Open Letter from an Achievement Addict Part 3

Hello….my name is Siren and I am a recovering achievement addict. Screw it, I am a full blown achievement loving addict. You hear me, you! How dare you sit there and judge me with your eyes as you read this. Well eat my words, I Siren am an achievement addict. An achievement whore if you would like to go that far. Hey, when you know something to be the truth, why deny it?

I am sitting here typing this up as my punishment. That’s right. They decided to punish for me for my latest antics. “I guess you haven’t learned your lesson from the last two times,” is what they said. So they took away my pretty blue controller and my hard drive and memory unit. “You can have it when you are ready to beat this demon,” is the last thing they told me before they locked my precious’s away in a small gray safe complete with a lock. A freaking lock! Come on now. Then if that wasn’t bad enough, they took my beautiful black beauty of a 360 and smashed it to pieces right in front of me. In front of me! I did everything I could to hold back the tears, but it was no use. I bawled like a baby and tried to take a couple swings at them, but the bigger one held me back. The smaller one brutally attacked my 360. I crumpled to the floor as the last swing ended the life of my sole reason for achievement glory. They kept telling me “It’s for your own good Siren. You will understand one day”. Understand what? That some crazies that are jealous of my achievement hunting skills wanted my gamerscore out of the picture so that they could take the lead? That is all I understand.

So what led to this madness this time you ask? I’ll tell you. My friend's list on the 360. One of my friend’s was getting a bit to close to my gamerscore and was plotting to pass me. See as a recovering achievement addict things like this are dangerous, because they can easily cause a relapse. In the end, I could not resist the demons telling me, “Do it Siren. Buy a crap game for the achievements”.

I began to get feverish as I was browsing the internet looking for a game that was cheap and easy, just how I like my achievements to be. Nothing really caught my eye. Most of them of were teases or only had 10 achievements, but would prove to be a prude so those weren’t going to cut it. I needed something that could pull a gaming quickie off. None of that cuddling and foreplay crap. Then I saw it. A true achievement hunter’s dream, CSI: Deadly Intent.

With CSI: Deadly Intent I knew what to expect after playing through CSI: Hard Evidence. Boring, repetitive game play, that makes you want to gauge your eyes out with your very own fingers, but you know what? I didn’t care. It was going to give me 1000/1000 blipping bliss.

I carefully covered my tracks. I learned my lesson from the last time. I cleared the history on the laptop and remembered to close the page I was viewing. No way was I going to get busted this time. I shut the 360 off and pondered my move on how I was going to sneak in the contraband from the game store. Then it came to me. I’m pregnant! I’ll hide it under my shirt and they’ll never know! Brilliant I know.

I heard the door open and footsteps move across the floor to the living room. I hid my excitement and sweaty palms the best I could. They sat down across from me and turned on the 360. This is when I made my first mistake. I began to shake my foot nervously causing one of them to ask if I was okay. I simply nodded and as one of them signed into XBL, I began to bite my fingernails. My eyes started darting back and forth as the friend that was about to pass my gamerscore sent one of them a private chat invite. It was accepted and they began chatting. That is when it happened. The friend muttered something about passing my gamerscore soon and I tried to remain calm, but the friend tossed in a chuckle as if to taunt me and I muttered “that’s what you think”. Boy was that a mistake. When asked what that meant, I began to back peddle, but I screwed all of the words up and ended up tossing my hands up in the air and admitting to my plan.

They began to lecture me and all I heard were the chuckles of the friend over the speakers on the TV and I lost it. I jumped up and grabbed the headset shouting into it, “YOU’LL NEVER PASS ME! EAT IT CHUMP!” Before I knew it hands were on me trying to restrain me, but I was like a raging blonde bull. “YOU’LL NEVER PASS ME! WOO! WOO!”

Before I knew what was going on, I was being forced to watch my toys being locked up and then…I can’t even repeat it again without bringing a tear to my eye. The destruction of my 360. How am I suppose to go on?!

Anyway, they want me to write down what I learned from all of this and what I am going to do to get better. I suppose I am going to start over and repeat the mantra, “I am an addict” and detox from games for awhile. They say, “Give it a chance Siren, you will see.” All I see is relapse after relapse.

Who knows, maybe next time you hear from me, I’ll be preaching to you the joys of being sober from my achievement addiction, but until then….