I’m an IT manager. And an occasional photographer. Sometimes an aspiring writer. I’m also a city planner, a weapons specialist and a blue-skinned shaman, slaying demons.
I am a gaming addict.
As a teenager in the ’80s, I was a nerd; a part-time name badge at Radio Shack; a bully magnet with a curfew. Everyone else seemed privy to nuances of living to which I wasn’t. For me, friends weren’t a joy—they were a source of anxiety. My fear of ridicule was paralyzing. Family wasn’t a blessing—it was dread and drudgery. But in the video arcades, I was a champion, defending the world from aliens. Silver flashed through my hands in its short journey from emancipating allowance to enslaving machine.
And then—then!—came home computers. And the Internet. They brought the arcade to my desktop, the role-playing club to my bedroom. I evolved with the technology, from text adventures to first-person shooters to online gaming. In the MMOs—the massively multi-player online games that became my electronic drug of choice—I was home. I didn’t go out to live life: I logged on.
A late bloomer in everything, I left the nest at 24. I rented a tiny apartment in St. James Town and, through a temp agency, found a data entry job. I’d already come to rely on alcohol to get me through social gatherings, but now that I was on my own, I drank and gamed every night, with most of my money going to support these dual habits. Friendships dwindled, and I rejected my family altogether.
In 1999, two of my drinking buddies and I started a printing brokerage. It was incorporated on April Fool’s Day, an inauspicious start. I tried hard to play the business manager, but it didn’t work. Within a year and a half, fed up with my unreliability and cantankerousness, my partners ejected me.
For the next year, I drank and gamed to the exclusion of all else. My apartment became squalid and cluttered. Neighbours complained about the stench of piling pigeon shit from the balcony
I never used. When I’d burned through my RRSP, I cleaned myself up enough to land an IT job. But soon my old habits resumed. I remember all-nighters when I’d pee into empty booze bottles rather than walk the five steps to the toilet. (You can’t pause an online game for a washroom break.) I developed tachycardia and gout and bad teeth; at one point, my supervisor suggested I might start showering before work.
While I wanted a clean apartment, happy neighbours and bosses, long-term relationships and a rich, fulfilling life, I was incapable of acquiring them. I convinced myself repeatedly that I’d start on them “right after this game.” Time evaporated in quanta of “just one more level…”
The non-addict hears this litany of insanity and asks, “Why don’t you just stop?” It’s a sensible question, even to the addict. But it’s not a treatment plan. The best way I can explain addiction is like this: if you’ve ever choked or swum too deep, remember how it felt to be deprived of air. Remember the anxiety, and then the panic. Your first thought probably wasn’t about being a good neighbour or attending to personal hygiene. It was: I must breathe.
You are so strong and brave for publishing this. Good for you for overcoming your addiction and best wishes for the rest of your happy life.
January 25, 2012 at 10:41 am | by JessGord – thank you for sharing your experience – I hope it will help someone. About 2 years ago, my son was addicted to an MMO. It was a dark and scary time. He was in college at the time and did not finish his course because of this addiction. He is doing quite well now, but as parents we always worry. If I hadn’t gone through it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. Hopefully your article will enlighten others. Many thanks.
January 25, 2012 at 1:32 pm | by Margaret