First I asked myself ( and you should too ) what’s my definition of addiction? Addiction only point to something negative to your life(health, mood, living activities etc. ). Addiction, but good, called passion.  Of course the effect of addiction is the over-active and ever wanting more kind of activity, can be anything ranged from chemical to external activities.

Why is Dota my addiction is really just a door of a self-reflection journey, but more importantly the question I like to answer for myself is, what should I think and decide after finding out Dota as my addiction?

No matter what thing you do in your life, it's the addiction if you: 

- Able to do it for very long hours / time

- Continue to do it regardless the hype-after-win feeling or disappointment

Those effect messed up my life. It’s the addiction. It ruined the dopamine game [I-can-explain-why-in-another-writing-as-reference-here], the dopamine game perhaps keeping us alive.

BUT addiction is important, it has the role, perhaps in my life. Addiction is much more sophisticated than put in into halt. While addiction is the "evil", "angel" side of it is passion. Addiction and passion are the same thing, always keeping me up, and it is fundamental reason for people like me to stay alive ( as I don’t want to generalize it to human ). I feel it generate dopamine and it promises me to get a better dose of dopamine next time.

Which leads to the following question, should I keep playing Dota or be interested while remove the addiction (aka the bad part ) part?

Dopamine generation part: winning in game or gambling; small wins;

Bad part: toxic socialization, high win rate means grinding and performing, gambling part of the game imprison you in ELO rank system.

Good part: the big question of how to win, the sophistication of its game theory - strategy part, growing part; winning and losing.

If it’s bad why just remove it from life? I love it and I want to play it. Many quit attempts left me a great void in my life, time and knowledge that I gain ( perhaps benefit? I don’t know ) from it. But it made the comeback stronger.

Dopamine is dopamine, sometimes you need different kind of dopamines to keep your life balanced.

I want to love it, and want a healthy dose of it.

I want to maximize time that I spend on thinking and walking its sophistication and beauty.

I want to get rid of daily playing, but still can, to spend 5 hours playing with friends on weekend.