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My Story:
I also use to spend a lot of time playing wow, I had a priest that I cleared Naxx, SSC and TK with before I quit. I played my first two years in college when I didn't have much to do and I was dealing with some personal issues. Eventually, I came to the realization(after my best friend quit) that the game was simply taking up too much of my time and it was alienating me from trying new things and my friends. However I don't think I was addicted because of my personal circumstances and I didn't feel compelled to play after I canceled my account. I quit around Apr. and had a lot of summer planning/exams to fill my time which also probably helped me.
My friends and I talk about WoW every now and then, but ONLY from the standpoint of general game design and the moral implications of those design choices. I also keep up with my ex-guildmates because I have known them for a few years and I enjoy conversing with them. Although I do give advice to the ocassionally "noobie" friend that plays casually,I don't talk about the details of my characters/in game experiences.
To the OP:
OP, since you are having a hard time convincing yourself to not to play, I recommend you don't talk or think about wow at all. Make it a goal to stay out of your house and away from your computer as much as possible. There are a lot of things you can do: go to a musuem, take your gf out, get a pet, go to the park etc, study for your actuarial exams at the local library. If you absolutely must troll the internet(at work like me) try to stay on non wow forums(wow forums=trash anyways nothing worth reading in there). Remember, games are for fun and provide no substantial benefit in the long term. Studying for those exams will help you boost your career and raise your purchasing power(so you have better access to a bigger variety of fun stuff).
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.
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.
I'm biased
The DS, at least, is also tailored to shorter experiences.
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.
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.
I would completely agree with you... if he were spending ALL his time playing WoW. However, he is not. He says that he has limited his play time to 10 hours of scheduled raids. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me. My boyfriend spends at least 10 hours a week playing scheduled volleyball games. Do you think he has an addiction to volleyball that is deleterious to our relationship because that's 10 hours he could be spending with me? Do you think I should show up to his games and bug him for attention because I'm bored and there's nothing on TV? If my boyfriend never spent any time with me and spent all his spare time playing volleyball, then yes, he is neglecting our relationship. My original point isn't that he should feel justified in playing as much WoW as he wants, but that he is justified in setting some time aside that doesn't involve his girlfriend.
My original point isn't that he should feel justified in playing as much WoW as he wants, but that he is justified in setting some time aside that doesn't involve his girlfriend.
I agree too, but I did make the assumption that we only have the OPs word that its 10 hours; most WoW addicts I know underestimate their play time (I certainly did). I forgot to mention that; sorry.
My original point isn't that he should feel justified in playing as much WoW as he wants, but that he is justified in setting some time aside that doesn't involve his girlfriend.
I agree too, but I did make the assumption that we only have the OPs word that its 10 hours; most WoW addicts I know underestimate their play time (I certainly did). I forgot to mention that; sorry.
Hugs? :winky:
Haha, fair enough I have to admit that despite what I said earlier, I actually am a little bitter from when my boyfriend was being a total hypocrite over WoW :P
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.
Heh, it may have worked for you, but I wouldn't count on the same thing applying to everyone else. I quit WoW for 3 months, but I checked the WoW forums here every damn day for that time period. Right before I quit, I'd basically spend a lot of the day when there was downtime at work, reading about WoW on the forums and thinking about how I wanted to play and what I'd do when I got home from work. Then I'd get home, start playing, and it would be totally unfulfilling. So I quit, but that didn't stop me from thinking about the game all the damn time, and I eventually resubscribed when the expansion came out.
I really think the only way for me to completely stop playing WoW, or another MMO like it, would be to basically quit the internet. No more game sites, no more forums.
My original point isn't that he should feel justified in playing as much WoW as he wants, but that he is justified in setting some time aside that doesn't involve his girlfriend.
I agree too, but I did make the assumption that we only have the OPs word that its 10 hours; most WoW addicts I know underestimate their play time (I certainly did). I forgot to mention that; sorry.
Hugs? :winky:
I mean that's fair, but I did admit to playing 40+ hours a week before that. Basically I went from playing from 5:30pm-sleep every night, to playing 2-3 hours every couple of days. It was a pretty big cutback.
