“Hello, everyone. My name is Michael and I’m an addict.”
It first started when a friend suggested I try Edgewise from Greggy Bits Software. It’s a simple little solitaire game. Put a few cards here and there and when all the cards are in their neat little boxes you’ve won the game.
This is too easy, I thought. What could be the harm? Just one game, just to see what it’s like. One little game, that’s all, and then I’ll put it aside. But I lost the first game and Edgewise taunted me. ‘You lost because you don’t have anywhere to put the King. I felt a small craving, but I told myself I could handle it, so I tried another round and then another and then another.
Suddenly before I realized it, I was hooked. Each time I lost, Edgewise taunted me. ‘You lost because you can’t remove cards that do not add up to 10.’
I could not stop hearing the game’s siren call luring me again and again to the shoals of disaster. I started sneaking around, hoping my wife wouldn’t find me hiding in my basement office strung out, playing the accursed game. I would reset the game so no one would know how many times I tried it. I turned the sound off so no one would hear it.
Eventually, she found me and demanded I go to rehab and I knew that for the sake of my marriage and the dogs, I just had to go.
After considerable amounts of therapy, the doctors sent me home, good as new.
Sadly. while I was away, my wife picked up the game to see what had possessed me so; to learn what turned me into the man I had become; to understand the evils of addiction. Suddenly, she too couldn’t put the game down. I knew then we were doomed.
I swear, it’s a true story.
