Fantasy Addiction

[pyrogen]

I've seen surprisingly little writing on this subject, so thought I'd bring it up...

I'm a recovering fantasy addict. I say "recovering" because even though fantasy-related stuff comprises very little of my life at this point, it's easy to get sucked back in whenever I get back with my "old crowd" of fellow fantasy addicts.

I used to spend a whole lot of time playing RPGs, and I was involved in the world of science fiction fandom. Still am to an extent - I'm still a Trekker, and still read s/f - but it isn't my whole life or even a quarter of my life.

One thing I found to be really destructive was that I could get into a space where most of my friends were centered around RPGs, most of our conversations were about RPG related stuff and our characters, and it became like we were gaming even when we weren't actively playing a game. Most of us were not very successful in any part of our lives and the activities we did just took up all of our energy, yet they became addictive and we couldn't quit. I'd think about my characters even when not in-game, and this would be most of what I thought about in my free time.
My mind would be focused on what amounted to mental masturbation even when with my partner or at a job. The friends I met through this were very negative forces, and more invested in fantasy than in personal growth/success.

For the first time I feel a lot of space from the addiction, but i'm aware I could always get sucked back in... when I meet old gaming friends invariably we start talking about our characters and I get triggered to obsess about my characters again.

Now I have a lot of mainstream things I do - exercise, dog-related stuff, the like... I write *fiction* but I'm able to find more balance with this, somehow writing a story/novel is a different mental process from gaming, and it has an eventual end point.

There's some extent to which I still feel different from the rest of society because of having *been* a fantasy addict... I don't know how I would ever explain my past to some people.

I wasted my teens, entire 20s and first part of my 30s being a fantasy addict.

[MagicalRealist]

Originally Posted by pyrogen

I've seen surprisingly little writing on this subject, so thought I'd bring it up...

I'm a recovering fantasy addict....I used to spend a whole lot of time playing RPGs, and I was involved in the world of science fiction fandom.

I went through a period of several years where I was heavily involved in various book and media fandoms before finally breaking away. I didn't play RPGs, but I know exactly what you're talking about.

Most of us were not very successful in any part of our lives and the activities we did just took up all of our energy, yet they became addictive and we couldn't quit....The friends I met through this were very negative forces, and more invested in fantasy than in personal growth/success.

Yes. I can think of a couple of people I knew who were genuinely successful in their jobs, but for the most part fandom was filled with very bright underachievers who used fandom as a substitute for the kinds of lives they longed to lead. I used it like that for a while--I fell into it during a period of great stress, when I didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go next. I could be "successful" in fandom; other people in it liked my work. But eventually I had to leave; it was a dead end down a dirt road as far as any sort of personal or professional growth was concerned.

For me, the moment of truth came after witnessing some stupid, petty behavior on the part of a fandom acquaintance, and then getting into an argument with someone who was defending it as perfectly okay. That's when I finally asked myself, "Why are you wasting your time, talent, and effort on these people? You know this is a waste of time; why are you still here?"

For the first time I feel a lot of space from the addiction, but i'm aware I could always get sucked back in... when I meet old gaming friends invariably we start talking about our characters and I get triggered to obsess about my characters again.

Keep replacing it with other activities and other friends that help you become who you really want to be. Let more and more time lapse between meeting up with your gaming friends. One day, you'll look at them and it will be like talking to aliens from another planet; you'll wonder how the hell you were ever friends with them in the first place. That's when you'll know you're finally over it. It takes time, but it will happen.

Now I have a lot of mainstream things I do - exercise, dog-related stuff, the like... I write *fiction* but I'm able to find more balance with this, somehow writing a story/novel is a different mental process from gaming, and it has an eventual end point.

Maybe because writing fiction is a solitary activity, that tou have to make yourself do, whereas RPGs are social and it's easy to just go along with other people? And yeah, having an end point no doubt helps, too.

There's some extent to which I still feel different from the rest of society because of having *been* a fantasy addict... I don't know how I would ever explain my past to some people.

Hahaha! I look back, and all I can think is OMG I WAS SUCH A DORK I AM SO EMBARRASSED...

I wasted my teens, entire 20s and first part of my 30s being a fantasy addict.

But you've stopped. You're not stuck in it now. And you never have to be again, if you don't want to.

I knew people (mostly women) in their 40s and 50s who were totally addicted to fandom, and had been in one form or another for most of their adult lives. A few of them were really good writers, and could have had careers writing their own stuff--but instead they were wasting their abilities on fanfiction and online RPGs.

I decided I wasn't going to be like that. You've decided you don't want to be like your gamer friends. And the great thing? We don't have to. We can be anyone we want to be.

Just keep moving forward. It's okay; you'll be fine.

[straysweeper]

I used to play multi-player games and even ran up a huge phone bill playing rpgs over the phone with an old buddy, back as a teenager. It just didn't really fulfill me anymore. Its fun, but when something you do is both effective and fulfilling, and lasting, I get a different feeling. I think this relates to delayed gratification.

[bluedragon]

I used to like playing games a lot but never had an addiction for it. But when I was playing a really good game, and I was in the middle of a campaign (the game had a powerful storyline) it was hard to get myself to stop. I knew I was delaying my other activities, that I wasted time in the sense that I had other more important things to do, but I also knew that playing those games put me in a state of mind that made it hard for me to interact with people, or attend to my other creative tasks. So I would just make the decision to dedicate most of my time (or at least 4-5 hours a day) to finish that game, and then don't start another until I would get my other tasks handled. Luckily, good games that caught my attention didn't come so often.
I now experience something similar with watching movies. I like watching movies a lot, especially the ones that inspire me, even though not in the conventional sense. I am sometimes inspired by an action movie which is not even very appreciated by the general public or critics, and is pretty simple and commercial, but some of the attitudes in the movie, some of the situations, make me think in a different way and give me wonderful feelings. I sometimes watch those movies twice or 3 times, and even weeks or months after, I still look at random scenes from them.
Movies however, as opposed to games, don't keep me hooked, because the eventually end, and the action is resolved. After a good movie, I feel empowered, and very very motivated to start taking care of my own business. The series are the ones that catch me in their net, cause the suspense never stops until the last episode of the last season is over.
I think the key is to finish whatever game you're playing and then go about your business, feeling satisfied that you've completed that game is over and you got that experience out of it.

[Stressless]

Hi pyrogen,

Take charge of your life and use your fantasy as a recreation for occasional playing. If you are around 35 years, you still have a good number of working years left.

Yes, it can be easy to fall back into old patterns, but you need to have discipline not to do so.

[ragtag]

I used to play a lot of RPGs, but don't any more after moving away (literally) from all my RPG friends. We do play sometimes the few times we meet up, but for me it was never fully satisfactory. To make a long story short, I was more interested in exploring ideas, styles and themes through RPGs that are far away from your typical D&D dice rolling game. Games like Prime Time Adventure, that are more about improvisation, acting, story and interesting characters, than stat grinding and rolling dice. I would kind of like to get together a new RPG group where I live now, but I think it would be hard to find one that shares my ideas. That said I was never addicted to RPGs.

Being addicted to fantasy and RPGs is different from many other addictions, because in theory you could make your addiction into a career (it's harder to make smoking or drinking into a career ). Quite a few people make a living from doing fantasy related work. Have you considered this?