"My name is Shawn and I used to be addicted to World of Warcraft."

This is my confession to the world and I'm making it now because it has officially been 1 year since I pulled the World of Warcrack needle out of my arm and quit the game. This might not sound like such a big deal, but you have to understand I was one of those hardcore WoW players. I started playing the game before it was even officially released. The first day it came out I took off work and started playing the game at 10AM and didn't stop till 4AM the next day. I don't even remember stopping to eat anything that day.

As the game continued on I eventually joined one of those hardcore raiding guilds and would go on the 40-man raids to the high level instances like Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and AQ40. My life was dominated by this game. I would come home from work, walk my dog, eat a quick dinner, and then be logged in by 6:30 to jump into the 40-man raid beginning at 7PM. Then the raid would go all night, typically till 1AM, at which point I would finally go to bed, only to wake up and do it all over again. We raided 3-4 nights a week and when I wasn't raiding I was PVPing or running 5-man instances. The game pretty much became a 2nd job for me.

When the expansion, "The Burning Crusade", came out I of course immediately bought it. By this point I was such an addict that I was not only playing the game at home, but I was playing at work as well. I easily was putting in 4 hours a day of playtime during work hours, on top of the already 6-8 hours I would play once I got home at night. I was crazy addicted. Eventually though some bad things happened to me personally in the game, that I won't discuss here, and I decided it was best to quit. After 2 1/2 years of playing WoW I officially canceled my account.

Quitting WoW was one of the hardest things I ever did. You might think this is a joke and that I'm crazy, but if you have played the game and you were addicted as well then you understand. WoW wasn't just a game, it was practically a second life. I put 60+ days of playtime into that game. It wasn't just the game itself that was addictive, it was the social aspect of the game. I would log in most of the time just to play and chat with the friends I had made over the 2 1/2 years. And there was absolutely nothing sweeter or fulfilling then getting a new piece of epic gear to wear and flaunt about.

In the end though I had to give it all up and walk away. I couldn't just cut back on playing, because I knew that wouldn't suffice. Some people could, but not me. I was even all out or all in, and I decided it was better to be all out. It has been a little over 1 year since that day and I haven't once reinstalled and played the game again. I am 100% WoW free!!!

And since the day I quit my life has never been the same .... but that's a story for another time ...