I was able to kick the habit shortly after moving to Seattle. The time difference helped as all my friends were usually logging off about the time I was getting on and the lack of internet helped (didn't have it for about 3 months until I got my own apt.). Other part is that I gave my computer to my bro back home so all i have now is laptop from work. I've got a work buddy out here that's cracked out on it and we talk about it all the time though. Oh, cancel your account too, if you haven't already. Just the fact that I have to take that extra step to log in again (renewing my account) gives me the moment of clarity that I need to keep me from doing it.
I'm also in an area that's pretty active as almost everyone rides their bike, skis, snowboards, kayaks, hikes, wrestles bears, etc. out here so I want to try some of that rather than sitting at home and not expanding my horizons in the real world. I did pick up a 360 and that's helped to alleviate some of the withdrawals but I'd say that my gaming time dropped from around 40 hours a week to around 4.
So in short.
- cancel your account
- cancel your internet
- move cross country
- give your computer away
- buy a 360
- wrassle a bear
- if your insane enough, delete your characters (I still can't do this)
Man, I think you had already beaten your addiction when you went from 40+ hours a week to 10. 10 hours a week isn't so much if it's just something you like doing. You quit because you wanted to, great, but I don't think I agree with the people who are freaking out and saying "you have a problem geez you better destroy everything in your account, delete the characters, break the disks, pee on the box, and set the house you play the game in on fire." It sounds like you've already been able to manage it, and I think that if you ever wanted to play again, as long as it was reasonable, like the 10 hours per week when you ended it, you'd be fine.
To put this in perspective, you said that it would take 400 hours to study for one of those exams, and that's as much as you played WoW. At the rate you were going, that would have taken you 40 weeks to do, which is most of a year. If it takes you THAT long to study for one test, then maybe you shouldn't take it at all :P
if you haven't smashed your disks yet you're basically telling yourself that you'll play it again one day.
smash the disks
post pictures
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.
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.
You can download the full client online. Destroying the disks is a nice symbolic gesture but it's actually less of a pain in the ass to just download the thing than it is to deal with swapping out seven CDs.
This is the problem I often have with people going "honoes WoW is teh devil!" They don't understand that often it's just a symptom of a larger problem. In this guy's case, he feels trapped in a relationship with a fat woman and a baby he wasn't ready for. I'm really glad that stupid hack shrink had him shred the discs, because not only did that make it physically impossible for the guy to ever play WoW again, it also magically fixed all the problems in their relationship, because now that WoW is gone, he's gonna be a 100% devoted and loving boyfriend. :roll:
I basically quit WoW because my friends rerolled on another server while I was dealing with a hard drive crash (it took a few weeks for an RMA'd drive to arrive). Still, even before that I had been cutting down my time drastically.
For me the key was other hobbies that got me outside. I wound up spending more time reading and working on marksmanship myself. Obviously the latter is not for everyone and can get damn expensive at times. But it's a physical activity that gets me out of the house. Anything that you can enjoy that lets you get outside for a bit and use more muscles than your mouse finger is just going to feel good. In a similar manner, reading required me to leave the house and walk around a bookstore or library to find books.
Basically I think just having fun things to do outside of the house helps a lot. Part of the reason MMOs are easy to keep playing is because they're there and available and the $10 or $15 a month is easy to pay. If you can't find other stuff to do, it's easy to fall back in. This requires figuring out other interests you have though. Hobbies seldom spring up when you need them, you have to figure out what you might like to do. Preferably it's something you can do on your own too so it can be about as accessible as WoW is for you.
This is the problem I often have with people going "honoes WoW is teh devil!" They don't understand that often it's just a symptom of a larger problem. In this guy's case, he feels trapped in a relationship with a fat woman and a baby he wasn't ready for. I'm really glad that stupid hack shrink had him shred the discs, because not only did that make it physically impossible for the guy to ever play WoW again, it also magically fixed all the problems in their relationship, because now that WoW is gone, he's gonna be a 100% devoted and loving boyfriend. :roll:
I don't see what warranted this response. I'm pretty certain everyone in this thread understands that quitting the game is not a magic bullet for being a lazy sack of shit (not that the OP is).
