World of Warcraft: One Year Clean and Sober
Posted on April 13, 2007 @ 11:57 am
Hello. My name is Jess, and I’m a recovering WoWoholic.
(”Hi, Jess!”)
Today marks the one year anniversary since I last played World of Warcraft, and it feels good to be clean. It didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time, but hindsight being what it is, I now realize that I had a serious addiction to the game. Before we went cold turkey, my wife and I were spending virtually all our free time adventuring in Azeroth. Oh, I never kept close track of the time we spent playing WoW each week, but I’m sure it approached thirty hours or more during particularly “busy” weeks.
It was a hardcore addiction. When I wasn’t playing Warcraft, I was thinking about Warcraft. My wife and I were both officers in our guild; we were in charge of scheduling the group’s nightly dungeon raids. Most of the people we considered friends were people with whom we played regularly in WoW. On one occasion, we even met up with our guildmates in real life for a cookout. Of course, we spent most of the cookout talking about Warcraft.
So, yeah — World of Warcraft pretty much consumed my life for the better part of a year. It’s probably not a coincidence that I also stopped blogging during that year. Who has time to blog when you could be standing around Ironforge trying to sell a nifty glowing sword you looted from a dragon the night before?
I’m not sure how it happened, but a year ago today, my wife and I just decided we weren’t going to play anymore. We still enjoyed the game, but something deep inside said that it was time to leave it behind. So, we said goodbye to our friends, logged off from World of Warcraft, and never logged on again. Still, there are lingering reminders of that year we spent in Azeroth:
A year later, I still dream about World of Warcraft on a fairly regular basis (maybe once or twice a month). Sometimes, I dream that I’m sitting at my computer and playing WoW. Other times, I dream that I’m actually a character in World of Warcraft — a mighty Night Elf, slaying monsters and collecting phat loot. Either way, it’s pretty dorky (not to mention a clear indication of my scarred psyche).
We kinda sorta bought a high-end gaming laptop just so my wife and I could play WoW together. Even though we’re not playing anymore, it’s nice having it around when we both want to check our e-mail at the same time. Money well spent! *cough*
Somehow, the colorful colloquialisms of online gaming crept into our vocabularies and remain with us to this day. For instance, barely a day goes by without my wife or I exclaiming “ZOMG!” Yes, we say it phonetically: “Zoh-em-gee!” Also, we’re big fans of “pwn” and its derivatives. My personal favorite, however, remains “OMGWTFBBQ?!”
Five gigabytes. That’s how much space the World of Warcraft installation takes up on my hard drive. Even though I never plan to play the game again, I can’t bring myself to delete it. If nothing else, I guess that’s five gigs of hard drive space that can’t be used to install another MMORPG. And that’s a good thing.
Here’s to one year of World of Warcraft sobriety! Huzzah!
Posted by Jess | Filed Under Geek |
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Hey there - I started reading your blog back when you wrote that letter to the guy who kept calling you in the middle of the night. Remember that? Well, I’ve lurked and appreciated since then, often laughing down right out loud.
ANYway, I had to post my congratulations on your one-year. All my people play WoW. All of them — my friends, my partner. I do not. Sadly, but not surprisingly, I know a lot about it because of them, and I also know how hard it is for them to put it down. So I know it’s a big deal.
So, congratulations to you and your wife! I’d imagine you couldn’t be prouder of the whole thing.
Dr. B.: Wow…that entry was ages ago. Thanks for sticking around all this time!
I’d probably still be playing WoW today if I thought I could play responsibly. But, I know I can’t. It’s either “play a lot” or “don’t play at all” for me. There’s no happy median. That being said, I’m glad we went cold turkey. I miss playing, but I never want to play again (if that makes any sense).
Reality is only for those who can’t handle WoW. Wuss. Seriously though, that’s exactly why I can’t play that kind of stuff. It would take over my life. And I don’t have much of one the way it is.
Hey!
Found your blog on Humor-blogs.com and thought you might be interested in a link exchange. From what I can tell, it looks like we’ve got a lot of the same interests! My blog is called Nerdgasm and can be found here: http://pjspider.blogspot.com. Feel free to e-mail me at blog.nerdgasm@gmail.com as well. Let me know what you think!
