Cold Turkey: Giving up the World of Warcraft for 7 days.

By: gp_Pirate
Friday, January 19, 2007

GP Pirate (GPP!) has been playing the World of Warcraft, an incredibly popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplyaing Game), since summer 2005. Just like reading, exercising, and talking to friends, playing an hour or two of WoW is a part of my daily schedule. I guess it’s what some people would call a “habit”; others, “addiction”. I decided to test myself; could I break the daily habit? If not, was I “addicted?”



Sure, missing a day or two here or there would be easy, but I really wanted to see what my limits are. So, I set out a time limit – that I wouldn’t log into Warcraft, read the forums, browse weapon and armour directories for 7 straight days. From a Sunday night at 7pm until the following Sunday, WoW would be shut out of my daily thoughts and actions. Or at least I’d try.



The following is a recount of that week and my feelings as I attempted to push WoW out of my life.



DAY 1: Adieu, Orgrimmar

Today I said goodbye to my online friends. They didn’t understand my reasoning for not playing WoW for a week, until I told them about the article I planned to write. Then I was laughed at. “Why give up something you like” was the common comment. I didn’t really know how to answer.



I logged off at 7pm or so. Hmm… what now? My room and the kitchen were clean, it was raining outside and our TV was tuned into celebrity news. The bad weather took away any opportunity to kick the soccer ball around. I settled into The Golden Compass, a Phillip Pullman book that GPP strongly recommends to fans of fantasy-themed books. While reading I found my mind wandering into images of Orcs, Night Elves, spells, and monsters and… UGH! This is going to be a long week.

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