Addicted to Wow? - Help.com

I haven’t played WoW but I know about addictive gaming. Since you’re interested in drawing Manga here is what I suggest, because it ended up helping me. I’m an artist, gmaer, geek/nerd girl. n_n best combo ever!
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Anyways… Keep playing WoW, but slowly come off it. Let’s say you play 4 hours of WoW… take the last hour off and draw characters for a Manga you want to start. Do that for a week or so, and then up it by taking another hour off. Set a goal for your Manga, like a page a day or 2. And upload it to a comic website, like smackjeeves.com. You’ll end up getting fans and people who want to read your story!
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Eventually you’ll want to draw and create your Manga more then playing WoW. And with playing less WoW you can add more time with going out with friends. Try making a habbet of going out at least 1 time a week with friends. It will help your social life… your physical life… and not some digital world. I know it’s fun and addicting. But just try to do less. It’s not saying goodbye to the game, it’s just adding more time to do more fun things.
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Keep me posted! I know I would love to read your Manga!
Your friend,
~Ali

Addictions happen when something fills some deep need in you. I suspect WoW is actually just an escape for you from the anxiety related to socializing with people.

Whenever you avoid something that makes you anxious, you feel relief and that reinforces your desire to avoid that thing again. So you create an addiction by using WOW to avoid something else in your life…. lots of socializing.

The way to break the addiction isn’t to wean yourself off it. It’s to throw it away and throw yourself into socializing regardless of your anxiety about it. Persist until you feel relief with socializing and you will never think of WOW again.

Get yourself the book “How to start a conversation and make friends” by DOn Gabor. Perfect practical advice to focus on developing relationships with people (nothing touchy feely).

Linuxya is right. Its escapism. I’ve been there and it sucks. The insta-gratification of getting the next piece of gear, killing the next boss, murdering/pwning somebody in PvP.

It is a lot easier to make yourself happy using the game. It is not so easy to provide entertainment and happiness in real life. Especially if your real life is crap (not saying yours is - your life may be awesome - mine wasn’t so much)

I quit about 4 months back. Got in to writing. Best thing I have done in a while. Still sorting out my life after the 2 year addiction. Friend bridges to build, better job to find. Currently writing my first novel.

Do not allow your life to be run by the game. Limit your use, find new friends, develop a different hobby. Anything!