Thanks a ton!
Peter
So do you like get a token or something? Seriously, good job on beating the addiction. I only know WoW from that awesome South Park episode, so now I have to go listen to “Live to Win.”
Congrats! My husband is still caught in the gravity pull. Although he jus admitted today that he’s kinda getting sick of it. Yeah. Right. Whatever.
At least you and your wife were addicted together. My fiance used to play all the time, but since I didn’t play, I didn’t get what was worth getting so excited about. He works from home, too, which just further fueled the addiction as his schedule was all out of sorts so he could have a real life and play the game. He decided to delete it one day. He knows it would be a hassle now to get it back. That doesn’t mean he’ll never try though. Stay tuned. Congrats to you!:)
It’s been nearly 3 years since I left the game cold turkey. Frankly, I still miss it a lot. However, I got to level 60 and some of the luster was lost. Also, the game got kind of mean-spirited when they incorporated “honor” points, etc. in PVP. Anyway, congrats… I know what you’re going through. Hang in there!
Congratulations. Do you have more steps to take? Like going around and apologizing to people for missing their wedding because it conflicted with a major raid or something?
I like to pronounce “ZOMG” just like it’s spelled… “zomg(uh)”.
i suppose it’s likely far too late, but it never hurts to ask
can i have your gold?
lolz
It’s been about two years since I quit Ultima Online and I just uninstalled the client last week. It’s a weird feeling. Sometimes I miss it, but usually those feelings of loss turn into feelings of disgust at the retarded amount of time I burned “in-game”.
My nephew is in to this game. It is all he does all day, every day. He is a guild master or something. I’m too old to get it (the Pong generation).
gratz man, ive been clean for 4 months, seems so long ago now,flatered today i installed it again updated but then at the very edge of reason i ganed self control and wiped it off HD then took my dog out! GF seemed happy at this news since she collected lots of rested XP for 2 years.
Its quite scary the effect the game has yourself, i too still dream about it and blizz launching another expansion is the salt in the wound!
I used to play WoW… I quit around three months ago. After I hit level 70, it just totally ruined the game. It became a job. I occasionally dream about WoW, and think about it alot…
But, the one thing that keeps me from going back, is the fact that it was an addiction. That’s the only thing that I thought about back then.
hmm..i dont know if i could do it..grats tho!! i just hit 70…and i thought i could slack on it after i did that..but um..now i need 5k gold for my epic flyer!! lol its a never ending thing..but grats anyway!
hey I know how you feel, i played the game, stopped with 2 lvl 16 characters for 2 months then since almost ALL my friends were talkng about it, I started again, now i have a 42 troll shadow priest :p most of my friends stopped playing but since im sure I can stop if I want, I still play! ill get bored after I pvp at 70, thats what Ive wanted to do anyway, pvp at 70
Congratulations… make that 18 months from today…. maybe the Lich King will tempt you out of retirement and take on arms again… I do believe we will see you and your wife again soon.. :>
I am probably the only person on Earth that had not heard of World of Warcraft until one week ago. In the first seven days of my free trial I have hit level 19 with my night elf rogue, and I can’t stop! I think this game should be banned! I am seriously thinking of subscribing… Lord knows what will happen to me if I do. Help!
I am definitely going to take your experience to heart the next time I log in.
I have just quit yesterday. I am selling my account for 350 dollars and just going to spend some time with CSS and my new 360. I had 2 70s and just decided it was screwing me over in school. I usually had As and Bs and these past two years have been Cs Ds and Fs. Its time for college and time to grow up. This game controls your life and it should be taken off the shelves.
Unfortunately, I too am still stuck in the Void that is WoW. I quit for like 6 months over the summer, but restarted once I got back into college. I will admit it eats alot of time, but personally I think it’s a better addiction that drugs or alcohol.
I kinda wanna quit playing again, but at the same time, I love it too much lol.
Gratz on beating it!! I started playing about a year ago, got a 64 hunter, then stopped playing for a month, went back to it, got a 70 rogue, then i recently quit again because i was never attending college, I’ve got to re-do my first year of college next year now because of the game, i haven’t played it now for a month, but i still love it and i want to play …