Slashdot Mirror
How To Help a Friend With an MMO Addiction?
sammydee writes "I have a friend who is addicted to an MMO (Pirates of the Burning Sea). On a typical day, he will wake up around 9am, browse the forums for a bit, then go online and stay online all day, playing until about 3am the following morning, taking only toilet breaks and stopping to eat ready-meals. While the rest of the house works hard revising for exams, this friend will be playing his MMO instead. Now, I am pretty confident that this comprises an unhealthy addiction; unfortunately, I have no idea what to do about it. Any attempt to physically prevent him from playing the game would most likely result in an outburst of anger and possibly physical violence. Attempts at telling him he has a problem have been met with derision and angry retorts. Slashdotters, what would you do to help out a friend in this situation? Perhaps you are a reformed addict yourself — if so, how did you break out of the habit? Or maybe I should just leave well enough alone and allow him to continue? Any thoughts are gratefully received."
Get him a girlfriend.
That's pretty much the only solution.
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Slashdotters, what would you do to help out a friend in this situation?
I used to live in a bad part of the Franklin neighborhood in Minneapolis. As I pulled up next to my house, two squad cars were parked in a V in my front lawn with their cherries on. I had just worked until 2am at a parking garage on the U of MN campus. There was an adolescent in front of my house being stared down by a policeman. As I walked up the cop was staring him down and holding a bag of weed saying very loudly and very forcefully, "... yeah? And what skills you got? What has this shit been doing for you? How long have you been using? What are you going to do when you're a grown up providing for yourself?"
... but maybe they aren't. I know how someone would approach me about this, they wouldn't try to stop me. Instead, they--being my friends--would appeal to things they know that matter to me. I'll try to list them in order that I think you can evoke a reaction from your friend:
While that's a lot more melodramatic than you need to be, you can put your friend in the same situation.
A man's got priorities. Your friend's sound screwed up
I've seen people give up several of these for an MMORPG (Star Wars Galaxies ruined lives). You need to sit down and talk to him and try to realign his priorities. You have to know him and know where he's going to bring that logic. If things don't matter to him anymore there's not a lot you can do once you've made all those appeals (and you may know more).
Slashdotters, what would you do to help out a friend in this situation? Perhaps you are a reformed addict yourself -- if so, how did you break out of the habit?
If I was spending too much time in a game it would take very little to cause me to get up and walk away: "Since you started playing that game, how much closer are you to being the person you want to be when you die?" Don't think that would work on your friend--especially if he has low self esteem.
... although I cannot fathom how that would be.
Most importantly if you convince him to stop, you need to be there for him to fill up that part of his life or to help see the value in realigning his goals.
Last thing is that if he isn't screwing up or endangering any of these things, you're going to have a hell of a hard time convincing him out of the game
My work here is dung.
Jeremy Bentham would have said he lives an idyllic life. He is generating a maximum of net pleasure.
What is it you want him to do instead?
Get some buddies, make some accounts, grief him until he quits.
Play Command HQ online
Hack his account and delete it. Keep doing it. He will figure it out eventually, just don't get caught.
When all of his "work" is destroyed, it will make it hard for him to want to continue slaving away. Keep doing it.
If he is not deterred by that at all, well then I suggest seeking professional help and at least getting an intervention started with the rest of his friends.
I learned that with my regular old drug junkie friends.
Steal the modem and hide it off-site. Then leave for a vacation.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
He's addicted to being a pirate. He's too far gone to be saved...all you can do is sandbag around his computer. But when the replica cannon arrives via UPS, I suggest you leave.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Sounds like this is taking place in a college setting. Don't worry about it. Darwin will always win. Your MMO addict will be getting a permanent chance to play all day forever back in Mom's basement after he flunks out. It's not your problem and don't try to make it be otherwise.
Tell him he is wasting his life playing this game. Explain the exploration / exploitation trade off to him. If he still stick to this game, he is a moron not worthy of your concern. Find better persons to care about.
\u262D = \u5350
'nuff said.
Sometimes one can only learn through pain...
He may have to have some consequence other than you telling him not to do it, like getting kicked out or having the electricity turned off.
I would say my peace and let him learn his lesson or break free.
Work exam material into the game and you have double good!
Really, though, wouldn't it be great if games like World of Warcraft turned into actually practical learning experiences, instead of simply forcing you to learn a lot of completely irrelevant info? Of course I haven't played a MMO(RPG) since a brief stint with Ultimate Online, so maybe kids nowadays really are studying their double-slit experiment results to level up their Quantum Photon Physics skill.
Just curious if this particular individual is a room-mate.
If so, is he paying his portion of bills/rent?
If so, leave him be. All he can hurt is himself.
If not, kick him out. Maybe he'll come to his senses.
Toilet Breaks? Tell him he's doing it wrong.
The dude doesn't even have a pod.
Why do YOU feel obligated to do something here?
Sounds like the guy is a legal adult. Aside from voicing your concerns, butt the hell out. If the dude wants to slide through the first few years of post-highschool, or whatever, it IS his choice.
Like with any addiction, change doesn't come about until the addicted WANTS it to happen. Period.
as if this isnt just a lame spam, cmon /. you know better
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/99/99onicotrel.phtml
I still don't see the problem. If he is homeless and without a computer or internet, he will no longer need to worry about being addicted to a game now will he?
Addicts need to hit bottom before you can re-rehabilitate them. Furthermore, it is not the OP's place to tell this person how to live their life. The only thing the OP can do is wait for the inevitable, and be there for this person when they do hit bottom. Any attempt to stop him from playing the game will only sour the OP's relationship with their friend.
If you believe that this is harming him then you can simply force him to stop playing. Take out the RAM of his computer, loosen the SATA cable of his HD so it doesn't detect it, if you have a in-house router simply have the router get off the internet late at night.
Considering this is a college setting though, how much is this harming him? If hes keeping up with his studies and such, well I suppose MMO addiction is a bit less harmful then drug or alcohol addiction, so it could be worse. If he isn't keeping up with his studies, well in a semester he will be gone.
Or, you can always wait it out, chances are the MMO will grow old, a few close online "friends" of his will get a life and stop coming on, it will charge players more money, etc. Then he will naturally just get bored and quit.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I had a friend in college who was addicted to an MMO - not quite at the hours you describe, but not far off. Every semester when finals came around, we tried to tear him away from his computer and help him study, but he never listened. When convincing/arguing/pleading failed (and eventually, it always failed), we would hide or break his game CDs, but he would buy, pirate, borrow, or otherwise find a new copy. He failed out of school.
Seek professional help. Talk to the counselors at your school.
I know a guy who had a pretty comfortable life. Nice house, pretty wife, three kids, good job, the whole shootin' match... and on top of that, he was the classic "undeserving" guy... didn't really know that much but was able to convince people that knew far less than him that he was quite adept. (We've all seen this and hated them for it yes?) Well this guy got into Diablo and literally let his life fall apart. He lost his job and couldn't keep one. Lost his wife and kids. Lost his house. Not sure what he is up to these days but he has definitely not owned up to his weakness. He probably plays WOW or something else now but I can't imagine that he has figured out where his life had gone wrong yet.
Some people have it in their heads, especially when they are in their mid 40s, that they are an adult and you can't tell them how to live their lives... it's his choice and he is happy where he us. (you know he's not though, not when you see everything he has lost in favor of his gaming addiction... one particular low point was when he landed a date with a hit young woman in her mid 20s. Who knows what she was thinking or what he said to spoil it, but she announced she thought of him as a "father figure" and that was pretty much the end of that... didn't handle rejection well and got himself drunk enough that he woke up on his front lawn having pissed himself completely and no idea how he even got home to begin with... the guy is a mess and his brain is hard wired to making stupid decisions.)
While I would LOVE to find a magic answer to help THIS guy out, I don't think there is any such way.
I've gone through a number of online games and have found that the easiest way to tear myself away from them [permanently] is to find what kept me there and disable it. In one case, what kept me there all day was that I enjoyed talking to the people. I spoke to a few of them and had myself permanently banned from the guild. Sure, I could still talk to them elsewhere, but it kept me off the game which made me marginally more productive. (And, for a few of them, since I was no longer in the loop, we found each other mutually less interesting.)
Is to show him there is a live outside. Trying to verbally convince him he's wasting his life is a waste of yours. Find out what he's interested in (besides that MMO), and take him along to an event he likes.
The only think that broke me away from a 4 year World of Warcraft addiction was a long vacation. After spending two weeks in Japan, I realized that I didn't need WoW and was missing out on a whole world real life adventure. The only other thing I can think of is a girlfriend but that isn't likely to happen given your friend never leaves the computer. Vacation away from home is your best bet.
My suggestion would be, in one of the breif moments when he's off the game, get him to just come and talk to you, heck maybe even get some of your other friends to join, and keep him occupied in a social discussion for an hour or two to at least break the cycle once in a while. If that doesn't have a lasting effect, just talk to him by himself and say you're concerned about his wellbeing, ask him if he wants to spend all his life eating ready meals and sitting in front of a computer like a zombie.
Usually any addiction is a sign of something missing from the persons life, if you can find out what that is, maybe you can help him get over the cause rather than the effect.
As reluctant as one might be to hack an on-line account, it could be necessary to show hard love.
One might not even consider a game a worthy addiction of concern.
However, the parent post contains the #1 bit of advice anyone serious about an intervention to any addiction should be equipped with.
Persistence. Intervene adn then do not stop. As futile as it may feel, never use failure as a reason to quit the fight. As hopeless as it seems, never stop.
Think of it as a challenge to yourself, because it may be more difficult a challenge than even many addicts have seen.
If it helps, know that even if you never succeed it was worth the effort. Because, if the lost soul ever leaves, it will do so with the single good thought that someone cared (even if they themselves didn't).
Try to see the glass half full here..Surely there is a thesis in here about his gaming Experiences somewhere. Get him stared slowly..A treatment to present to a professor perhaps. Cutting off the internet to the house might be another solution...a number of "technical difficulties" might drive him to get his fix at a coffee shop or the like..where he might interact with real people..it's very easy to become a hermit when home has everything you need.
I Need someone to rebuild a Digitech Digital Delay pedal for me....for me...for me...for me.
Though I hate to agree with shrinks, most believe these days that one CAN get addicted to video games, at least psychologically. Basically, just like gambling, same effect, same thing going on in the brain, and just as hard to kick. Basically, if it is having a detrimental effect on his life, health, both physical and/or mental, and if this person is someone you care about, a friend, there is sadly, very little you can do. Trust me, talking doesn't help, telling them they are ruining their life does less than help. I am a recovering addict, I know. Pretty much the only thing you CAN do is perhaps an intervention, talk to his family, other friends, find substance abuse councilor and get advice from them. ANY aa,NA, rehab center will have a good list of people who know about this, call them. Basically, you have to treat it like a gambling addiction. If you really are concerned, the best bet is his family and a councilor, together maybe you can get him to at least think about the fact that he might have a problems. Realistically though, if someone does have a problem like this, there is little one can do unless the person is willing to seek help. It is a helpless feeling I know.
Its possible that he is not so forcefully drawn to the game, but rather, that he's trying to avoid some other problem in his life. If you can figure out what that problem is, it might help you deal with the situation.
The fact that everyone at your place is studying for exams suggests one item: he may just not want to deal with studying for finals. The question is why? Is he in danger of flunking out? If so, get him to see the logic of meeting with the professor to see if he can take an incomplete and then take the final later - and then get tutoring pronto.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1044970/china-gives-electric-shocks-to-net-game-addicts Electroconvulsive therapy were proved very effective for MMO Addiction, in my homeland.
Find a reasonably attractive prostitute, and pay her to get him drunk and fuck him. Getting laid is the best cure for any nerd-related addiction.
Put a linux box between him and the internet and setup packet shaping.
Create a script that lets him play for so many hours, then slowly degrade the quality of the connection until he quits in frustration.
Start at 2am, and slowly move it back each day until he is only playing a few hours a day.
Your friend feels trapped for some reason and this game is their escape.
Sit down with your friend for a day while they play and pay attention to what gets them excited while they're playing. If you can't set aside one full day to do this with your friend then you should just face the fact that they're not really your friend and move on.
Once you know what excites them while they're playing you can determine what they're trying to escape from and possibly work with them towards getting away from whatever makes them feel trapped.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Addiction is not a disease, it's a symptom.
Although it's no longer updated, the "Everquest Daily Grind" blog was filled with the kind of stories that scared me away from MMO (or indeed any game) addiction. Have him read a few of those stories, written by the addicts themselves.
I^HMy friend is addicted to Slashdot.
He would have sex but he couldn't get a date and besides nobody wants to date an unemployed nerd.
Your friend needs help. Professional help. Your school probably has a psychological counseling office, but that's the sort of thing that he needs to seek himself. Confronting him, wrecking his account, getting him banned, or anything else is not going to help you or him at this point.
I say this because I've been that person. Same academic issues, same fixation on a game for social reinforcement (a MUX, in my case), and I'd wager that he's feeling just as depressed and afraid as I did when I was in that situation.
If you want to help him, get in touch with his family. Get in touch with his professors and the dean of his faculty. If he's religious, get in touch with his pastor. Chances are, none of them have any idea what's really going on. It's really easy to just grunt and shrug when someone asks how classes are going. They may have suspicions, but between their desire to treat him as an adult, and the shame and frustration he's feeling at being unable to cope, he doesn't feel like he can ask for help, and they don't feel like they can successfully confront him.
worse case, he develops a strip club/hooker habit, but at least he's getting some.
.........his life outside the game probably sucks. Assuming he is in school, he's probably going to fail his classes, and doesn't want to think about it. Thinking about it just makes him feel worse. Leaving his game world just makes him miserable. Who knows, maybe his mom just died too, or something and so in the real world, he's got all this pain, but in the game world he's kind of ok.
If he's going to leave, it's going to either be by force (ie, he can't pay for his apartment anymore, or you destroy his computer), or because he comes to believe that the outside world is something he can handle, that all the pain isn't really all that bad: it is something we all deal with and all can learn to face.
Go with the second option: just be his friend, make him food sometime or something, whatever. He absolutely knows he's messed up, so you telling him that won't help much. Just accept him (maybe even ask him what he did on WOW today, sometimes stuff like that works), and be prepared for a lot of negativeness that he'll throw at you before he's willing to trust you.
Also, if you want to understand the whole 'powerless to face the world' mindset, it can help to listen to Blue October, they've got some good songs.
Qxe4
i struggled with this for a couple years. i destroyed my marriage, squandered away a lucrative at-home business, foreclosed on my house. i also struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and it wasn't until i was ready to quit my unhealthy and selfish lifestyle that i did.
i've been free of drugs and alcohol for nearly 2 years, and haven't played an MMO in over 5 years. the best advice i can give you in regards to what to do with your friend is tell him how you feel and leave it at that.
years later he will realize how he squandered away all that time and opportunity and will kick himself for it. I for one am thankful for it, I am who I am today because of it. I use computers for leisure now-days, am a successful audio engineer and marrying an amazing woman who is almost done getting her masters degree in psychology.
Everything worked out and I learned a lot from my years vamping out in front of a computer monitor. I am no longer overweight, happier than I have ever been in my life and enjoy a spiritual and healthier life.
What's the big deal? At least he isn't addicted to MMA. Could be bad for the health.
Or MMF ...
For one, all the MMO companies I've ever encountered have plenty of records of what has happened with an account. That was if something goes wrong, they can restore it. If it gets hacked, they'll just roll it back to where it was before then. So the company will fix the problem and he'll just get to keep going. Now if you keep doing it, you WILL get caught. That's how criminals, and make no mistake that's what you'd be, get caught: They keep doing it. Each time there's more chance you slip up, each time there's more patterns to look for.
In this case you'd get found out fairly quickly because those involved would realize the only way someone could keep getting his password is to have physical access to his computer.
So this is an excellent way to not fix the problem, and to land your ass in jail. Hacking can be a very serious offense if they want it to be.
Hopefully you've got a router. Using the built-in firewall, block the ports that the game requires. on and off for five minutes at a time. So he has to keep logging in and never makes any progress (well, even less than normal...), but doesn't realize you're fiddling with it.
If you can't place a linux box as router without being suspicious, you might be able set up a cron job on cheapo laptop you connect to automatically keep changing the commodity router's settings.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
You can't control his life. You can explain your POV and what you think he is doing. When people are addicted to chemical drugs people around him can be 'enablers'. Enablers are people that indirectly support their addiction by passively allowing their drug use. Do not be an enabler. If it is wearing on the friendship and his ability to fulfill household duties tell him to get his shit together or you will kick him out.
Otherwise, professional help.
And maybe think about the role of this addiction in the persons life. If playing video games is the best part of their otherwise depressing shitty life, you should be prepared to help beyond this scapegoat addiction.
If this really is an addiction, treat it like one. Addictions with negative consequences have to be addressed, whether they involve alcohol, drugs, sex, or video games.
http://www.lovefirst.net/checklist.htm
That's an intervention checklist, specific to alcohol but applicable here. There are probably many more resources on the web if you look around.
Ask him what he could accomplish if he devoted as much effort as he does with the MMO to something meaningful.
I used to be a WoW addict much like your friend. When I dropped out of college I realized how much it effected my whole life. Now I've enrolled in a different college and use the energy I put into WoW to my school work and I have much more confidence and am proud of what I've done. I just wish I didn't need the kick in the ass to make me realize it.
I mean it's not like a lot of people get killed
I mean it's not like anyone ever died
oh fuck it. Get him addicted to porn instead.
Interesting side question: Is his gaming addiction being caused by failing out of school or some other real-life problem (depression?) or is the gaming addiction causing the effects as the story suggests?
Preface: I was once spending more hours per week working on WoW characters than on my concurrent full-time job. I managed to keep said job so I'm not sure I ever got as bad as the person in this story, however, some things worth pointing out:
- This person probably considers those people he knows in the MMO to be greater friends than those he knows in real life. Cooperation from the those in game friends will be the greatest asset to your cause if you can get it, especially if he's a member of a player organization (guild in WoW. Not sure what they're called in Pirates).
