|
| Thread: Addiction |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · NEXT» |
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
posted March 10, 2011 09:58 PM |
|
|
Addiction
This is a sad and weird topic for me. This is the first time I have to officially acknowledge I'm an addict. I'm addicted to gaming.
years ago, I thought PC is just impossible to get addicted to. Games were boring - well, at least, after a time - and I never hesitated to turn the blasted thing off, whenever something else popped in my mind, be it football with friends or cycling, for example. I thought I have it all under control. stupidity of the youth... >_>
Even as a kid, I was freaking amazed by games. I got my first real PC at the age of 6. The smooth curves of weighting-a-million-fkin-tons 286, with 1mb ram and 20mb of hard drive, along with 5.2 floppy and EGA monitor that I could with a bit of practice fry eggs on due to massive radiation values... Priceless time. Time I sort of regret that ever happened, because I was weak mentally as a kid and I succumbed to gaming extremely fast. Even though my mother interevened many times, doing crazy stunts like hiding my keyboard somewhere so I couldn't play, I would return to the blasted thing over and over and over again. Slowly, I even started to prefer Christmas time not for the fact of Christmas or gifts, but because of the fact that my dad would bring his 486 with VGA monitor home and I would play Lost Vikings and Cannon Fodder that wouldn't work on my EGA.
The degeneration of my mind went straight forward. I began spending more and more of my time in front of my PC. Sure, I still had tons of so called "social life", great grades at school (eventually finished Primary school as their best student), and I took many sports. I was a bully, I wasn't your average glasses-and-30kg-weight weakling that gets punished around. I was strong and sharp minded. Seeing me, nobody would ever claim I could be a nerd. But guess what, I was. I was a nerd all the time along. My most prized moments were - along my biking trips - solitary hours on games. PC was always the thing I returned to, like some sort of damn sanctuary. It wasn't "hobby" anymore, like playing football or bullying kids. It was my life. When I got my first Pentium 133mhz, and discovered buttload of new games, I sank like Titanic crashed on Iceberg. My activities began suffering heavily, with my mother busy @ her new work, I practically spent most of my time gaming like mad.
What's the difference between me and a random gaming kid of those times, you ask? Well... I LOVED IT. It was the most awesome thing to do for me. It was literally my sad, pathetic life, even though it was covered with false-life I was leading as a "normal" kid.
Picture an alcoholic that has a great job, lots of friends, money, beatiful girlfriend, yet still returns to his home every day to drink himself till he drops. That's pretty much me as a kid - I had everything, but it was just an addition. Gaming was the essence.
Then, when my mother realized I'm going down fast, she did the best things that she could do: convinced me to sell my PC. Through hours of mocking, she pushed me to prove I'm not an addict. Of course I was a big, fat addict, but as a kid, I just wouldn't acknowledge that painfully obvious fact. I was clean for a year, a year that pretty much did only good things in my life. I went back to sports, started boxing, improved my hobbies again. I did buy a NES to counter boredom that invaded me at times eventually, but it wasn't "the essence" of my life anymore. It was just an addition. Like it should be.
However, my mother got convinced eventually that I'm ready for another PC. Thus I got a powerful (at that time) Athlon 1.4Ghz machine. It was Secondary School, and that was just the beginning of the end. I relapsed extremely fast and went down even faster. Again, my whole world got around that blasted gaming spree. I played tons of games instead of doing a million things a teenage boy should.
However, the worst was yet to come. When we moved (and I got a free. even more powerful PC from my father's company eventually) to Warsaw, I got internet for the first time. That was pretty much the point of no return. my highschool life got reduced to absolutely nothing. I'd go to school, go back and play games/sit at the internet. All day, everyday. Every day was the same. Education started to bother me, eventually. I was still a brilliant student, but I started to not give a crap about homeworks and alike. I didn't care for the marks anymore, it all became pointless to me. I just wanted to be in the gaming and interwebz world all the time. It was everything I ever dreamed of: I had all the music I wanted through nabster/kazaa (remember those?), I had tons of friends via online communicators (most of them I never met anyway), I had tons of porn for free (yeah, you know teenage boys and their hormones), and most of all, I had a competetive game (Warcraft 3) that started to suck me in fast with all those stats and be-the-best attitude. I barely remember those years. It's like, when every day is pretty much the same garbage, it eventually starts to blend. Nowadays, I don't even remember what I was doing, and what was my life like back then. I remember more from my early childhood, ironically. Yes, it sucked that bad.
