Addictions and quitting the bastards
 

Well, it's been a year and probably no exaggeration to say 5000 hours or more, but I just formally quit ragnarok online, MMO. I (finally) deleted my characters before I could rationalise it again and threw the lot of it in the recycle bin. Phew. I feel a bit better already. Within the spoilers is the 'geez didn't need your life story' bit. Don't bother with it though, I just need to get it out and am too macho for a livejournal or whatever.

It started about, July~ish last year, I guess. Downloaded and started playing RaiRO from right here in this forum, as I'd been lurking for forever and thought it might be a way to meet some of the NPFers, and generally have fun. I played a lot, but no worries 'cause I had just got outta school and had my stuff sorted for going to university.

Of course, it didn't work out peachy at all, since then I got to uni but spent more time thinking about RaiRO than workin', as I've always been the type to play videogames, read books and generally avoid work over actually studying but I do well regardless, at most things. I spent a bit too much time heading home to play RaiRO and not enough time working, or socialising with the folk at uni I guess. What didn't help was that there was some major complications with my money grants/loans that I so totally did not wanna think about. After 1 term at uni, I dropped out due to combined pressure of being hopelessly lost and childlike with all this 'having to phone a million people to find out what the fuck happened to your money' and the 'must play more RaiRO'. This was late november, last year. I'm about 2 days late for quitting on the 1 year anniversary of my last day at uni I think. Then I kinda waited for christmas to go by... then I was totally gone I guess. I dunno how to describe what happened except a trusting family supporting me combined with thinking that a gap year off wouldn't hurt me any anyhow. It worried me, but not enough to make me stop playing.

So let's see, fast forward a few months and I was mostly playing for say, hm, 12-16 hours a day, depending. A lot of that might be just general net surfing I guess, forum browsing too and talking to people while sitting around ala a chat room with pretty graphisc as opposed to hardcore game-play for that much time. This happened to me with neopets, but school doesn't give ya the choice to say no so I kicked that easy. Wish I'd thought about that before starting. Anyway, that's tangental. I guess then I felt kinda good about things because I got to help GM RaiRO and became a tester. Naturally when you spend that much time invested in one thing you become kinda good at it. Any class, any item, any build, any mechanic, any levelling spot, any mvp, anything, I can tell you it in pretty good depth and how to do it optimally in RO.

Well anyway, the worst part was there's so much I wanna do yet everyday was just the routine of firing up the computer for another hot and steamy session of left clicking, to use a fifth fiend-ism. I used to do a bit of stand up comedy on open mic nights and get great responses, I'd play the drums, compose a midi file, try and fail at learning a language, make half arsed attempts at learning to draw, sit and study philosophy, logic, maths and science in a self-teaching kinda way that tends to never get much done. I kept up that last one, I suppose, in between the RaiRO.

By the end of it, i.e now, there's the MMO addict symptoms which I see listed by most folks like how I've been. You think it can't be serious, but it is. Lack of clothes changing, showering, general cleanliness really. Lack of good meals or food, no social life, friends, time out for the sake of being out.

Well, it'd been getting to me for, oh I dunno, months. But I couldn't really break the habit, it's pretty fucking difficult let me tell you, or maybe I'm just weak willed. I've never been addicted to cigarettes or anything else, but I know that moving from thinking 'hey this is pretty bad what I'm doing here' to actually stopping takes some massive mental barrier shattering.

This is starting to go on longer than my time spent playing RO in the first place, so I'll cut it short here. I stopped. Now I'm going to be very free spiritish and start on all the shit I've been thinking about for /months/ and y'know, get it together with a job and or education course or whatever. I feel excited, and I'm also excited about making new friends (my old bridges are, ahem, irreperably burned) and going out. That said, I'm not quitting being on the net 'cause I love NPF and loads of places, and they never addicted me ever. In particular, there's one person online I can't say bye to who wont even read this but I shant embarass by naming who, without, I doubt I'd have had inspiration to quit or overcome the random really depressing bursts of angst here and there. Jeez.

Sorry that got so long. I did tell you not to bother.

Well, that's hopefully me around that. Anyone care to share an undesired addiction they kicked, tips on sheer feats of willpower or just general other stuff 'bout that bastard that is addiction? Cheers, it's rather on my mind you see. What's it like quitting, I dunno, smoking? Anyone been addicted to somethin' weird? Any fellow MMO vices? Too many questions~ sorry.

Apologies for any incoherency by the way, as A) I'm bad for that in the first place and B) I'm writing this at 10:44am having woke up at, uhm, 9pm? Wow. Kinda feeling wrecked but not at all sleepy.

The entirety of my life is a succession of quitting addictions and then shortly thereafter replacing them with new addictions.

They're usually stupid nerd addictions like videogames and reading but every once in a while I work in a cool one like cigarettes or something.

Currently giving up: Coffee! Oh man caffeine withdrawal is like caffeine overload plus someone punching you in the face until you turn retarded.

Anyway congratulations former RO junkie, and I look forward to the tawdry tale of your inevitable relapse.

I was addicted to a text MUD in high school and a little bit in the first years of university. Not to the extent above, but it seriously affected my grades. With moderately hard work I can achieve a B+ to A+ grade spectrum, but too much gaming had me down to Cs, with the occasional B and the occasional D. I eventually realized how insignificant what I was going was, but it was too late, for the rest of my university career I'll be fighting an uphill battle. I'm just thankful I got out when I did, and my GPA is doing fine, but it's going to be quite a fight in the application processes for graduate studies/teacher's college/med school/law school.

I once got into GuildWars for about a month playing 10-12 hours a day(age 14).Realized what a stupid idea that was and how screwed up I felt(going from a healthy 2-4 times a week workout to sitting in a chair all day F***s you up)and I quit.My longest run on any MMO was MapleStory played it off and on for 3 years(ages 12-15) never really effected my grades though.And for about a year I was addicted to Harry Potter Fanfiction(shut up I was 13....)but I really wouldn't even call that an addiction as reading for 4-5 hours a day for over a year is largely why I got a 33 on the Reading Comprehension section of the Pre A.C.T.

Glad to know you kicked your habit,You will be missed.




P.S.You'll know your completely free from it when you can log back in for an hour and say hi to everyone.

I tried quitting WoW a couple times to find that the reason I was an unkempt slacker with no social life had nothing to do with an MMO addiction. After that, it didn't seem so bad.

I'm still addicted to Sony Infantry, a shitty game in and of itself that largely hasn't changed in the past 7 years, but I'm addicted nevertheless. It's a good time-waster.

I was once addicted to Runescape for several months, then I replaced it with Guild Wars.

Then I had an epiphany that went something like this: "Fucking MMORPGs! Why the fuck do you play them you moron?! You'll never get all the cool stuff on them and even if you do it won't matter, because by then 700 updates to the game will make them useless. Fuck MMOs!"

So I did. And all was well.

I actually had an addiction to buying mangas. I had to have every last book of every series I liked or slightly liked ever.

Mangas are expensive. Up to 9.99 a pop. Needless to say, I actually went broke before I had to really stop myself. (From borrowing money n'stuff, yeeeek)

Only addiction now is to DDR. Yay. :D

(Yes I play RO a lot, buuuuuuut not nearly as much as I used to)

I'm still addicted to GameFAQs.

I've managed to lower Runescape to a "casual" level.

Done with RaiRO altogether.

Can't play WoW often enough to get addicted. :D

i played wow for one day... and it became the first allnighter for a videogame so out it went. and gamefaqs is useful at times but i dont know how it could get addicting?