However, by taking yourself away from that you are undeniably far, far more likely to make better use of your time. I don't think the OP is playing because it's fun anymore, but rather to escape from having to find other things to do. At the very least, he needs to take a break and put things into perspective before considering putting any more time into it.
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.
Heh, it may have worked for you, but I wouldn't count on the same thing applying to everyone else. I quit WoW for 3 months, but I checked the WoW forums here every damn day for that time period. Right before I quit, I'd basically spend a lot of the day when there was downtime at work, reading about WoW on the forums and thinking about how I wanted to play and what I'd do when I got home from work. Then I'd get home, start playing, and it would be totally unfulfilling. So I quit, but that didn't stop me from thinking about the game all the damn time, and I eventually resubscribed when the expansion came out.
I really think the only way for me to completely stop playing WoW, or another MMO like it, would be to basically quit the internet. No more game sites, no more forums.
you know what would have helped you not start again
I'm pretty certain everyone in this thread understands that quitting the game is not a magic bullet for being a lazy sack of shit (not that the OP is).
Yeah, I have to admit it was somewhat off-topic. Just all this talk of breaking disks reminded me of this clip, which then led me off on a rant about how Tyra Banks and her fake shrink are idiots :P
Don't break your disks, they make perfectly good coasters.
I'm pretty certain everyone in this thread understands that quitting the game is not a magic bullet for being a lazy sack of shit (not that the OP is).
Yeah, I have to admit it was somewhat off-topic. Just all this talk of breaking disks reminded me of this clip, which then led me off on a rant about how Tyra Banks and her fake shrink are idiots :P
Don't break your disks, they make perfectly good coasters.
I think I saw that, where she basically was blaming all the problems on the relationship on WoW. All I could think was "Wow, Tyra Banks is a cunt"
Anyways, to be on topic:
You don't have to tell us to break the discs multiple tomes, Tube. It is not going to make us agree any more if you keep saying it. Personally, it wasn't hard for me to quit WoW at all. I hit about level 23. and said "wow, all I am doing is grinding. This is not fun. Fuck this."
STATE OF THE ART ROBOT on
0
Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
edited July 2007
Fine stick the disc in the fucking microwave and enjoy the lightning show.
But yeah you are saying you get bored and you want something to chew up your time.
When you are bored. Go to the gym. Keep a regular schedual for it. Or shit just go outside for a walk.
Look, the best way to quit WoW is to realize, at the core, what a shitty fucking game it is. 80% of your time in WoW is nothing but downtime. Waiting to heal, waiting to get to a city, waiting for the enemies to come to you, running around, fighting monsters over and over to get some stupid shit so you can fight in a raid. Waiting for the raid. Waiting for shit to spawn. Dying, Running back to your stupid body.
Seriously. It's just fucking wait wait wait and it's a crock of shit in today's world of fast paced gaming. A crock.
They just want you to play for as long as possible.
"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
-Bertrand Russell
Keep that in mind.
Thank you for that great contribution. I don't really get why people feel the need to come in here just to make WoW look like less of a terrible use of time, when we aren't here to discuss that. It's not going to give the OP the solution he is asking for, so knock it off.
"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
-Bertrand Russell
Keep that in mind.
Thank you for that great contribution. I don't really get why people feel the need to come in here just to make WoW look like less of a terrible use of time, when we aren't here to discuss that. It's not going to give the OP the solution he is asking for, so knock it off.
That post doesnt mention WoW at all.
Look the main point made in the OP is that he considers his WoW a waste of time. I think its pretty relevant to point out that enjoying yourself (even if there is no objective gain) is one of the things that makes up all of our lives.
There has already been plenty of advice about how to quit and what else to do to fill the time.
Best advice has already been given. Schedule your free time. Tell yourself 'okay at Y time I am going to be doing this and at X time I have some free time to do whatever'. Take up a hobby, what have you. For me, quitting WoW was easy for one specific reason; I literally was physically unable to play it. My classes would start at 9AM and I'd be stuck at the university until about 9PM, add in a part-time job and suddenly I had almost no time to play WoW.
