Craziness

I just read an online news article from Australia about a woman who got so hooked in playing an online computer game that she neglected her three children and two pet dogs. The children survived by eating baked beans straight out of the tin. The dogs starved to death. This woman slept for maybe 2 hours a night. The thing that saved them was a neighbour who peeked in the mail slot, saw the disaster of a house and phoned the authorities...

What is it about computers games and virtual reality that draws us in? What is it that we can get so addicted to a virtual reality... a game that means nothing... that we neglect our real life... a life that means everything? Is it a form of escapism? That the real life is so out of control that we turn to something that is within our control? But to neglect children (ages 6, 9 & 10 apparently)... To let dogs starve to death...

Thank God for a nosey neighbour who recognized that something was not quite right... But surely this addicted woman must have known that something was off too? Surely, deep within her addicted consciousness, something was niggling at her to feed the children... to feed the dogs... Something was calling her to stop... it's too bad that she chose something else... that she chose to feed her addiction... Calling it an addiction is giving up responsibility... Saying that she had no control over it... I believe she did have control over it... does have control over it... She chose what she chose... Everyday is a choice... between feeding an addiction or not feeding it...