As with anything though, doing one activity and only one activity is not good for you. If you mix things up, you are more likely to have a happier life.

I tend to not raid when I am too bad, but I will sit in dalaran and talk in gchat while playing guitar or reading the internet. I sometimes need to know that I am not alone.

Stress brings on any kind of relapse, and fatigue is certainly a relapse!

There are some good drugs available in the US/Canada that can help. Don’t know if you know about them, ping me offline if you want more information.

You know you can always bend my ear anytime you need it!

That you can support yourself, are physically healthy and you are happy with your life. It’s a very subjective idea, that question of “healthy”

Thanks for the awesome post and for sharing the connection some of you seemed to have made up there.

I can’t imagine you shy! But then again, shyness isn’t something that always shows (I’ve actually had people say they didn’t believe *I* was shy, seriously.)

The stigma about gaming does sadden me. Not just the “everyone who games is a wierdo with no social skills/addict”, but also the “gamers are nasty, rude, racist, sexist” stigma. The more I associate with other gamers, the less differences I see between us and the rest of the world- people from all walks of life, all mentalities and varying levels of empathy and social skills.

A lot of people complain about the internet being a horrible place and I HAVE seen a respectable number of horrible things on the internet, but the vast majority of my experiences have been great. I’ve actually had WAAAAAAY more creepy stalkers IRL than online! (I guess I stick out in a crowd more in person than I do on the internet.)

The networking aspect of the internet is pretty fantastic. When you live in a low population area, it’s very hard to find people with similar experiences. But when you hop online, suddenly it’s easy to find others to relate to.

We did indeed talk about it on twitter. Also your comment on Wugan’s blog was a big inspiration for this post .

I actually vehemently hide my worries about WoW from everyone offline. I’ve spent so much time proving that my playing is healthy that I’m not going to ruin it by asking for external opinions.

I think a little bit of balance is good everywhere. Reading is very stimulating intellectually (and there is a certain social element since you are connecting to the writer/characters) and a basic knowledge of TV gives some conversation topics around other people. I found that when I suddenly stopped watching TV, I was immediately excluded from most IRL conversations.