- I eventually quit because there were things I wanted to do in life. Presumably he has some of these too. Ask him what the end-game is given what he's doing with his time. What does he hope to accomplish in the game that will matter 5 years from now, have him weigh that with what he's potentially giving up in real life that will matter 5 years from now. He has likely considered this and can't quit cold-turkey so this isn't useful until you can get him down to a reasonable amount of play time making this is your long-term weapon.
- Point out that he can pick the game up again any time right where he left off. This is your short-term weapon. Remind him real life is rarely so forgiving.
Very easy...
You and 4 or 5 of your friends all get accounts, and then follow him around in the game ganking all his treasure.
-- Terry
Cut his cable.
Disable his Wireless connection.
Block him.
Fuck with his card.
Faraday Cage his room.
Pull the power circuit breaker to his room.
Get creative.
Pros - he will have to do something else besides game to get his system running again.
Con - when he finds out it was sabotage, things could get nasty..
Take the approach of those nutters who kidnap the nutters from cults..
I used to play WoW with all of my extra time, except for work and sleeping. I realize your friend is worse off than i was, but there are two major steps i had to take to quit. First the account needs to be gotten rid of, many sites will buy accounts, this will not allow him to as easily go back. Second you must find a way to fill his time.I forced myself to hang out with friends and also do more schoolwork when i had it. Its stil a hard road to not be tempted back in, but as long as these two criteria are met it will be much easier to stay off.
This is b.s. labeling enthusiastic game-playing as an addiction.
Try being addicted to something that is impossible to give up ~ like crack .. and see what true addiction is.
This is societal avoidance .. and I say any sane person would do the same .. for there is no redemmable value for what society is and how it behaves.
There's no doubt TFA is a troll. Did you see those game screenshots?
No one plays that game for 18 hours straight.
Call social services. Find out if they can just take him in for his own good for a psych eval. They might be able to, as it sounds like at this point he may be a harm to himself. Since it's long term harm, it may not work.
If not, you need to hold an intervention. You and everyone you can think of who cares about him. Family too. Have a clinical social worker there, and get their help setting it up.
If he becomes violent, have him arrested and they'll get him help.
If he threatens suicide, you can have him held on a mandatory 72 hour psych-eval.
You're trying to save his life. What he thinks of you doesn't matter. If he never speaks to you again, it's OK as long as you can help him.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It's not a problem until he flunks out of school, gets booted from the house for not paying rent, ...
My god, you'd fit well into the medical establishment. Studying to become a doctor?
Q: My friend survives on a diet of poutine and coke. A: It's not a problem until his heart palpitates.
I guess nothing is a problem in life until the condition is so severe that the poor sop is ready to cut a large cheque (supposing any funds remain) for quadruple bypass surgery performed by someone who didn't flunk out of school.
Great advice from the perspective of the doctor's retirement fund, not such good advice from the perspective of the future patient.
The underlying anger thing suggests this person is not ready to confront his inner conflict in the context of the larger world. Probably the best move is to distance yourself from the impending conflagration.
If you set yourself up to become the lightening rod for your friend's anger, and you have the patience of a saint, your friend might recover, but your friendship won't. One way or another, your friend will ultimately classify you in the "before" or "after" category.
You do have an opportunity to provide your friend with a small glimpse of leadership and self determination by taking responsibility for your own emotional content.
"I don't like hanging around with you when you play games 15 hours a day. It worries and irritates me to think about where your life might end up if you continue to behave this way. We need to think about different living arrangements. I hope we'll continue to be friends. I'll be very upset if we end up falling out over this. One of us needs to start looking for a new place to live. How are we going to sort this out?"
I've been reading a lot of economic theory lately. Apparently, according to economists, humans are rational agents in almost every respect.
This via Colby Cosh, my favourite lucid and agreeable wingnut.
http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2009/04/berl-redux.html
Who's to tell me that my utility function is wrong?
Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to this. Where he means to put the emphasis on "wrong", I would put the emphasis on "who", as it concerns your friend. If you solve for x and x = yourself, I'd harbour some grave doubts about *your* utility function after you showed the common sense to look before leaping.
"Any attempt to physically prevent him from playing the game would most likely result in an outburst of anger and possibly physical violence."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrophies will probably prevent him from resisting.
Just do it!
Things in a rear mirror might be behind you
I started playing everquest in 2001. At first I refused to play, but friends pretty much bought the game and installed it on my PC. I refused to play because I figured I'd get addicted... and sure enough... 7 years later... I went cold turkey. There are a few things that I realized about my own addiction that helped me break it.
First, MMOs are Skinner boxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber They let the player feel like they're accomplishing something. This is a huge motivator when in your real life, the rewards are missing from any effort. For me, I had just got divorced and had a company I help start shoot down the toilet. Suffices to say, I was at a motivational low.
So, to figure out the trap (Skinner box), you need to figure out how to get the rewards in real life that are missing. A psychologist might suggest sitting with your friend and actually setting achievable, short term, real world goals. Even if it is as simple as going for a 30 minute walk. Then emphasize the "Hey, I did something today." You might even want to try something that gives other rewards, like adrenaline, through running, or some sport.
Next, there was the social aspect. People in MMOs believe the social context missing from their lives is real - that you actually have friends in the game. This is pretty far from the truth. Sure, I got to know a few people well in my EQ experience, but not one of them has participated in a relationship outside the game. So, some brutal realities there...
Anyway, I've been EQ free over six months. I refuse to play another MMO, ever. When you look at the total time played, and you see that you've been online 300+ days... ask the question, if you had a year of time back, what would you do with it? Sit in front of a computer screen like a zombie? Or actually try accomplish something. People often say they don't have time for stuff. Pretty sobering to look at some metrics. And real addicts underestimate how much time they play.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Persistence. Intervene adn then do not stop.
/terrible/ advise: dangerous, unethical, and inconsistent with human nature.
This is
There is lots of research on addictions, and there's lots of ways to approach treatment, but *nothing* works unless your friend asks for help. That has to be the first step. It's nothing personal, just something to do with the way the brain processes information about the self. Any action you take will elicit defence mechanisms if it is based on downward social comparison.
My advise is to go talk to a clinical psychologist about your friends case. They may be able to suggest appropriate reading materials, or communication strategies.
I am dedicated to helping people and understanding the human mind - it's a passion for me, and why I returned to school after working for years as a programmer. In my experience, the only way to truly help someone is to get to know them better, without any sense of agenda.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
things. They get addicted to things that fill a need. So the question might be what's the game covering up? Endorphins can be used to self-medicate in a bottle or with a game. When we get stuck using substitutes for too long is when we start making obviously negative/detrimental decisions because we've lost the ability to see beyond our own pain/reward-cycle. But say it funnier then that when you tell him. ;-)
Quack, quack.
It really depends on the person. Personally, what saved my life was a copy of Jung's _Signs & Symbols_ and a great group of friends when I went off to college. When I started reading psychology texts, it gave me the space to realize, "Holy crap. I have deep-seated issues that are going to ruin my life if I don't seek help _right now_."
The desire for change has to come from him. Chances are he's feeling pretty trapped and isolated atm. If he's not the academic/bookish type, my solution probably won't be useful, but he needs to get some kind of perspective on his life as a whole WITHOUT feeling like he's being attacked (which is what will happen if you or anyone else confronts him directly). The only thing you can do is maintain friendship with him, so that when he inevitably drops out (or, in my very lucky case, takes medical leave), he feels like he has people that care about him.
To the people who made comments about parents' intervention being useful: NO. Parent's are the worst thing that could possibly happen to him. Chances are his parents are pretty inextricably involved in whatever issues/depression are driving him to play this much.
Letting other people do things you don't like is the price of freedom.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I have this friend IRL right and he's so attached his education that his not living life. He sacrifices any bit of fun for it. He gets up around 9am, calls his mum in Denver, and then hits the books until about 3am only leaving his desk to put a piece of cheese on some bread and maybe take a shit. His desk is totally littered with empty energy drink bottles and sometimes he pisses in an empty instead of getting up to go to the bathroom. Once he accidentally drank a recycled one and just vomited in another.
There's this pirate game right, it's awesome! Swashbuckling and harrr! Open seas! Booty! Awesomez!!! and I've tried to bring it up with him every now and again but my suggestions are always met with derision and anger. "You're sleeping your future away with that crap!" he'll yell. He can't see that he's missing out on all this fun with his addiction to success.
I've tried using wake-on-LAN and changing his home page but it just won't work. What can I do to help him?
and shutdown his machine in every mid-day and see what happens.
New Economic Perspectives
My wife would tell you that it took many interventions over a long period of time to finally get me to see the light about my gaming addiction. I had it mildly compared to what I've been reading. While it ultimately had to be my decision, I never would have made it without her intervening and showing me how my addiction affected her and our relationship in general. Crying helped a lot, but that might be awkward in your case...
Some of the advice about leaving him alone because he's an adult is ridiculous. If you care it's worth intervening (obviously you do considering your post), and he'll thank you for it eventually even though he might hate you for it short term. But even if you lose his friendship, it would be worth it in the long run if he breaks his addiction. He's throwing away his life.
I would try to convince him to take a vacation for a while...2 weeks maybe. Hopefully it will end up feeling like a vacation to him. If you can spare the time, keep him busy and social and possibly make it impossible to log on (go out of town with him). You'll probably need to pull him away many times before he sees the light. I would also put some material on addictive behavior in front of him. Being compared to a gambling addict or a drug addict helped open my eyes too.
I don't recommend doing anything sneaky like others have recommended (like cutting out his internet access). That's just going to put barriers up and he'll close you off.
Yea, you should tell your friend you think he may be developing a problem. You might try to get him involved with something you are doing, you know, give the fella a chance to go hang out with you or your friends at a social gathering of some kind etc.... Beyond that leave him alone.
I have spent a lot of time playing MMORPG's with friends, I have met some friends on MMORPG's and have been friends with them for 15+ years now. So spending a lot of time playing games isn't always bad. Just food for thought.
Take it from someone who knows, as sad as it is, he needs to figure it out for himself. When his grades and life suffers, he will snap out of it. Unfortunately, I happen to know by time he gets back to a normal life he will have screwed up his lower back for good. It will bother him forever.
You left out the most important details, namely the specifics of your relationship to them.
This means we can't give you advice that may be most suitable. A close friend may be more approachable than somebody who is just in your frat.
My advice though, is to leave it alone unless A) there is somebody in an advisory position to both of you that you can consult or B) you are closer to this person than your abbreviated description here indicates. Otherwise you simply aren't qualified to do anything about it, and any action you do take could cause more problems than it's worth.
Many years ago I played EQ whenever I had a spare moment. People brandished the words addiction around when speaking of me. I would think up ways to not have to do things just so I could sit home and play.
You know what? I got over the game. It didn't ruin my life. I wasn't put on meds to combat the urge to play. I simply found other things that interested me and moved on. Do I still play MMO's. Yep. 2-3 hours a week. Not per day. I spend most of my time reading books (yeah dead tree books), designing compact computing devices and enjoying my dogs.
I think you need to be understanding and maybe find out what your friend is getting from the game that he/she isn't getting in RL. I figured that out for myself. Maybe they need your help.
Just be understanding.
Nothing is impossible. It just hasn't been figured out yet.
Do nothing let him be, sometimes one has to hit rock bottom before they realize they have a problem and need help. As long as he resists any help, then you can't help him, so wait until he is ready.
COME. OVER. TO. THE. UK. Seriously, you'll love it here. We're turning it into a totalitarian extreme socialist state. I've no doubt it will soon be permissible to use force to stop people from playing a computer game too much, if it's deemed "not good for them".
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
Make sure his parents know. It sounds corny, but no one in the world loves that boy more than his parents. No one cares about him more than his parents. If you can contact them anonymously, that would be best. But if you can't do anonymously, do it anyway. The addiction you describe is serious. Once you've made sure his parents know, then start thinking about the other techniques.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
the only thing that gets him away from eq is beer
at least he hasn't totally sold out
what we need is a helmet we can strap onto him... with tubes that go down his thoat... and you hook it up to the puter... and it dispenses beer every time he gets a frag
then he'll play q3
Or stage an intervention with baseball bats.
Let him live his life as he sees fit; eventually he'll move on. He might have to have some hard lessons until then, but when faced with sink or swim even the hardest core addicts will adapt. Being a friend and showing your concern is a good thing, but it's not your duty to save him from himself. Eventually he'll realize that his achievements are virtual. That doesn't mean you should pay his bills or other such sillyness. Enabling him hurts him more.
"believe in my innocence and I might consider yours." -- charles bukowski "Scientific progress goes 'boink'?" -- Calvin
Speaking as a MMO addict myself, as well as an addict of other things. I'm in recovery from my addiction to alcohol. I still play one MMO, but I moderate my time online now.
Your friend must first realize his addiction and want help. Until that's happens, the most you can do is get out of the way while his addiction drags him down.
If you're enabling him to continue his addiction, then you need to evaluate your own situation.
Take THEIR recommendations over some of the harmful ones here.
Most people don't want (IE, fear) radical changes in their lives much less addicts.
That's why addicts usually don't turn around until they've hit their bottom.
The bottom is different for everyone.
Failing one semester might not be enough, dropping out might not be enough, not being able to keep a McJob might not be enough, not being able to afford even sharing housing might not be enough, getting kicked out of his parents house and not having electricity to play might be the wake up call--or he might find alternatives to fill the "hole" in his life and seek a different bottom.
You would be a great friend to help him now, but the way to do that is with proven expert procedures, imo and experience.
Good luck! HTH, or rather hope both that this helps AND you can help.
His addiction is the result of an emotional imbalance. Nothing will help him until he begins to wonder about the world outside, anything else will help to keep him isolated. If he ever shows an interest in anything else, really interact with him about it. Something about the game is interesting him more than all of the life around him. My own guess is just that he feels defeated in his life right now.
It is very cool of you to care for a friend's well being, take the 90% of these "fend for yourself" posts with a grain of salt.
We all have things in life that we want to spend all our time doing. What is most important is that we choose something healthy, something that benefits the world around us. At the very least and for the sake of mental health, our endeavors should benefit our future lives.
The best you can do is be a positive influence. Talk about your life outside of home whenever you can. Talk about girls, projects you're involved in, parties, music.
If you have any good lady friends tell them the situation, that you have a good friend in disconnection peril and want to help. It's a noble and selfless cause; women can be great company for such things. Try to get him to hang out when you're out with her and her friends. Sometimes just spending time with the opposite sex can get you off your ass and caring about your body/mind health again.
A good girlfriend can be a great way to clear yourself of addiction. But the most important thing you can have and the thing that will eventually help maintain a healthy relationship is self confidence. A first step is exercise. Try to plan some outdoor things with mutual friends. Organize a kickball game, get out a frisbee; hell, anything to get the blood moving other than video game-induced adrenaline and Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
In the end the best thing you can do is be his friend. Talk to him whenever possible, don't abandon him. If he's flunking out or missing work then drastic measures may be in order. Otherwise all you need to do is show him the path; leave it up to him to walk it.
Stop meddling!
You're more likely to harm whatever relationship you have with this person, rather than help it. In all seriousness, an addiction to a game is really not that big of a deal compared to other things they could be addicted to that would directly harm them. He's not breaking any laws or harming anything by playing a game... so why not leave him be. Whatever issues he has, he'll work out for himself.
Some of the tactics mentioned here, like physically preventing access to the computer or hiding the modem, are downright asinine and will only anger and frustrate this person rather than actually help them.
By the way, did you even consider that this person may be perfectly happy just the way they are? Just because you personally would not like to live that way doesn't mean it's true for everyone. Some people have different priorities, and perhaps the best thing to do is respect that rather than shoehorning your priorities onto theirs.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Is it just me or is someone trying to advertise this game? If the story mentioned WoW addiction I wouldn't say anything.
It depends upon your relationship to him. If you know him really well, you might try to do something. But most likely the most you can do is "I'm worried about you." If the conversation goes somewhere, fine, but if not I don't see what you can do. It sounds to me like this person needs professional help, which you can't give. The best you can do is try to get him to go.
If that doesn't work, you might refer it to either or both of your college's counseling service or dean, depending upon how things are set up, and as someone mentioned, his parents. I had a roommate who simply wouldn't get up. I ended up calling the someone (I don't recall who, but probably counseling). They came over, talked to him, and started working with him. It took a year for him to get completely to normal, but that was the start of the process. (His parents were dead, so I didn't have that option.)
Just as heroin was developed to get soldiers off morphine, you need to get your friend on something stronger than pirates. The only thing stronger than pirates? Ninjas.
He like any other addict is looking for some sort of escape. Try to figure out what he's avoiding.
Does he owe money to someone shady? Are his grades awful? Bad family situation?
Food for thought
Ah, the I want you to hit me as hard as you can approach?
I used to be hooked on WoW. Got to a pretty high level, and then realized something. I hadn't beaten a game in ages, and at the rate I was going, I never would. There were still all these awesome games coming out that I wanted to play, but they weren't WoW.
Then I took a good hard look at what I was doing in WoW. I was killing enemies repeatedly, picking up items I didn't care about, to fulfill quests I didn't care about. I realized the game was inferior in storyline and gameplay to modern console games. The one thing it had going for it was that I could chat with people. But then again, that wasn't happening much.
So, one day, I chose to try out some other game that I bought a long time before, but never got around to playing. It wasn't a completely cold turkey experience, but I found I was having more fun with the other game than with WoW. Signing onto WoW turned into a chore that I felt obligated to do every once in a while. And then one day, I realized I hadn't signed on in a month.
Fast forward a couple of years. I still enjoy other non-MMO games. Sometimes I get hooked, but it's over in a week or two. Then I have a sense of completion, and socialize for a while before deciding on the next game to conquer.
So, long story short, determine what it is that your friend likes about this game, and find a non-MMO that does it better. Get him hooked on that, and he'll see what he's missing. He'll be able to live a more healthy gaming life in the end.
Worked for me vs WoW. Once I saw that credit screen I knew there wasn't much point in playing it through again. I declared victory and now await its sequel.