Cold turkey is the way to go. I don't know if you necessarily have to smash your disks (I didn't, and haven't touched the game in 6 months) but it may help. If it does, go for it.
While 10 hours a week is a reasonable number of hours, there are a few basic things you can do to better yourself. Sit down with a pen and piece of paper and make a list of everything in yourlife that you would consider problamatic (i.e. i am too lazy, or my job sucks). Also sit down and amke a list of all your goals that you would like to acomplish (i.e. pass these tests, visit Rome). Then with those lists in hand, start conquering them one entry at a time. Make sure you keep updating the lists as things pop up. By the time you look up you will have spent so much time and energy bettering yourself that you will not have time for WoW.
I enjoyed WoW, but it got stale when Blizzard would not introduce new classes; so i quit. I have been off for almost a year and i will never go back, becuase there is soo much more to life than video games (I love video games and play frequently, but due to personal nature MMO's suck me in too much and are therefore not good for my social life). Join a sports teams, like a softball league or basketball, volunteer (Nothing like the feeling you get by helping build a poor family a home), Study for those exams, anything......
The extreme smashing your disks and deleting your characters seems like a waste of alot of your life and pefectly good disks (even if you never go back to the game, destruction just seems like a waste of money), but i guess it might make you feel better.
One last thing, you do not have to be chemically addicted to some thing to be addicted. Shit like gambling is classified as an addiction. You will have thoughts about the game frequently, but just dont act on them and they will pass and you will feel much better in the long run.
Just take one day at a time and ultimately every action you decide to make, make sure it will better you. If you cannot justify the action as a betterment to yourself then it is not worth anything. So if WoW is entertaining and relaxing they go for it, but all things in moderation.
Aqua Dark on
There are such things as stupid questions, and you know what they are: so do not ask them!
World of Warcraft IS a drug, if you are playing it seek rehab immediately.
I never really got very addicted to WoW, as I never had any real life friends to hang out with in the game. But I do tend to spend far more time on games in general than I should. I do a few things to help prevent videogames from becoming a true obsession.
First of all, my girlfriend has no attention span when it comes to videogames, so when we hang out, I don't really play. During the summer, I get in 7 hours a week or so. This isn't really a chore for me, as hanging out with her is pretty much tops on my "fun things" list. This will have varying success depending on how much you see of each other per day, and whether you live together and all of that.
The other thing I try to do is never refuse a friend when they ask if you want to do something outside of the house. Or hell, even inside, so long as it's not on the computer. Going out for a couple hours a night will get your mind off the game, get you talking to people about different subjects, and make you want to make time for it later.
I've never really been truly addicted, though, so I don't know how well these will work. After a few days with nothing to do but game, I tend to go stir-crazy. So it may be that these ideas are weak tea for someone who is really really into WoW.
durandal4532 on
We're all in this together
0
INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited July 2007
Man, all I did was uninstall the game --
Fucker takes like four hours to install, that's all it took to keep me away.
Posts
I also use to spend a lot of time playing wow, I had a priest that I cleared Naxx, SSC and TK with before I quit. I played my first two years in college when I didn't have much to do and I was dealing with some personal issues. Eventually, I came to the realization(after my best friend quit) that the game was simply taking up too much of my time and it was alienating me from trying new things and my friends. However I don't think I was addicted because of my personal circumstances and I didn't feel compelled to play after I canceled my account. I quit around Apr. and had a lot of summer planning/exams to fill my time which also probably helped me.
My friends and I talk about WoW every now and then, but ONLY from the standpoint of general game design and the moral implications of those design choices. I also keep up with my ex-guildmates because I have known them for a few years and I enjoy conversing with them. Although I do give advice to the ocassionally "noobie" friend that plays casually,I don't talk about the details of my characters/in game experiences.
