WoW: Addictive vs. Simply a Form of Escapism?

A simple search with the words “wow” (an abbreviation for World of Warcraft) and “addiction” yields over 2 million results. There are multiple videos about wow addictions, along with many different suggestions on how to “recover”. But no one seems to ask whether it is really an addiction, or a method of escapism. I’m sure there are cases of both, but which is in the majority? Is it really the game’s fault, or it the user’s fault for not being able to handle life?

From my understanding, and addiction is an obsession over something on a chemical level, where the chemical imbalance affects judgment. Whereas escapism is a conscious choice to do something to escape aspects of daily life. For something such as a game to become addictive it would have to have much more of an affect then something you ingest. If a chemical enters your body it is certain to have an effect on your brain, whether it be a drug or even a food. For an outside stimuli to affect you brain so drastically as to cause dependence it would not only have to be used for long periods of time but the user would have to have a chemical instability already affecting the way they process things. 

Now I should probably mention that I am a wow player. But I am also very self aware and can take note of what is happening when I make the choice to play. When I first started playing the game I do admit to using it as an escape mechanism. I had been unemployed for the 3 months prior and was trying not to fall into a deep depressive state. Wow allowed me to get away from certain truths of my life. I could play it for 4, 6, 9 hours at a time and be happy as a clam, not having to worry about a thing outside the game. But all the while I knew it was just a method to escape my current situation. 

I believe that is the case of most wow players who are accused, or think they are addicted to the game. They use it to get away from certain aspects of their life. They can get off the game for extended periods and still function in their day to day life. An addict would not be able to. A person addicted to the game would not only use it for extended periods, but if taken away from it would not be able to function. Similar to those experiencing chemical withdrawal, the addicted wow user would most likely suffer a highly emotional response. Now when I say that, I don’t mean a little anxiety or anger. I mean they might get angry to the point of threatening or even hurting whoever had taken the object of their addiction away from them. Or they might suffer a full emotional breakdown if forced to confront the outside world. 

For these reasons I don’t think that the majority of wow users are addicted. I think that a lot of them are using the game to escape from their realities; but that is a conscious choice on their part. It may not be a healthy way of dealing with stress or life problems, but it is definitely not an addiction.