The other way to approach it is to get someone hooked on another game. Once they switch, they may see the futility of false achievement and just play for fun.
Have him read this:
Big Red Kitty: Farewell and Thank You
A few posts down is the end of a very famous and highly-regarded WoW blogger. He realized that he had completely neglected his wife and son for years. WoW was his "mistress" and he was an addict, like your friend. Tell him "Don't be like this guy." This guy would easily tell you that real people are a lot more important than the game. As soon as that game goes end-of-life, what will he have? Not even a friend.
If he doesn't respond, you and your housemates ought to save his life -- not an exaggeration. Find a way to cut off his connection to the Internet at the house. Hide his mouse. Remove his power cable, or cut the fuses to that part of the house. Let him borrow your computer for whatever he needs to do for homework.
He may hate you, but you are doing the right thing. He may not see it, but his vision is clearly messed up. Best of luck to you.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
Cost him his marriage... Then the Devs of the MMO, which goes by the acronymns of COH/COV/COX pissed him, me, and a bunch of others off with their nazi-like control of the game. Long story short, he quit it cold-turkey today, after 5 years of playing it. Closed his account. Over 25 - level 50 toons all purpled out with IO sets. Thanks Positron! You nazi-douchebag!
You're joking, but I'm serious: This probably won't work.
I was in exactly the same position as the poster when I was in college (EverQuest). My best friend from the time I was 5 just disappeared. He stopped going to classes, he stopped sleeping normal times (at least this guy seems to have a schedule--my friend was on a totally strange cycle that seemed to rotate). He only ate leftovers or other stuff that he could bring up to his room. Until this time, he and I always used to trade off cooking dinner and actually sit down for dinner each night. He was, in a very real sense, like a brother. Closer than my actual brother, really. I considered his parents basically another set in addition to my own, and the families were very close.
Anyway, I'll never forget the morning that his girlfriend--another old friend of mine--showed up at our place one morning to try to drag him out. He wouldn't even come to his door. She just kept pleading at the door, becoming more frantic. They'd been together for years. Finally she said, "So, you want me to leave?" "Yes." "If I leave, I'm never coming back, is that okay with you?" "...Yes."
She was devastated. I spend the rest of the day taking care of her. She left that evening after I made her dinner, and I think that's the last time I ever saw her.
My friend just continued this "life" style, even as I called his parents and asked for their help. They couldn't get him to quit. He flunked out of his classes, and his parents stopped giving him money for rent and food (he had been paying his share all this time, which was nice--I'd leave a note for what he owed and there'd be a check there in the morning). Finally I had to evict him (my parents owned the place and we rented from them). It was heartbreaking; he wasn't showering and I had to air that room out for a week. He was pale and emaciated. Just totally a different person (he was a long-distance runner, always in way better shape than me--we were on the cross-country team in high school together--fun times).
He moved into his parents basement, and they tried to kick him out a few times, but basically their conscience wouldn't let them. This went on for at least another year at their place. I got updates on his "condition" through my dad, who had lunch with his dad (and some of the other guys from around town) every Friday.
Then one day, he comes upstairs and says to his dad "I canceled my account. I'm going for a run."
Now he's addicted to long-distance running, and is finally finishing his degree. There was a period for a few years before he started school again where he worked at a shoe store part time (I'm pretty sure he ran out of his large savings--"frugal" has never been the word for his level of financial conservativeness--by paying all those months of EQ bills). Despite these positive steps, though, our friendship is completely broken. I've tried to hang out with him a few times since that time, but he's just different. I don't know him. He's gone.
So what I'm saying is this: I don't think there's anything the poster can do. This addiction won't kill the guy, though, so that's good, but I think that what stops him will probably be running out of money or something along those lines. He's not going to get better, I don't think. He's just one of those people who gets addicted to things. Probably some form of OCD or something. Just give up and focus on your own studies. He's gone.
Maybe he's addicted. Maybe he just likes to play the game a lot and is consciously making a decision to spend all of his time playing. I occasionally play Lord of the Rings Online. Most weeks I don't play at all because of work, family obligations, or work that needs done around the house. Every once in awhile I get in the mood to play and have a lot of spare time and play for a whole weekend, the go back to life. I'm not addicted, not even just for the weekend. That's just how I choose to spend my time sometimes.
At any rate, even if your friend is addicted, it's not your problem. Step one in every 12 step program is to "admit that you have a problem." Until your friend sees/admits that there is a problem, or consciously decides to change their life, there is nothing you can or should do for them. That doesn't mean that you should support his behavior, but I wouldn't waste my time trying to stop it.
If he bothers you that much, kick him out.
I just remembered an episode of Boston Legal (Season 2 Episode 21) where a kid dies due to video game addiction. His mother sued the company that made the video game. According to the plaintiff, the company hired a clinical psychologist whose purpose was to conduct tests and increase the dopamine levels while playing the game. According to the psychologist,
"Dopamine is a neurotransmitter. It's also connected to the reinforcing effects of drugs like cocaine and amphetamines. It's often called the master molecule of addiction. Playing this video game is like receiving a jolt equivalent to an injection of amphetamines. And my duty, was to create a game that would maximize dopamine output for the players."
A quick look at the Wikipedia article suggests that the addiction theory has some basis. The case was dismissed due to the fact that anything we enjoy is accompanied by increased dopamine levels. However, it would be interesting to see whether video game makers actually hire people to make video games physically addictive.
Tell your friend that he can die. What else?
hes a brit, or else 'revise' would not be used...so my guess is that hes impossible to save. Its either video games or alcoholism, really, lest he be bored to tears.
Still, if you really do want to get him out of there its true that the best way is women. My friend was superobsessed with star wars galaxies, but we shifted that over to booze, hooka, and women. Of course, now hes a gigantic asshole, so use as your own risk :)
are ninjas
The flying spaghetti monster loves ALL pirates. Your friend will be saved.
Addiction is a mental health disorder. Try notifying your school's dean and see if they can't require him to get some help. If he is ignoring vital areas of his life a crash is coming and it may well be hazardous to others. You have already mentioned anger issues and imagine how he will behave if he bombs out of school.
Mind your own fucking business, it's not like it's going to kill him or anything.
Having a friend on such a deep and downward spiral is difficult to watch. Clearly, since you're asking here, you care. I'm assuming your educational institution has mental health professionals. Make an appointment and talk to one of them - about how YOU feel about this and what you are experiencing. They have a lot more experience with this and, unlike virtually anyone whose postings I have read so far, actual training. You can get insight into the problem, understand the pressures and the meaning of it for you, and understand what you may need to do. This might help you engage with him and help him out.
I'm glad you care enough to ask. Good luck
If you want to show that real life is not that much better than the game play, you will have to pick an example of real life that most people will associate with real life. The real life where people interact happily with others, get married, have children, have good jobs, collect stamps, take walks, etc. This is the replacement life that the OP want his addicted friend to lead. And this is the life that you will have to show is bad, if you want to justify the addicted person's game play. Maybe I interpreted your post wrong.
This is an addiction. It's a disease. You gotta call all his friends and family and everybody together, and confront him before he destroys his life.
You might also want to call in the professionals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervention_%28TV_series%29
...and here is the story. Take what you will from it. At the time MMORPGs were called MUSHs and MOOs. A friend in college started logging into one and we all joined in the fun. That's what it was, a bit of fun. Unfortunately, while we did it with some pizza for an hour or two every few nights, he started playing more and more. Eventually, he never left the computer lab. He wouldn't go to the cafeteria for meals, instead eating only junk out of the vending machine just outside the lab. His roommate would go days without seeing him as he would simply snooze for an hour or so in the corner of the lab. He would even avoid showers until he stunk so bad he was dragged from the computer lab. We tried everything. We tried to get him to go to class; he wouldn't. We tried to get him to get out and see a movie; he wouldn't. We even tried to get him to come to dinner with his girlfriend who he didn't even talk to anymore; he wouldn't. After about 4 weeks of this, we finally went to the dean of students and explained the situation. His network access was disconnected and the student psychologist and the dean paid him a visit. They gracefully removed him from his currently enrolled classes so his GPA wouldn't take a nose dive should he pull himself back together again, contacted his family, located a local therapist for him, and sent him home. We all basically lost contact with him until he wrote his former girlfriend a year later and thanked us for doing what we did. He did eventually pull himself together and returned to school at another university. I don't know what ever happened to him after that. Anyway, that's my story.
Anon Coward to protect my professional rep
I was there. I had lost my job, got caught in in SWG and Anarchy Online, became an ARK (AO volunteer GM). I was spending over 60 hrs/wk doing that, ignoring my job search, ignoring my fiance.
One day, I realized I was in danger of losing the love of my life. I resigned from ARK, shut down my SWG account, and turned myself around.
These days I'm a 100K+ manager, married to the aforementioned love, and we have our daughter.
My addiction could have taken this all away from me. At the end of the day, change has to come from inside yourself. Your friends and family can give you their points of view, but trying to fix other people is a losing game. I know from trying to fix an alcoholic farther. The only one you can fix is yourself.
AC
In the condition the author of this post is strong enough and has enough guts to fight his/her friend.
Become a moderator of the game and ban him every time he shows up.
Or steal his account, sell all the stuff, give all the gold to n00bs (they'll be happy), remove everyone in the friends list and every guild subscription, insult everyone, and get stuck in a collision bug in middle of nowhere before you disconnect. And change the password while you're at it. If after that he's no disgusted, time to bring plan C.
Having just lost my wife to a 16-hour-per-day WoW addiction, I finally realized after the past two years that if they don't want to help themselves there's nothing you can do for them. I tried everything I could think to do, and every attempt to "save" her only made her more angry and resentful which fed the addiction even more. Finally I just put my foot down and said "no more" - and she left.
Unfortunately I've found that my story is all too common lately. I've had family members that were hopelessly addicted to street drugs and alcohol - and this is no different. Same behavior, same problem. They even show physical symptoms of addiction, and go through withdrawal when it's not available to them.
I think we're all in for a whole new world of things to be addicted to as more options are available to technologically "escape reality". I wouldn't be surprised if within 10 years gaming and "virtual reality" addiction are an epidemic out of control.
I wish you and your friend all the best, and hopefully he snaps out of it and gets help. Don't push him and don't give him any more cause to be resentful - just be there for him when he decides to come back to Earth.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
Religious wars are really just arguments over who has the better imaginary friend.
While this might not seem like the proper answer, I know it worked in my case.
I played SWG from day 1. I was constantly online, with tons of things to do. I have to admit, it was fun, but it did eat a lot of my time. Thankfully, I was smart enough not to allow it to affect my job, and had gotten my real-life friends in with me. We'd sit around outside game and talk about it, log in and play together, etc.
When they changed SWG, I left in disgust, along with a number of my real life friends. We started playing WoW, and I ended up landing myself in a hard-core raiding guild. I became very anti-social, mainly to try to meet the guild's raiding schedule, and invested far too much time in the game. Eventually, I was kicked from the guild because I couldn't hit the 6-day a week raiding schedule because of my job (which I had called in sick a few times because of the game, and was on the verge of loosing).
It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was well geared, I knew more about playing than most, and found a nice, casual raiding guild where the people were off-the-wall goofballs, and instead of it being a job, the game became fun again.
I still play, I still raid, but no where near as much as I used to, and I have a lot more fun, and zero social impact problems (well, the guild makes fun of me for taking a few of the normal raid nights off to be with my significant other, but it's really just good ribbing rather than anything serious).
Honestly, being in a good, understanding guild went a long way to making the game fun, and giving me back a social life.
During a 21 month-period of college, I spent over six months of in-game time in Asheron's Call. For me and many others in that situation, the game addiction is masking a deeper problem - which we escape by playing the game.
It is worth noting the consequences of this. I was perfectly aware that I played the game too much - but I also didn't drink or do drugs and wasn't real interested in sex, so the appeal of the "real" college experience wasn't there. For me, the game was far more interesting and social than watching TV or watching people get drunk.
After 21 months, I simply got tired of the game. Not longer after, I resolved not to play any more online games. I have kept this promise to myself for more than eight years. For the first couple years I longed for it nearly every day. Now, I only remember it once a week or so; even when my officemates discuss WoW, it doesn't cross my mind. Hell, I had to look up how to spell "Asheron's Call."
I said earlier that the addiction was masking other problems. Indeed, my grades had declined slowly during my intense game-playing, but they got much worse after I stopped. I ended up seeing a therapist a couple times a week, and still take two anti-depressants daily, one with genuinely unpleasant side effects. For me, the game had been an anti-depressant.
Now you ask what could be done to stop someone like your roommate. Honestly, very little would have prevented me from playing the game. My parents would have had very little influence in the matter, assuming I had been getting along with them to begin with (one of the aforementioned issues that the game medicated). Financially, they had no leverage anyways - my college expenses were mainly paid by scholarships, my wages, and a grandparent's trust fund.
However, I can suggest the following:
1. Do not attack the game, directly or indirectly. Don't make snide remarks or disapproving comments. This will only further create a wedge between him and the real world.
2. Involve him. The only way to draw him away from the game is to provide some other activity. For this, you will need all of the social tricks - peer pressure, commitments, and advance plans all help. "Sex," as the basement-dwelling slashdot population has proposed, is probably not a huge motivator, but having girls applying the pressure increases the likelihood of success, just like with any other guy.
3. Finally, talk to him, look out for him, give him someone he can talk to. More than anything else, people in that situation need real friends.
Even so, you can only guide and help, at most. As countless women have learned the hard way, you can't change a man; he has to want to change. All you can do is give him the opportunity.
(Incidentally, I don't have and won't create a slashdot account for the same reason I don't play online games. It's not good for me to get my ego caught up in a make-believe world.)
I have a girlfriend, and no, it's not enough to get you out of an MMO addiction. It can be added incentive. Usually, you have to wait until it starts hurting their job and their wallet. If that doesn't do it, good luck!
as a former addict... there's not a whole lot you can do. it took my getting fired, dropping out of school, and working a minimum wage job for a year to get out of my funk. and even then, it wouldn't have been possible w/o my family giving me a second chance at school and some very lucky dice rolls post graduation.
that said, if you can sabotage his internet connection for about a month without him knowing it was you, it might work.
I'm disturbed at some of the replies to this. 1: Guys, you don't abandon a whole human being to a problem like this without at least taking a shot at helping him. It may not help, it may not work, but it will at least help you later not to feel so terrible if he goes over the edge and hangs himself or something. 2: This IS a problem, there are more than a few "He's an adult, leave him alone" responses. Those of you who posted this are either trolling or need to get some help and close your WoW account as well. I'd grant that playing a game every day isn't a problem, maybe not even for a couple of hours every day. But when you don't leave the house and stop eating it is a problem. 3: Small steps and just getting him out of the house, and getting him some exercise, those are your best bets assuming that he's not blocking or avoiding other serious problems such as depression or failing out of college or whatever, if he's having those problems as well he may need more serious help, getting him hooked up with some outside help anonymously can make a huge difference, with an illness like depression finally having someone to talk to about it can be an immense and sudden relief, and often it's better if that someone isn't friends or family.
You could do what I do to Perl programmers: take what they're doing, examine it carefully with them, and show them _precisely_ how badly they're doing it. Then show them how it's really done.
My next door neighbors are a retired man (in his 70s) and his wife. He started playing WoW this past winter. He told me his highest character is a 62 and he has a few others as well. I think his grandson got him started on the game. I would say he is officially addicted since he has just bought a second computer so he can play 2 characters at the same time.
However, he has the advantage of not having to work anymore and the only major thing this could be negative toward is the relationship with his wife. Makes me wonder what it will be like when people my age (30s) get to retirement. Imagine a nursing home being like a 24/7 LAN party!
I used to play WoW and other MMOs but then I got a girlfriend and now I am married. I don't really miss it. When I do go back to play or see what is new in the updates, it doesn't draw me in the way it used to.
I Cater to the Needs of Stupid People. - from a coffee mug Christmas gift
Maybe you should respect his interests a little more. "God, he's not out with us getting piss drunk and passing out on random whores (read: co-eds), what a loser! How can we help him?"
Maybe the other people (keyword: PEOPLE) playing the MMO are the only ones he feels won't condemn him for his choice of entertainment?
Maybe he feels like everyone around him ("house" members, family members, etc) doesn't understand what he enjoys doing, and just wants to force him to enjoy what THEY enjoy. And if he doesn't want to tag along, there's clearly something wrong with him!
----------------
I've spent time completely wrapped up in an MMO myself, flunked a semester of classes, etc. It wasn't because I was "addicted," that's a ridiculous word to use with a form of entertainment. This isn't fucking heroin.
You know what I do now? I still play. I'm just not consumed by it. Got a 3.75 GPA this year, I have a part time job that I've held for almost 2 years now (and continue to hold), and I play WoW. I hang out with my friends (High School friends, most of us play WoW, the rest play other video games), go out to eat, etc...
And I sure as hell don't spend my life lying to sorority bitches in clubs about what makes me happy to try to live the life they want in a guy that they fuck.
I have two friends who did something similar but not quite as drastic. Both flunked out of college and the like. The never coming out of the room sounds familiar too. Both are still addicted on some level. Funny thing though one is also a pretty heavy pot smoker and the other doesn't do any drugs but their addictive personalities both trigger off of games. The even more ironic part is that the one who does drugs too KNOWS he's addicted to the game and has talked about "cutting back" and such...
There are plenty of fun ways to mess with his computer though. Starting simple would be adding "127.0.0.1 offending website" to the hosts file. Most computer wizs would figure that one out as soon as they tried pinging the site. Much, much more difficult for the average computer user to figure out is setting an ipsec policy to block the server IP/ports the games uses. He'd still be able to ping it, but the game would mysteriously not be able to connect. Or figure out how to make the game just work crappy or slow enough that he gets frustrated and gives up.
Try to get him out of the home every now and then. Even if it's just for an hour or two.
Try to get him to play a different (less addicting) game. Maybe CSS or TF2. FPS's are much less addicting than MMO's and RPG's are.
