"I paid 10 bucks for this city-building game. I have been playing it for the last 2 weeks non-stop (just breaks for studies, food and sleep).

I am ... nearing the completion of my Master's degree. At this time, fortunately (or unfortunately, depends on how you look at it) I am Single. Since I was introduced to Computer Games, I have had this problem of addiction. Earlier, games would interfere with my other responsibilities. I would perform poorly in examinations and once even came close to losing a job opportunity over some silly military strategy game.

Lately, there are only certain phases when I really need to go back to playing games. This is still a lot better than persistent and long-term addiction. Nevertheless, I realize I am becoming less and less productive the more I depend on games to unwind after a long day at work. For me, the addiction stems from the thrill of building cities or planning strategies, which are at times, almost like long-term projects (stretching over 3 months and requiring attention towards design and other details) but the patterns of addiction are still the same. I often find myself in the middle of the day thinking about how I am going to improve mass-transit in a city of a million people!! I stop interacting, lose my appetite, start losing motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and appear listless and inattentive.

I hope I can curtail my city-building to a couple of hours on the weekend and focus my energies and attention to the tasks I have at hand. I also believe that I need to go out and mix with people :-) that should help me get by! I want to create for myself a work environment which gets more challenging with time, so that I find myself salivating at the prospect of doing some real work rather than spend myself on a $10 game."

"...He started back up with EQ and it became worse then before.He quit playing EQ and went to Dark Ages of Camelot. I had to get my own computer because he was never off of the one we had.I played to try to spend time with him.Soon he switched to Star Wars. Eventually I realized that I was spending more time on the game to hang out with him.So I quit playing.I knew that just because I quit didn't mean he would.I wasn't going to waste my life in a game just to hang out with my husband.Then he quit Star Wars and went to AO. After a while with that he played Horizons.Now he is playing Lineage and waiting for the new EQ to come out. That or World of Warcraft.Now it is worse then ever before.He comes home from work, plays on the game, eats dinner at the computer and is still playing when I go to bed at night. In the morning, he eats breakfast at the computer and plays until he has to go to work and he plays when he comes home for lunch.There isn't a time when he is not playing.He hasn't done anything to work on our marriage, or on his relationship with the kids.I feel like I've done all the work in keeping our marriage together.So I've reached a point where I'm done.I'm done trying, I'm done working on something that isn't there."

This story was sent to me recently through this site:
"I had purchased a copy of " EverCrAcK ". Not really enjoying playing online games in the first place. I figured it was all the rage so i would try it out. ( Almost like drugs, ehh ) Anyway, Almost right away i found myself, always wanting to play. Doesnt matter what i was doing, it was still on my brain. At first, I was only playing for an hour or so a day. That turned in to 2, 4 , 6 - u get the idea. Pretty soon i found myself, playing for almost 50 hrs straight, no sleep.. It was affecting my everyday life. I eventually lost my job, and my girlfriend. Basically had nothing. It was really bad. As my addiction got worse, so did the rest of my life. Thank God my family was around to help me out. We collectively decided, that i would packup my computer, and tv. Just put them in storage for a couple weeks. Just so i had no interferences. After a couple weeks, I was able to get my job and girlfriend back. I pulled my tv out of storage about 3 weeks after putting in, just to have something, right . I have just recently , within the last 2 months, put my PC back together. However, nowadays I dont play any online games, or for that matter, no games @ all. Basically email, and the odd website. That is how i found this site. Once i came across it i had to share my story........... For all those with this problem, even after not playing for almost a year now, I still have a little craving to see how my virutal world is doing.......

Stay Strong, U CAN DO IT .. "