Confessions of a Video Gamer

Awhile ago I had heard that there were many young kids becoming addicted to video games.
I laughed at this becuase I didn't believe that one could be addicted to video games and even if they were, was it so bad? Was playing constantly all that wrong? So what if kids were staying inside playing games. Wouldn't we rather have them do that then be out on the streets doing drugs? But, then I began to look at these kids--these gamers. Many of them lazy, over weight, and lack the drive to doing something with their lives. This seemed familiar to me in my own life.

So, I then began to examine my own life.

I soon realized that I was one of these addicts.
My playing time consisted of hours and hours of submersion into the games. Some online, chatting with other fellow gamers, and some on the ps3 or wii. I wouldn't just play for a couple of hours, but we are talking about 5-8hrs each day during the week and double that on the weekends.

It was then that I realized that I was getting little else accomplished in my own life. My writing was becoming extinct. Blogging seemed to be very little, even to find me on face book was becoming rare.

I began to watch my pattern of when I would play the most. It happen to be that I played more when I was stressed out. Just like an alcoholic, only my drug was video games.
Now your probably saying to yourself, "nothing wrong with that, its just video games." And your probably right.

It's just video games! Could be worse...Could be alcohol or drugs that I am addicted to.
But, the truth is--anything that takes you away from your life's purpose, living life, or your family is probably bad.

This was beginning to happen to me. It took my husband to get me to realize these things, but I guess I already knew it and just didn't want to face it.

So I confess it.
I am addicted to video games!

Even now, I have an online game running in the background while I blog. I also am downloading another online game to boot!

So what does one do now? How does one get control of an addiction such as this? I mean it's not really killing me. It is however keeping me from achieving my goals in life. I suppose I will just have to be strong and lay the games aside for a bit and see that games are just games. They really don't add any benefit to your life, except maybe help you to forget about your life at the time of.
There are far more important things then games. I suppose I will somehow have to find a balance between my life and games.