Get on his computer, fuck it up and make it look like you did it on accident. Put a porn virus on it, or maybe even steal some ram if your daring.
Slow down his internet connection. Some routers let you set how much bandwidth every computer gets. Turn his all the way down. (you might have to get dd-wrt firmware for this)
I wouldn't do this but... you could put child porn on his computer, and call the police on him. You can't be addicted to video games in jail.
Hi.
I need the immersion experience too, but I feel lucky I had just enough intuition to officially retire from major video games (freeware webthingies you play for four days don't count).
I discovered that books(now plus web info blogs as supplements) are up there with the highest contentvalue-per-hour, matched only by music. My personal collection is about 1500 volumes.
Games are "export" activities; except maybe some terrain details, you're applying a stock set of known skills, and aren't exactly learning that whole time. Reading is more demanding, because the inbound material has to be processed. So, given that difference in rest factor, yes - there are weekends I spend reading up to twenty hours for recreation.
However, at least is has paid me back. Y'all have a more focused skillset in raw IT, but I can usually hang in a range of conversations with a decent comment or two.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
He's playing the game because it gives him something he can't find or get enough of in Real Life. Behind the keyboard he can be daring, bold, brave, clever, and receive a regular helping of the success, joy, and adulation that come with those things. There are puzzles to solve, people to help (damsels in distress?), buds to hang with, and he can get it all, now.
How can Real Life compete with that? What are those things that make life worth living if the computer is more validating than your regular existence? That's the problem. Real Life becomes a maintenance issue serving to allow time with The Game. Now you are dependent on the game -- You're avoiding the Real Life stuff, The Game has become your buffer, your filter, your shield -- You are addicted. You don't merely need it, you require it. The Game is How you Live.
What now? The Game is dominant, but it's skills don't translate much to Real Life. Trying to deal with Real Life is an embarrassment. It doesn't work the way The Game does -- no reset, second chances, saves, spells -- you can't get and keep the upper hand. The physics don't match, the interactions aren't predictable, and you can't hide behind the keyboard. People see you, not your avatar. How can you live up to that? Why don't they understand? In The Game, they do...
See "Social Phobia" to appreciate how grasping at the one good (they think) thing in one's life can screw up the rest of it.
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
Why? I freely admit that I "gain strength in solitude, expended in the world." Reading is indeed what I do. That's why the Global Community is beautiful - through out an edge-case meme, and someone will match it. (Usually, if there's no ridiculous social stigma.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
IAABM. But I hope I have blunted the SkullPoint sufficiently.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
My college roommate/best-friend was in the same scenario with EQ and was already flunking his classes, so I offered to play with him for 1-2 hours in exchange for 30 minutes of studying outside. I slowly ramped up the study time outside without changing the 1-2 hours online together. Within 3 weeks, he was studying over an hour a day with me again. (We had the same major, so that was perhaps more fortuitous than your situation) It took a lot of my time and effort, but he at least passed his courses and graduated.
AccountKiller
If he's finding time to eat and potty then he does not have an addiction. But, really? PotBS?
My 2 cents: Game "Addiction" isn't typically the cause of people's problems in life, but rather a symptom of deeper problems elsewhere. People simply aren't checking out from life and opting for a game world instead when they're happy with their real life. Video games offer a way out for people who are otherwise *already* deeply unhappy. There are certainly studies linking video game "addiction" to depression and unhappiness, I just happen to think that the causal relationship runs the other way around -- depression leads to video game addiction and not vice versa. If you think about it, really, far better they choose escapism than, say, suicide as a manifestation of their unhappiness.
But, ultimately, that's just my 2 cents. My opinion from observation and past experience -- and nothing more. I don't think video games are ever really to blame for people's problems. That doesn't simply mean that I think that *everyone* who becomes addicted to video games has a horrible life -- just that I think, if not video games, we'd see some other sign that that the person in question had deeper problems. Many clinically depressed people, from the outsiders perspective, seem to have great and happy lives and people often have trouble understanding why they might be depressed. When you see someone like that spending all their time playing video games and suffering social/economic consequences as a result, it's very easy to blame the games as they appear to have destroyed an otherwise idealic life -- but this isn't necessarily the case, at least not in my opinion.
So, at any rate, my completely non-medical advice is to treat video game addiction as a symptom of some deeper problem rather than as a cause. Since I don't really know your friend or anything about his situations, that's about the extent of what I can suggest.
Format his hard drive. If that doesn't work, chuck it out the window, or engineer some internet outages. Maybe a few days of reflecting will kick some sense into him.
I am not a professional in mental health, but I do have some education on this. As others have mentioned, the best thing you could do would be to talk to a professional yourself, especially a professional who has experience with treating people with substance abuse disorders. Unfortunately, it is unlikely you will find a therapist who well-trained in treating other addictions, although they do exist. Often, therapists include friends and family in the therapy, and sometimes, they give therapy to just the friends and family if the person with the problem is unwilling to come.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of really bad advice on this thread. Do not hack his account, disconnect his computer, or any other majorly confrontational thing to take away the source. Do not get a bunch of his friends together and have a movie style intervention. He's addicted to the game; you will just piss him off and he'll never talk to you again and most likely find another way to play. Don't let others tell you that you shouldn't bother helping him because it's too much trouble; the very fact that it got this bad is a testament to how many people decided that it was someone else's problem, and the worst thing that can happen is that your friendship with him dies, and it doesn't seem to be doing so well in its current state anyhow.
Secondly, people only change when they're willing to change, which means that it's ultimately his responsibility, but that does not mean that you can't do anything to help him become more willing. Sit him down and quietly and politely express your concerns but try to engage him in the conversation. Here would be an example script, which I've adapted from the CAGE questions for screening for alcohol abuse:
"John, I've noticed that you've been playing a lot of that game lately, and I'm worried that it's not healthy for you. How do you feel about that game? Do you think that you should play less? Have other people told you that you should play less? Do you ever feel bad or guilty about playing so much?"
From that, you could determine if he's in the pre-contemplative stage (he thinks there's no problem) or the contemplative stage (he realizes there's a problem but isn't sure if he wants to change or doesn't know how). If he's in the contemplating stage, try to get him to verbally state the negative impact of his playing:
"It seems that you recognize that you are playing too much game. Do you think this is hurting your grades? Your social life? Your relationships with your parents? Your ability to date? Do you think cutting down on playing would help you in these areas?"
Once you've gotten him to admit that there are negative impacts of what he's doing, you've done a lot. From there, you should guide him into professional help:
"Well, it relieves me to know that you recognize that you have a problem. I'd just like you to know that as your friend, I'm concerned about you, and if you want help, I can help you get that help (i.e. refer to student health)."
That's really all you have to do. Even if he completely rejects you, you've at least planted some seeds of doubt in his mind. When he reaches rock bottom, those seeds will sprout, and you will have done the best you can as a friend for him.
Best of luck.
Simple, get him addicted to slashdot instead
Table-ized A.I.
Cut off his right hand.
I played WoW a lot. To the point of being unhealthy a few times. How did I get away from it? I cheated.
MMOs are hard to cheat at but a friend an I found a world emulator that was about 95% accurate. We spent the next week going everywhere, doing everything, getting everything. We made custom weapons/armour that made us walking gods. We set Illidan in a duel with Ragnaros. We swapped models so that we looked like Magmadar or C'Thun.
After a while we got bored and tried the normal game. It sucked. We couldn't one-shot things. Gold took hours/days to accumulate. Everything just seemed so tedious.
I went for three months without playing. I picked up WotLK and played for a week and got bored. I uninstalled it and haven't thought about it since.
One day, sometime soon, he will realize how pointless wow is. The constant grind, endless upping of the level cap, and of course the 8 hour raids.
It will be at that time, that you need to get him addicted to eve online.
trust me, its much MUCH better.
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This seems like horrible advice.
How would you like if it I just randomly decided you had a slashdot addiction, and next time you went to make a post on Slashdot, I just came and punched you in the face -- as a friend. You know, on account of how much I care about you?
He's addicted to being a pirate. He's too far gone to be saved...all you can do is sandbag around his computer. But when the replica cannon arrives via UPS, I suggest you leave.
I know a dude who looks like a pirate, talks like a pirate, drinks like a pirate, will pilfer your cool stuff Capt. Jack Sparrow style if you're dumb enough to leave it out and he doesn't know you, has the exact same mentality and personality as Prince Vultan of the Hawkpeople from the old Flash Gordon movie, and owns Multiple Actual Cannon which he likes to set off at the local Renaissance Faire. Oh, and he's married to a hot weird chick who's into chainmail bikinis.
To heck with being a pirate online. I've seen firsthand that you can do a *lot* better than that!
MMO addiction? Really? Why is it that no one has a Baseball addition and you don't see people trying to kick that bad "I have to golf 7 days a week" addiction?
Physically stop him? Why would you do that? Did he ask for your help? Return the favor? But you are the one who originally brought violence into the equation. Remember the part about physically stop him? That's called violence, smarty.
I was addicted to WoW for 2 years, in the end my family sat down with me, including my older brother who I have a huge amount of respect for. And they just straight up told me I was wasting away and that I had so much potential to excel at things other than a computer game. That gave me the jolt I needed, Iogged on to my toons, de'd all the decent gear, deposited it all in my guilds bank, deleted my toons one by one. That was last Friday night, the following Monday I joined them gym, have been 3 times this week as well as 2 6km runs. Lifes goood. Maybe that's what he needs? Some sort of intervention by people he respects (Family, friends, maybe an old teacher etc.)
Get yourself an account of the same game, max up your experience, level up or whatever, and once you become stronger than him, wipe him off the game, make his life hell in the game. He might give up in frustration.
Works better with more friends doing the same. :P
Side-effects: You might become addicted
Stop doing anything that enables him to play all the time.
Move out.
Tape a note on his computer telling him what you've done, and why.
Forget him until he rejoins the human race.
Actually most "religious" wars are just conflicts over resources or land, and religion is used as an excuse.
Put a lot of laxative in his food so that he would spent a lot of time in the washroom(instead of the computer) to think about his actions.
You haven't provided enough information but let's look at it this way:
If he's paying his rent/share of the bills/whatever have you.
If he's doing fine in school while you all are busting your ass and studying...
Then stay out of it? Seriously. What he does with his free time has no bearing on you.
Just go out without him, do things without him. Eventually he'll want to go out, and just invite him out. Don't turn on him and say "WELL WE TRIED TO GET YOU TO GO OUT BUT NOW YOU SCREWED THE POOCH BUDDY!"
Join the online game, with a few other concerned friends, track him down and KILL HIM. Repeatedly, if necessary.
Or hang out on his pirate ship saying "come out to the park!" "it's your turn to cook dinner!" "mow the lawn!" "get a job!" etc.
"It's simple."
Find out what he's doing in the game, that he thinks he can't do offline, and then find a way to let him do whatever it is offline, in a way that won't interfere with his exams.
I got addicted to World of Warcraft for a while because playing a Survival Hunter allowed me to vicariously deal with my sense of inadequacy over the fact that I am unavoidably a civilian. (I've since also come to realise that having said sense of inadequacy was really dumb to begin with, but it was a childhood thing)
I was able to play a leadership role in a number of battlegrounds and instances though, and have some really positive experiences while doing so, (I was also GM of a levelling guild for a bit, which was good) which allowed me to process that neurosis, and also take from it a few elements which to some extent may have improved my personality as well.
That, however, is primarily what people get from MMORPGs, and it's the main reason why they play them. Most people are fairly disempowered and helpless offline. They might have two or three jobs, (that they usually hate) a wife and the proverbial 2.4 kids, station wagon, and labrador dog, and said existence can feel like a jail sentence, especially if you have to work long hours. They're also doing said jobs, most of the time, purely to keep their head above water. There's no creativity there, no enjoyment, and no recognition from the boss. They're not allowed to feel special, to feel like they're somebody important, or to really feel fulfilled.
But in Azeroth, (or Norrath, or $WORLD) it's different.
Offline, I'm an autistic, overweight, single, balding, largely socially isolated UNIX Beard with shortsightedness, a single kidney, and a leg length difference of three inches. I've had a single girlfriend, three years ago, which ended badly due to a combination of her and my baggage, and my father being a narcissistic, amoral, interfering $%^& as well. I largely haven't come across a single woman since who hasn't made fun of me when she's found out I'm interested in her, and whenever I've tried to interact socially with anyone else as well, or develop independence, I've usually gone fairly close to being killed as a result.
I couldn't participate in grading matches in terms of martial arts as a teenager due to said single kidney, and when someone tried to teach me one on one, because of the leg length difference I nearly dislocated my knee the first time I tried to do a kick.
In WoW, none of that matters. I have a far more attractive body, which is athletic and functions with perfect agility. I can travel anywhere I want, within a fairly large environment. Most of all, I can actually do the things that Army recruitment ads talk about, in terms of being part of a group, and eventually developing sufficient knowledge of the game to successfully and positively lead said group. I'm playing a class (the Hunter) which I love and find fulfilling, and I'm also meeting my social interaction and group belonging needs in terms of the instances and battlegrounds I do as well.
Let me ask you; out of those two scenarios, which do you think you're going to want to spend more of your time in?
The answer to that question, is also likely very similar to the reason why the guy in your example is addicted to the game that he is, as well. For some of us, real life isn't exactly a barrel of laughs.
Holden: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down...
Leon: What one?
Holden: What?
Leon: What desert?
Holden: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
Leon: But, how come I'd be there?
Holden: Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you...
Leon: Tortoise? What's that?
Holden: [irritated by Leon's interruptions] You know what a turtle is?
Leon: Of course!
Holden: Same thing.
Leon: I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean.
Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Leon: [angry at the suggestion] What do you mean, I'm not helping?
Holden: I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
[Leon has become visibly shaken]
Holden: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response... Shall we continue?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is the credited response.
Instead of trying to be a psychologist, try to be what you are, a friend. Sure, he might need a psychologist, find one for him and if he ask help, then give him the name, phone number... hell, you should even stay by him when he will call that number and support his decision. Friends are there to support you, and do activities with you. Right now, I think your not going anywhere by confronting him and bashing on the thing he love... imagine this : If he had a girlfriend and he would do stuff with her 18 hours a day, and you would tell him: "it's bad for you, I don't know you anymore", don't you think he would have the same reaction as with his game ? Why not try to play the game with him... you will be sharing something together, and he will probably be really enthusiastic about you joining his Pirate friends. Maybe then, you will be able to have a discussion with him whitout him getting angry. By showing him that you can play without being addicted, that you can accomplish all your other task while not playing 18 hours a day... then he might consider doing the same. Right now, he might only feel isolated and missunderstood.
Unplug.. the... computer?
I understand, had a person in my house hold doing the same thing. I found if I would block a port or two on the router that would let the game connect stay for a hour or so then let him in then block the voice chat ports this would make it harder to feel apart of the online world. Do not let him or her know what you are doing just blame it on the ISP or something like that. The hope is that the lunching of the game and playing gets hard and hard they start to loss interest. Good luck, MMO are hard to break then drugs.
Seriously. Just get a new friend. It'll be easier for you both in the long run.
When someone has a serious obsession like this NO ONE can save them but themselves, and for some people that requires them to wake up utterly alone, with only the machine left in their life.
Leave things nicely - let your friend know why you cannot be friends with them anymore - but stop wasting your time and energy watching this friend spiral down. You cannot "save" them. You can only save yourself.
MY FREND LIEKS DRIVEING CARS. he is not want to turn left, turn rite or use the braeks. HALP ME
PROTIP: Let him sail his failboat into the iceberg. Post pics.
My friend did this, turns out he was clinically depressed. Not about anything in particular, it appeared to be chemical, once he was on medication he started looking for a job again and exercising and lost interested in his game of choice.
I completely agree with the first part, and completely disagree with the second. Most people only quit an addiction when they have lost their job, their family, their friends.*
If the family/friends just pretend like nothing is happening, then it's just going to take longer before that person realizes how bad things really are. I'm not advocating the friend trying to physically restrain him from playing - but let him know in a reasonable tone that he thinks he is endangering his well-being with the computer, and that you can't keep being his friend if all he wants to do is play the game.
* Some people still don't do it then, but that's besides the point.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
The world will pass them by, they may fail school and either become a basement kid or cardboard box kid. You have to let them fall and fall hard. Since it's not a chemical addiction they won't as easily die if you leave them to their fate.
You can email or give them a physical letter explaining what your concerns are.
My niece is going to be a burger flipper most likely. She partied herself to utter failure at her first year of college and the miracle magical money machine call mom has turned off the money supply. I'm mad enough at her to call her Cheesella McDonald or McDonelda
I played MMOs compulsively for two years. Outside of work it was the only thing I would do. I would play for 7 hours a day minimum, took sick days from work to raid, took vacation time to try expansions and work on guild activities.
Still play eve sporadically (as in casually train a character and do the occasional mission but don't spend more than an hour playing a week).
Eventually he will get bored. You can only 'kill X number of emancipated buzzards so our crops will be safe' for so long. If he is shorting on his responsibilities let him know. If he is taking an equal part in the household then consider it a compromise and don't make him feel guilty for playing (it will only make the need to escape for him worse, making him play more).
I still wouldn't consider gaming an addiction. It looks and acts like an addiction, but its far more of an identity thing than most people realize. Bet you money that he considers his toon part of who he is, and its kind of cruel to actively try to deprive him of that. Just let him grow out of it.
I was pretty much where your friend was. I'd gotten more and more hardcore. I still have an inactive character with some $40,000 gold on him, earned during the Burning Crusade era, and that was after I'd spent a good $100,000. But, to do that, I was on constantly. I didn't farm, it was all through an advanced form of arbitrage that I perfected through enchanting, I became well known on the server for that. Anyway.
I joined a raiding guild. Became one of the top tanks on the server, and joined one of the top raiding guilds. I raided couple days a week, minimum. And we made a push to be the first alliance group to beat the last boss of BC. I happened to have been collecting a fire-protection set of armor for this and other purposes, and was able to gather enough fire protection to serve as a flame-tank. We had two nights to get it right, and after about 8 attempts took him out. That moment of triumph put all the previous effort in stark relief. I learned something that day, about myself, what I was capable of, and what could be accomplished in life through persistent effort, preparation, and a bit of effort.
