World of Warcraft Addiction.

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I wouldn't mind if she played WoW in moderation, even if it it were excessive moderation. As she is currently though it's like she's dead already. The only time I see her is when she's going to the toilet, getting food from the kitchen or going to bed. Otherwise she's basically a very expensive, very ineffecient heater taking up our back room. Harsh, I know, but it's not like she talks to any of us, she doesn't clean up after herself, doesn't prepare any meals and she is a drain on the household - home doesn't feel safe and relaxing anymore.Mainly though, she doesn't look happy. I haven't seen her smile in the last month, I truely believe that she only plays because in comparison everything else seems boring. I honestly believe gaming addiction is as strong and dangerous as any drug addiction. I went through a minor phase of it myself in high school. Hell, I know tons of people addicted to WoW. One of my mates was addicted to meth and started playing WoW during his comedowns. Now he's a meth fiend that never leaves his house. I haven't see him in half a year. Just last week another close friend of mine was dumped by her BF because he'd rather play WoW than spend time with her. Another mate at Uni failed everything one year at Uni because he played WoW instead of going to class. His GF of three years broke up with him late last year too. wowdetox.com is peppered with thousands of cases which sound identical to drug abuse.I dunno, I don't feel I can leave her because it's destroying her and my father, and I keep reading things on that site about how people finally do quit, and after a month they feel so much better. I don't want to abandon her when I know she would have never given up on me.

Who said anything about abandoning your mother?? Either you didn't read my post or you ignored it, one of the two. She can have a healthy lifestyle and still play WoW. Perhaps if you and your family would try and incorporate these ideas instead of coming across harshly (like unplugging her comp and hiding it from her) she'd be more willing to listen. Any abrasive actions are not going to get any positive results. I am not going to go too in-depth about how to incorporate this as I have addressed it in my last post to you.And I don't mean to come off harsh but she is an adult and so are you. If you are unhappy and feel so unsafe at home than perhaps it's time to leave the nest. If it’s bothering you this much and she is not willing to change than it’s best to remove yourself from the situation. It’s not healthy for you or for your mother by the sounds of it.

I myself play alot of MMORPG's, I was hooked for one year, didn't really have a social life, although I think these games helped me through my depression, gave me peopel to talk to outside of school.I now just went back into WoW, although I've learned to control it, when I get the cahcne I'll go shoot hoops, and play WoW for an hour a night or so. The best thing to do is try and get her interested in something, even if it takes her off the computer for an houre less a day, it's still an hour a day. Try and figure out what she likes to do and figure a way to get her to do it.

I myself went through a WoW addiction. I played it for a good 6 months then decided to just drop it not let it go any farther and just quit. 4 months later i was back on it wasting away my life. I would sit on the computer ALL day playing the game. I would only get up to eat, go to the bathroom or sleep. I am homeschool so i had all the time in the world to play it. Finally one day i deleted all my characters on the game canceled my account and gave them game disk away to someone else. Since then my social life is alot better. Im working 5 days a week (Not bad for a 17 year old)and just plain out loving life. As for your mother im sorry to hear, the truth is its a HARD addiction to overcome. It truely is like a drug. It seems to me she gets on that game to live a whole different life, one far far away from her "real life" which she is probably trying to escape. As for how to get her away from the computer i can not help you on that. She is a grown women, and can make her own decisions, hopefully she will make one thats good for her, you, and the whole family. I wish you luck.

Originally Posted By: Megadeth90I myself went through a WoW addiction. I played it for a good 6 months then decided to just drop it not let it go any farther and just quit. 4 months later i was back on it wasting away my life. I would sit on the computer ALL day playing the game. I would only get up to eat, go to the bathroom or sleep. I am homeschool so i had all the time in the world to play it. Finally one day i deleted all my characters on the game canceled my account and gave them game disk away to someone else. Since then my social life is alot better. Im working 5 days a week (Not bad for a 17 year old)and just plain out loving life. As for your mother im sorry to hear, the truth is its a HARD addiction to overcome. It truely is like a drug. It seems to me she gets on that game to live a whole different life, one far far away from her "real life" which she is probably trying to escape. As for how to get her away from the computer i can not help you on that. She is a grown women, and can make her own decisions, hopefully she will make one thats good for her, you, and the whole family. I wish you luck. I too am addicted to this game...tried to quit multiple times. My account runs out in like 3 weeks, I don't think I'm gonna renew. Nice to see someone in the same situation, I'm 17 too and about to get a job :P.

