Online Gaming & The Art of Afternoon Naps

When I was in early recovery, (that's the first year or so) I saw many disgusting habits that my co-horts in recovery would call normal behavior. One of these became my own. Some call this activity fun, and I call it as addictive as heroin. It's called role-playing online gaming, and the game I found was so vast in its attraction to young men, that I had already heard of several disaster stories within the first year of playing it. The game is called EverQuest. Supposedly, your character, (an avatar) goes around the different zones looking for quest items, and there is a reward for the diligent. At the same time though, you are allowed to KILL monsters, animals & other NPC's (non-player characters). I began playing EverQuest (EQ) four separate times, & quitting four different times as well. EQ became for me a very familiar symptom of addiction, compulsive & obsessive. I could play EQ for ten hours and not even blink. The game is so real to me, that standing near the edge of a cliff, my heart began racing, I felt my fear of heights like no other time in my life! But the game has some worth, albeit dis-similar. At any time on your chosen server, (there are over thirty separate servers) you may be playing along with over two thousand other players. There are several ways to communicate with each other as well. Individual tells (individual player to player chat), shouts & ooc's (out-of-character) (zone-wide), says (audible to those nearby), group-speak (up to 6 at a time), raid-speak ( up to 72 at a time), and various player-created chats (two to an unlimited number of players, server-wide), and there is also the guild. There are guilds that operate to such and such way, serving individual needs, and the needs of the guild as a whole. It is very easy to socialize and to meet other people from all over the planet (Earth).
It was time to quit again. I was not doing the things I used to do, (things I at least do, living with my heart disease). My garden has big-time weeds, the trash sits for a week at a time. I won't even mention the kitty litter! Ugh... And the worst part was that playing the game and ignoring real life was fast becoming a way of life. I am looking forward to reading more (like I read much before, its something I'd always knew I would do sometime). Soon, my garden will be free of those choking weeds... My roses all died... My beautiful and nurtured roses! I can finish the flooring trim on the wood floor I installed. I can finally finish, (hopefully) the French doors I started to close the three bad kittens from the one good cat, at nights.
I can hopefully start painting again. And even walking is some thing I could start doing.
One thing I really need to do, is to do something, anything that is not playing EQ.
I was chatting... With my life-partner last night, and related about the life-starved people that I saw when playing EQ. There but for the grace of God go I.
But I won't ever give up my afternoon naps.