Wanting to Play

No, I'm not talking my own ongoing urges to plunge back into the World of Warcraft, but my friend's. My wingman and great friend, we ran dungeons together, started guilds together, ganked hordies together, and bad mouthed newbies in the trade channels together. We'd both been off WoW for nearly eight weeks and my life has been filled with moments where the fight-or-flight reflex in response to stress has been changed to a play-or-not crisis. It's an easy move to go from being furious over the endodontist charging me $200 too much which will take 4-6 weeks to correct, to playing WoW so I could stop thinking about it.

My pal was headed home after a long day from work (maybe 8 pm-ish), and the rain started thumping atop the hood of his car, his kids were at a sleepover, his wife had the sniffles and some back pain so she downed Advil and went to bed early, and he arrived home to find the house quiet. Ominously so. He fooled with TiVo a bit (God bless the men who invented TiVo), ate some Nutter Butter bars (God Bless those Nutter Butter bars too), drank a Pepsi (Okay, I don't like Pepsi, but I'd probably drink one if you bought it for me, unless of course Pepsi wanted to sponsor my blog, in which case I'd drink it by the case). Then he stared at the computer and knew it wouldn't take twenty minutes to download WoW back onto it and BAM he'd be up and running again. "It's so damn tempting," he told me, deciding that it'd be better to talk through the craving with me, someone who'd understand it, than sit there in the dark to battle this particular demon.

He didn't play. I still don't play. But like any other type of addiction, the impulse is there, lurking. And since digital culture is so much a part of our lives, it's hard to simply steer clear of the computer the way alcoholics can stay out of liquor sections in stores and avoid bars (not that those are that easy to do, either). Tell me your story, I'll tell you mine. I'm telling it in my memoir, UNPLUGGED, and I'm telling it here. I can't tell it enough times because it's real and scary and it's something too few people are talking about. Digital addiction. Video game addiction. Blog-obsessed folks. Email nutsos (here's a terrific article with frightening statics on email addiction from www.businesswire.com, which says things like 83% of people check email even while on vacation, and 26% admit to checking email on a laptop while in bed). You know the type, and it's more of something to razz someone about than worry over. I hope that'll change one day soon.