But I was still fiercly convinced I wasn't an addict. After all, going out with friends or going normally to school wasn't a problem. If I had a bit more perception, I would have noticed that the dissolution of all my hobbies are pretty much an indication that my life is falling apart already, but nah. I would not listen to my poor mom that was pretty much facepalming all the time. I was in my world.
College hit me like a truck with realizations. During high school, I did not develop any passions, any ideas on how I wanted my adult life to be. I pretty much was the same - mentally - as I was at the end of my "no PC" part of life. I was a 14year old boy that was suddenly asked to choose his career and his life. I made a CRAP decision about biology that didn't interest me one bit. I started making crap decisions all over my life. I had zero life experience back then, and the sheltered life of a nerd eventually came to haunt me. metaphorically speaking, I just started to take it in the butt >_> I failed badly at biology, because I couldn't cope with "normal" education anymore. a hour or two for learning every day was WAY more than I was able to handle. With my schedule non-existent, my typical day consisting of 10-12 hours of gaming/internet, I was pretty much at the bottom already.
But guess what. I made another CRAP decision. I moved to Warsaw Tech (where my father works), mostly because it was the only thing I COULD do to get away from the failure of studying Biology. It wasn't particularly interesting, but it gave me a lot of free time. Which I used for gaming. And gaming. And more gaming.
I also started dating like a madman. You know my stories already. The obvious - that I was a damn nerd - was beginning to scare me, yet I was still in denial.I wasn't really that bad looking, still in good shape, and slightly muscular, and I still had a lot of things that interested me, even if all deteriorated to oblivion or were totally a thing of the past. But I was impatient. I wanted a perfect girlfriend here and now, so I could sit happily in front of my PC with my 5$ "mission accomplished" smile on my face. Already trying to adjust my sucky part of life to "normal" rhythm.
The final years of my youth - up to this day - was like that. I coped. I tried to make it work while I can sit here and keep playing. I wanted to have a "normal" life in parallel to my addiction. My knee eventually got hurt, and I had even more excuses for sitting in front of my PC. Things went totally out of control. I had zero motivation for college, zero motivation for social life. All my hobbies were pretty much nihil at the moment. I don't know how, however, but I still managed to be in top 10 of my college in terms of marks. That got me a bit of money and hid the truth even further. I'm either that brilliant or that lucky, take your pick.
Last year however, it started to be too obvious even for me to manage. I was happy that my GF enabled me enough time to whatever I wanted, so I gamed instead of doing something about her and our deteriorating relationship. My grand presentation (that is required for me so I can get the bachelor-title equivalent and finish 1st step of College education) was lying untouched, because of my total lack of motivation, and it still is - I took an extra semester because I just couldn't get it made. With my friends in meaningful relationships, starting jobs and living lives I could only hope of living one day, I realized I'm pretty much the same 14 year old nerdboy, too in love in his virtual world and metal machine to let it go and start living.
You're certainly bored to oblivion with my rant, but I just had to say it. I'm an addict. I'm on the edge. I'm very close to ruining my life. This is pretty much the last moment to stop this. My mind feels like sleeping for God knows how long.
I deleted every damn game I could and started cleansing my massive library of saved games today. This is not going to work, though. It's been too long. I don't really know if I can fix myself anymore.
If you're a 14-16yo kid that keeps gaming "a bit too much", do yourself a favor. Delete the ****ing game, throw the ****ing PC out the window and forget it ever existed. That will only do you good in life. Seriously. ><
DF out.
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:05 PM |
|
|
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:06 PM |
|
|
PC is your life. Everthing else is just an addition.
It really should be the other way round.
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:10 PM |
|
|
|
You're not addicted to something until you've sucked somebody off to get it.
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:15 PM |
|
|
Quote:
PC is your life. Everthing else is just an addition.
Yes, this is an unhealthy habit, but it has nothing to do with being a nerd. I'm a nerd and so are many all of my friends - and we're proud of it. I'm definitely not addicted to gaming; in fact, I game much less than I used to when I was younger. "Nerd" is a combination of a way of thinking and set of interests - nothing to do with addiction.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:25 PM |
|
|
well, true. I am an addict however, and of all addictions, I find this one disturbingly devastating. Not like heroin or alcohol, but it does put a halt on your development as a mature being 
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
SkrentyzMienty
Famous Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:36 PM |
|
|
It depends what type of games you play, and if you additionally have other hobbies/interests like art, music, sport, singing, gastronomy, getting stoned in a nightclub like it's popular nowadays, you're fine.
