"I actually have two people in my life that addicted to the internet. One being my best friend and the other is my mother. My best friend doesn't hang out with anyone any more, he just sits at home and plays on the internet. No matter how hard we try he just refuses to do anything but sit on the computer. My mother is the one who hits me the hardest. She doesn't do anything but play those stupid internet games. She doesn't do anything around the house anymore. She comes home from work and goes right to the computer. My dad actually took over on the cooking for are family because she basically stopped competely. It's even to the point that when I ask to use the computer for schoo purposes, she gets mad. It's really sad. I honestly don't know what to do about it anymore. It just upsets me so much. My mom just has that addictive personality to begin with. I just hope we can find help soon."

"For 2 months now my fiance has not stopped playing EQ for more than 10 minutes unless he is sleeping or at work! And he only stops playing to sleep for a couple hours. So he plays at the very least 8 hours through the week and ALL weekend. We have 4 kids (3 are his, 1 is mine) and are having another in less than 2 weeks. I am the ONLY one who has done EVERYTHING that needs done around the house and for the kids! He doesn't usually even answer when any of us speak to him! He does nothing to help me take care of his kids even! And being this far along being pregnant it wears and stresses me out pretty bad! I ask him to help me lift heavy things (to vacuum under or whatever) and he says "I'll be right there" and I finally give up and do it myself and have hurt myself doing it several times. ONE time I got him to go to the store with me we went to the grocery store and he bitched the whole time and we had to hurry and I couldn't even get everything we needed to get. I am ALWAYS home to take care of the kids (again, 3 of his!) and he is home in the evenings and on weekends but I might as well be by myself. A few times I have felt bad and went to bed early and then he didn't even have the kids do their chores or clean their rooms which is something they do every night. I have wondered if he would even stop playing long enough to go to the hospital with me! He has never even ONCE expressed the slightest interest in the baby we are about to have. I have had to do every bit of shopping and getting ready for the baby by myself including picking out names!"

"I can't beleave this is going on with others! I am now devorced becosue of EQ. My X was up to playing 12 hours or more a day. Stoped going to work and spending the money I earned to buy things on game auctions on the web. It was so hard trying to explain why things didn't work becouse everyone thought I was a freak and a lier when I said my wife had an addiction to a game.... It is a help just knowing I am not alone in this and that I am not compleatly insane when I thought there was a problem. My wife and I were togther for 7 years and a game came to end us. All I could do was sit back and ponder what was wrong with me. Now I see it wasn't all me."

"I was an obsessive gamer, not Everquest but quake. I would play from the time I awoke until I was too tired to sleep, I became very good at it and was ranked in the top 50 players world wide at one time and I played on average 80+ hours a week.

However my family suffered because of it, horrendously. Eventually I started to come up for air, became interested in real life again, started training and working and trying to make up to my partner for the years of waste.

I’m still on the wagon and recently I even started playing again, but only a couple of hours a week, and offline!

I’m very lucky, I know that my lady truly loves me otherwise she’d have left and taken the kids. A friend of mine isn’t so lucky, she has become so lost in Everquest that her husband has kicked her out and is divorcing her.

She’s lost house, home & life, but maybe she had already lost that.

It’s not easy when you become involved with other people online, you have the ease of a computer between you and the other person you can be whoever you wish, whatever you wish.

Every fantasy can come true and you can definitely make up for the disappointments of real life, but the cost is immensely high and recovering from it is just as difficult as recovering from an addiction.

In fact I honestly believe that this is a form of addiction as serious and damaging and any other.

The ancient roman politician and philosopher Seneca wrote in one of his letters of how someone recovering from a severe illness cannot venture outside because he has been so reduced by prolonged weakness, the same is true of someone recovering from a spiritual weakness.

Much as in Senecas time 2000 years ago we still have spiritual weaknesses, and by spiritual I don’t mean religious.

Online games, especially roleplaying games can be very addictive, they can also be a very good way to meet people, relax and have fun, the problem arises when through some problem in life we become weak enough that we need a safe place to hide, and the game becomes that place.

I don’t have any words of advice about how to fix the problem, it took a lot of hard work from both my partner and myself before I was able to ‘safely’ use a PC again, and considering that I work on a PC from home this was a problem.

Trust, patience and most of all a desire to embrace reality with all the heartache and wonder that it entails is perhaps most important.

The games only emulate life with all the variety that humans bring to it, but at the end of the day the game can be deleted whilst the player remains.

As I said I have little advice, only the fact that we managed it. Together.

Good luck to you all."

"Before we had a computer that would support the game he'd play it at his parents' house. There were days that he wouldn't even come home because he preferred to play his game... We agreed on buying our own PC as our mutual Christmas present this past year so he could be able to play at home. Part of that agreement (on his part) was to play until I got home from work in the evenings (we work opposite shifts). He stayed home as promised, but never has quit the game when I get home. He gets home from work at 1 pm and he plays EQ until 9 pm. This is an everyday thing. He eats dinner there, glances at movies on the TV from there, etc... I get home at 5:30 pm, so that leaves only a few hours in the evening before we both go to bed. He thinks if I come sit with him at the computer that will make up for it. I tried and it doesn't make a difference...I talk, he still hears nothing I say. I ask questions about the game to understand it more, he gets annoyed because he's trying to play."

"He used to help around the house now when I ask him to help he says "I will when I feel like it " :O when you feel like it I wish I could just do everything in my life when I felt like it. Wouldnt that be nice. Like everyone elses addicts here play from as soon as they get home until bedtime well guess what so does mine. hard to believe huh :( I dont get hardly anytime with him and I feel like maybe its me maybe he is so not interested in me anymore after 5 years that he would rather play some stupid game then be with me. Again its like pulling hair to get him to spend any quality time with me and that really makes me feel like CRAP. I feel like theres nothing left inside me sometimes like I work all day and night just because I dont really want to watch him play his most favorite game so I just put myself into my work. And work from morning until bedtime. No we dont have any children but there are still things around the house that I would JUST LOVE to have some help with. I dont know where to begin and where to end on all of this its very overwhelming to me the way it make feel. I tell myself its all my fault and maybe Im just crazy but as I read that so many other people have these same problems I see that maybe Im not crazy... Well its 1:14 we were supposed to goto bed at 12 midnight but I guess he is busy playing his game so we cant really goto bed God forbid he just turn the game off to get some much needed rest knowing he has to get up at 7 30 am and goto work. At least he does goto work but as soon as he gets home its off to playing that stupid game."