To the OP:
OP, since you are having a hard time convincing yourself to not to play, I recommend you don't talk or think about wow at all. Make it a goal to stay out of your house and away from your computer as much as possible. There are a lot of things you can do: go to a musuem, take your gf out, get a pet, go to the park etc, study for your actuarial exams at the local library. If you absolutely must troll the internet(at work like me) try to stay on non wow forums(wow forums=trash anyways nothing worth reading in there). Remember, games are for fun and provide no substantial benefit in the long term. Studying for those exams will help you boost your career and raise your purchasing power(so you have better access to a bigger variety of fun stuff).
I wish you the best of luck.
I'm biased
The DS, at least, is also tailored to shorter experiences.
I would completely agree with you... if he were spending ALL his time playing WoW. However, he is not. He says that he has limited his play time to 10 hours of scheduled raids. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me. My boyfriend spends at least 10 hours a week playing scheduled volleyball games. Do you think he has an addiction to volleyball that is deleterious to our relationship because that's 10 hours he could be spending with me? Do you think I should show up to his games and bug him for attention because I'm bored and there's nothing on TV? If my boyfriend never spent any time with me and spent all his spare time playing volleyball, then yes, he is neglecting our relationship. My original point isn't that he should feel justified in playing as much WoW as he wants, but that he is justified in setting some time aside that doesn't involve his girlfriend.
I agree too, but I did make the assumption that we only have the OPs word that its 10 hours; most WoW addicts I know underestimate their play time (I certainly did). I forgot to mention that; sorry.
Hugs? :winky:
Haha, fair enough
Heh, it may have worked for you, but I wouldn't count on the same thing applying to everyone else. I quit WoW for 3 months, but I checked the WoW forums here every damn day for that time period. Right before I quit, I'd basically spend a lot of the day when there was downtime at work, reading about WoW on the forums and thinking about how I wanted to play and what I'd do when I got home from work. Then I'd get home, start playing, and it would be totally unfulfilling. So I quit, but that didn't stop me from thinking about the game all the damn time, and I eventually resubscribed when the expansion came out.
I really think the only way for me to completely stop playing WoW, or another MMO like it, would be to basically quit the internet. No more game sites, no more forums.
I mean that's fair, but I did admit to playing 40+ hours a week before that. Basically I went from playing from 5:30pm-sleep every night, to playing 2-3 hours every couple of days. It was a pretty big cutback.
I'm also in an area that's pretty active as almost everyone rides their bike, skis, snowboards, kayaks, hikes, wrestles bears, etc. out here so I want to try some of that rather than sitting at home and not expanding my horizons in the real world. I did pick up a 360 and that's helped to alleviate some of the withdrawals but I'd say that my gaming time dropped from around 40 hours a week to around 4.
So in short.
- cancel your account
- cancel your internet
- move cross country
- give your computer away
- buy a 360
- wrassle a bear
- if your insane enough, delete your characters (I still can't do this)
To put this in perspective, you said that it would take 400 hours to study for one of those exams, and that's as much as you played WoW. At the rate you were going, that would have taken you 40 weeks to do, which is most of a year. If it takes you THAT long to study for one test, then maybe you shouldn't take it at all :P
Another WoW addict
This is the problem I often have with people going "honoes WoW is teh devil!" They don't understand that often it's just a symptom of a larger problem. In this guy's case, he feels trapped in a relationship with a fat woman and a baby he wasn't ready for. I'm really glad that stupid hack shrink had him shred the discs, because not only did that make it physically impossible for the guy to ever play WoW again, it also magically fixed all the problems in their relationship, because now that WoW is gone, he's gonna be a 100% devoted and loving boyfriend. :roll:
For me the key was other hobbies that got me outside. I wound up spending more time reading and working on marksmanship myself. Obviously the latter is not for everyone and can get damn expensive at times. But it's a physical activity that gets me out of the house. Anything that you can enjoy that lets you get outside for a bit and use more muscles than your mouse finger is just going to feel good. In a similar manner, reading required me to leave the house and walk around a bookstore or library to find books.
Basically I think just having fun things to do outside of the house helps a lot. Part of the reason MMOs are easy to keep playing is because they're there and available and the $10 or $15 a month is easy to pay. If you can't find other stuff to do, it's easy to fall back in. This requires figuring out other interests you have though. Hobbies seldom spring up when you need them, you have to figure out what you might like to do. Preferably it's something you can do on your own too so it can be about as accessible as WoW is for you.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
I don't see what warranted this response. I'm pretty certain everyone in this thread understands that quitting the game is not a magic bullet for being a lazy sack of shit (not that the OP is).
