HO SHENG WEI Class 5A2( 2013)
QUITTING IS HARD
How a boy managed to turn his life around, after being addicted to DotA.
When I was about eleven years old, I was very interested in computer games. Defence of the Ancient( DotA) was my favourite game as it is a real-time strategy game that requires all my concentration and effort. DotA began to take over my life. I thought about nothing but DotA and I spent my whole“ free from school” life immersed in DotA. I did not see the addiction coming. In school, as I could not complete my tasks on time, I became a very notorious and hot-tempered boy in my EM2 Primary Five class. All homework and study gave way to this four-letter word – DotA.
The warning signs came. My friends would call me“ Computer Addict”. My Term One progress report came back with 2 underlined scores. My Mid-Year Examinations came back with 4 underlined scores. I still returned to DotA. I could not pluck myself out of the world. The keyboard shouted to me,“ Come on! Use me! You need me to play DotA!” The books and worksheets on the other hand were boring. Nothing could beat DotA at all.
At the end of that fateful year, my report came back with a page full of underlined scores. The next school year, I was promoted to the EM3 stream. It felt more like a demotion. I was the only pupil in my EM2 class who was going down, not up. I was shattered. However, I was still playing DotA. I managed to become one of the top two EM3 students in my school – my saving grace after my Primary School Leaving Examination. I decided to enrol into Clementi Town Seconary School( CTSS).
Life in Secondary One in CTSS was fun. I enjoyed interacting with my peers in our 1A3 class and my life took a turn. I started studying, and managed to snag the first position in class during the Mid-Year Examination. However, DotA still enticed and hindered me from scoring my best. I had to go through promotion trials and tests before I was told by my Classparent that I was one of the three to be promoted to Secondary 2 Normal Academic( NA). I was overjoyed. Lurking around, however, was my omnipresent DotA addiction.
A New Year, A New Life – FINALLY!
The new friends and the new environment in Secondary 2NA made it all the more harder to cope. There were more subjects to study. However with my will-power, I managed to cope with my work. A teacher in school sent my name in for a volunteering camp. I complained about it at first, as it would take my time off DotA, but the camp turned me around. It was fun and it made me view life in a different way. I found my dream in life – to be a volunteer – to help others – and in order to do so, I had to help myself first. It seems easy, as you read this, how I managed to peel back the many layers I managed to wrap myself in. I found my answer, stepped out and quit. Quitting is hard, being an addict is easy – I learned.
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