Too much gaming

I lived with a gamer once. He spent most of his time hunched over his computer in his dimly-lit room. At night, he would continue playing, only stopping to use the bathroom and eat a frozen burrito or some cold cereal. Now and again, he would burst out in uncontrollable laughter, sometimes in the middle of the night. He chose to socialize virtually in his MMORPG rather than verbally with his roommates. The rest of us would occasionally invite him to go out and do things but he would politely decline. His hygiene had crumbled into ruin to the point where we could tell he'd walked in the room just by inhaling. To this day I regret that there wasn't a more concerted effort to encourage him to change. How does this happen to a 6'8" 18-year-old football player? Gaming was for him, as it is for many, a serious addiction in every sense of the word. It can start off as a healthy way to blow off some steam or spend time with friends. In rare but gradually more frequent cases, real life becomes a mere side effect of being alive; the game is where one's new life continues. Games are not inherently bad but severely skewed priorities are.