Hi writer,
Firstly, you might find the following website informative. There are a lot of interesting stories: some funny, some kinda messed up - http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/
I am 35 years old, and play about 10-15 hours a week. I pretty much restrict my playtime to late night (anywhere from 9pm-1am) so it does not interfere with family time or my full-time work.
Several years ago, I used to spend much more time playing (at least 40 hours a week) on top of working full-time. There was one particular event where I realized playing had thrown my priorities out of whack, and decided to limit my hours as a result.
My wife and I decided to go to Sea World for our anniversary. It's a 1 1/2 hour drive from our house. This happened to fall on the same day that my guild planned to do a major raid. I had been trying to gain better status in the guild, so I planned to do both things. We had a fun time at Sea World, but I kept looking at my watch around 2pm. I started wondering if there would be traffic, which would delay me from our guild gathering. Finally, at 2:30pm, I said I was tired and suggested we go home.
Well, I was able to plop myself back down in front of the computer by 4pm - a full 30 minutes before we were supposed to meet. A bunch of us guildies sat around until 5:15pm, but still not everyone had shown up by then. Then all of a sudden it hit me... "for THESE people, you cut short your anniversary date? You could have stayed at Sea World, and nobody would have even noticed!"
I wouldn't say that WoW has been much more than a hobby for me, just as riding a bike or cooking might be. At least, it hasn't been since I cut short that day at Sea World. =) I've never gone out to meet anyone in from WoW in real life, unless I already knew them. A lot of friends all play on different servers, so I'll jump from character to character to see if they're on from time to time. That's about it for me.
Charter Member, OC Fight Club
"I'd tell you more, but we don't talk about Fight Club."