Addiction – The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

So in my travels through the internet, working in electronics stores, and socializing with nerds I have become well accustomed to those who play World of Warcraft.  Ive seen every stage of player… from the newer ones, asking questions and still physically socializing, to the pale outcasted internet-acronym quoting weirdos.  Ive seen em all, and they can get pretty fuckin creepy… And theres over 11 million of them playing the game.

So with my perspective being on the outside looking in, Ive got an interesting perspective that I am going to share. I personally tried playing for about a week during a summer break several years ago.  Yet after being called a “noob”, a “fuckface” and a “doucher” I knew that the game had many hate filled people.  Many die hard nerd friends told me they would help me, I should keep playing, and “you’ll have so much fun”.  It was like a drug dealer trying to talk me into crystal meth.  Sure it might make you happy, fuck like a jack-rabbit and stay awake for 3 days… but it also melts part of your brain, makes you delusional, gives you diarrhea, rots your teeth, makes you psychotic, and creates sexual climax problems.  Basically Im saying WoW is like crystal meth in addiction and side effects.

Don’t believe me!?  Well, go fuck yourself first of all.  Second just look it up.  Google it, research it.  There have been government sanctioned tests on the effects of WoW.  Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation have called it ‘the most dangerous game on the market’.  The author of the report, Sven Rollenhagen said  ‘It is the crack cocaine of the computer game world. Some will play it till they drop.’  The reason the Swed’s made the report is because a 15 year old kid actually collapsed and went into a fit of seizures after playing the game 24 hours non stop.  Doctors said he spazzed out because of sleep deprivation, lack of food, and too long a stretch of concentrated game playing.  Dear god man… and now a psychiatrist from London, Dr. Richard Graham, is saying he wants to start an entire movement getting mental health doctors to create characters in the game and to treat patients while they enjoy their addiction.  Why do this, you ask?  Apparently the doc thinks this is a whole new kind of addiction that cant be cured by traditional means.  I say fuck it.  If they want to play WoW all day, go for it.  They may develop into creepy stalkers/weirdos but this addiction wont cause them to do some drive-bys, suck dick for coke, or rob homes and liquor stores for “drug money”.  They’ll just live in their parents basement rotting away in virtual land not bothering me.  SWEET.

But then again, some of my friends suffer from the addiction and its tough to watch.  Early on in their development of addiction they can look pretty normal, probably not too pretty, but normal.  Slowly they begin to become pale, sneak in internet acronyms in their regular speech.  I.e. instead of saying “the joke was funny so we laughed”.. they will say “it was uber cool and there were ‘lol’s”.  Its painful to watch.  Eventually they start changing their availability at work to allow time 3 nights a week to lead “Raids” and wont go to parties because there right in the middle of a quest.  Its brought a tear to my eye.

Due to this affecting such a large amount of people, I feel that I needed to address this debilitating disease.  Im not proposing a “cure” or about to explain how to stop the power of the WoW… All I can do is bring it to light, and hope that you can save some one from the power of WoW.