Having achieved the ultimate goal of the game, and feeling rather spent from the intense effort, my gaming fuse snapped. I soon quit playing, cancelled my account, and got on with my life, including going back to school to finish my degree. I haven't played much of anything since, neither consoles nor PC games, and don't much have the desire too. WoW sated that need for a lifetime, I think :P
At some point, you have to make that shift and think of life in game terms. Life is the ultimate game. Accomplishments here are 'more real' than in-game accomplishments. And the implications of real-world accomplishment are far better than in-game accomplishments. The only difference is game accomplishments come far quicker and far faster, and that tricks our mind, and satisfies the innate need for accomplishment we all have. Spending your energies on game accomplishments diminishes your appetite for real world accomplishment. Knowing that, in-game accomplishment becomes far less attractive. But, I'm also getting along in years and needed to give it up. Time to live for real :P If I was 15 again, I'd probably be back there playing again, even though I played too much even then.
TLDR: I realized the game was a never-ending hamster wheel with no ultimate reward, and decided to apply energy the real-world tasks that will have far better rewards.
I think the saying that the best way to get rid of addiction is to replace with with another is plausable. In this case, maybe a woman or a girl would be appropriate. Just make sure he takes a shower before ;-)
Get the rest of the housemates to agree, then cancel the internet account. You don't really need one at home anyway, you can use computers at school. Or better yet, downgrade to a really really slow speed if you can get the ISP to do that.
No doubt there's some part of your friend that's terrified, too, but that part of him--the free part, the human part--is no longer in control. Worst of all, what a lot of posters have said is true: you can't save him. In the end, the only person who can fight off the addiction and reassert his freedom is him.
There are things you can do for him, though, and the fact that you're posting on Slashdot (of all places!) is all the evidence I need that your concern is sincere and deep. You could abandon him as some posters suggest (he *is* a legal adult), but that isolated, coldly individualist approach strikes me as inhuman. Part of being human is friendship, and part of friendship is supporting the friend when he's at his lowest--even if he doesn't want the support. You could cut him off, and that might even be the "smart" thing to do... but to do so would thwart something in you that runs deeper than logic.
First and most important: get in contact with everybody who's really important in his life: parents, siblings, close mentors, maybe his pastor (depending on the pastor). There's still not a lot you can do, even in numbers, but it helps. Cooperate, keep each other posted, and make sure everyone close to him is making their concerns known in a non-confrontational way. Ultimatums are not helpful, and will probably just hurt everyone involved - the addict can not freely *choose* to leave the game, and an ultimatum usually only destroys other support systems. In the end, HE has to name this addiction for what it is, and trying to force him to accept it by logical argument or appeals to his responsibilities won't help... but simply knowing that everyone in his life is ready to support him as soon as he admits his problem might make it easier for him to admit to the addiction. Addicts are often terrified of what people will think of them if they come out as addicts. If your friend knows the people closest to him already think of him as an addict, then he has nothing to lose. It would be nice to let his professors know, too. It won't change the grades they have to give him, but (speaking as the son of two professors), professors are always much more sympathetic towards students if they have an *explanation* for why their coursework suddenly imploded. And, sometimes, having a professor in your corner can be a big help when it comes time to put your life back together post-addiction.
In the meantime, if you've made your concerns known, there's not a whole lot more you can do. There are a few suggestions in here I like - teaching him to cheat, thereby robbing him of the "joy" of tedious grinding, was clever - but don't take away his computer or block his ports or grief him or hack his accounts. Your enemy isn't the *game* but the *addiction,* and if the addiction doesn't go away you solve nothing. Even if you destroy every copy of Burning Sea in the world, he'll just switch to another MMO. In the meantime, if he hasn't admitted to the addiction yet, he will interpret your forced intervention as a semi-violent assault on him. He'll gain nothing, but he'll lose his trust in one of the people he needs to trust now more than ever--his friends and family. So let me say it again: don't violate his trust, however perverse his "trust" might be right now. Just let him know that, whatever happens, you ARE his friend and you WILL be there for him whenever he decides to seek help, and, in the meantime, you'll stay out of his way. Make sure he knows that he can trust you to be there for him when he admits the addiction without directly accusing him of addiction or attacking his behavior. That's a difficult line to walk, I know, but there it is.
Get addicted to something else.
I quit WoW shortly after I started smoking.
The only way is if this guy hits rock-bottom. He hasn't hit it before, so he'll need to hit it (pun intended). When he does hit it, try to get away ASAP and let it run its course. If you've been respectful toward him, he will be remember that and be respectful toward you and any other roommates. This will put the problem out into the open, where others will see. He will either get the boot from school, or he will pull his head out of his butt. In an ideal situation, he will seek out help, and you will point him in the direction of a professional or school counselor. The guy needs counseling in order for him to "hit it".
This may not be an easy situation to concoct, but since you can't call security, the cops, or anyone else for that matter, he has be lured into it... since he has a highly addictive personality already, this will be easy to take advantage of.
Side note: the destruction of his data may cause a violent reaction!! Be careful about what method(s) you use to funnel him into counseling...
I got over an MMO addiction as follows
1) Buy gold
This removes the sense of personal achievement. If you can power up your character with $40 so much that your HOURS AND HOURS of effort are paved over it makes your character a $40 character not a 1000 man hour character.
2) Further separate the sense of personal achievement by playing tag team to build the character perhaps or getting hand outs. Anything to split the character and the individual's sense of self.
3) Apply the 1% a day improvement that is possible in a MMO to his daily life. Dude I challenge you to put in 50 hours at the gym with me and drop 10 lbs so that you can get laid etc. This is part of what is great about most MMO's effort is consistently rewarded in a way that is visible while in life often effort is not evident on a daily basis.
Join them!
Actually, you may be surprised to learn that women get addicted to gaming just as easily.
A pretty surrealistic attempt at a relationship in late high school went nowhere fast after I showed her a computer game. Her parents didn't have or want a computer, for whatever reason. (Presumably also because back then they cost a lot more and did a lot less, so it wasn't really mainstream yet.) I figure it didn't take more than an hour or two for her to become interested in the computer instead of me. She only wanted to come over, play a game all afternoon, then go back home.
(Cue wisecracks about the computer having a nicer personality than me;)
Plus, probably the best example of a MMO addict I know is... mom. Last I heard, she's sleeping about 4 hours a night 'cause any more and she can't do all her daily quests for that day. So, you know, you would have thought she'd get dad off it, but she actually got more addicted.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Once Sony buy it, they'll fuck it up so badly that your friend will get bored and quit, or possibly go on a murderous rampage at the SOE offices. Either way he's off the computer, which is what you were trying to accomplish.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
...and it worked fantastic. I got a 30 day free trial for xmas and decided to offer it to my roommate that my other two roommates and I hated. He was addicted by the end of the first day and kicked out of the university within a year.
(Before you flame me, he was well on his way to dropping out, we just helped him along. No one forced him to play.)
Name...That...Autocomplete!
You have mentioned 3 occations where he is not at the computer; sleeping, toilet breaks and stopping to eat ready-meals.
Which leads to some scenarioes that you can put him through. Sleeping pills might seem like a good idea, but in the long run it is expensive and dangerous.
Interestingly the other two options can actually be combined into one, i.e. makeing it so that eating will force him to go to the toilet as often as possible. And your answer here is a good strong laxative. He will now be so busy eating to keep his stomach full and being on the toilet that any attempts to play a MMO will fail. If he should move the computer into the toilet, look into how to shield it against wifi and/or make sure he is always on online voice com.
For you own safety and health:
Know where there is a spare toilet you can use.
Wait a few days before seran wrapping the toilet.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
I got addicted to MU Online in 2004. I woke up, turn on the pc, and play till I went to sleep except for eating and bathroom. I lasted like 3 months. 1 day I went to a friend meeting and I met a girl. I went out with her and stopped playing to chat with her (I kept playing but disconnected to chat with her). The more I got involved with her, the more I stopped playing until she broke my heart but by that time I got post break up depression so I didnt start to play again. But I felt bad for 2 or 3 more months. Then I went out to a trekking camping with some friends and I forgot her...
I started to play again Mu last year, same way, but after 3 or 4 months I got bored. I play from time to time, but now I have a gf and other stuff to do...
So basically... you need to get your friend a girlfriend. Its not the same if he already has one.
I think your friend has some serious problems in his life he's unable to deal with. Maybe he has some childhood traumas, or just a badly distorted self-image. Anyhow he seems to be badly depressed.
Addictions are brain chemistry. A depressed person is looking for a quick way to get his dopamine rush. Games with a high stimulus-reward value offer just this. Eventually the gaming leads to a negative feedback loop, where the depression feeds the addiction which feeds the depression.
In your friend's current state it's very hard to introduce any positive changes into his life. These positive things would help him to stand on his mental legs. Best move on your part would be to get him to talk about his problems. But you won't be able to help him recover completely. So after you've got the verbal contact and his trust, encourage him to seek professional help: therapy and anti-depressant medication. The treatment would give him the chances to ditch off the addiction, and help him to concentrate on improving the quality of his life.
The good thing in your friend's current state is, that he's addicted to games, and not drugs. Alcohol and other harmful substances would make the recovery a lot harder, because of the physical effects they have on your body.
Good luck! Nice to hear that some people care.
Disclaimer: these are not medical advices.
With MMO addiction the crunch always comes when you are out of money. It is easy to delay things until the last possible time by remaining immersed inside the MMO, but when you don't have enough money to continue the subscription, your rent is overdue and you realize you have no food thats usually when the addiction breaks.
Absolutely agree. Depression ---> addictive gaming.
(although, oddly, in my case, what triggered a complete mental break-down was my decision to start college without any computer, and suddenly discovering myself with friends and romantic entanglements.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is this:
Addictive gaming stabilizes the person, slowing the downward spiral. Getting him off the game doesn't mean he'll get better immediately; he'll probably try to kill himself, and then spend quite a while in therapy.
p.s., it's "idyllic"
If subject is on high level in game then just remove his account.
Of course blame viruses or something like that.
Next week do the same.
Remember to do it right way. Change password, security question and email, use livecd and his mac address.
The most annoying thing about having friends who play MMOs is that they think other people actually care when they talk endlessly about their game. Going out and doing stuff also doesn't seem to work. A friend of mine has a girlfriend, goes to university, goes out socializing but still makes time for his MMO.
Here is probably what you may call a 'reformed addict' writing. Won't bore you with my case that's somehow different from inside from your friend's one, just jump to my conclusions. People starts playing games because they're fun. But they keeps playing for other reasons. I belive in the end they think their life sucks. (they don't realize that, so don't tell them, they won't understand). And they don't care a fuck if people in the world dies, are hungry, have terminal-diseases, and so on. In the end it's simple: comparing your options with the options of people around you, if yours are worst, you have to choices: 1) make your options better 2) choose something easier than life This reminds a bit the 'Trainspotting' slogan, trust me, it's even about addiction, but this isn't started from that. Obviously the second choice is easier. As a huge-ego-self-considering-smart guy, i enjoied that MMO so much because the rules ( and sometimes, why not, break them ) were relly simple. They have to be, since if they won't people won't play and software houses won't earn. So if rules are simple, it's easy to make plans, it's easy do act smarter than the others and self-realize yourself winning something ( being the best pvp player or the king of the richest town or whatever ). Actually while you play you don't think it's easy. You think it's easy for you, since if it would be easy for everyone, others won't be loosers. This is why you keep playing. Because it's easier, and sometimes it even makes you feel more realized than how would you will in real life. That's sad. This was my way out: On one side, i was still making this reasoning while playing, so i shame myself in front of others and used to play during night, still going class in the day, even with bad results, still going out with friends, even if i was hurry inside to go back home, and so on. On the other side i was luck. I used to play in an unofficial server and i ruled it. Being at the top makes you get that it's just a matter of time before someone will reach you, and the only way you have to be still at the top is going faster and never stop. But it's a challenge with the developers of the game, and they can't really provide ways to going on playing, still having fun without changing somehow the rules. When lots of rules changes, you finally got that your 'second-life' is in the hands of some programmers somewhere in korea. That's exactly the time i stopped finding playing a fun. ( it wasn't from long time before but does it makes difference if you don't get it ? ) The way out from MMO is, in the end, both simple but hard : you have to reason with the player, to make him get that life is a better challenge to take. Try getting him into some experiences, outside trips, travels, parties, why not? girls or whatever he/she likes. People are all different, if you konw him find things in RL he most likes, and reminds him they're still there and they will be there after his server will be destroyed by a fool with a sledgehammer. Regards
>>That's pretty much the only solution.
Is it? I was thinking that if you were an addict's roommate, you could play games with the router to suck all the fun out of an MMORPG. Hell, just a latency of 800ms and 25% packet loss makes any game feel like pulling teeth. Or if you don't want to make it obvious that you're messing with him, ~450ms and 25% packet loss. It'll become so frustrating it will no longer be fun. And for all the talk about addicts and addictive behavior, at the heart of it, people play MMORPGS because (they think) they're having fun.
And if you don't know how to mess with a router, or you don't have root access to it? Bittorrent. Seriously.
When I was playing a lot of WoW, whenever my roommate started downloading whatever it was he was downloading behind a locked door, I'd have to shut down the game. If it went on for more than a day or so, then I'd escalate to rebooting the router, unplugging his ethernet line, etc., which is why I'd recommend making sure the person conducting the "intervention" keep the router in a locked cabinet or room.
Show him how to cheat at this game. If he tries to, he may either lost interest in the game or get banned. If he doesn't try, he could somehow lost a little interest now he knows that there is a way to cheat.
Also, you can show him such programs as Cheat Engine, which is useless for server-based games but can still show him that video games are just some matrices filled with numbers and not reality (it is an image of course). When a game becomes too easy, it gets boring fast.
Ask him what his subscription is: 1, 3, 6, maybe 12 months? It is an indicator of his interest in the game.
Another trick: reduce his internet bandwidth, little by little (Is there a way to do that effectively btw?).
Show him some alternative ways to spend his time.
If you are one week from exams and expect him to work and pass, sorry, but his year is lost. However, you can still try to pressure him to change his behavior for the sake of his future. Try to convince him not to renew his subscription.
Well I honestly would say leave him or her alone till either they hit rock bottom or completely burn out any desire to play MMOs ever again.
That is how my relationship with MMOs have gone. Played them the vast majority of my waking time till I completely burnt out any desire to play them ever again. I honestly am disgusted at the thought of playing MMOs now.
Pointless, repetitive, and in the end... All those virtual accomplishments are still just that, virtual. Changing and shaping things in the real world are 100 times more addicting than the little sand boxes we get in games. Get him or her into running a business, or politics, or even just community work (wow that sounded lame)I bet that same drive that fuels their addiction for gaming (the need for accomplishment and change)may fuel them in the real world.
I'm not saying you need to conjure up the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, but I've found it very effective just to get people to really imagine what their lives have been, and will be if they continue on their path.
Encourage him, in whatever way you can, to imagine two futures for himself, one if he continues on this path, and one if he cleans himself up and gets his life back on track. Just telling him isn't enough - some kind of dramatic demonstration is better. Like when parents take their drug addicted kids to hospitals or rehab to learn first hand what drugs will do.
You know your friend best, so how you present it is something you'll have to think about, but I do know from experience that the logical argument approach never works on someone who's resistant to it. You need to be a little emotionally manipulative, without it being obvious that you're manipulating them.
I used to be pretty bad at wow. It wasn't a 24/7 thing, I still survived at school, but pretty much every free moment was spent playing.
One day, I suddenly thought fuck this, and cancelled my account. I still feel a sort of twinge when I think about it, because I know I would love it if I went back. Which is why I don't.
(Also, shortly after, there was a period of several weeks without internet access, which was probably the most productive of my life.)
I completely agree with a post I just spotted above - if you try to push them into it, they will push back twice as hard. God knows how to do it, but they have to want help.
Depending how addicted they are, if they are prevented from playing for a period, and you can make sure that period is very enjoyable, that may do it. But if it is particularly severe, it may be difficult to create such a period.
Good luck
I used to be addicted to WoWduring several years. I have asked to my wife to control my game period using the parental control. She denied explaining that she has married an adult and want me to be adult. After trying to control my game period by myself I completely stopped playing.
Like all addicted people true solving is only reached by personal decision and full stop. My wife successfully help me to take this decision by enforcing a true equally of domestic tasks. By the way I never be so addicted to reach the point of have professional issues.
The main help is to show the true consequences of his behavior and never to his tasks. I presume that you would probably have strong discussions with your friend. Never try to says it's me or your game if you want to keep your friend. But if you really love the person and you have other people wanting to help this person it can be a good start at the cost of your friendship.
The end of your friendship could be a good consequence to be used as a trigger to stop the MMORPG.
Ask him why he wants to spend his time away from reality. It's his choice, but maybe somebody who cares can talk him out of it.
Or stop him some other way. Like cutting the internet. Everyone in the house will probably need to do the same as him. No games, no internet on your personal computers.
I think it is time for the cable at your house to get accidentally severed while you are mowing the lawn. See how he likes cold turkey. Or pay some 12 year old punk to hack his account and kill his character, nothing ruins a MMO quicker than the death of a character you have spent weeks building up.
I think this "Story" is made-up.
I think its meant to attract attention to the game.
What we need to do is pay people to play games. Make a profession out of it, and promote the growth of ARGs.
DO take away the source of the addiction and everything which might pull him back in. /active/ fun things with him.
DO
DO have a person in authority around. This person should be able and competent, not some moron.
DO give something back (or enable him) to replace the addiction. Preferably something he likes or complies with his goals in life.
DO give space for emotions, but...
DON'T allow his emotions to control your (re)actions.
DO be honest (100% needed here).
DO take time for your own emotions. You're going to shed some tears, trust me on this.
DO establish structure in his life. Shove it down his throat if needed, however...
DON'T become abusive (in any way).
DON'T allow yourself to be abused.
DO remain calm.