When I was a WoW addict that has played for 2 1/2 years and for many of months have played for over 100 hours a week, I have some helpful tips to help a person quit. 1. Show her that there is more to life than a game, she is most likely playing it because she has nothing better to do. Encourage her friends to go out with her or take her to lunch one day and just talk. 2. INTERVENTION! Sit her down one day and have everyone close to her tell her how this has changed them.WoW addiction is very unhealthy physically, mentally and emotionally. As I've said to many of my friends after I quit, World of Warcraft can drain the soul out of a person.

Yo take it from me. I managed 300 hours of WoW in 2 months. Get her a treadmill or something if you dont already have one. I never got around to trying this but have her on it slowly as she plays, like 1.5-2 mph. Itll keep her metabolism up, as well as trim her legs. Dont try anything like the arm weights. Anything thatll distract her. She'll end up getting pwned by a furbolg and being pissed.Just dont screw with her game, do little passive things, or things like the treadmill, so its a win win situation, dont take it away but make sure she cares about her family more than her toon.

I just broke my WoW addiction, was kinda hard leaving all my online friends behind, but I know its for the best.Just make sure to have something to replace WoW with, because right now I'm bored as hell :P.

Lol, im playin WoW right now, and YES causes great addiction and more if im in vacations, but she plays a lot the game, the family should talk to her.

(P.S. whats your mom accountname? . Jk..)

i just quit too. anyone want to buy a nelf hunter on elune? jk...slightly serious. i dnt know what too do with my time either. kinda wierd stopped playing wow and started up all those other worse things that i hadnt done in a while. sounds weird but for a while with out realizing it i think wow was my anti drug.

^ lol at above postI quit one year ago. STAY THE **** AWAY FROM WOW if you don't have self-control. For the whole last Christmas, I was staying at home playing WoW and my friends would try to pull me outta my house, but i would refuse and tell them to go out by themselves. I finally quit like last year and was like Yeah, reality friends are better than online friends sorry and now Im occupied with more serious business than WoW. Its stupid really, you're basically giving your life to WoW, you pay every month to do stupid stuff, but nonetheless its fun at times. Anyways, good luck getting your mother out of WoW, its hard especially when you're the best character on the server cuz everyone wants to keep that reputation on the server. I think a good way to get your mother out of WoW is to play yourself and get your whole family to and keep killing her in the MMORPG world until she gets pissed off and quits. (Y)

tbh i kinda would like to for like a summer stay inside smoke weed and be addicted to a video game just to see that side of life :|but i cant i lose interest in games to easily.

I can't quit laughing at John Kun's comment about being pwned by a furbolg. Just brings back memories of toons running through the woods with countless furbolgs chasing them.I quit playing WoW over a year ago and just recently started playing again. WoW is for sure my anti-drug. It saved me an ass ton of money, because I wasn't out spending it at the bar every night. The game for me is also an escape, which in my profession you need to keep your sanity. Show some interest in the game and ask questions. Sometimes when a non player would ask me a question back in the day my response brought into reality what a freakin GEEK I was for the game. She will quit when she is ready to quit. My old guild was a group of good people and they HIGHLY encouraged activities outside of the game. That is also what set us apart from other guildsI was always a die hard troll guy, but my new gnomes handlebar mustache is wider than he is tall and thats hella cool.

Yeah I used to be addicted to Diablo 2 so I know how hard it is to stop being addicted to a video game. That feeling you get when you defeat someone in the game, or have better items is so great, even when you cannot touch the items in real life. I have noticed that the people who are addicted the worst, are the ones that are extremely competitive in the real life, because those are the ones that love being better than others and love winning, which fits perfectly when playing video games since you can get things better than your opponents and you can defeat your opponents.While it took me a long time to finally quit, I am afraid that it would take a lot more from your mother. The reason why I was able to quit was because I am still a teen with goals; I finally realized what I could have done with all those hours wasted-I could of become a professional tennis player by now or at least keep my number one class rank in school. So after I realized that these games will not do absolutely ANYTHING for me later on in life (because I don't think it is very impressive to put I play a lot of Diablo 2 on my college application), I was finally able to uninstall the game and burn the CDs.It would be a lot tougher for your mom to quit because she has no reason to. She is an adult, she doesn't work, her children aren't at home; basically, her life is completed, she doesn't really have much of a reason to stop playing the game. So unlike me where I had an incentive to quit, she doesn't really have one.Tell me this though, what would she be doing if she didn't play the game? Anything beneficial?Here are some ideas to help you however (some of these are cruel, but like with drug addictions, you are going to get results if you just sit there, pray and hope):1. Pull out internet line; like find a way to disconnect the internet connection without actually being found by your mother. Your mother will get extremely pissed off, but what can you do? Just like how drug addicts get bad withdrawals.2. Put a password on the computer without her knowing3. Uninstall the game without her knowing4. Video tape her while she plays; this idea may seem strange but if you show your mother the video on how she reacts, she can become discouraged because video game addicts have a certain nasty look on their face sometimes while they are playing.5. Call Dr. Phil. Seriously, if these small "homegrown" methods don't work, you have to get some professional help to embaress her to discourage her. I don't know what the chances are to get some national thing like the Dr. Phil Show to select you, but I'm pretty sure if you send a very desperate letter then you might have a chance.6. Don't give up! That is the biggest thing. Same thing with smokers, alchoholics, etc, you cannot give up on them; addictions are hard to get rid of, that is why they are called "adddictions."

