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."

Comments

Re:It's Called S.E.X

[dacarr]

The problem with the girlfriend is that she will be bored, and if he re-draws himself to the game, will find herself a "warcrack widow".

Re:Appeal to His Original Priorities

[Dahamma]

Ugh, how could you list Religion as #1? That addiction has destroyed the lives of uncountably many more people than MMORPGs.

And if you disagree? Well, it just shows people have different ideas of what to dedicate their lives to, so who are you to tell them otherwise?

Re:Religious Wars

[fluffy99]

Religious wars are really just arguments over who has the better imaginary friend.

Physical Violence

[brendank310]

Why not just kick his ass already? The only thing wrong is that he might be used to it.