We need to come together to face a plague of addiction more tragic than any in recent memory. It’s even worse than drug addiction; even worse than nicotine addiction; even worse than food addiction; even worse than gambling addiction; even worse than shopping addiction; even worse than sex addiction; even worse than Jane’s Addiction.

Actually, sex addiction sounds like it’s probably pretty good — I don’t care what anyone says.

What I am writing about is FarmVille addiction. And no less an authority than Dr. Phil has come out swinging against it:

Dr. Phil confronted a FarmVille-loving mother named Teresa about her duties to her children recently, and he thinks she would be better served to go out and “start a garden for real.”

…

[Y]ou have a ridiculous addiction to a ridiculous computer game that’s interfering with your ability to be a mother. You needed a fix, and she wouldn’t get off, so you had to create the opportunity.”

It’s good of Dr. Phil to bring such attention to a modern scourge that is — well, it pains me to write this, but — threatening to ruin my own life.

I have been touched by the tragedy of FarmVille addiction.

Nights previously spent watching reality television shows with my female companion are spent watching those shows virtually alone. Oh, yes, she sits on the couch beside me, but her attention is wholly on her laptop, and her never-ending FarmVille game.

“I just got a goat,” she tells me. “I have to put him in a pen so he doesn’t run around.” She speaks as if the goat is real, in a voice tinged by inadvertent Maria-like pathos.

“But, Tom Sizemore just brought a balloon of heroin into the Pasadena Recovery Center,” I tell her, motioning toward the television. She doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. She almost seems not even to care. “Tom Sizemore is giving rehab one more try — for crying out loud, he’s about to see Heidi Fleiss again! This is compelling stuff! Look at the television!”

My plea seems to fall on deaf ears; her face does not turn away from the computer screen.

It’s difficult, but I have to remind myself that she just can’t help it. If there’s one thing “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew” has taught me, it’s that television doctors consider addiction to be a disease. It’s also taught me that they pretty thoroughly search you when you enter a rehab facility, so if I ever end up being sent to one, I will have to hide my drugs pretty well. Anyway, she doesn’t mean to taunt me, by sitting there with her game. She is addicted. How else to explain the fact that she is in the same room as me — a charming, witty, sophisticated and extremely good-looking man — and she is choosing to play with her goat rather than watch television with me?

There is only one explanation, and I thank Dr. Phil for articulating it.

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Ricky Sprague

Ricky Sprague occasionally writes and/or draws things. He sometimes animates things. He has a Twitter account and he has a blog. He scripted this graphic novel about Kolchak The Night Stalker. He is really, really good at putting links in bios.

Latest posts by Ricky Sprague (Posts)

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