I think dr. phil would be all over that for a show topic.Internets, the new meth.

WoW.... lol, so like wow, im UBER Dork... i can relate to your mother, i was addicted to WoW when i got it for the first week, but after staying up like all night for 2 nights in a row, and getting to lvl 35 in juss 17 hours /played time (heh, im cool) and ignoring my girlfriend much, i realized what it was doing, so i slowed my roll... and then i let my girlfriend start playing it... bad idea, she ended up getting addicted to it, and when i changed the password on the account, she flipped out and ignored me for the rest of the day, and part of the next...when i said uber dork, i wasnt just referring to WoW i also had a bad addiction to, runescape, the legend of zelda ocarina of time/majoras mask, Diablo 2 LoD heh, and i was really good at them all, and thats why i loved them so much... runescape i had a lvl 120+ charactor. LoZ i was striving to get the fastest time possible to best the game, and wow... D2 lol, i had all the characters above lvl 90 which is a hard feat to accomplish with 8 charecters.but to the OP, u can goto WoW and set up ur moms account... a good suggestion would be to gradually get her off the game,WoW has enabled a "timer" that u can set, that limits how long ur mom can play each day... i would suggest setting it to something thats not to short in comparison to how much she plays daily... sumthin like 13-14 hours... and every 2 weeks or so, lower it by like 30 minutes... and every odd month, an hour... till shes finally down to like 6 hours... i mean if WoW is saying that she doesnt have any time left on her account... what can she do except other things...oh a word of advice... DONT BUY HER ANY MORE FREAKING VIDEOGAMES!!!and also, maybe invest in a bonsai tree... i had one for a while, there really actually peaceful... Good luck... for the timer settings, u must goto the parental control panel on the left after logging in her username and pass... (say that u wanna try out the game and see what she loves so much if u dont know it.) and hopefully u know her security question, if not u can call toll-free, at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (800-592-5499), between the hours of 8:00am-8:00pm Pacific time, for live assistance. good luck.

Great input, but you do realize you're replying to someone who hasn't been here in almost a year.

yea hehe, i realized that about 10 minutes after writing that, and sending a copy to his inbox lol... thanks tho ...

Hey kmrobins,First of all, thanks for the reply on my post. Now I'm here to try to help you. Same situation existed in my home as well, except it was my brother. He was heavily addicted to WoW, playing hours upon hours of it, going to bed late, waking up early... it seemed like he never stopped playing.Anyways -- to the point. If you are a technical person, there's a couple of ways to approach this.The BEST way (the one I found that works 100%), is you go into your router settings (hoping you have a router), and you block the WoW login connection port. This makes it so when she tries to login to the game, she gets a connection error message, making it IMPOSSIBLE for her to connect. I just hope she doesn't know much about routers :-P.The second way you can go about this is by obtaining her login information, go to the World of Warcraft site, and there's a "parental" section, where you can limit the times in which she can login. This way you may want to consult with the rest of your family and come to an agreement (with your mother too), but it would be best.If you aren't very technical, send me a PM, and I'll see if I can help walk you through how to do it.Best of luck with solving the addiction!Let me know how / if these ways work at all.

Sounds like empty nest syndrome. A lot of women experience it. My mother isn't there yet but it's begun even with my brothers still living at home, just not needing her. If it wasn't WoW it would be gardening, it would be remodeling, it would be cooking when you have no company and ending up freezing cakes to eat a month later! And honestly these games are designed to get you addicted. I rarely play WoW or Final fantasy XI, but my wife is always on it. She works through home, and while she plays WoW she can do her work in a separate window. I sometimes get worried she would rather play the game for 5 hours than get shoes(which she's also addicted to.) But in the end I know I won't be able to change her habit with this. We've discussed it a thousand times at least! Do something with her, get up early in the morning or afternoon(when most WoWers wake up!) make her a meal, keep her away from the computer, see a movie, discuss the paper. JUST DON'T MENTION THE SEXY NIGHT ELF DANCE :P!! Good luck, and I hope she doesn't find herself at the computer one night and realizes she could have been elsewhere.(edit) LOL I realise some may take some of my notations as sexist! please don't I didn't mean it that way