DO try to figure out what created the space for the addiction to occur in the first place and send him to therapy, if needed (make sure he goes).
DO be patient. It takes time to get rid of addictions.
DO be observant. In the beginning he'll do anything to get to his addiction.
DO have a social worker or (even better) a therapist available.
If the person starts shouting, his eyes dilate, his face becomes red and he starts clenching his fists, lower your voice to a level that he's got to concentrate to hear you. Anger and concentration cannot occur together. Doing this might very well spare you several bruises. Making him laugh will also help.
Ask him whether he's impotent or yes. Every day.
Well I don't think I will be buying champions online now.
Actually most "religious" wars are just conflicts over resources or land, and religion is used as an excuse.
That "excuse" is a prime recruitment tool for the unwashed masses, who do the majority of the fighting. Without that excuse, the resource conflict would be front and center in people's minds, and I bet most would find that conflict to be a lot less noble and worthy of dying for.
Not everything is an emergency that needs intervention.
Ok, sorry for the subject. It's just, that Slashdot often has many people, giving you dangerous half-knowledge.
First and foremost, you have to realize, that every addiction is made up of two parts. The first one is, that it is always a substitute act for something that they do not get, but desperately need. (Like love.)
The second one is massive repression of reality.
So in short, you first have to find out what he's replacing.
Mind you that so matter what you do, NEVER EVER question his self-esteem or if he does the right thing! Do it once, and you lost the game, because now he stops listening to you.
What you basically have to do, is to offer him what he did not get, do it an a way that lets him keep his reality and self-esteem intact, and offer it to him in a way that lets him make them both better.
That's the key: Do not say "you are lower than you think, get up here". Say "you are ok, and hey, I have a gift for you".
The other key is to let him realize and "come up with the idea", that it would be even cooler to change his life in the way "he came up with". ^^
Maybe you have seen "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and how the women there manipulate the dad into thinking he came up with a great idea. That's how you do it! ^^
Now you got a wonderful glowing life in the next room, and he opened the door... but he won't come over anyway? :)
Well... that's the human efficiency showing itself as inertial. You know. How people did not replace the Internet Explorer, for some stupid reason, like "I'm used to it.". Turns out it's usually not that stupid to think that way. Just now it is. But you can't say him that he is stupid.
So you have to make it in a way, that lets him fall into that new life trough lazyness / being economical. ^^
Let's say his computer breaks down. Or loses his Internet connection, because he can't pay it anymore. That would get him up and anywhere he can play, in a matter of seconds. ^^
OR: To everything else that gives him what he really needs inside (and was replacing).
Say he was lonely, and the MMOs offered friendships. Now if his PC breaks down, and then you offer him a party with nice girls and some new friends, you got a good chance of him coming to it. Then you would work that way.
But of course, you do not have to kill his computer to help him. It's just one example of creating that needed gradient.
Now I know, that in reality, all this is very very hard. Most of the time, you can't offer him what he's missing. And it takes a big amount of commitment, hard thinking, putting yourself in his position, etc., over months, to solve it.
Well... that is the reason it did not already happen. So you have to ask yourself if you are up to it. At least 99.9% of all people are not. (Oh, and at least 99.9% of all MMO players are also not addicted!)
Also I should mention the root of psychological healing, so you are prepared to react in the right way:
Most people hide their problem very very deep, because it is so horrible to even think of it. (Like not having a girlfriend for ages. Or missing the dead mother.)
So usually people of course will fight as if it were for their life, if you want to push them to look at it.
The problem is, that you can only heal, when you are able to look straight at it, and go trough it, without having a problem with it. Many times.
The only thing that lets them attack that problem, is to have a safety net. Which is the job of a professional psychotherapist. (If the guy so much as talks about medication, with average problems like your friend has, he is obviously incompetent, because he can't handle it. But be aware that nearly all professional therapists can't handle even average problems, because they only went into that field, to help themselves. And often failed, or only did it in a partial way, thereby making their own twisted views on the world even more sneaky. Which is very bad for heal
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
easy i saved all my items from the mail into my bank tell everybody goodbye didnt give a shit when they said i was important and all the excuses and closed the game. 5 days later subscription ran off also stopped reading news about it on wow specific websites like wowinsider.com and mmo-champion.com. 2 weeks later new patch came out and i was like meh ill play later when i have time in my life.
Sometimes people play games (or watch tv, drink, do drugs, whatever) to escape from their lives, in such a case the addiction/compulsion might be a symptom of the problem, not the source.
If you get him to give up this method of escape then he might just replace it with another, possibly more destructive method of escape.
If possible try to get him to recognize and address what he is escaping from.
Ask him what he would like his perfect RL to be, if he can honestly say the way it is, then he has made his choice.
Sometimes we have learn the hard way, other times we just need to be accepted and understood.
Get him really really angry every time he tries to sit down and play. Nick his mouse or keyboard, unscrew his chair, and them make him search for the missing pieces. After a while he'll associate playing the game with being angry, and stop of his own accord.
Of course you can't do this alone. If he knows where it's coming from, he can retaliate and put a stop to it.
And yeah, sometimes you have to deal with people's anger IRL.
Real friends are supposed to say things their friends don't want to hear.
It's pretty self-evident, but amazing how often it's forgotten.
There are those of us who fall by the wayside, and those who carry on. Its just the way its.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Steal his game password and kill his character.
Why are you asking computer geeks? Ask a drug rehab professional. They're well versed in dealing with addiction. I don't think the type matters.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
I can't believe all you get in the comments are psychobabble. It's good up to a point but if you're past that, the easiest way to save him from himself is to fuck the internet connection.
No internet, no game.
Get BackTrack 3, boot into a spare PC and try TCPKILL-ing his connection to the specific port. You can script it to kill all connections to port (blah) every 5/10/15/rand() minutes.
If he has a clue about networks, he could realise what you are doing, though, so even better would be:
Limiting the speed at which he can connect, start by setting a 50KB/s limit, then 25KB/s, then 12, then 5, 1, whatever.
He will not be enjoying his game if he is getting 2 FPS and is completely lagged and out of sync from the virtual world.
A way that comes to mind is Man-in-the-middle attack (focused on the port(s) used by the game) and after all game traffic is going through you, use one of Trickle, Level 7 Filter, ClarkConnect, Bandwidth Arbitrator, MasterShaper.
If you can't figure out how to throttle him properly, you can also try flooding the local network until it slows to a crawl.
Try it.
Or, you can show him this thread. He'll probably kill himself, but he will stop playing.
To hell with all that social networking crap, I'd rather be playing a game online!
Are you guys sure this post was not submitted as advertising by the makers of the MMO?
There is a very effective way to help, www.olganon.com ; is a 12 step based support group for Gamers. The 12 step program is the most proven way for people of any addiction. I speak from experience.
I spent 3 years playing World of Warcraft with varying levels of commitment. During the last 6-8 months I was heavily "addicted" I'd come home from work, have a bite to eat, then hit the game to do whatever it was I needed to do before raid. I'd then spend the next hours raiding one of the original 40-man instances. When BC came out, the guild fractured. I quickly became Mage lead (oh fun) and then raid lead (even more fun). After a couple of months I realized that the game was stressing me out and that I needed something new. I then went back to the Horde side and leveled a feral druid from the early 50s where I'd left him. I raid tanked a few times, but I'd had enough. I walked away for a few weeks and finally canceled my account. I'd left WoW for weeks/months before finally leaving for good. The urge to play was always there and always dragged me back in, except this last time. Its been well over a year and a half since I played now and I still get the urge to play. Will I go back? Never. Its an decision people have to make for themselves, but others can prod them into it and make them realize what they are missing. Also realize the draw to MMOs may be the easy sense of accomplishment they provide, that makes it an awefully hard to quit.
Ah, but you did hit bottom. Your fear of changing was overcome by your fear of NOT changing! Obsession is overwhelmed by compulsion -- the need to make the pain you saw in others go away. In short, your motivations changed for the better! Well done!
The only issues in helping another hit bottom is how hard and how fast. You're not out to ruin them -- they've done that to themselves already. You're out to help them see, as happened to you. And they're not going to like what they see, ever. That's the point.
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
THe fact that you ahve noticed this in your friend is the first step. Congratulations! I applaud you.
THe first thing you need to do is observe him. Focuse on what other interests he might once have had, and gradually introduce those to him at times when you feel his attacfhment to the game is the weakest. But, be careful not to approach it from an obvious, -oh im trying to save y0ou from yourself- attitude. He will smell it on you, and vehemently go against whatever you are trying to accomplish with him. YOu need to introduce these ideas in such a way that his mind begins to work on them hi8mself, in a latent, subconscious manner. It may begin with ideas, or visuals, or actions. Wants and desires are the key. if yiou can balance his desire to paly the game with another desire, you may be able to wean him off of it gradually. Also, nad this is the MOST IMPORTANT, try to discover -DISCREETLY- why he is hiding in the game liek this. Wjhat area of his life is SO deficient that he feels he needs to lose himself in a game to feel what he is trying to feel? My love nd encouragement go out to you.
by the way, if you wnat to contact me, go to fanfiction.net and type in ChellusAuglerie. love nad hugs, sweethearts!
I for one welcome our new WOW addicted overlords... In all seriousness? Having been in a somewhat similar situation, I commend you for even trying. I was in college and in a similar situation, my roommates didn't do a damn thing. I basically screwed the pooch a semester and was put on academic probation - got diagnosed with depression and got some meds. Come next semester, doing great until I run out of the drugs one day. I have ADD (which I found out later) which means I'm more absent minded than most at times. So the first few days I just forget to go pick them up - after that I was simply incapable of doing so. You've heard of falling of the wagon, I assume? You could say I fell off the wagon and into the Grand Canyon. The point of all this being is I got REALLY in to EVE. Also had an absolutely absurd sleeping schedule. Didn't go to any of my classes etc. Didn't answer my phone. My parents quite literally drove 2-3 hours to where I was living, and then had to wait another hour until one of my roommates with a key got back to unlock the door for them because I was asleep. Woke me up and metaphorically dragged me to the doctor, power of attorney in hand. The point of all this? Addictions, I agree are harmful in and of themselves, however I think it is also true that addictions, esp. psychological ones are an attempt to mask the true issue. Avoidance as one poster put it. I'd try really hard to get his parents involved and convince him to go see a counselor or doctor. Preferably both. Further every uni under the sun has some type of mental health "forgiveness" policy. Essentially, if you can say you were depressed, crazy, whatever along with a statement from a counselor/doctor backing it up they'll bend over backwards to help. In my case I got the 95% of the tuition refunded as well as all of the F's on my transcript removed.
My big mmo addiction was Utopia (yea im an old fart) but I can honestly say the only thing that cured that non-stop craving (and Id sleep less than this guy in war) was acheiving something in the game I could never reproduce - hitting an apex if you will - even when I came back to the game a year or so after we topped the charts I didnt put my all into it as before. Guess you could call what I did the "step down program" cause I eventually quit for good. (now if you could only tell that to the narcotic receptors in my brain heh!) This guy is not going to be addicted to that game forever (im sure he has others in mind) but perhaps after he racks up enough accomplishments the game will lose its luster. Let him win - or otherwise find what he's looking for. They dont actually mean MMOs ARE crack they are just very similar. And if he flunks out and ends up doing whatever it takes for food, shelter and internet thats not a horrible thing - someone has to flip our burgers right? Seriously, I know many people who consider themselves to be very happy in life. At least he's not a couch potato. He is exerting some force on the universe besides butt on couch, etc. Long live binge gaming!
will work for dragon quest localization
Some people find meaning in their life, even if it's leading a tiny group of people in a virtual environment.
I would say he's more prodcutive then a lot of people who grind away at their lives in the same way.
If he's hungry, he'll feed himself. If he's tired, he'll sleep. If he wants sex, he'll get a girlfriend or just sex.
It's all about wants, desires, and motivation. He'll do what he enjoys the most and what he doesn't mind doing for the rest of his life. There is no reason to force what you believe on top of him.
This is comming from someone who has lived both sides. People on the outside always look in and say it's wrong. People on the inside don't care enough to look out because they went there to escape from the outside in the first place. Believe it or not, there is actually social environments online too!
Just live with it. This is going to sound cynical, but perhaps you got addicted to him and are sad now that he found something better to do with his time? Anything can be classified as a addiction if you spread the term wide enough.
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I once had a mild addiction to Eve Online. I say mild because it wasn't affecting my social and professional lives - I played whenever I wasn't working, seeing my friends, or sleeping - but aside from those things I played all the time. (which doesn't sound bad exactly, but I used to do so much more with my spare time). I got over it by going on a 3 week camping holiday with friends in Mexico. I put my account to sleep because I didn't want to pay while I was gone, fully intending to reactivate it when I got back... But after the holiday, I no longer felt a strong urge to play, and decided it would be better if I didn't.
I still play computer games without any "relapses" - but I consciously stay away from massively multiplayer ones without a clearly defined end. Normal games I will play intensely until I finish them, and that'll be that, I have time for other things again.
If there wasn't religion, another excuse would be made. People feel better about themselves if they are fighting for what seems to be a noble cause. If it wasn't religion, it'd be racial harmony or something else. (and it often has been something else when it wasn't religion).
First, DO NOT have him treated by anyone who considers a purely behavioral problem to be an "addiction". Addiction requires biological adaptation to a substance. If you go to see any kind of counselor or psychologist for this, on the first session they'll ask if he's ever been to a 12 step meeting, on the second meet they'll suggest it, on the third they'll require it. They're charging you money for you going and getting 'treatment' elsewhere. He can go to meetings himself without paying through the nose simply to get a referral.
Second, his behavior is obsessive/compulsive. If he needs treated for that, it's in the realm of psychiatry.
His behavior may be the proper response to a situation, including an internal one involving feelings. If the former, talking through it might help. If the latter, just being there while he goes through it may be the best you can do. Ask him what's going on. If he tells you, tell him you two can talk if he wants, If he can't, tell him you'll be there with him and for him.
Finally, an analogy: The king called his wise man to his chambers one day. It seems the king's son had taken it into his head that he was a chicken. It kept the kitchen staff amused, but if word got out that the prince was a chicken, there may be war. The wise man said he'd take care of things. For the next meal the wise man came to sat with the king, and down on the floor, naked, and eating bird seed, was the prince. So the wise man took of his robes, got under the table and started eating the seeds. The boy stared at him and said 'What are you doing?' The wise man replied, I'm a chicken, I'm eating seeds. Why do you ask?' So the went back to eating. A little while later the wise man said, "I sure am cold. Let's put on our robes to keep warm. We can still be chickens though." The boy shrugged, and they got into their robes.
In the interest of brevity, the process gets repeated for 'eating regular food' and 'sitting in the chair'. When the king asked the wise man if he'll cure the boy of thinking he's a chicken. The wise man said, 'It is of no consequence what others think of us, our us them, or each of us ourselves, so long as we are satisfied with ourselves. So grab a controller, get in ther and play along. Ans ask him.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
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"Actually most 'religious' wars are just conflicts over resources or land, and religion is used as an excuse."
Of all the wrong-headed, delusional comments in this thread, I nominate this one for the gold medal.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Best AC post I've seen for some time!
:Begin /.
wake up
start up the computer
read the e-mails
read the news
read
read MMO-champion.
read UF
run CurseUpdater
Start WoW
repeat grind dailies and Ulduar until CurrentTime()=3:00AM
exit WoW
turn computer off
Brush teeth
go to bed
Goto Begin
Just make it as easy as possible for him to quit. He has two problems to resolve - firstly making a break from the game and secondly getting back into real life. The game is the carrot and fear of real life is the stick - both keep him doing what he's doing.
There really isn't anything you can do about the game itself. That's all down to him. But you can help him with the real-life side.
He's been escaping from real life, likely in part due to a problem he was already having. Maybe he was just about dealing with it before the gaming came, but he won't know how to do that now (or at least he believes that). In game he feels emotionally safe and in control, not like outside which is alien and frightening. The prospect of returning to real life will be very daunting, but it will be much easier for him if he feels he can escape from it if he needs to. Do not try to force him to stop playing, in his mind you become a threat, someone trying to take away his safe harbour.
If you get him out and about, make it local places in a relaxed setting so he always feels like he can return back to his game whenever he needs. For any addict the next score is a priority that eclipses all others - only when it is secured can other things be thought about. It will be a lot easier to get him out if he knows he can easily return, and he will be able to push his limits, staying out for every minute he feels comfortable, instead of taking the earliest opportunity because he doesn't know when the next one will be.
The more he is out, the more he rebuilds confidence and the less he needs the game. Bit by bit the walls come down.
If not for religion, in many of those wars there'd have been no soldiers.
This is one of the big reasons why religious societies have survived so well, historically -- as king, if the deity/deities are your side, you can justify even asking children to fight for your cause (expanding land and resources), and you can convince your poor subjects to fight *to the death* for reasons that IRL don't actually justify it.
[I'm over-simplifying, of course, but think about it a bit....]