However, by taking yourself away from that you are undeniably far, far more likely to make better use of your time. I don't think the OP is playing because it's fun anymore, but rather to escape from having to find other things to do. At the very least, he needs to take a break and put things into perspective before considering putting any more time into it.
you know what would have helped you not start again
breaking the discs
Yeah, I have to admit it was somewhat off-topic. Just all this talk of breaking disks reminded me of this clip, which then led me off on a rant about how Tyra Banks and her fake shrink are idiots :P
Don't break your disks, they make perfectly good coasters.
I think I saw that, where she basically was blaming all the problems on the relationship on WoW. All I could think was "Wow, Tyra Banks is a cunt"
Anyways, to be on topic:
You don't have to tell us to break the discs multiple tomes, Tube. It is not going to make us agree any more if you keep saying it. Personally, it wasn't hard for me to quit WoW at all. I hit about level 23. and said "wow, all I am doing is grinding. This is not fun. Fuck this."
But yeah you are saying you get bored and you want something to chew up your time.
When you are bored. Go to the gym. Keep a regular schedual for it. Or shit just go outside for a walk.
Satans..... hints.....
Seriously. It's just fucking wait wait wait and it's a crock of shit in today's world of fast paced gaming. A crock.
They just want you to play for as long as possible.
-Bertrand Russell
Keep that in mind.
Thank you for that great contribution. I don't really get why people feel the need to come in here just to make WoW look like less of a terrible use of time, when we aren't here to discuss that. It's not going to give the OP the solution he is asking for, so knock it off.
That post doesnt mention WoW at all.
Look the main point made in the OP is that he considers his WoW a waste of time. I think its pretty relevant to point out that enjoying yourself (even if there is no objective gain) is one of the things that makes up all of our lives.
There has already been plenty of advice about how to quit and what else to do to fill the time.
Cold turkey is the way to go. I don't know if you necessarily have to smash your disks (I didn't, and haven't touched the game in 6 months) but it may help. If it does, go for it.
I enjoyed WoW, but it got stale when Blizzard would not introduce new classes; so i quit. I have been off for almost a year and i will never go back, becuase there is soo much more to life than video games (I love video games and play frequently, but due to personal nature MMO's suck me in too much and are therefore not good for my social life). Join a sports teams, like a softball league or basketball, volunteer (Nothing like the feeling you get by helping build a poor family a home), Study for those exams, anything......
The extreme smashing your disks and deleting your characters seems like a waste of alot of your life and pefectly good disks (even if you never go back to the game, destruction just seems like a waste of money), but i guess it might make you feel better.
One last thing, you do not have to be chemically addicted to some thing to be addicted. Shit like gambling is classified as an addiction. You will have thoughts about the game frequently, but just dont act on them and they will pass and you will feel much better in the long run.
Just take one day at a time and ultimately every action you decide to make, make sure it will better you. If you cannot justify the action as a betterment to yourself then it is not worth anything. So if WoW is entertaining and relaxing they go for it, but all things in moderation.
World of Warcraft IS a drug, if you are playing it seek rehab immediately.
First of all, my girlfriend has no attention span when it comes to videogames, so when we hang out, I don't really play. During the summer, I get in 7 hours a week or so. This isn't really a chore for me, as hanging out with her is pretty much tops on my "fun things" list. This will have varying success depending on how much you see of each other per day, and whether you live together and all of that.
The other thing I try to do is never refuse a friend when they ask if you want to do something outside of the house. Or hell, even inside, so long as it's not on the computer. Going out for a couple hours a night will get your mind off the game, get you talking to people about different subjects, and make you want to make time for it later.
I've never really been truly addicted, though, so I don't know how well these will work. After a few days with nothing to do but game, I tend to go stir-crazy. So it may be that these ideas are weak tea for someone who is really really into WoW.
Fucker takes like four hours to install, that's all it took to keep me away.