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forgot-how-catflap-works · 2 months ago

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It's an addict's life for me

Last week YouTube served me an ad that fundamentally changed how I understand myself. It made me finally realise after years of struggling with this unamable feeling, that I am an addict.

I’m not addicted to one specific thing though, veering instead from one addiction to the next, always chasing that next high. I cringe to say this, but I have an addictive personality. This might not seem much of a revelation; it sounds like the sort of thing you might flippantly claim after getting your third frappe in a single day, like it’s a fun personality quirk rather than something looming at the edge of your world, threatening to take your life over at any given moment.

I can, and will, get addicted to basically anything. I’ve had periods where it’s been gambling, smoking, social media, junk food, weed, booze, porn, and even pain. Usually it’s some combination of addictions working in concert together, but my first and truest addiction is video games.

The ad that prompted this newfound self-awareness was for a game called IdleOn. It ran for maybe a minute, the entirety of which was this emphatic endorsement for how addictive the game was. About how there was always more to do, how all-consuming it is, and how the narrator had put hundreds of hours into it, how they hadn’t seen the sun for weeks. Stylistically it was laden with post-ironic doomerism that’s become so prevalent online these days. The world is on fire, I’m a car wreck of various personality disorders, we’re all miserable but we’re also laughing about it so it’s okay. You know the vibe.

I couldn't find the trailer again, but it looks like Heroin: The Game

As far as I can tell, without doing any research, addiction to video games is extremely common but also largely dismissed as unimportant. Being addicted to video games is often the point, and it’s not a new trend either.

If you’re a wizened old hag like me who remembers the days when dodgy streaming-sites were the de facto way to watch films and TV online, you’ll be familiar with the addictiveness as a selling point in advertising. Banner ads featuring half-naked anime figures, with taglines like “THE MOST ADDICTIVE GAME EVER” will no doubt feature somewhere in your core memories.

The whole reason you should play IdleOn, according to the marketing, is so that you can become addicted. So that you can spend countless hours in a meaningless grind that will consume your entire life. A full mask-off approach. I’m sure IdleOn isn’t the only game making its case so plainly, but this ad caught me at the right moment to trigger a profound, existential horror.

It made me realise that is, and always has been, my relationship with video games. Once I lock in, that’s it for months until the shame and regret and frustration at wasting all of that time finally shunts me out of the spiral for maybe a couple of weeks. But I never considered it an addiction before, because it was just so normal. A fish unaware of the water.

This isn't some serious, rock bottom revelation or come to Jesus moment about how I need to change my ways before I ruin my life. I’ve already ruined and rebuilt my life, I’m happy with where I am, content with my choices (or at least at peace with them). I have been to rock bottom, and clawed my back out. That’s not where I am now. But something about naming this lifelong experience for what it truly is has been extremely liberating, and helped release me from its grip. For now at least.

My addiction is more life-limiting than it is life-threatening. I am not in danger of losing my relationship, my home, my financial security. I think when we talk about addiction, those are usually the stakes that spring to mind. We see alcoholics on kidney dialysis, gambling addicts made homeless; we see musty community halls with Twelve Step programmes and desperate people on the edge of ruin.

Make no mistake though, I have been to those musty community halls drinking bitter instant coffee, chatting to a woman who’s drinking got so bad in university she nearly threw herself off a bridge.

I often describe myself during that time as a “basically a high-functioning alcoholic”. The words “basically” and “high functioning” are a deliberate choice to mitigate and downplay the reality though.

“I am not an Alcoholic,” I tell myself. “Just, y’know, basically a high-functioning one. It’s different. There is a distinction, and it does matter.”

I haven't thought about this meme format for like 20 years

I attended a handful of AA meetings, but decided I didn’t need it. I never stood up in front of all those people and said the words that you can’t unsay, the incantation that changes your reality from one of denial to one of acceptance. The all important first step. I told myself it was because I couldn’t speak in front of a room full of strangers, but that’s not true. I’ve done that dozens of times. The truth is, I couldn’t be honest.

I was a problem drinker from the first time I got drunk at 11-years-old, sneaking booze whenever I could, and needing to drink to excess in every social situation. I drank every day from the moment I turned 18, right through until I was about 29 when I finally started to get a handle on it. But I held down a full-time job for much of my twenties, and even had a career at one point, something I cannot do these days without booze as a crutch.

I now have a reasonably healthy relationship with alcohol, but it’s still fraught. Oblivion is always just a few steps away. If there is booze in the house, I will drink it. The only thing that slows me down these days is that Estrogen has fucked my tolerance, but I feel the pull towards the booze aisle every time I’m in the supermarket. It takes physical effort to not drink every day, and once I start I don’t want to stop.

Even if I am not at risk of imploding my life, I feel pinned down and stymied by my own addicted nature. I am now staring down the barrel of middle age, clutching onto a handful of totally achievable ambitions, but utterly paralysed in my ability to make any of it happen.

I’ve been working on one novel or another for the best part of ten years and up until recently all I had to show for it was several hundred thousand words of false starts and discarded projects. Something changed last month though, and I was given an amazing opportunity that I cannot currently speak about publicly. But it’s huge. I was so excited when I found out that I actually cried (I am not a big crier). It requires work though, a lot of hard graft, and I have found myself sinking like the fucking Titanic.