I have had a similar situation occur with a friend of mine as well. Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot I could do to help him. Several years ago, when Final Fantasy XI was released, I dove into it because I was a final fantasy nut. It was a fun game, and I played it a lot, but I always got all my schoolwork done, and never missed a class because of it or anything like that. I put in about 120 days of playtime in about 2 years. That's a lot of playtime, I thought, this is not good. I should quit so I can spend that time doing something more beneficial to myself. So I did. Well, in the meantime, my roommate was going through some tough times, was on welfare, smoking too much pot, had some serious depression problems, and didn't have the motivation to find a job, because by some miracle he was able to live on $550/month (seriously, it was amazing, he always paid his rent on time, and only occasionally got help from his family). Him and a friend of mine ended up getting him into FF XI. Seemed harmless enough at the time, but he has an addictive personality and he was hooked badly. I think he put in over 700 days of playtime in the 3 years that he was playing while he was my roommate. Now, I owned the house, and eventually decided that I wanted the upper floor to myself, and no longer wanted a roommate because I no longer required it in order to maintain my financial comfort. The arrangement that kept him living at my place was that he only had to pay rent. Phone, cable, internet etc I paid for as long as he mowed the lawn, took garbage out and did some other chores around the house. This was very convenient for him. When I had to kick him out, (which was a very difficult thing to do, btw) he had no other choice but to quit smoking pot and find a job. Turns out I was a bit of an enabler. My friends and I were all very concerned about how it would turn out... my fear was that he would not be able to find a place to live and I would start seeing him begging for money on a street corner somewhere. Fortunately this was not the case. Fact is, when someone realizes how screwed they are, they usually smarten up. My only advice is to take away anything you can from him that is enabling him. Where is he getting money from? If it's his parents, it's time for you and his parents to have a serious talk about his problem. Is there a convenient living situation for him that you can take away from him, disguising it as a move for your own personal preference? If you haven't already, then it might be a good idea to show him the reality of his situation, what he's doing to himself, like... how badly he's screwing himself. Make note of things like... what your salary will be when you get out of school and start working. Be a jerk if you have to... make fun of him about the fact that he's going to be living in his mom's basement, single, alone and a loser for the rest of his life. Perhaps an intervention of some kind is in order? It's all easier said than done, of course. But the other option is for him to hit rock bottom on his own, the only way he'll stop is if he can't afford to pay the bills anymore, or his computer dies and he can't afford to fix it. At that point it would be a good thing if his parents know that he's no longer using his computer for school, so they won't bail him out.
This is how we fix problems in Russian Space Station!
You can't help someone else break an addiction. They have to want to do it themselves. And they have to do so desperately. For most people that means that they have to reach bottom and then make a choice of whether they have something more meaningful in their lives to move to or to stay at the bottom with their addiction. If you want to help your friend, don't enable the addiction (don't give him money, or whatever resources he may ask of you). But from time to time offer him to do other things together. This will keep reminding him that there are other things in life that he enjoys doing.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Forward him emails from the Everquest Widows email list about parents ignoring their babies to play video games. Maybe that'll show him he's not special.
Hate to break it to you, but history disagrees with you.
Very good point. Religion has often been used in history as a recruiting tool, and a very effective one. Nothing gets people more riled up than each others deities. My point was that the actual reason for most of the wars was not religion, but material factors such as land and resources. But you are correct, religion has been used in many wars as not only an "excuse" but also as a tool to help fight the war.
I actually think it may be a big advantage for our generation. A problem that a non-trivial number of elderly people face is the lack of anything to do when retired. This leads to two (non exclusive) things:
1) Senility. While there are genetic conditions that contribute to/cause this, it is also environmental. If you do nothing all day, leaving your mind idle, it really can start slipping much faster. Even when there are genetic factors at work, keeping the mind active can help counteract them. Video games are being used with some success at treating Alzheimers.
2) Refusal to leave work. We've all probably encountered the old guy who just won't quit. He's an impediment to work, doesn't contribute anything useful, but won't leave despite being eligible for retirement. Reason is, the job is his life. He's got nothing else to do, so he clings to it.
There may be less of this with the videogamer generation. It is a hobby that is easy to continue your whole life. You can be wheelchair bound and severely mobility impaired, and yet you can still play games. Not high speed FPSes, of course, but there are plenty of games that'll wait on you. It also isn't that expensive a hobby. $500-1000 a year will easily keep you in new games and upgrades to your game system. Compare that to some hobbies, like traveling, where it is hard to get a plane ticket for $500. Means that even if you don't have a huge retirement fund, it is still a viable hobby for you.
Heck I fully plan on doing just that when I retire. Videogames are for me the best use of my goof off time. I tend to find them the most entertaining use of time, not to mention good entertainment for the dollars (hence I don't watch much TV or movies). My plan when retired is to spend time gaming instead of working. Doesn't mean that's all I'll do, of course, isn't all I do now. However it'll likely be my default "Well I don't have anything that needs doing, I don't feel like doing anything special, so let's goof off and play some games."
That is the part of retirement that can be wonderful. If you have a hobby, and the money and/or physical ability to pursue it, you can do so almost as much as you want. My grandpa did that for years in the form of restoring old tractors. He'd rework and rebuild them in his machine shop to new condition. They ran too, great fun to drive around on as a grandkid. No point to it, he wasn't making the world better or anything, he was just making himself happy with what he loved, and it worked well.
Hopefully, videogames can help provide that for some people who otherwise might not have something.
Why not just kick his ass already? The only thing wrong is that he might be used to it.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a television screen? A computer screen? Behind an automobile windscreen? All three screens combined? What are you being screened from? How much of your life comes at you through a screen, vicariously?
Is watching things as exciting as doing things? Do you have enough time to do all the things that you want to? Do you have enough energy to? Why? And how many hours a day do you sleep? How are you affected by standardized time, designed solely to synchronize your movements with those of millions of other people? How long do you ever go without knowing what time it is? Who or what controls your minutes and hours? The minutes and hours that add up to your life? Are you saving time? Saving it up for what?
Can you put a value on a beautiful day, when the birds are singing and people are walking around together? How many dollars an hour does it take to pay you to stay inside and sell things or file papers? What can you get later that will make up for this day of your life?
How are you affected by being in crowds, by being surrounded by anonymous masses? Do you find yourself blocking your emotional responses to other human beings? And who prepares your meals? Do you ever eat by yourself? Do you ever eat standing up? How much do you know about what you eat and where it comes from? How much do you trust it?
What are we deprived of by labor-saving devices? By thought-saving devices? How are you affected by the requirements of efficiency, which place value on the product rather than the process, on the future rather than the present, the present moment that is getting shorter and shorter as we speed faster and faster into the future? What are we speeding towards? Are we saving time? Saving it up for what?
How are you affected by being moved around in prescribed paths, in elevators, buses, subways, escalators, on highways and sidewalks? By moving, working, and living in two- and three-dimensional grids? How are you affected by being organized, immobilized, and scheduled rather than wandering, roaming freely and spontaneously? Scavenging? (Shoplifting?) How much freedom of movement do you have--freedom to move through space, to move as far as you want, in new and unexplored directions?
And how are you affected by waiting? Waiting in line, waiting in traffic, waiting to eat, waiting for the bus, waiting to urinate--learning to punish and ignore your spontaneous urges? How are you affected by holding back your desires? By sexual repression, by the delay or denial of pleasure, starting in childhood, along with the suppression of everything in you that is spontaneous, everything that evidences your wild nature, your membership in the animal kingdom? Is pleasure dangerous?
Could danger be joyous? Do you ever need to see the sky? (Can you see many stars in it any more?) Do you ever need to see water, leaves, foliage, animals? Glinting, glimmering, moving? Is that why you have a pet, an aquarium, houseplants? Or are television and video your glinting, glimmering, moving? How much of your life comes at you through a screen, vicariously? If your life was made into a movie, would you watch it? How do you feel in situations of enforced passivity?
How are you affected by a non-stop assault of symbolic communication--audio, visual, print, billboard, video, radio, robotic voices--as you wander through a forest of signs? What are they urging upon you? Do you ever need solitude, quiet, contemplation? Do you remember it? Thinking on your own, rather than reacting to stimuli? Is it hard to look away?
Is looking away the very thing that is not permitted? Where can you go to find silence and solitude? Not white noise, but pure silence? Not loneliness, but gentle solitude? How often have you stopped to ask yourself questions like these? Do you find yourself committing acts of symbolic violence? Do you ever feel lonely in a way that words cannot even express?
Do you sometimes feel yourself ready
to LOSE CONTROL?
Tried and tested: Delete characters.
I was stuck on Ultima Online for a long time, until I decided I
would rather spend time training my real life character to
do things like fight dragons and cast spells... Let me tell
you, its not easy to make a bra out of a grizzly, totally
not like in the game. Also, I find when I go into the
forest in real life there aren't as many monsters to kill to raise skill... been stuck killing squirrels... racoons are too high a level for me at the moment...
Go download and start playing REAL LIFE... way more addictive.
Handbook for the Therapeutic Use of LSD-25
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
If you already tried to reason with him and it fails, you can last ditch effort sabotage his game play.
1. If you have a router/firewall block the outgoing port his MMO uses.
2. Create a script that will delete the game, make it unplayable, or unable to resolve the server.
3. Get his character band (ex. Have it blast profanity).
4. Lastly call customer service, pretend to be a concerned parent. Explain that you would like his account band indefinitely. "Under no circumstances are you to release account information to my son".
All of these should make playing the game very difficult. Make sure you can keep him entertained when your plan goes into effect. For example throw a party at your place with lots of beer. It will be much harder for him to confront you. He may just join the party and have a few beers.
If he gets pissy with you, who cares? Just tell him he is being a faggot and laugh at how emotional he is getting over a game. That just might put things in perspective.
This is usually the thought that kills a lot of games. I love being able to upgrade and change and improve a character. But, as soon as I realize I'm just working toward another level the pointlessness is the seed of boredom that kills a game for me.
I disagree with people who say there is nothing anyone can do to help this guy. Giving up like that without even trying is pure stupidity.
That said, there are definitely bad ways to go about trying to help this guy.
Without talking about the bad ways though...
The main thing is to just appeal to the guy as a friend. You start by having a genuine conversation. You find one of those rare moments he isn't playing, like say when he's microwaving some food, and you stop him and ask him if he's got a second. Don't appear agitated -- just be casual and genuine.
You get the conversation going by saying you have something coming up, like a BBQ or sporting event, etc, and offer him to come along. At this point he'll probably say no, because he 'has a lot of stuff to do' which really just means he wants to play the game. You're expecting this, and you've prepared for it.
So you mention that there's another event coming up a few days or a week after, and you offer him to go along with that. Again, he'll probably say no, though he might say yes. If he says no, you continue on with events in the future (you may need to have prepared several, so come with at least 5-10 in mind).
At some point he'll get tired of saying no. His attention span is focused on the game and he'll want to appease you just to get back to the game as soon as possible. He's not going to just say "I'm never going to do anything with you ever again" because despite his addiction he would realize just how bad that sounds.
So he'll agree to go do something outside of the game. You have no secured the first step.
The second step is to bring him along, and take his mind off the game by interacting with him. Again, be genuine and do not make it obvious you have a hidden agenda.
The second step may be hard to pull off-- he may cancel at the last minute on the event. You'll have various ways to make it harder to cancel, but if ultimately he does cancel, then just go along with it and return to step one. After several attempts at step 2 he will finally go with you to an event outside of the game.
You then repeat this process indefinitely. If you have trouble, use a line like this:
"I want you to know that I understand how much you like that game and I don't think anything bad of it. I bet it's a pretty bad-ass game. If you want to keep playing it and not go to the BBQ that's fine, but just know that I'm not going to stop asking you to come along, because I enjoy your company just as much as you enjoy that game, hell, maybe more. Just wanted you to to know. Good luck kickin ass today man, talk to you in a few."
You have to ultimately downplay the effect so that he thinks your opinion of the game's effects on his life is less than he even thinks. Then he'll no longer be on the defensive at all. You also need to combine it with these events outside of the game, and you need to be persistent.
Otherwise, if you don't really value his friendship, the last effort you should make is to inform people who do that he is in this condition and then move on and enjoy your life knowing you've done what you could do.
But never, ever, just give up without even trying.
Never.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
The fuel to the fire in EQ is the idea of the (almost) unattainable unless you play for a serious amount of time: the level 99 character. So the first say 10 levels you can get to in 10 hours of gameplay (I played about that much and quit, think I was at level 12). But here comes the addictive part, you have to get all the way to level 99 (if I remember this is easily over 1000 hours). The addict tell himself they have to finish everything including level 99 another class, complete all quests, get best equipment. The level 99 is the sand trap. If I recall, there was an expansion pack when EQ first came out that bumped it up to level 120. Lord knows, its probably up to 200 or 10,000 (?!) by now.
I think the addiction factor would be halved if the characters were maxed at level 30 which would take 40 hours of gameplay which is not good business?
I had a long-time friend about 7 years ago who was (and probably still is) addicted to Everquest, if not he's moved on to WOW. He played all waking hours on EQ. He would research and print out boatloads on strategies, quests, characters, bad guys .... you name it. This would happen during downtime at work, on break and after work. I think this was also because he didn't have a printer at home. After he got back from work he told me he'd have supper then play EQ until 2 or 3 am - sometimes longer. He usually showed up to work real tired.
Keep breaking his computer until he comes clean. He'll run out of money eventually! Just make sure you won't get caught ;-)
get him addicted to slashdot instead
I'm glad my phd advisor is on facebook rather than slashdot... =D
Until he realizes that he has a problem there is NOTHING you can do to help him. In all likelihood his problem isn't computer games... it is that he has a problem (a mental anguish) that (for him) only computer games will temporarily take away. The addiction to the MMO is more of a symptom of a bigger emotional problem that this person has. If you are determined to try and help this person I'd recommend trying to get them out of the house to do other activities that might make them feel better about themselves. But keep in mind that although you care about this person, it is ultimately their life and they get to decide what to do with it, no matter how bad their choices are, you can't change the way a person thinks.
As a recovering addict, I have to say there is almost nothing you can do until he hits bottom and decides he's willing to do what it takes to get better.
Until then, what you can do is to keep yourself well and not to enable his addiction. For instance, are you buying him food? Stop. Are you making excuses for his behavior to others? Start telling the truth. Are you supporting him financially in any way? Don't. Are you letting him get away with not pulling his weight in cooking and cleaning and whatever? Insist he do his share. Are you providing services like a wireless router that you, and not he, paid for? You don't have to.
Maybe having to support himself will cause him to hit bottom, and maybe it won't. Addictions are nasty stuff, and recovery at first is a terrifying business of building a whole new life. Once he gives up, there's enormous hope, but until then, you can't help somebody who doesn't want it.
This isn't a pretty message, and it may not make sense unless you've been there, but it's the experience of a whole lot of people.
looks like your friend had a glimpse of the future.
he's prolly praticing for his future job as oil
baron (which needs 'lil wits but lots of stamina).
-
bottom line: mmorpgs are modeled after a "glorified"
reality. just find the RL monster that is profiting
from you doing nothing and you will be able to find
the [no carrier]
Here's the best answer I think you could get: "You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped".. From your brief blurb, it sounded like he's quite sensitive to the situation, so that to me suggests awareness. The anger you refer to sounds to me like a complete rejection of any help and at the end of the day, if he doesn't want help, he can't be helped. Good luck
/s /jerk /insensitive clod!
HTH HAND :-)
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
'outburst of anger and possibly physical violence' - just apply little of that on him until he agrees to stop playing his mmo-s
Only religion promises your army that if they die, they will then magically wake up to a better life. That's a powerful motivator when you're asking them to risk the one life they know they have. Plus the whole "you will be tortured for millions of years if you refuse" thing.
Cold turkey is the only way. Get an axe and smash the tool that fuels your friends addiction before it is too late.
Then help him to establish a normal life with new interests, chasing girls would probably be the best transitional therapy.
First things first, what makes it an unhealthy addiction? Is he still doing good in school even though he's not studying, and if so why shouldn't he spend his time how he pleases? Too many people are willing to call something an unhealthy addiction just because they think everyone should spend their time the same way, usually in some crappy social situation that this guy probably doesn't give a crap about. If he starts flunking out of school or can't get a job, it's one thing. If he's just spend his spare days in a virtual environment, so what?
How To Help a Friend With an MMO Addiction? Get him a time card.
Unfortunately, this is your friend's addiction, not yours. As is the case with any addiction, your friend will have to find his own rock bottom.
What this means for you is pain in knowing that there is nothing you can do to help and suffering as you watch your friend's life become a shambles. I'm so sorry, but this is really the only road you will find open.
Please seek solace in your other friends and live your life. You should concentrate on passing your finals instead of getting your friend to pass his.
I really hope your friend finds his way out sooner rather than later. He is lucky to have mates who care.
Alright, I played an MMO for about seven years and as far as I can tell there's only two ways to break the addiction yourself. Either get lonely, or get bored. I say this because the guy above that talked about how an MMO is a Skinner Box was half right.
An MMO is basically a bunch of Skinner boxes that can talk to one another, You're either hooked for the reward system or the social aspect. Usually I think it's the reward system that hooks people in and then the social aspect keeps them there until they're bored with it.
If he's in a clan/guild/play group already then you're going to have to hope the group falls apart, or just ride it out, because his community if you will has probably shifted into the game world, and you're more of an annoyance right now.
But if he's not, here's what you do, and it worked on me and a few people I know. Start playing an MMO with him, a different one if you will, and work up until the reward system has gotten boring. Then together switch to a new one, rinse and repeat at rapid speed, he'll get so tired of it that an MMO won't even be able to hold his attention for ten minutes. Also, as a byproduct, you'll have become important to him socially, and draw him back out of the digital realm to which he used to live.
Now if he's already got a lot of buds in a guild like a said before, this really won't work, as it would be hard to get him to start over, on another game when it's those people that are keeping him there.
Anyways, good luck.
"Religion" is a very problematic categorisation. Not everyone in the world defines spiritual values, the search for meaning etc. as "Religion" ("Atheists" being a good example, another being those whose religion doesn't get counted as "Religion") Those bashing "Religion" as a general thing are making almost meaningless statements unless one assumes many things, often monotheistic tradition defined "religion" in western acedemic circles....
Anyway, the crusade against general "religion" seems to be at best a crusdae for indivudualism and at worse a crusade for pure ignorance. Definitions are important.
Stupidity is its own reward.
I have quite a few friends who are addicted to substances, and I am at the moment recovering from a substance-based addiction myself.
The processes that drive substance-based addiction and game addiction are really comparable. They both work by making you feel good, thus creating a feedback loop that will cause you to keep on doing what you're addicted to.
The problem with an addiction is that it can only be overcome by the person who is addicted. You cannot simply talk them out of it. So your first priority should be to get them to realize they have a problem. As long as they do not see their own addiction, they stand no chance of ever overcoming it. Maybe your friend will at some point in their life realize this, but maybe they will have dropped out of college by then. So you should probably speed up the process a little.
