Lets start at the start- I was 12 years old and I was fascinated by the multifaceted dice and the wild imaginings of my friend’s Dungeons and Dragons game. Adding to the fun was the fact that my mother was convinced by the mid-80’s hysteria of satanism that the D&D Game would land me in hell. I ask you, what tastes so sweet as a pleasure denied!

So naturally I played it whenever I could get away with it. I never had my own dice until later on and it was a fugitive activity that gave me a little taste of freedom and rebellion from my stifling home environment.

After I grew up I had mostly abandoned such games for more “grown up” activities especially as D&D had lost its forbidden nature in the liberation of my adulthood. Until I saw Mark playing Everquest on his computer. “Wow, I said, this is just like D&D but it requires no imagination nor dice!”

I had to try it. I was hooked like a fish in a barrel. So two years later I converted this gambling addiction over to World of Warcraft which had an even more idiot-friendly interface and plenty of extra little min/max features that gave us all the “edge” against the virtual goblin.

So what about these games appealed to me? I think at first it was the easy rewards and cheesy advancements that gave me new abilities and a sense that I was achieving something. After I had achieved everything possible, I reached that “now what” funk and started achieving whatever I could with another type of character. Then when that was exhausted, at which point I was a complete expert in the game, I started playing against other players. When that happened I realized that I was a hamster on a wheel and that the cheese would always fill my nose but would never land in my mouth without making a full time job of this game.

I drew the line there. I have a job, and whenever something I do in my free time even approaches interfering with my work or family (which I had become married well into my WoW phase) I have to stop it. So I did.

What got me off it permanently was mainly the realization that it was no different from playing online poker. The rewards were randomized. The only way to increase your odds was to play a lot more. I was turning into one of those sad old women who sit all day at the nickel slots jerking the lever waiting for that big exciting $100 jackpot. And perhaps like her, I was often edgy and tense because of it.

But that’s not to say I have eliminated all games. I do still enjoy playing Pharaoh, the best city building game I have yet discovered. It’s also a game that demands no particular time investment and can be saved and shut off in seconds without consequences.

But since I quit my gambling games I have rediscovered huge tracts of time in my life that were formerly completely absorbed by the WoWie monster. I have read many books, learned some Arabic, reorganized my house, fixed the air leaks in the windows for the winter, become a licensed ham, made my wife happy, successfully raised a big garden, made my dog happier, learned more about electronics, learned new computer programming languages, developed new friendships, volunteered in the community, and done a lot of other useful things that make me feel far better than mindlessly jerking the machine could ever achieve.