The Road to Freedom

Somehow i managed to get myself thinking with yesterdays post... how addicted am i really?
I have called this blog Fulltime Wow Addict but to be honest it was more joking eventho i do realise Wow is quite a part of my sparetime spend.
There are people out there more addicted and as i like to compare myself to them and tell myself i aint thát bad it's not about them here is it?
Throughout my Wow carreer i've had various stages i suppose and now is a time as good as any to analyze them.

Stage 1. Tunnel-vision
When Wow first came out there was nothing more interesting then playing this game.. i played it till late in the night/morning, sometimes even on worknights resulting me into be OOM the next morning so i would call in sick. After a few hours sleep i'd restart the gaming marathon again.
Yeah it was pretty bad, i wasn't "sick" for weeks but 2 or 3 days a month wasn't an unfamiliar sight the first year. Now in my defense i had a lot of stress at my job in that period of time (actually i only just toned down, shortly before i started this blog) and had to escape the world in some way anyway.

Stage 2. Out of phase
I got more balance into things and gaming sessions ended at reasonable times (at least for me), often somewhere between 11-12h. I still gamed 7 days a week where the Friday and Sathurdaynights still often ended when daylight came through.. but my work suffered alot less.
Still social events were limited, still did stuff with the local Scoutinggroup but more because i felt socially pressured to.
At the end of this stage i got a willpower boost for some reason which pushed me to the next phase in my Wow carreer.

Stage 3. Cold Turkey Sandwich
I decided to get out of the current flatappartment i was in, mostly because they were gonna renovate it in a few month forcing me and my GF to find someother place to stay for some weeks and deal with intrussions into our home during a few months and noice, dust and mess in- and outside even longer then that. We went home shopping and found a nice place to buy shortly after, 2 months before we would move i canceled our internet subscription to force us to prepare and get packing... it wasn't as bad as i would have expected altho i did have the urge to log in at times.
2,5 months later we had settled in our new home and most chores had been done when i found out we had internet again. The first thing we did was log in and say hi to the people we had sort of missed for such a long time, it was a bit like comming home after a long vacation.

Stage 4. Balanced Diet
We found out there wasn't much we actually missed in Wow, we had found other ways to entertain ourselves and really enjoyed making our house more comfortable. A couple of times a week we joined raids which were old fashion fun but apart from that we had no idea what to do in the game.
The rest of the week was spend on watching movies and mostly unpacking stuff, we went to bed at normal times as we were still beat up from a month of hard labour (did a small renovation job on the house; breaking/removing stuff, painting, flooring rooms, hanging curtains.. that sort of stuff).

Stage 5. Gravity: On!
While there are still some small chores left the house is habitable. So we are treating ourselves to a break and spending most available free time on relaxing and doing stuff we like to do. A big part of that has become Wow again, average 6 days/evenings a week with now and then an extra break for a social visit or a movie. Truth told we are pretty close to stage 2 again, we won't ever get into stage 1 again but stage 2 is already scary enough.
But then again, pre-Wow my time was devided up by gaming (30%) and watching series/tv/films (60%)... now i just game more (80%) and watch TV less often (10%), it's still time spend behind a screen. Of two "evils" i'd say Wow is the better as it atleast provides some social play and stimulates your brain more then most tv-shows do. I do feel the Wow pull slowly increasing tho.

So where do i want to go? While stage 5 is better then stage 1 and still better then stage 2, i think it's better if i get into a stage 4½ where i find some more time to do chores as i still aint ready in the house with more stuff to do in spring (the guarden). As a side effect i'm gonna enjoy time spend in Wow more when i am able to be there a bit less often.
Measures have been taken and we have planned to have at least 1 non-Wow day a week as i told you in previous post. Not just an evening but an complete day.
I'm not planning to get cured of my Wow addiction, i'm not someone you would find in a bar anyway, but some fresh air won't hurt ;)