One way of achieving this is by removing any support from the person. It sounds like a harsh measure, but it is actually the only way. As long as they have food and someone paying the rent, the negative consequences are invisible to them. So if you get their parents or whoever is paying their rent to stop their support, they may start to notice that they are fscking up. Of course, for this to work you need to involve the parents. Which can be a bit tricky because, depending on their parents moral standards and own psychicological constitution, it might make things worse. So you should make sure you know the parents well enough to anticipate how they will react.
The other option to make your friend realize his problem is by performing an intervention. You should include all the people who are close to them in preparing and performing the intervention. Also, you should definately consult with a psychological counselor to help you with preparing the intervention. You can get some information about interventions on wikihow:
http://www.wikihow.com/Perform-an-Intervention
This is the most you can do in this phase of rehabilitation. After that, they will have to quit out of their own strength. In this phase, counseling or a full-blown rehab should be considered. However, you can help after they are off gaming in order to prevent a relapse.
When you quit doing something you are addicted to, this leaves a huge hole in your life. Something that gave you satisfaction while you were addicted to it is now missing. So you have to learn how to make yourself feel good again without the thing you were addicted to. You can help with this by providing a spectrum of activities to fill the hole in their lives. So take them to do sports, go to parties, the movies, maybe even play board games with them. This helps in reducing the risk of relapse and prevents them from falling into depression after the addiction.
I hope this helps set your efforts of in the right direction. I wish you all of strength.
of the habit by breaking up, losing everything , having to work it out on my own, doing a few months of time after losing absolutely everything again and when i played it again for the first time, realising that nothing had changed after 4 years and it gets boring after a few hours now
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
You need to contact anybody who gives a goddamn about him(friends, family) and arrange an intervention just as you would if he were addicted to crack. hire a psychologist who specializes in doing interventions to aid you in this process.
I think that, as a friend, you should do whatever you reasonably can to help him. If I am aware of problems that my friends have, that is what I try to do, and would hope that my friends do that for me as well. Nonetheless, if the person is in denial and severely addicted, you may not be able to help much.
However, remember that you are far from alone and that there are many sources of help available for both you and your friend. This Slashdot site is one of them, but some other good ones that I am aware of are On-Line Gamers Anonymous (OLGA) at http://www.olganon.org/ , Gamer Widow at http://gamerwidow.com/ (note that despite it's name, it also has support for gamers as well), DailyStrength Video Game Addiction (VGA) support group at http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Video-Game-Addiction/support-group , and WoW Detox at http://www.wowdetox.com/ . I am a recovering video game addict myself. For me, I used counseling from a friend as well as the OLGA Website (such as informally following their 12 steps) and, to a lesser extent, the DailyStrength one.
Note that even if you cannot get your friend to directly get help himself, the first 2 sites listed above (i.e., OLGA and Gamer Widow) have sections specifically for family and friends of gamers. I am sure that you can find something already previously posted that would be useful, or can get specific help by repeating your query.
I am not a native English speaker so pardon me for errors if there will be any which survive through spelling check :)
I am writing this in an attempt to help you make conclusions that might help you to approach your friend better.
--
I remember being WoW addict myself..
In my case, I was playing with my IRL friends who hooked me in. Some of them still play it from time to time, except for my cousin who worked at a factory as a financial manager and almost went to jail because he missed some important stuff in his calculations.
I myself went on to play DoTA and it helped for some time, but then I got addicted to DoTA... then went back to WoW.
I have canceled my account several times, deleted characters, but always found ways to restore them. In the end I gave up on that too.
I have had many relationships during that time but none helped, I managed to finish university while playing, but with great struggle. I lost my job(s), found other and lost that too.
I was weighting 80 kilograms was in perfect shape, had lots of friends and was one of best students at university. After 3 years I weighted 100 kilograms, had been almost kicked out of university, lost most of my friends, broke up with 2 girlfriends, and was without a job. In the course of things I myself almost got to jail for violence, my mother died, my best friend lost his legs and many other stuff happened.
At this point I was so depressed that I couldn't do anything, even play. I was sleeping all day and night. refused to participate in any social activity, lost interest in anything and was thinking about suicide, but in the end I continued to play WoW and DoTa.
Then one day I saw my mother in a dream. She was young and healthy, I was a small baby in a bad crying because I wanted to eat, or maybe It was because I have missed her so much, but then suddenly I saw myself in school, helping a girl I then loved with her homework and saw my mother watching us with a slight smile, I felt how proud she was of me. This dream of mine changed something, it pulled some small trigger in my head.
When I woke up, I wanted everybody to be proud of me once more. I wanted to be loved and respected, I wanted my mother to be happy that he has a son like me.
I couldn't give up gaming all of a sudden. First I made a schedule and following it played for 10-20 hours a week. WoW is not as rewarding for casuals though, so soon I gave up playing it and was playing DoTA solely.
By that time I found a new job, a beautiful girlfriend and was quite happy. But I still slept for 4-5 hours beacause of DoTA and was not in the best shape.
My girlfriend said to me once, why don't you treat your life like a game david? You know, maybe you can't kill huge monsters and other people or resurrect and stuff but you still can get the REWARDS, don't you?
That was funny, because I still remember the time when I played so much that everyone I saw or thought of had a small HP/Mana bar on top of their heads and I casted spells in my dreams.
So anyway, We designed a small intimate reward system, which was more fun then any epic loot, believe me ;) Apart from that I started to plan things, like studying and always "claimed" rewards and recorded my achievements. I defined what classifies as progression and (almost) made a guild by promoting this ideas to my friends.
I started to train on daily basis and went on to study martial arts.
Now I have a beautiful wife, huge amount of funny videos and pictures, lot of "epic" memories and lot of real life quest that I have completed.
I think that my mother would be proud of me if she could see me now, at least thats what my father says.
I have still long way to go though, there is so much to learn and to see, so much to achieve in this life, so much to explore. There is no way that I am going to stop my progression and start playing those stupid games once more.
--
It was quite hard to achieve, but this t
Why does this sound like an astroturf for the Pirates of the Burning Sea?
Or is it just the symptom? My experience with MMO addiction comes not from the game itself, but rather is a manifestation of there being a massive void in my life that the game naturally fills out without judgement or mockery. It just accepts, and gives me what I need so badly that I can't get in the real world, be it adventure, social contact or a sense of achievement. If you want to help your friend get away from the game, you must figure out which of these things he derives from the game and not from his real life, then help him obtain it from a non-gaming source. Short of that, learn to speak in pirate speech, I guess.
Yeah, so I used to play Runescape for like 2 years when I was 14, then I moved onto maplestory.
The only thing that ever kept me playing the games were the friends I made on them, not being allowed to leave my house much as my mum didn't want me out on the streets, I guess the internet was the only way to make new friends (not that I didn't have any at school I did they also played runescape)
Anyhow, after a while I just grew out of it, was wasting my time on playing the games and I had exams and growing up into a man to do, right now Im 18, not the most sociable person in the world, but I do go out drinking etc from time to time.
I do games development at college and hopeful at uni, and really after trying drugs (which i only smoke on occasions) I see that I wasted a lot of time on games and never really saw the true marvel that the world is around us, but anyway I'm getting off track, tell you friend if he continues the way he is he won't amount to anything in his life, because really he wont if he's spending his life playing games, If he ignores you then tell him you don't want to be his friend anymore because really you guy's won't be friends forever anyway when I go into uni none of my friends that have been with me for 7 years are coming with me.
tl;dr Bitch slap that fat ass off his pc before he fails at his life, if he resists the help forget about him it's his life, he's going to regret it sooner or later, you won't befriends forever anyway.
Maybe it should be renamed to Crackdot?
Who's paying for the electricity, internet, food etc... that he is using.
Ideas I have are:
1. buy a lockable rack and put in a switch/server that blocks the website and restricts his hours.
2. Stop paying for internet.
3. Get him to move out or get to a position where he needs to work to pay the bills. then at least he'll have a life.
Give Derren Brown a call and get him to shock him out of his addiction with some sort of crazy Zombie prank. Even if it doesn't work, it'll be cool to watch...
Unexpect the expected!
Mario Vargas Llosa
Carlos Fuentes.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez famously locked himself from all human contact, except his wife, when writing "100 Years of Solitude"
Some brilliant people are obsessive about what they do, they may look deranged to the uninformed outsider...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... that addiction can only be treated once the addictive person has had enough.
There is no other way, to think there is is self delusional.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's just obsessive behaviour is all.
You could have an intervention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpkQSB_h5lY
Oh, you want to have an intervention to play LESS WoW??? (It's a comic sketch where some guildmates are trying to lure their friend back into the game- as a result, he misses a three-some with two sexy ladies.)
Have you considered a 12 step program like CoDA? Yes.. I'm a coward.. :)
Cut the cable. Seriously. When it gets repaired, cut it again. It thankfully worked for me.
To the original Poster:
I'm now 44 years old, happily married for the last 20 years, three kids, and I own and operate my own business, getting from it enough money for me and my family needs.
So far, I was twice an addicted to MMOs, and twice I quit, alone and by my own personal decision.
I was addicted to an MMO for the first time about 8 years ago; I played Everquest almost non-stop for about a year, then quit cold-turkey because I realised I could sink my whole life in it and not even get to the "end" (ie, the highest level attainable in the game), because that "end" was unreachable (there was an exponential amount of effort involved to get to higher levels as you moved up), and also because the manufacturer of the game was constantly releasing new "game expansions" and so moving the level limit up and up. When I quit, I was playing an average of easily more than 70 hours a week.
I quit after a year or so of play. I didn't have to reach "bottom": I still have my family and my business. But it had to be a personal decision of mine: nobody pressured me into quitting, but I don't think it would have helped if someone did. I simply quit because I finally saw it was leading nowhere.
I got addicted again about 2 years ago: played World Of Warcraft for about six months, then again quit cold-turkey, and again by the same reason: finally realising the immense cost in time and that even the dubious benefit of reaching the highest level was pratically unattainable.
What drove me to these games in the first place, specially the second time? I thought a lot about it, and I'm pretty sure it was the "perfect universe" these games implement: you can be anything you want, do anything, with almost no restrictions. You can be the daring paladin and be perfectly aligned with Good, you don't have to make any hard decisions or accept any compromises. Real life isn't anything like that. So, it was escapism from a much-less-than-perfect life into a universe of perfection that drove the addiction for me, and both times the "recovery" was when I realized that this "perfection" was unattainable even in that made-up universe.
Both times I got addicted, I was in a personal low in my life, mainly because of boredom and dissatisfaction. Will I get addicted again? Have I really "recovered" for good? I really don't know.
So, apart from telling my personal story, the advice I can offer is:
0) Talk to your friend; really *talk*, get him to tell you what he thinks, and listen carefully;
1) Understand what got your friend into the addiction in the first place;
2) Show him that whatever it is he's seeking, he won't be able to find it in the game. No pressure, just talk.
4) Have patience. Maybe you won't see any immediate results, but if you plant the seed of truth in his mind, it will blossom eventually.
Your friend is probably very different from me (is any person really like any other?), so take what I said with a grain of salt. But perhaps it can help you.
Good luck, friend.
I played WoW a hell of a lot. The thing that got me to stop playing was a 2-week holiday, with no computer access.
The first couple of days, I was wondering what my guild were up to, and who got the item X I wanted from boss Y.
Two days later, I barely thought about it.
By the time I got home, I didn't give a shit.
Sadly, I got drawn back in. A friend of mine had started playing, and so I joined his server to help him out. And BANG! back at it again.
Then I took the ultimate course of action..
I downloaded a WoW emu/private server to match my client, and fired it up on my desktop. I then basically cheated my way through the game, insta-spawned all the items I'd been waiting weeks on end to get, gave myself the super fast mounts, the best items, and all the honor/rep I could. Then I 1-manned all the raid instances from MC to TK.
I smashed up a bunch of mobs that had previously given me trouble, teleported around the place rather than walk/ride/fly, spawned totem poles in strange places, basically, all the stuff I wished I could do in the real game.
Now I can't be arsed. I've literally seen all that can be seen, and done things far beyond what I could have done before.
That will ruin the game for anyone.
He's gone Jim... The only thing that will work is for him to fail out, move back in with his parents so they can babysit him, and go to community college.
Seen it happen several times... I could understand WoW, or Eve, but PoTBS?
Failing that, once he's living under a bridge, the mmo addiction will probably stop.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Mind your own business a-hole!
I've been in your friend's shoes. He needs your help, but don't go it alone. Get his friends together. Don't worry about him getting upset with you. That's inevitable. But you'll be doing him a favor and any ill will is likely to fade over time.
I used to work in a LAN gaming centre, so allow me to furnish you with the creed of the MMO addict:
1 - Maintain the highest level and best equipment available throughout the expansions.
2 - Maintain dominance in PvP.
3 - Time spent obeying verse 1 is an investment. Invest as much as possible.
Getting someone off this kind of game requires you find something they want to do more than play. Good look finding that. Either that or wait until the game closes. Considering that Everquest and Dark Ages of Camelot are still going, despite World of Warcraft being released after them, that could be a long, long time.
i.e. lack of money, lack of grades, lack of sex. If those are not enough for him, then there is very little you can do.
Let him fail out of school and "your" problem will be solved. You may want to mention that he spends too little time studying.
On the other hand, if this is not "school", he is not keeping up on his part of the bargain: "Vote him out" unless he is willing to change his ways.
It seems obvious to me that he has psychological problems, so you might talk to a "counselor" about it.
When I was in school, my fraternity had a problem with a brother who played Everquest all the time. He didn't go to class, flunked out, didn't pay his house bill, mooched off of us for free weed, ect, ect, ect. We used our connections to campus networking and blocked Everquest's port.
While it "solve the problem" of our brother's addition; it really didn't solve the problem with our brother. He still mooched our weed, didn't pay his bills, and flunked out of school; so we eventually had to kick him out of the fraternity house.
No, I will not work for your startup
And I mean in the classical sense. Your brain chemistry changes radically during gameplay. There's a variety of chemical changes. The addict will suffer withdrawal symptoms away from the game. It can truly be addictive at those long hours playing levels, especially if they become addicted as a still growing and changing younger person.
You dont need to spend all ur time playing these games to be good at them, bring some balance into your life, you can be successful, get out and still enjoy the games fairly often, you'de be suprised how much you can do if you try.
But I guess thats the problem with these games, the developers make it so theres always something to do and can keep people busy all day long, but if you have any sense you'll limit that time.
I myself play WoW, and yes perhaps I could use the time better but theres limits to that aswell, I guess I use alot of my free time playing, free time being after work, after social commitments and other things i regard as important
And if he will refuse - call cops and say what he has some weed. Or some of RIAA's copyrighted material, this will be even more ugly.
It's not your life, nor are you responsible for his behaviour or well-being. He is pursuing an interest which obviously brings him a lot of enjoyment or possibly just peace of mind. Unless he asks for help, you should not even presume that a problem exists. Just back off or you will do more harm than good.
I was unemployed for a long time after the dotcom bust. During this period, I became extremely depressed and ended up badly addicted to World of Warcraft. I played WoW pretty much non-stop around the clock to the point where it interfered with personal hygiene, much less the time I should have spent looking for a job.
When I finally did find a job, the addiction simply went away on its own. I still log in once in a while to catch up with my in-game friends, but I typically play less than 3 hours per week. I actually have to talk myself into logging in and generally my only motivation to do so is spending time with the friends I made while I was addicted to the game.
As others have said, game/computer/internet addiction isn't like addiction to chemical substances. Solve the underlying problem and the "addiction" pretty much disappears on its own.
Getting your friend to stop playing this MMO will not solve anything. You need to find out why he's immersing himself in the game and deal with that problem.
...there isn't much you can do. Behavior like anger and frustration when you talk about it usually means that the person knows that he/she is addicted, but doesn't want to acknowledge it or accept it. The best thing you can do is leave you phone number and tell the friend that you are willing to listen to his troubles whenever it goes wrong. (and by the sound of it, it looks like it will)
"Any attempt to physically prevent him from playing the game would most likely result in an outburst of anger and possibly physical violence."
It looks like you are not certain what will really happen. You can always try to find out, but it's equally important to know how to tell the friend what you think is wrong. Use a positive connotation like: "we would find it really nice if you would eat together with us when it's dinner time"
"Attempts at telling him he has a problem have been met with derision and angry retorts"
It could just be fear for seeing what is really going wrong. It's a form of resistance.
I've done this once with my own therapist, and all she did was sit still and listen to my venting. I wanted to quit, I've had enough, I rather wanted to walk away instead of doing something about my problems. After 15 minutes of venting and threatening to leave, she just asked me: "and what are you going to do then? Flee again?"
She was right... and I started crying because I didn't know how to handle myself any longer. I was scared and it cause the anger and resistance to change, to do something about it.
She helped me so much that once I was OK, I decided that I wanted to help others this way as well. :)
Most anger I see now is based on fear.
You can block ports, cut the cables or something like that, but as long as the person wants to escape reality by doing something like this, there isn't much you can do.
I give massages and reiki treatments (for real!). More info here: http://www.universele-levensenergie.be
I wish Eugene were alive today because we need that kind of leadership now more than ever.
Stupidity is its own reward.
Much like cult mind control.
start planting seeds of who he was before joining the game culture. he will burn out eventually.
I was on mmo crack also for 4 yrs.
http://www.killkuato.com
So what can you do?
1)Talk to him. Not about the game but about what's bothering him, discuss his options and help him work out a 'battle plan' that doesn't involve the game.
2)Engage him. Keep pestering him to get involved in social activities that don't involve a keyboard/controller. Guys night, card games, board games, a weekend camping trip, anything that involves socializing in meatspace.
3)Educate him. Make him realize what he is doing, that he is running away from something and doing in a self-destructive way. A little self awareness goes a long way, remember, he must DECIDE to break the addiction, and he can't make a decision if he doesn't realize he is facing one.
4)As has been noted repeatedly above, sex. It's one of the few basic instincts that is stronger than fear and in some cases is the only reward powerful enough to overcome the fear of the thing he is running from.
I wish you good luck, breaking an addiction is one of the hardest things someone can do.