Friday, January 28, 2011

Addicition

Hey guys,

Someone mentioned on my blog about to deal with depression is World of Warcraft and I am not here to bash or say that is wrong but actually to say that, that is a good thing but also to share my story of my addiction to video games. So it started in grade 11 I believe and continued through grade 12 it was when there was some difficult times in my life that one day I will share about. But this addiction was pretty insane at the peak of my addiction I was playing nearly 80 hours a week, this includes playing, studying and researching. Yes I know that sounds ridiculous but I am going to go through and talk about my experience.

First off I began playing socially with friends just once or twice a week. It was nothing big at all and I started to get connected into this environment that was created by this game a sub-culture in a way. When my life was all together I barely played, I played when I had time and it was never anything more then this. But when there started to be some hardship in my life I began to try ways to escape reality. I wanted to do anything to get away from the struggles I was going through. I was avoiding conflict and fighting. Well I might as well explain what went on or else this story does not make sense. In my grade 11 year I had some difficult times and especially I started hanging out with this certain girl now nothing ever happened between us but things got sure blown out of proportion. So me and this girl were hanging out and became kind of close and being the level of maturity I was I started messing feelings with friendship. That is never a great thing and it ended up getting me into a lot of trouble. So what happened in January of my grade 11 year was I got accused of sexual harassment. Now let me place a disclaimer here all 'charges' and 'accusations' were dropped and everything was let go in 3 days. Now looking back I got accused of sexual harassment because of putting my arm around and giving a hug to a girl. I am not going to share her personal life as to what happened to cause me do engage in this form of physical activity but needless to say I saw it as justified. The unfortunate part was that after this when the issue was suppose to stay an absolute secret a few people let it slip and I started getting know around my school a some form of a sexual attacker. Yea fun I know it is great to be accused of that going through your high school. Well this became the premise of my addiction to escaping reality.

World of Warcraft and Video games became my addiction became the forefront of my life. It was my way to get away from the reality that is in front of me. To this day it is something that I still struggle with and I start to see it coming. When I was going through depression I started to find myself wanting to play more and more video games. On top of video games I found myself wanting to escape reality and it was a scary thing. A place where you can become someone else without and consequence is a scary reality. My addiction is not as simple as I would like it believe it was an addiction to world of warcraft but rather it was an addiction to have a place where I could go where there was no consequences, no reality and nothing I had to ever be concerned about. These types of games create a sub-world, I felt more attached to the world that I played in then the world I actually lived in. I know at this point people are going to say 'wow that is ridiculous' or 'why didn't you just stop playing'. Well the matter of the fact was this I enjoyed the life I had created more then the life I was living. That is a scary thing to have an addiction too well minus drugs, alcohol and pornography but being addicted to escaping reality is a difficult thing.

I believe that in some ways we all have our addictions this is what mine happens to be. I do not pretend to be an expert in this situation to really know what addiction is like but I can offer this peace of advice. Learn quickly where you struggle, it took me almost two years of my life until I realized that I struggled with escaping reality. Just a question to anyone reading this, what is your addiction? What do you struggle with that you tend to lean towards when times get tough? I have heard of Ice cream, work etc... mine is that when times get stressful I like to escape through video games or such things like that. I am fearful of my addiction and my hopes are that you do not have to fear your struggles.

Goodbye for now,
Christian Sawka

3 comments:

  1. Great post. Few people spend enough time examining themselves, and fewer still spend time thinking about the methods they use to examine themselves (metacognition). Having the self-honesty to consider an addition to escapism is impressive. Cheers,

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  2. I think this is a great entry and you're welcome for the topic idea :P

    All things in life need to be taken in moderation. I'm sure you realized this after your WoW phase. For yourself, for myself, and for many others video games are an escape from the everyday drama of our real lives; a chance to be someone else and do whatever you please without consequence. There were points in my WoW days when I looked forward to going home from school so I could escape to this other fantasy world where I had goals, quests, dreams, aspirations, etc. I know you can relate to this feeling.

    I wouldn't say that video games are/were my addiction, but there were points where I definitely enjoyed World of Warcraft more than my real life. It's a scary thought, but no harm no foul. I think of it more now as a phase of my life. I have made some good friends through gaming and I'm sure you have done the same - so it isn't all bad.

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  3. Thank you first anonymous entry, I was sitting down before writing and was trying to think was I addicted to video games or was it something more :S Video Games would have been a lot easier to just accept but knowing it was esecaping reality it harder.

    Ha yes, thank you for the topic :)

    I am learning moderation and will probably even post of in one day (thanks for the idea ahead of time). Even now to this day I do play video games but I consider them like alcohol. "I drink to feel even better, I do not to make myself feel better". It is nice after school somedays to play a few games but I am starting to find there is better ways. I fear this society without consequences becasue it allows you to create someone else that is not you. It is alright to enjoy this fantasy but hopefully it does not get to the point where that was all I was in there was no 'other' world. You are right by the way some of my closest friends I still game with and always will. You can create good friends do NOT get me wrong there are some positives with gaming :)

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