[A dingy cinderblock room.]

[CUT TO: a circle of chair, each one taken by a blurry eyed person.
Some drink coffee.  Most are smoking cigarettes. A quick pan around the room.]

[A MAN stands. Mid 20's with shaggy dark blonde hair and a goatee. He SLURPS from a Styrofoam cup.]

RON: Hello everyone. I'm Ron, and I'm a World of Warcraft addict.

GROUP, mumbling: Hi Ron.

RON: I picked it up, just thinking it'd be a way to kill time. I was
one of the last kids on my block to get high speed internet in my
home, and while I was at school, I was always busy writing papers or doing movie reviews or binge drinking.  You know, healthy things.

[SLURP]

RON, nervously: I'd seen my friends do it, heard them talking about it, but I never thought I'd ever pick it up, you know? I'd seen them all withdraw from the rest of the world, telling me things like 'I
can't go see the movie tonight, dude, I've gotta raid Molten Core,' or 'Hey man, check out my epic legs, these dropped last night in ZF!'

[CUT TO:  A man nods.]

MAN #2: That's how it starts, bro.

RON: Y'know, I liked fantasy games and all that, and I liked video
games so long as they weren't First Person Shooters, because I needed games that made me think. After I got a job and dropped out of graduate school, I figured, 'Hell, I've got free time now, I may as well see what this is all about.' It was all over the day my friend Nicole gave me a free trial.

WOMAN #1, VO: The first hit is always free, and they always get you when you're at your weakest.

RON: So I pop it into my computer, and my God, everything changed from that moment on. It took me awhile to get into it, and I almost put it down when my free trial was up. I almost got out before it got too bad.  But then my friends started pressuring me:  'You have to level up and come do Uldaman with us, Ron.' 'Ron, we'll give you free weapons and armor if you'll come with us to STV.' 'Ron, we need another tank for Scholomance, we'll help you get to 55.'

MAN #2, muttering: …enablers…

RON: Not to steal a line, but every time I thought I was out, they
kept pulling me back in. Raids, mounts, epic loot, gold, potions…
every time they sensed I was ready to go, they gave me a reason to stick around.

[SLURP]

RON, growing more animated: The day I hit 58, I rushed out to the
closest store and picked up World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. I dashed through The Blasted Lands and straight through the portal to the Outlands!

RON, reverential: My God, it was so beautiful. The new flying
mounts, new character races and classes, the sweet Outlands gear that put my Azeroth purples to shame, the new skills to learn and abilities to improve… it was the shot of adrenaline I needed. It was the fix I've been jonesing for since my first hit off a copper vein.

[CUT TO: The assembled, nodding in agreement. MAN #2 adjusts his carpal tunnel wrist braces]

RON: It consumed me. I'd eat at the computer, one hand on the mouse as I sundered mobs. I cancelled dates. I stopped going to the movies or going out to eat with my friends. The only thing that kept me going into work was that I needed the money to pay my subscription fees and buy the WoW trading cards in hopes that one of those wax packs would yield a special mount or some incredibly rare new piece to wear. I neglected everyone and everything around me. I lived off Red Bull and caffeine pills, running instances until my fingers cramped and I started hallucinating.

[RON stares at his feet.]

RON: I knew it was trouble when I bought a laptop, just so I could go on vacation. When I booked myself into a hotel with high speed
internet. When I went to people's houses just to leech on their low
latency WiFi. My friend… my friends were just as bad as I was, if not
worse. Their pets neglected or penned in cages, their children hungry because dinner burned on the stove, trash strewn around the desks… they existed only for this game. Nothing else was important anymore. Not family, not friends, not even sex!

[CUT TO: The GROUP gasps as one.  They mutter in disbelief, all
shaking heads and clucking tongues.]

RON: I knew I couldn't let myself get that bad, so I cut back as much as I could. Take a few hours after work to relax and watch some TV, cut my raids back to twice a week, only letting myself play for a few hours at a time on the weekends. It's a small step, but that's how journeys begin.

[SLURP]

RON: Besides, I can't quit. I've still got six months of paid
subscription time. A little never hurt anyone, right? …right?