Being addicted to a video game is the highest sustained dopamine release

[vsportsguy]

Love, drugs, and success can cause much higher (and possibly healthier) dopamine spikes, but nothing beats video game addiction in the long term. I'll never be as happy as I was when I was addicted to video games.

I've had 3 major video game addictions in my life: Pokemon, WoW, and SC2. Many shorter lasting one's as well.

All three were the same. They would completely consume my thoughts during the day. As soon as I had free time, I would rush home to play them for 4, 8, or even 12+ hours straight. You know the addiction is strong when you forget to eat. I would completely forget about the real world. The game was my reality. I could talk to friends on teamspeak for hours; I could read the strategy forums all day. In WoW's case, it went on for 1-2 years like this.

Now that I'm in the real world with bills to pay, I'll never experience video game addiction again. When I play video games now, I become bored within an hour and can't help but feel like I'm wasting my time. I can't escape reality anymore. Drugs or love are more lucrative than video games now. The real world is here to stay.

Anyone else know these feels?

[Chesso95]

100% agreed

[Sh1f7]

Dem Vanilla WoW feels.

I miss them sometimes because nothing else mattered. Just my guild bros and that next piece of lewt

[Jacobcapra]

Love, drugs, and success can cause much higher (and possibly healthier) dopamine spikes, but nothing beats video game addiction in the long term. I'll never be as happy as I was when I was addicted to video games.

I've had 3 major video game addictions in my life: Pokemon, WoW, and SC2. Many shorter lasting one's as well.

All three were the same. They would completely consume my thoughts during the day. As soon as I had free time, I would rush home to play them for 4, 8, or even 12+ hours straight. You know the addiction is strong when you forget to eat. I would completely forget about the real world. The game was my reality. I could talk to friends on teamspeak for hours; I could read the strategy forums all day. In WoW's case, it went on for 1-2 years like this.

Now that I'm in the real world with bills to pay, I'll never experience video game addiction again. When I play video games now, I become bored within an hour and can't help but feel like I'm wasting my time. I can't escape reality anymore. Drugs or love are more lucrative than video games now. The real world is here to stay.

Anyone else know these feels?

Yes, know them feelz.

Love playing video games, or at least used to. I think everyone in our generation was at one point addicted to pokemon. It is so good I must have played through the originals like 40 times.

Too bad we all had to grow up and gain a ton of responsibility that basically never would allow us to enjoy something like that again.

[Lpenny]

I cri every time when I think about my WoW days. I cri about how much time I wasted, but I also cri about how I loved it so fukkin much.

[LFAesthetics]

LOL Wowcrack still invaded my thoughts continually even after quitting after my raiding guild broke up in WOTLK. 40+ hours a week, 5 hour raids, all nighters on weekends with people on Ventrilo.

Addicted to being the best on my server.

I still will never be able to replicate the feeling I used to have when I was playing...

[imbored21]

After you experience video games, real life is meaningless. Disregard females, currency.

[KINGOFCARBZ]

Video game addiction is ****ing amazing. In my teens I was the exact same way. I'd sleep through school so I could stay up all night playing. It was seriously -the- most important thing in my life. I'd cry tears of happiness when is achieve something I worked hard on and such. Fuk man feel train

[zeusftw]

best summers of my life were playing maplestory 10-12 hours straight every day with my buddy. legit better than sex fuuark

[Deftones3]

I can relate. But then one day I just randomly stopped playing video games forever.

[adamsz]

TFW when been playing CSGO with every minute of my spare time like the last 6 months. The addiction is real.

[Rottweiler1]

Was addicted to playing FFXI (was better than WoW just so yall know, objectively speaking).
Knew it was a drug and I couldn't stop playing.
One day I just stopped and haven't played it since

Feelsgoodman. Think I'm done with MMORPGs cause when I play those, I strive to be one of the very best too much lol

[Broooseph]

damn op you're making me nostalgic for my cs1.6 days lol

[peterj1994]

know those feels. Sucks that I have bills and responsibilities and can't waste my life playing WoW all day anymore

[NELouis]

fuaaak so many WoW feels. I fuking LOVED every minute of it, with my guild.


