WoWdetox is a volunteer-run web site aimed at people with a gaming addiction to World of Warcraft. Here gamers and ex-gamers can share their testimonies freely and anonymously.
| I've been playing World of Warcraft since February 2006, when my 3 roommates at the time all installed it and finally convinced me to join in as well. It was a blast playing with a houseful of people you could literally yell commands to. We all had a lot of fun. Then our lease was up and we moved our separate ways. I lived by myself for 2 years, which I think firmly cemented my love for WoW... all I did was play it, and there were no distractions! Eventually I fell out of touch with my friends almost entirely and did very poorly in college as well. I had one friend who I had gotten hooked on the game, and we both kept each others addiction going strong. I've tried to quit all of 2 times... The first time I made it two weeks before Burning Crusade came out and my former roommate said he would try it again. The second time was very recent... my good WoW-addicted friend quit with me to focus more on school, and we were doing great. Then about two weeks ago, I had a very bad falling-out with said friend and we are no longer on speaking terms (and no, it wasn't about WoW). I've felt so terrible that I reinstalled WoW just a couple days after the incident, and now I'm playing again. I would really like to be done with this game. I thankfully don't do the 6 hour raids anymore (can't believe I did them to begin with) but even spending 2 hours doing mostly nothing with anonymous, obnoxious people is pretty annoying. I guess I keep trying to escape into the world. If I wasn't playing WoW I would be fiendishly playing another game (is how I feel). I would really love to be rid of this game, but I just keep coming back. If I keep playing until this next February in 2011, that will have been 5 years of playing this game... half a freaking decade. Ugh. I'm done, sorry for the walls of text. Please don't live out your lives in a game like I've been doing.... |
| Hi Guys,
Maybe you might read this as I am writing tonight in the hope it just may help someone out there. My Marriage has just ended due to wow. I have lost my husband to this game. It is all he lives for and is happy in, he has lost his job and family and house and wont go out in real life. I have been ignored and children also to a game. I sit here tonight just looking at my future and know that I cannot help him. Im sorry to say this is how bad the addition can become. |
| Organising a bbq party for the neighbourhood. | > | Organising a fail PUG |
| i was looking on the wow forums one day and there was this poor soul who had posted saying he'd quit wow. he was mercilessly flamed for it. it stuck in my head and reminded me of a guy i knew years ago who beat heroin. after he was clear he couldn't understand why his friends who were still addicted to heroin didn't want to know him. the reality is that the guy on the forum more or less walked into a room of heroin addicts and told them he was clear. are they going to congratulate him? are they going to swell with pride? are they going to all crack a beer and toast him? hell no because it only highlights to them that they have a problem. so what do they say? "you'll be back". this makes them feel better. Personally, what it took for me was a disconnection of the internet for 8 weeks. By that time i had found a few new hobbies and adjusted to a new track. to be dead honest, i wouldn't have time to play now these days anyway because i'm off doing other stuff. my social life still hasn't recovered but my home life certainly has. rather than eating at the keyboard, i'm now eating with others. lol admittedly, the stuff on TV is terrible. Theres a few things you need to remember while you're giving up. 1. you are choosing to not do something anymore. the key here is choosing. remember that when you gave up - on the very first day, you could justify it. trust your self weeks down the track that it meant a lot then and the reasons were good and have not changed. don't give in. you gave it up. life is about traveling forwards, NOT backwards. 2. you wanna play wow? remind yourself that its more or less the same(in fact worse) since 2005. theres been a heap of terrific games out since then. go grab some. I'm on ME 1 atm 3. leave your guild in preparation for leaving. change servers.. whatever to remove the social ties. they were what held me for so long. the last few months were just me as most had left or were on a different server. good luck to all, later days |
| After almost a year of playing WOW I decided I'd had enough of rude players and the endless repetitive things I was "doing". Now I miss WOW! I miss the place - being in Zangarmarsh and the forests. I miss the place, but I don't miss any of the rude players that go with it. Just thinking of the other zombified players who are rude to others just because they are anonymous and emotionally immature makes me feel stronger to resist the temptation to load the game. Thanks for your stories! |
| I am a lucky one. I quit before my wife left me, and now my life has never been better.
I am a lucky one because a few of my guildies have had awful divorces, and have returned to the game. To Quit is the only way to really win. |
| It has been three years since I quit. Every once in a while I feel the pull to bring me back. It will never go away, but I will never go back.
Today I found out I have nerve damage in my right arm from the sports I have played, and I am going to have to give up guitar for a bit while my nerves are fixed. I may never get them fixed. So, if I have to give up guitar to have a more active life and to keep WoW away, well then it's still worth it. |
| The injuries that I have because of three years of being WoW Free and exercising and playing sports | > | The poor vision, weight gain, and overall sick feeling from playing for hours and hours. |
| Long story short, I had 6 lvl 80's, two of them around 6k GS... you know what's behind that. Five months ago I started to feel like I had a problem with WoW. Body fat started to pile up, sex life run low, etc... Then started to realize more and more what a bunch of weirdos we were there in the game, and felt some shame to belong... But the final call was that one day my gorgeous (and I mean it) girlfriend, with whom I've been living for 5 years now, broke down and told me that she hated how every day is just the same, like we are just waiting for our lives to pass... and she never played WoW! It was only me. It wasn't a fight, she didn't even mention WoW or blame me for anything.. just saying. It was a simple sentence that struck me for 26k overkill... if I keep on this way she will dump me at some point. No way! I just started not playing my 80's, not raiding, playing just 2 hours when she wasn't home, leveling an alter nobody knew on bg's, guildless, and after 3 weeks I just felt sick and tired of the stupidity of it all, how serious some people was about a damn bg, how grindy and tiresome it really was... I got really tired of it and just took me 10 minutes to delete toons, cancel account, uninstall software, clear favorites list...
WoW wasn't the first addiction I quit: first pot and later tobacco are my greatest achievements. I'm 35 and it's been 5 years since I quit those, and never got back. I got really tired of those habits, like i got sick of WoW.. It's a mind job and doesn't happen overnight. If you get to realize and feel that you don't wanna be that guy (the one you've become) anymore, any excuses in your way will just fall apart. Just wake up, realize, be more critic, and react. Best wishes from this Spaniard, from sunny Spain. |
| I played WoW from its inception. From the standpoint of sheer addictive gameplay it has achieved sheer brilliance. When WoW was originally challenging and relied heavily on skill and cooperation of a well ran raid and guild there was nothing better. I didn't care if I was spending ungodly amounts of time playing, not talking to my friends, not talking to my girlfriend, family, going outside, etc. The game just had a major hold on me. After our guild smashed MC (one of the first on our server), I put this thing down, left WoW. In 2 months I came back. Even more addicted than before. It wasn't until my girlfriend at a firm function told people that I was playing the game in front of co-workers, that I felt ashamed and embarrassed from the sheer sadness of my life over the passed two years since WoW's launch. I quit this time for a long period of time. However, when Blizzard launched WotLK, I had to play again! I missed all of the previous expansion content, so I did not realize how incredibly hamstringed WoW had become. No challenge, no in-game sense of accomplishment. I think this design change aided in my final decision to completely delete and D/E everything on all my characters and quit. Its sad in many ways: sad that I lost so much time playing a computer game, sad that I left some pretty cool, albeit seriously addicted WoW players in my guild, and just sad that WoW isn't the same as it use to be. I guess this post is weird for me - as it reflects on how addictive and destructive WoW is to one's own personal social well being, but also laments the design changes which crippled a unique and compelling game. Torn between appreciation and regret. |