For the last few years, the conditions for me to write my book couldn’t have been more perfect. I have time, financial security, space, and support. There are people out there struggling to find 30 minutes a day to write, and still they manage. Yet I find my urge to create is drowned out by the noise of that irresistible pull.

The siren song of whatever bullshit I’m currently addicted to. Right now it is Pokémon Showdown, but a few months ago it was Divinity Original Sin II, and before that it was a RuneScape relapse, which had been preceded by a different RuneScape relapse, at least three Elden Ring spirals, a couple of Wildermyth stints, and fuck knows how many Xcom and Total War binges.

An actual photo of me, aged 34

When I was 25, I was unemployed, living with my parents, with no obligations or commitments. I had a writing year for my Master’s dissertation and had also started a self-taught journalism diploma which should have, at best, taken me six months. Instead I spent the entire year playing League of Legends from sunset to sunrise, because I was completely nocturnal.

Just hour after torturous hour, chasing the dopamine hit of a victory screen that became ever more elusive the longer I played and the more frustrated and titled I became. I wasn’t even having fun, but I literally didn’t want to do anything else. It was all I could think about.

When I wasn’t playing League, I was watching YouTube and Twitch streams, or theorycrafting or just thinking about it. No, thinking is the wrong word. That implies consciousness. It was more like League had colonised my mind, setting up in my brain as a series of flashing after images, impulsive and meaningless impressions left on the brain. Like radiation poisoning slowly dissolving my mind long after exposure.

I never completed my journalism diploma, and my dissertation turned out so bad it brought down my average mark from high 70s to low 60s. The thing is though, I still graduated with my MA with Merit and managed to find a job in journalism. I think that means I might be actually smart and capable, but simply refuse to apply myself. Which aligns with every school report I ever had. I would be unstoppable if I could pull myself away from the screen or the bottle or whatever my current kick is long enough to get my shit together.

My earliest memory of these compulsive behaviours was my obsession with Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage. I didn’t have my own copy, so my dad would rent it for me from the local game store every weekend until he realised it made more financial sense to just buy a copy. I’d smash it out, start to finish, over and over again, usually completely naked for some reason.

Mentally I am here

When I couldn’t play because my brother wanted the TV, or I had school, or we had to “go outside” to do something as a family, I fucking hated it. I would spend each moment just itching with the need to scorch Ripto’s bare-ass with the super fireball you get for 100% completion.

From there I moved onto the Might and Magic series which accounted for my tween years a solid chunk of my twenties. My only real memories of high school are being bullied, and wishing I was at home playing Might & Magic VII: For Blood and Honour (one of the all time greats, btw).

This screenshot is amateur hour, the only true way to play Might and Magic VII is with three liches and one cleric

When I discovered RuneScape at about 14 years old, I played for so long I got a crick in my neck and couldn’t go to school. I spent the next four days recovering and playing more RuneScape, just with better posture. In sixth form college I played Guild Wars for upwards of 16 hours a day. My friends would log on, also in college, studying for the same exams, and leave after a sensible couple of hours only to come back and find me still playing. I nearly flunked my third year of University because I was addicted to speed running Sonic Generations of all things.

This isn't even close to comprehenisve list, but you get the point. I am always hooked on something, and it stands between me and the things I actually want. I don’t want meteoric success, fame, acclaim, staggering wealth or anything like that. I want the ability to function, to actively pursue my goals without falling into the same fucking ditch, over and over and over.

I was in that ditch until just a few days ago, hooked on Pokémon Showdown, and not for the first time in my life. I haven’t played since this recent revelation and don’t currently have a desire to. But until about five days ago I was getting out of bed and immediately grinding that ladder for hours, playing for so long that I’d wake up in the middle of the night with Breloom on the brain. I love my sweet mushroom boy, but he just doesn’t fit onto my team.

On good days this compulsion just feels like a desire to solve a puzzle, to stimulate my mind with something complex and engaging; a need to crack a complex system and understand it, pull it to pieces and find all the unusual little quirks that allow me to dominate it. I will make Goodra the lynchpin of my team in Showdown, I just need to figure out how. It's reaching my limitaitons and overcoming them. It’s control, it’s power, it’s drive.

I'm running Assault Vest, max HP and max attack with Draco Meteor, Fire Punch, Earthquake and Knock Off. I gave her Sap Sipper and paired her with Gastrodon... it pretty works well.

The irony is, I started playing Showdown again because I had to lock down all my social media accounts with strict usage timers or I would doomscroll Reels and Shorts for hours on end. I needed something to fill the yawning pit in my soul that craves. Right now I can’t even tell you what it craves exactly. Sometimes I think it’s oblivion, other times it’s dopamine. Perhaps it’s just a form of self-harm, designed to keep me safe from the fear of failure, from the pain of struggling.

Either way, I think I can finally accept that I am an addict. If I can get addicted to something, I will. I need to find a way to live in harmony with that part of myself, because a strict ethos of denial has never worked. If I cut something out of my life, I just replace it with something else. It's a cycle, and while I might enjoy a few weeks or months where I am free from the pull, it doesnt' last.

I don’t know what I am supposed to do next, sometimes it just helps to name a thing. This feels like a good first step, so I’m happy with that.

#addiction #mental health #pokemon showdown #osrs #league of legends #video game addiction #goodra is gooey and I love her #idleon #might and magic #spyro the dragon #alcohlism #does it ever get easier?#addictive personality #writer things #2000 words of naval gazing

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