Here's our game bowl...
It's getting pretty full! We are gong to need a larger one!
When you are ready, take that step, break your CDs, write your name and date on the back of them with a message to yourself, such as I AM FREE, or FREE AT LAST. (We found the best way to prevent shards, when breaking the discs from going everywhere, is to put the CD/disc into the paper sleeve it comes in or any paper sleeve and then snap it. Always break the CD towards the info side. No shards, or very few!)
Send your broken CDs/discs to the address below. It's only one step, but it's a step in the right direction!
Olg-Anon
104 Miller Lane
Harrisburg, PA 17110
Ok, so what's this gamebowl thing all about? By Ron Jaffee
Well let me explain. But first, let me ask you...How's your credit? Mine's ok now. I still don't pay my bills on time always, but the only debt to my name is about $100 on a credit card and my mortgage payment. From about 1994 to 1999 I somehow managed to pay off about $18,000 of debt including a new car loan and a bunch of high interest credit cards. During those 6 years, I learned alot about collection agencies...just how vicious they can be and I learned about my rights as a consumer. I also learned how to fight back against some of them. But having gone through that once, I am never going to go through that again.
Oh...what does that have to do with CD Breaking? Well, just like with EQ...my break from my bills all began with a fishbowl. In the midst of my consumer debt misery, I broke down and called Consumer Credit Counseling Services for help with creating a budget and learning how to handle my finances better. I never really learned before and so I was really embarrassed when I went to my first appointment, thinking of how pathetic I was. Certainly there could be no one as bad in debt as I was. When the elevator door opened that day on the fourth floor of the building where the Consumer Credit Counseling office was, I walked down the hallway toward the door feeling depressed, but hopeful that I was taking steps to control my debt. When I opened the door to the office, I checked in at the window and had a seat in the waiting room, quite nervous as to what was going to happen.
The first thing I noticed when I sat down, next to the door that took you back to their offices was a 40 gallon fish tank. Now fish tanks were nothing new to offices and office buildings, but this tank had a different type of fish. This large, 40 gallon fish tank was about 2/3 full of cut up credit cards. Every color of credit card you could imagine was in there. There had to be thousands of holograms on cards representing every credit card distributor in the world. At least it seemed that way. When I first saw this fishtank, it touched something very deep inside of me.
First, and most importantly, it showed that I was not alone and that there were thousands of others who were in just as bad a shape as I was.
Second, it showed me that these people did something that I was terrified of doing...they cut up their credit cards...their security...the one thing to help them out in case their car broke down, or they needed to buy something, or needed emergency cash. I sat and stared at the fish tank for almost 20 minutes before my name was called. And as I stood up and walked toward the door, my eyes were fixated on this mass of plastic up until the second that the door closed behind me and I was led into the counselor's office.
There, she introduced herself and we sat and talked a bit about their debt management program, my spending habits, the amount of my debt and my feelings about the money I had been spending that I didn't have and my credit cards. When she was finally done explaning, it was now up to me to decide whether or not I wanted to take part in the program. Realizing I had no choice, I said "Yes" and she promptly reached into the drawer of her desk and pulled out the biggest pair of scissors I had ever seen. She asked me to take out every credit card in my wallet and set them on the desk. I immediately panicked, thinking that these cards which were my security, but also my ball and chain, would soon be cut up by this woman. But I was wrong. I was the one who was instructed to cut up my credit cards. After thinking about this a minute, I grabbed the scissors and one-by-one cut up the credit cards. All I can say is that during that whole process, that 60 seconds was one of the most powerful minutes of my life. Because as I cut each card in two, I felt a bit stronger knowing that I was now in control, and that I was now taking the steps I needed to get control back in my life from my poor spending habits. By the time the appointment was done, the last thing I did before I hit the elevator to return to my car, was to take my pile of cut up credit cards and place them into the fishbowl with all the others. When I did that, I knew immediately that I was on my way and this was proof, because I never could have cut those in half on my own before.
Now when I became involved with OLGA and Liz asked me to cut up my CD's, I had a flashback to this day at Consumer Credit Counseling 8 years earlier. And when I broke my CDs, the same feeling of power and self-control went through me again. I decided that this would be a good thing to incorporate into OLGA and so the idea of filling the fish bowl (now known as the Game Bowl) was alive once again. So, that is the story of the breaking of the CDs to fill the Game Bowl.
To those in denial of their excessive and compulsive playing and who feel the need to defend an inanimate computer game to your last dying breath, I say you can't possibly understand the power that breaking your CDs can give you...until you decide to do it for yourself. You can easily borrow CDs from a friend and make copies. The 2 cent per CD-R won't break anyone. But there is something about breaking one's original game CDs that takes more courage than most realize or can comprehend. It's not because of the breaking of the CDs itself, it's because of the implications that YOU associate with the breaking of the CDs. It's because of the importance that you have, either consciously or unconsciously associated with the game in your life. It's because of those inner fears you have that the breaking of the CDs might imply that the game is being taken away. It's because facing those feelings just might make you realize once and for all that you are NOT in control.
Now before you start flaming, understand that those statements are not meant to apply to everyone, and in fact they apply to a small percentage of players. But I will always contend that if you feel any anger or hatred toward any group or anyone who might have adverse opinions about a computer game that you play, then that is a sign that you should really consider WHY you have such strong feelings. It is NOT what others say...but how and why YOU react to what others say that's the REAL issue here. Keep that in mind, because from now on, every post out of anger is going to be answered with that statement above. So one more time, the breaking of the CDs is only meant to be a symbolic gesture of the individual to himself of his taking control of his excessive and/or compulsive gaming problem. It is NOT meant to be an attack or criticism of EQ, of Sony, or of any other game or game manufacturer or player of those games. 