Can you really become addicted to games? My husband told me yesterday that I was addicted to playing games online. He was half-joking, because he is always half-joking. But that means, he was somewhat serious.
The weird thing is, I was just thinking how I had been spending way too much time playing games online. So I did a Bing.com search. It turns out, you can become addicted to just about anything. But it isn't uncommon to become addicted to playing games online. The majority of the problem effects those who play role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft and things like that. Players begin to need to be in the game and use it as a substitute for real life and real relationships. There is actually an entire website dedicated to online gaming addiction. In true AA style, http://www.olganon.org/, or Online Gamers Anonymous, is a website that provides support to those who feel they are addicted to fantasy gaming.
Luckily, I never got into those types of games. The games I enjoy are Big Money, Dynomite, and Scrabble. There is also a different website I found through InboxDollars called winster.com. It has several different games that you play by spinning for pieces. When you get the right pieces, you can complete whatever puzzle you are working on and "cash in". That's right, you have to pay for the spins. But after you get so many points, you can turn those in for a prize. In my case, I use my points for money in my InboxDollars account. What is InboxDollars, you ask? Well, it's one of those sites that says, "Make money just by reading emails!". You'll have to wait for my next post to hear more about that. It does tie into the online gaming addiction, though. Because it seems to give me a reason, or justifies me being online so much.
Although I have never played and have no interested in fantasy gaming, I found the information provided on www.olganon.org to be right on target for me. I read through symptoms of online gaming addiction and found that, besides the "replacing real life relationships with online gaming relationships" symptom, that most of them fit my situation. I do end up spending more time than I had planned playing games, every night. And I continue to play them, even though I know there will be consequences.
What type of consequences could there be just because I play a game too long online? For me, it has been a stresser on my relationship with my husband. I end up staying up much later than I should playing games. When I do go to bed, I can't sleep and I wake up my husband by tossing and turning. Then I sleep most of the morning away and I don't do my housework in the morning. And I end up having to clean the house and do laundry with the baby awake and terrorizing me. Then, when my husband gets home from work, the clean dishes are still wet in the drying rack and he knows that I just started my housework at 3pm. And he has begun to resent me being a "stay-at-home mom" because the home I'm staying at looks as though a hurricane hit it. Now, I know that the little rant I just went on covered many more consequences than just my relationship with my husband, but they are all tied together, as you can see. What I didn't mention is that my wrist, shoulder, and back pain are more severe after having played games on the computer for hours. And I end up having to take medicine for it, which is usually Advil PM, and then I can't get up the next day. (You see this ugly pattern emerging?)
And I can always tell when I've begun to play games too much when, although I haven't gained much of the 30 pounds that I lost back, my stomach is bloated and my clothes don't fit. That's because I have become more sedentary, because I am playing games when I should be up doing housework.
So, Am I addicted to games? I think the answer is clear. Yes. What should I do? Well, I have two accounts, one I have paid for and one that is free. I am going to close the one that is free. The one that I have paid for, I will log in once a day to qualify for the daily spins that I have paid for, then log out. For the next 2 weeks, I WILL NOT PLAY EVEN ONE GAME ON THE COMPUTER. I will not search Craigslist, and I will not window shop. I will check my emails, check my bank accounts, pay bills, and blog. THAT'S IT! Hopefully, breaking this habit, or addiction, will help to straighten my sleep out.
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