I live in a share house and I moved in about the same time as a guy I quickly became good friends with named Lee. He was an apprentice plumber at the time and had a nicely upgraded red VN commodore. He was a good drinking buddy who was great for a laugh. Then Wow hit. Unable to control his addiction he stopped going out on the weekends and soon became a hermit. He also got fired from his apprenticeship position for not showing up, because he'd stay up all night on wow. All trades Queensland found him 2 other apprenticeships but he lost them too for similar reasons. In the end because of having no money from no job, he was eating 70 cent noodles for every meal of the day. His wow friends would shout him junk food and encourage him back on line which made it worse as well as him gaining weight. I talked to him a few times about it and he knew he had a problem but didn't want to do anything about it. Any other conversations with him were usually very short unless he was talking with someone about wow. He was even once planing on going on a camping trip with mates but piked out at the last minute when he realised he couldn't take his laptop because that would mean no wow. About 3 months ago couldn't keep up with rent and had to shift back with his parents. Compared to when I first met him he became a total loser. I heard recently his parents were furious with him because, you guessed it, in 3 months of living there he still hasn't got a job he just plays wow 24/7.
I study psychology at university and I noticed some interesting things about his behaviour compared to accounts of drug addicts I have read. He, like a drug addict had the one thing on his mind all the time. If ever there was a period of time where he had to go without for a little while eg work or even out for dinner. He had to get his quick fix as soon as he got home. He even refused to travel to places where it would mean he couldn't bring it with him. He used wow as a form of escapism to get away from the pressures of life. When things got difficult or stressful like when he was fired 3 times in 2 months he would just run away from it in wow. Maybe he thought a level 70 night elf wizard who rides a pegasus is more interesting than a 19 yo guy with no job and no money who is getting fat. Except the night elf isn't real.
I think there definitely some similarities between wow addiction and drug addiction. I'm not a psychologist I'm only a student but maybe wow addicts need to go through some kind of rehabilitation to fight their habit. Or laws on Blizzard where each account holder can only access wow for a limited time each day.