Over the years I've had a long think about WoW and why its so utterly addictive.
Think about the real world where your face has to fit, you have to endure company politics. And a world where your efforts are actually rarely rewarded. In Warcraft it doesn't matter if you are black, white, asian, disabled or a one armed humpbacked lesbian dwarf. The only thing that matters is ability. Are you imba, or are you a noob? Or worse still.......a ninja.
Blizzard have perfected the art of positive reinforcement conditioning. You get little rewards for everything you do. Kill a cow, you get a tiny grey item worth little...but you get something. Kill a boss, you get a shiny purple epic.
It's also a world which rewards teamwork and that was my addiction. Being part of a team, being needed. Without me, my guild lacked their best healer. I felt I was letting 24 people down if I didn't turn up.
The analogy I used to give was think if Wayne Rooney turned around to Fergie and said "Sorry, can't play tonight. My GF is bitching about the amount of time I play football". (BTW my healing is THAT awesome 
)
I'm embarrassed just thinking how I used to be! My kids all learned not to bother daddy when he was playing. I even used to put them to bed during a break in the raid.
In the end it was my GF leaving which brought me out of my addiction. I found that after she left, i didn't feel the need to play it as I started enjoying real life again.
To this day I cannot figure out if I played WOW so obsessively because I didnt want to face RL where i knew my relationship was failing....or if my relationship failed because I spent too long playing WOW.
For those with OH's addicted, I think you have two choices. Either wait until they get bored. Or stage an intervention. If you are going to intervene....now might be a good time. On Dec 7th the next expansion comes out so another grindfest will begin!
/bye