Achieving compromise in your life on various grounds is quite an important thing to strive for when possible IMO.
If HOMM was never created, this forum wouldn't exist, not to mention how comparatively "intelligent" a strategic game of such kind can be. So, while many games are nonsense for the brain and offer only temporary entertainment, there are some worth playing. It's like with films really, thousands of low budget (or high-budget, but still failures) annoying cliche mass productions for the masses with no intellectual and emotional ambition exist, but there are a few ones I'm glad I watched and possess.
|
|
OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:47 PM |
|
|
I've often felt that way, Doom. That I wasted so many opportunities and I should have enjoyed life more. Now I'm a lawyer and it's too late for me, but you don't have to let it be too late for you.
Don't go to lawschool, Doom. Avoid my fate!!!
____________
The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
|
|
xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:53 PM |
|
|
The only reason I play WoW and other games, is that I really have nothing else to do.
I barely play any WoW anymore though, as nothing is forcing me to play it. In the past, I was in a raiding guild that required me to be online 5 days a week from 19:00 to 23:30. That was waaaay to much, and the game started to feel like a work instead which it should never do.
Most of the time I spend on my computer is probably on the internet anyway.
ofc I still have a very, very good grades in school and come on peoples birthdays if im invited and try to join social activities etc
I do skip school days sometimes, when I feel that I "dont need" to go to school cause im far ahead etc and wont miss anything, but the reason for that is most of the times because im lazy to walk to school when I have to do that and never because of gaming (ok now I lied, when Cataclysm came out, I turned "sick" a few days)
I would say that I have never been addicted to anything except maybe laziness, and I will never ever start smoking or taking drugs or drinking heavily or something like that, because there is not a single positive thing about that stuff and I look down on people that do that and see them as weak and unintelligent.
|
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 10:54 PM |
|
|
I won't go to law school, don't worry 
@Skrentyzmienty
In the past years, gaming has been my "number one" preferred activity. I really want this to end, I want it to be just one more way of relaxing or having fun.
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 11:23 PM |
|
|
However, you are using your pc to express all this.
So switch the darn thing off already, and do something useful.
Or stop lamenting.
|
|
Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 11:24 PM |
|
|
I am addicted to gaming, not making threads on HC.
____________
We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
|
|
meroe
Supreme Hero
Basically Smurfette
|
|
posted March 10, 2011 11:28 PM |
|
|
I'm addicted to my pc too, and thoroughly unashamed about it. I'd rather be gaming than following girlfriends around window shopping .... ugh!
____________
Meroe is definetely out, sweet
as she sounds sometimes, she'd
definetely castrate you with a
rusted razror and forcefeed
your genitals to you in a
blink of an eye - Kipshasz
|
|
Warlord
Famous Hero
Lord of Image Spam
|
|
posted March 11, 2011 02:15 AM |
|
|
Quote:
girlfriends
____________
|
|
ohforfsake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
|
|
posted March 11, 2011 03:06 AM |
|
|
I am sorry to hear that you find yourself addicted DoomForge.
I too have always been a person who'd find back to computer games.
When maybe your greatest comfort lies in one activity throughout approx. two decades.
Then it doesn't seem strange that the activity is easy and effortless to fall back to.
It doesn't seem strange if it's something that requires an effort to get away from.
But I think it's unusual. So don't expect many to understand.
I have read your post some times now. I understand that you want to break away from a day mostly consisting of gaming. That you dislike many of the things you choose, which most of all was due to gaming.
However, what I don't understand is, what do you want?
I think we all have some routines, some habits. They're easy for us to do, because they're what we've done for a long time. At some point they may even be easier than doing what we actually find interesting.
So far. I understand you want a life with an education, a girlfriend, some non-gaming hobbies and gaming as an addition to that? Like what is expected of a guy in your age? It's described, to me, in a very blurred way. Much to general, I guess.
Let me ask you this. Could you, right now, if you did not game, come up with something you actually want to do?
Do you have an image in your head of how your every day life looks like, in your dream future? Are you happy there? Is it interesting?
Is it only gaming that is the problem? Are you independent of your PC? If so, I'd suggest that you get rid of it. At least for now. Though it of course does not help much to get rid of the PC, if you don't have anything you want to do, which you can decide when to occupy yourself with.
I once had my own computer crashing. It was the most productive month in a long time. Before I got a new, that is.
Edit: If you could be 14 yo. again, would you choose the same path? What if you were 6? What if I told you, you had an infinite time pocket?
