Chapter 2: Age 19
I drifted off as the lecturer spoke, I was sitting in one of my programming lectures, couldn’t remember which one and didn’t really care. I had been in college almost a year now and just wasn’t into it anymore. I had done pretty well in high school in the end, my parents severely limited my game time once they saw how obsessed I was getting. At one point I was skipping school and sneaking back into my room just so I could jack in for the whole day. I remember spending a whole weekend, from Friday night until Sunday evening connected to a game session before I eventually collapsed from exhaustion and hunger. That was the last straw for them.
At the time I agreed with them, I cut games out completely, focused on my studies and started spending more time with my friends in real life rather than just online. A few months later and I was acing my tests, spending the weekends with friends and learning to drive. Things were good.
My results in high school were good enough to get me into one of the more prestigious colleges on the west coast. My parents were ecstatic. The first six months I was there I did little but study and read, ignoring the party life that many in college enjoyed. However, after my midyear exams I started to slip again. My old roommate had had to pull out for family reasons, he never did tell me exactly what so I gained a new roommate, John. John was a big My Own Universe junkie, he had the full rig and a hard drive full of scenarios and settings that dwarfed any I had ever heard of. For him it was a hobby, a way to relax after work or school, he still seemed to live a balanced life as well and was even seeing some college girl steady.
I didn’t have that control. John was a friendly guy and he let me use his rig one night while he was out with his girl. I said to him I wasn’t interested but thanks anyway and went back to my studies. The temptation however, was niggling in the back of my mind. It was like the game was calling me to it.
I started thinking of all the great times I had had in the game in the past. The freedom to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Flying over cities, picking up whole buildings and flinging them into the middle of a busy shopping district, reinventing myself as a famous actor where every man and woman fawned over my every move.
I’ll just give it a go for a bit this evening I thought, I am already well ahead in my studies and deserve a break.
Six hours passed in the blink of an eye, I only came off when John arrived home late that night and unplugged the machine while I was still in it. He laughed at me, telling me he had got me hooked now. I laughed back and told him it was just the once, I have better things to live for. In the back of my mind though I heard a little voice urging me to try it again the next day.
However, I didn’t use it again the next day, or the day after that, I was able to resist even better than I thought I could. It was a full week before I jacked in to the game again, on another night when John had gone out.
He grinned at me as he left our room. “Guess I’ll be pulling you out the game when I get home tonight again,” he said.
I laughed back. “We’ll see,” I said as he closed the door.
I stared at the rig for a few minutes, I knew I would end up using it and again and again after that once I started playing. I began contemplating ways that I could limit my use, resist letting the game dominate my life. I did come up with ways as well, I had a whole plan mapped out where I would give myself set hours of use each week, make use of the parental control system to make sure I stopped overdoing it again. I even justified my use of the rig, I told myself it was a release from the pressures of the real world, a way to experience new things and find out about my inner desires. Crap like that always suckered me in when I heard it from other people, never thought I would delude myself the same way though.
A couple of weeks passed and I was hooked. I had purchased my own rig, much like John’s, and was jacking in at least every day. A month after that and I was further down the spiral than I had ever been. Frequently John would physically remove the rig from me and force me to eat or drink. He tried to talk me out of using the rig too much but I always explained myself in a way that left him somewhat satisfied that I wasn’t addicted. He was out a lot himself though so I don’t think he realised just how much time I was on it, or that I had stopped going to most of my classes or seeing any of my friends.
I hadn’t had time to make many friends in college so far, none of my school friends had the grades to make it into this place so I had tried to network as much as I could in the couple of months I had been here. I had made a few bonds with people but nothing too firm yet, none of them knew me well enough to know how much trouble I was really in.
A representative from college snapped me from my fugue after about a month of my complete addiction. I was told if my grades didn’t improve and I didn’t start attending classes my parents would be advised that I would be kicked out of college and unable to reapply for a year. I got my act together for a bit then, even took a couple of days off jacking in. Quickly though I slipped back into the habit, however I made sure that I still went to classes now and made some attempt to pass my assignments.
A month or so later and there I was, sitting in a programming class, barely listening and wondering how quickly I could get back to my dorm room and get myself jacked in.
As the lecturer called the class to a close I was one of the first to pack away my laptop and start making my way out of the room. As I walked along the grassy area outside the lecture hall a girl came up beside me as I walked.
“You’re a Universe junkie aren’t you?” She asked. I had never seen this girl before that I could recall. She was about my age, slim, long brown hair, greenish brown eyes and a cute face.
“What do you mean? I’m no junkie.” I replied, continuing my steady pace.
“Not drugs, the game. My Own Universe. I know the type, you aren’t the first to get addicted. I can help you you know.” She said.
“I don’t need any help, haven’t you got something better to do anyway, I am sure there are homeless people that need help more than a college student.” I was growing annoyed at the audacity of the girl.
“I know what can happen to those that get hooked.” She grabbed my arm to stop me, I whirled around anger in my eyes at this girl who was confronting me, even though I knew I really was hooked and she was trying to help.
“I barely play it, you don’t even know me!” I said, my voice raised.
“My brother died last year. Died.” The girl said, her eyes welling up. “He was hooked on that stupid game too, would jack in every night. One day my parents opened the door to his room and he was just sitting in his chair, dead. Doctor said he had some kind of seizure and he had barely eaten or drunk anything in weeks. You need to stop now before it’s too late.”
I had heard of such gaming related deaths recently. As the system was getting more popular and also more mainstream, more and more people were jacking in. Unfortunately some were jacking in too often, even worse than me and there had been several deaths due to malnutrition, starvation and such through people simply refusing to remove themselves from their fantasy lands. There were also people that started to lose the ability to distinguish between real life and their own fantasies.
I reined in my anger as I realised she was genuinely concerned rather than just some nosy do gooder college chick. “I am sorry to hear that, that would have been very hard to deal with. I am not your brother though. I play the game sometimes sure, but I know when to quit.”
“Do you? When was the last time you ate?” She asked.
“I had a buffet dinner at New York last...” I trailed off as I realised what I was saying. New York was six hours away and I had never been there before in my life. Not in reality anyway.
“You sure you aren’t playing too much?” She asked. I didn’t reply, just shook my head and looked at the ground. “Look I am not going to barge into your room and take your gear away. There’s a group, they get together and talk about their addiction, try and move on. Here’s
some details.” She handed me a leaflet. Gamers Anonymous.
“What is this? Some AA meeting or something?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes, pretty much exactly that. You have an addiction and it is destroying you.”
“Look I’ll think about it okay. Thanks, I have to head to class.” I said turning to leave.
“You think about it!” She said as I walked away. I headed towards a bin as I walked back to my room but paused as I went to drop the leaflet in the trash. Was I addicted? Did I need help? I folded up the leaflet and put it in my pocket. Just in case.
Four months later John found me unconscious on the floor of our room, I had wet myself and had had a seizure at some point. He rushed me to the hospital in his old beat up ford. I vaguely remember lying in the back of the car, complaining that I had been unplugged.
My next memories are of lying in the bed at the hospital listening to the doctors tell me that if John hadn’t have walked in when he did I would have been dead in an hour or two. I don’t know if they were trying to scare me or what, I didn’t really care I just wanted to get healthy again. I couldn’t get back to my game until I was healthy.
A week after that I was sent home by the college. Because my discharge was due to a medical reason my parents didn’t even realise my addiction had engulfed me again. I never got time to attend one of those Gamers Anonymous meetings. I still wonder what would have changed if I had listened to that girl.
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