Never experienced anything like it. When it comes to gaming, WoW es numbero uno. Those days are long gone though.

[BigGuyForYou]

Can confirm. Was addicted to videogames as a teenager to the point where it was a priority over school, girls, friends, etc. I can only play a game for like 30 mins now and then I get bored. Seems like such a waste of time, theres so much more life has to offer but goddamn, those were good times.

[Comstarr]

100% facts OP

I remember winter break of 2004 the Pandora's Box of WoW opened up for me and for the next ~8 years that's all I gave a fuk about. Waking up early to play before school, isolating myself from the outside world and the few friends I had just to finish a 5 hour BRD run or finish my MC/Ony attunements in time for the raid, then DKP stacking/bidding, world pvp to try to hit GM/HW even though it was impossible unless you were part of the elite 'group'.


I'm completely convinced that I could have done real heroin and it still wouldn't have had the same hold on me as WoW.

[Ratfish]

it's true. it's the healthiest drug by far.

i can play diablo 3 forever hnnngggg. so relaxing to play an rpg for hours. nothing is worse than the stress of an RTS or whatever LoL is. fukk that chit. brb 3 brazilians on your team, brb throwing your computer at the wall.

the real amazing thing is that you can use addictive video games to beat physical addictions to drugs/alcohol srs.

[4Adz4]

Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK WoW consumed most of my teenage life

Life was so simple, feels

[Battlefury]

I used to be a video game addict I play any video games like nfs,counter strike and dota.Then I reach 20 and live in a real world with bills to pay and could not longer care about video games.I have a PS4 now I finished call of duty campaign,but mostly use it to watch movies in Netflix. Everytime I play video games now I feel like a loser,and I can't get my mind out of thinking about the bills and my future.

[Letthemcome]

i tried playing a game again recently.. no idea why but i just felt so lonely whilst playing it

[Sinan09400]

woah mirin phsysique brah.

You smashed the nerd image I knew before.

[YourIHero]

Too much real life, brah

[Growbag]

i got addicted to star wars galaxies, spent all my time trying to become a jedi, no regrets at all was fun as fuk

[Nicklol]

Yeah.

diablo 2, wow, cs go..

years of feels.

brb gym.. (get those endorphins and gains)
get back from gym.. have a nice meal.. play some games..

no better feel

[JPeeper]

Wish I could be in my early teens again to play Diablo 2 all day.

[TheJimmyRustler]

I can't tell if I feel sad or nostalgic when I think about my teenage years, most of the time of which I spent sat in front of my PC or PS2/360.

brb playing Total War games for hours a day and playing the Roman campaigns over and over and over, even expanding historically
brb playing WC3 and the Frozen Throne and then replaying them on the harder difficulties
brb playing the CoD games and then beating them on veteran, then beating them on my brother's account to give him achievement points, then doing it on guests accounts because I was bored

Ho. Lee. Fuark. All of that vs now where I find myself thinking "oh yeah let's play that, it'll be fun" and before I've even left the main menu of the game, or even installed, I think "wtf am I doing" and just switch it off....and then misc. If I could find some way to actually give a fck and do productive stuff it'd be amazing.

But OP is right - dopamine rush from gaming is insane. You learn to have immense levels of fun whilst sat down in the comfort of your own home. No wonder I'm disinterested in real life, for the past 17 or so years of my life I've been spending at least a couple hours a day in fantasy-land.

[CroForce]

lmao at these spoiled westerners

[Gsxr25]

I was addicted to WoW and RS but I dunno if I really got that rush from them like I did in CS 1.6 and Warcraft 2. I guess I like the competition aspect of games. Not just the OMG EPIC LOOTZ, MUST PLAY, MUST RAID

[autrefois]

dem Runescape days..

BRB sleeping through school and getting straight C'sand D's...

BRB coming home and hunching over for 8 hours straight on the game..

BRB getting emotional over f*cking pixels

What a waste of time. Imagine if brahs spent that time to learn about programming or finance or learning languages or practicing playing music or martial arts... anything but that waste