@Xerox
Quote:
I will never ever start smoking or taking drugs or drinking heavily or something like that, [...] look down on people that do that and see them as weak and unintelligent.
Why not just appreciate your fortune in how, when and where you were brought up. Others world might have been percieved completely different and they do in no way deserve to suffer from those actions several decades later. Yet often that's how things are.
@Warlord
She's a treasury ain't she?
@bort
Quote:
You're not addicted to something until you've sucked somebody off to get it.
Man! I'm so addicted to you! You know you're awesome right? Right!?
____________
Living time backwards
|
|
Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted March 11, 2011 03:59 AM |
|
Edited by Fauch at 04:06, 11 Mar 2011.
|
23 and close to ruining your live? just because you aren't doing like other people, what society expects from you, like getting a meaningless work, which is just as productive as gaming?
well, of course, I could say that living a meaningful life is about doing what you like, but we know it's not necessarily easy, because it's not how the system works. I still wonder why we are working so hard to maintain it, while it just eats our lives.
I remember, in my last year of school, my schoolmates were like "it's time to stop video games now, becoming more serious about life and all"
well, still, I was the 2nd best of my class, and they were pretty much all playing video games, but I was the only one to play a different game 
well, now my diploma is already quite old, and I haven't used much what I learnt in school, so my chances to find a job are very slim. but I was quite disguted after trying for 1-2 years to either join an engineer school or get a job, because they just don't accept you as you are, you have to adapt your personality to what they want 
I'm not too worried anyway, just got to find some more creative solutions...
|
|
Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
|
|
posted March 11, 2011 05:30 AM |
|
|
This is why I will never - never, ever, EVER - buy a MMORPG. It was bad enough back when I was in high school and I spent countless hours playing a text-based MUD on a local BBS (this is before the internet, folks). In college online bridge almost killed me. It started affecting my grades, so I had to give it up cold turkey. Never looked back. Last year I started playing an online risk clone, and that got out of control as well, so that's it. No more games online. Period.
I totally understand why people lose their jobs and get divorced over online video games. In fact, there's a whole website dedicated to women (and men) who have lost their husbands (and wives) over it.
http://gamerwidow.com/phpbb/
Actually, some of the stories are interesting to read. Maybe you should go there and get some help, Doom, if you need some support kicking the habit.
|
|
Duncan
Famous Hero
The Pathfinder
|
|
posted March 11, 2011 07:17 AM |
|
|
Doom, I don't know if where you live this is possible: turn your hobby into something productive, possibly even a living? You don't have to give it up if you really love it, just try to make the best out of it.
I know a story of someone who was a game addict but now a (local) PC-gaming mag. He's a regular reviewer of new games that come out to the market. Playing games that used to be a hobby to him is now his full-time job!
Another friend of mine has a similar experience. We were high school buddies, and we both were (or are) game addicts. Though I wasn't as addictive as he was. We normally spent time playing together after school, even on weekends. But he's more into the hardware stuffs of the games. Guess what he's up to now? He owns a computer shop, quite a large one. Had he not moved to another city, I would have remained his regular customer.
This might sound like if you're a junkies and I'm advising you to become a drug dealer. That's the idea, except it's not against the laws. You're smart. You write excellent reviews, on strategies etc. I certainly benefit from most of them. Take it to another level and make it something useful for your life.
____________
But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it.
|
|
ohforfsake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
|
|
posted March 11, 2011 07:39 AM |
|
|
@Corribus
I don't never start on MMORPG for the exact same reason.
Out of curiousity. What would you do if your child(ren) wanted to play MMORPG, or on the other hand, if someone close to you did suffer from a similar addiction to what you've experienced?
@Duncan
I think that can be a good advice. But it can be pretty hard to pull off!
It's all a question of what part that's addictive to the person in specfic, I suppose.
I mean, if all you require is to sit in front of a computer and have some "made-up" stats you can program the computer to aquire for you, then its probably a very valid solution.
On the other hand, if you're more addicted to redo the same type of scenery each and every time, it can get more cumbersome and complex to deal with.
____________
Living time backwards
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted March 11, 2011 09:53 AM |
|
|
I played Runescape back in 7th grade. I never got into it. I thought it was far too boring. MMORPGs don't interest me - there's only so much grinding I'm willing to do. Plus the monthly fee.
Look on the bright side, DF. It could be worse. At least it's not permanently ruining your health (unlike drugs) and not making you lose a lot of money (like gambling).
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
| |
|
|
