I feel ya. Even in my sobriety and when I was doing good and not to depressed (except for my regular cycles and my full time moderate) I got addicted to this one online game. It wasn't a hugely popular one but it was very well made and realistic as hell. It was a first person shooter but you had to wait to join the server until the current game was done. Maybe a half hour. So that kept all the run and gun script kiddies out.

I joined a squad or team. I was a private. The game was very strategic if played right. A first person shooter war game. But if done right with experienced players very strategic. And much better if you were on a squad. The guys who were good at programming would design these awesome maps with different types of goals and such to get points and kills counted as points. We all had head phones and mics and a communication program we used so we didn't have to type in the game to communicate. We had training maps and rank and medals and the whole damn thing just like the marines. We had matches every weekend and would spend as much time during the week as we could practicing.

In fact the marines hired the company to build a version for them for virtual training and the guy who started my squad was in the marines and was helping implement the game in training at twenty nine palms. He got killed in Faluja Iraq by a planted explosive while handing out a medal. Very sad.

Any way I was totally addicted for five years. I worked and played the game, that was it. My young daughter would come over and it was watch tv because I am playing this game and we have a match today. If you didn't show up for practice or a match everyone was pissed at you. They were all addicted too and ignoring their families over a game. Luckily I was divorced and only had my daughter part time but it robbed a lot of time from her. By the end I was very good and Captain of the squad and admin of the forums and helped build and maintain the website and even learned enough programming to make my own maps. One good thing was I learned a ton about computers.

Damn it was fun. I mean really fun and very addictive. After five years I had had enough and walked away and never looked back. I am sure they were pissed. I had some very good online friends from all that. I have not played an online game or war game since. That is how I am though I get burned out on something or sick of it or I got good at it I walk away. All or nothing, no balance. That is how addicts are. I am still looking for balance.

So yeah try some online gaming..... There were some good aspects of the whole experience not all bad. There are worse addictions. My biggest regret was the time I robbed my daughter of. Other than that it was really all on me and not overall healthy. I still have problems in my upper back from my mouse hand and sitting at that damn computer so long. And here I sit typing away like a maniac.