior like it's something you can't change, or you just don't really want to at all. If that's the case, you probably won't be able to work yourself up to quitting the game.
It doesn't really matter how you classify it, the fact is that you play way too much. The solution to the problem is the same whether or not you call it an addiction; you need to find hobbies that you don't have to schedule around. The beauty of reading books, playing basketball, and "whatever else people do outside" is that you can start and stop whenever you want, because you're not attached to a guild that will cut your throat if you don't committ a certain amount of time.
Good Luck!
Yeah, that really might be it. For the most part I played WoW because I didn't really have anything else to do. I watch TV and movies I guess, read on occassion. If I could get back into a gym routine (which I have trouble disciplining myself to stick to) that'd be great. Other than that, what do people do for...hobbies?
I play games, I watch stuff. That's been about it for hobbies. I have trouble getting in to anything else I've thought about (learning to program, for example, I used to aspire to game design).
Not really making excuses, I recognize that I play too much. I don't think it's something I can't change, I was just here looking for advice from other people who quit for things I can do to fill the free time void, e.g what helped them get over it. "Go outside" wasn't the kind of specific answer I was looking for.
Also, start making a habit of going to the gym, even though you say you don't want to. The gym is the anti-addiction, in that you feel like shit when you're there, but you feel way better during the rest of your life.
There's 8 if you go into life insurance, 9 if it's property and casualty. I would buy the study materials except they're like $150, so I'm just going to use my GF's when she's done studying for hers.
And yeah, I miss the gym. When I was in college I was in the gym 4 days a week and look/felt great. Now I look/feel like relative crap, and knowing the gym will make it better and willing myself to do so are unfortunately two entirely different things. I'm not very good with willpower (clearly).
Chemical dependency is not a requirement for something to be classified as addiction.
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The way I got around my WoW problem was through another game: Oblivion. I had been following Oblivion's development since the first press release, and I bought it when it came out. I played it for a week, and didn't play WoW at all during that week.
When I beat the game, I didn't feel like going back to WoW at all. Because it occurred to me that unlike Oblivion, WoW had no end-game, and unlike in Oblivion, everything in WoW was the same all the time. In this sense, Oblivion helped me put things into perspective, and this allowed me to see WoW for what it is: an endless, mind-numbing, soul-destroying grind.
So I quit.
smash the disks
post pictures
gaining a psychological dependence on a video game just shows you are an antisocial weak willed little nancy who needs to take in some natural light and outside air. almost all of the things we classify as addictions these days (sex, gambling, WOW, and the list goes on) are nothing but psychological. for that only a therapist can help you, and a responsible therapist will tell you it is not an addiction.
I didn't smash my disks, or delete my 'toons, or any of that...
But I haven't returned yet and have no intention of doing so.
didn't think so
You do have the intention of doing so, you're just not admitting it to yourself. Otherwise you have no reason not to delete your disks.
Oh my god, it's like you know me so well! People should pay you for this kind of insight.
Well actually, now I don't know where the disks are....
The real reason I didn't smash them is because even if I'm never playing the game again, and even if I wanted something to permanently show that I'm not returning... it just seems wasteful. And sure, they're only CD-Rs with a program that I'm never planning on running again, but dammit they're CDs with a game and I'm not going to smash perfectly good CDs unless they're already ruined. That's wasteful.
As for not deleting my character... well I did think that I might return when I made that call, but it's certainly not worth reinstalling the game and activating my account to delete my characters.
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
If you are totally determined to quit WoW for whatever reason, just force yourself to not play it for a couple weeks, then you'll stop feeling the urge to play. That's what happened to me like 3 times. Once I went on vacation with my boyfriend, and another time my account got hacked and frozen. I haven't been playing for the last like 3 months because I never bothered to reactivate my account after the hacking. Despite what people say, I think WoW is easy to quit.
Anyway, my bottom line is: As long as it's not interfering with your real-life duties, I don't see why you shouldn't play WoW.
P.S. Would your girlfriend be ok with you spending the time previously spent on WoW on something else not related to her amusement? Because it seems like she's not so much bothered by you playing a game as the fact that you're not paying attention to her and entertaining her. Tell that woman to get a life. Or even better, get an account so you can play together. And I am not just saying this because I'm bitter because my boyfriend was a total hypocrite about this. Not at all.
If you don't do these things, you might relapse like I did.
Study for your exams or go to the gym. Do something productive. If you can't, get a DS or 360. There are plenty other games out there that are far less demanding of you.
This is absolute nonsense; of course she wants attention, she is his girlfriend! They are in a relationship which involves relating with one another and sharing experiences. Telling her to "get a life" is pretty much akin to saying you want to break up, because hey, I'd rather spend my time playing WoW than being with you.
The "get her an account" solution is also some rubbish that WoW players love to spout, its unreasonable to expect your girlfriend is going to be into all your hobbies, particularly something like WoW, which is very much a love it or loathe it game. It doesn't solve the root of the attention problem either.
She is not at fault here.
Slightly off-topic... but why only those two systems? Hell, get any console. Or play other PC games.
You know what I played once my hell-month was over and I had free time again and was bored?
X-Com: UFO Defense. That's right, that was my only game for about 4 months.