Of Mines and Men

I'm fortunate to say that I can't pretend to know much of anything about the harrowing nature of true addiction. But the closest I've come was when I was 16 years old, in the form of a little game called Minesweeper.

No, not Mine Craft. Not DotA, not WoW, or Everquest, or any other MMORPG, but Minesweeper, that simple default game that, so far as I'm aware, has come standard with every version of Windows ever released since the dawn of time.

For the uninitiated, the objective of the game is to successfully "flag" every mine on a rectangular grid without accidentally clicking on a mine and blowing it up. If one clicks on a space adjacent to a mine, a number appears showing how many of the eight adjacent squares (including diagonals) contain mines. Thus the player needs to try and deduce, through process of elimination, which squares contain mines. Feel free to role-play as an omniscient version of your favorite character from The Hurt Locker.

As I assume many of us did, as a young boy who loved computer games I toyed around with each of my computer's default ones, which on my family's Windows 95 were all card games with the exception of Minesweeper. I didn't know how to play Free Cell or Solitaire though, and so Hearts and Minesweeper were the two that I was most partial towards. But given how many other flashier, more exciting, games we could install on the computer, I largely ignored the default games altogether.

Several years later, during my third trimester of 7th grade (which I never realized until now sounds like a pregnancy timeline), I was required to take a Computer Lit. class. We were given assigned seats, and mine was at the end of a row, next to a girl I had a little crush on. Probably 75% of the days in that class entailed doing typing exercises that were scored for accuracy and speed. When we had completed these, the teacher said we could play either Solitaire or Minesweeper until the end of class. He banned Pinball because he said it didn't require any critical thinking.

I still didn't (and to this day don't) know how to play Solitaire (one of my parents taught me at one point, but I never found it that exciting and quickly forgot), and so Minesweeper it was for me. Apparently I was alone in my ignorance of Solitaire though, because I was literally the only person in the class who played Minesweeper.

Minesweeper has three levels of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. The harder the level, the more squares there are and the higher density of mines per square. The game is scored by time, so the faster the player completes the game, the better their score is.

One of our teacher's other stipulations was that if we played Minesweeper, we had to play it on Advanced. One day early on in the semester, I beat the game on Advanced, which was no easy task given that there often wasn't much time left at the end of each class to play, and back then it probably took me about 8 minutes (480 seconds) on average to win in Advanced - in those extremely rare instances I was able to win at all.

Since this was the first time I'd won on this computer, it was automatically the high score, and it prompted me to enter my name for the record book (it only records the all-time highest score for each of the three difficulty levels). The cute girl next to me looked over and saw this just as I was entering my name. She said, "Whoa you won?! You should let me type in my name!" But she spoke a second too late as I had just hit Enter. I apologized profusely and told her she could next time, and from that moment forward, my entire goal every single day in that class was to rush through the assignments and then beat my score on Advanced so she would be able to enter her name (erroneously) in the record book, and begin dating me as the next logical step. Solid plan right?

Sadly our romance was not meant to be, as I was never again able to beat that score, try as I might (though of course it was likely all for the best, considering our relationship would have been founded upon a documented lie!). But I did get significantly better at recognizing the patterns of mines that could be determined from the clues provided.

Flash forward to the winter of junior year of high school.

I was chatting on AIM one day, when I noticed that a sometime friend of mine had posted a screenshot in his AIM profile. It depicted a completed Advanced game of Minesweeper with a time of, I believe, 78 seconds - a blindingly fast score.

I had a complicated relationship with this individual. He had been a hugely influential figure in my pre-teen years, who contradictorily helped bring me out of my shell and build my self confidence, while also causing me abundant emotional distress and damage to my self-esteem. It was a circle of verbal abuse, alternating with occasional praise that I craved. I stuck with him for as long as I did in part because I did truly enjoy his company at times, and because he helped open avenues for me into vast new social circles (and the first ones I'd ever been in that included girls); while frequently his whipping boy, I was grateful enough just to be in the room that I usually tolerated it. I often likened him to Tom Green (which, I assure you, at the time was a super zeitgeist-y reference); he didn't have many boundaries and his jokes were always funny - unless you were the target, for they most always came at someone else's expense.

For a few different reasons, (one being I'd found friends who wouldn't hang me out to dry at a moment's notice for the sake of a mean-spirited jest), by junior year we no longer hung out much, but seeing that screenshot kindled a fire in me. His cocky countenance, especially when it came to gaming, was one of the qualities I liked least about him. That, coupled with the many embarrassments I'd suffered at his hand, made me want to beat that score something fierce, to see him, just once, eat his bravado.

(In retrospect, there was really no way this would end the way I envisioned it: with him giving me props in awe of my hypothetically superior score. He loved bragging about his accomplishments, but the rare time someone beat him at something he professed to be good at, he'd just mock them as being a dork who tried too hard and act like he didn't care).

And so, without even telling him or anyone else that I'd seen the screenshot, I began with a vengeance to try and best his time. The problem was I'd hardly played since my failed middle school fling four years prior, but I felt more comfortable because no one would know if I failed; they didn't even know I was making an attempt.

It started modestly enough. I'd play for a half hour or an hour here and there, taking time to learn, and then memorize, the meaning of different patterns of clues I'd never thought through before. It was a bit fascinating to see just how much information could be culled, how many squares could be identified definitively as mines or safes spots, from seemingly the smallest amounts of data.

Within a few weeks though, the amount of time I was devoting to the game was growing. My house was the main off-campus hangout spot for me and my closest friends since it was so close to the school, and my parents were so welcoming. Thus, it wasn't long before a few of my friends noticed me playing in excess, and I admitted what I was up to. I believe it was Owen who said that he had assumed our frenemy's score was fake, just a simple Photoshop job, which threw me for a moment. But then I realized I didn't care; even if it was (which I doubt), it just meant that, should I win, I was even better than the fictitiously high score he had only imagined. And my times were improving.

As I came closer and closer to the target time, I could feel the stakes rise every time I found myself in the midst of a promising game. And when you're trying to play as fast as possible, the number of stupid errors committed rises proportionally as well - usually from accidentally clicking on the wrong box. Every time I wasted a lucky draw, I'd feel a flash of rage and start huffing and puffing, trying to calm so it didn't escalate into a full blown tantrum.

So fast was the time I was attempting to beat, if I had to hesitate for more than even a couple seconds to try and deduce a mine's location, I was better off just tanking the game and starting over. My hand became a flurry of nearly continuous click-click-click-click-clicks. It felt sort of beautiful in a way, as my index and middle fingers performed a perfectly synchronized dance, tapping their way across the field of play on mouse-back. (It looked something like this, though a little slower)

Finally, after perhaps a month or so, I reached my goal. And, at least for the night, I was satisfied. I never took a screenshot or otherwise informed my friend on AIM though, realizing, I think, on some level the epiphany mentioned earlier about how lame it would come off to boast out of nowhere I had beaten his time.

In the ensuing days however, it started to become apparent to me that I had a bit of a problem. I couldn't sit down at the computer without being sucked into the game - often for long stretches at a time. The most worrisome part was there didn't appear to be any end-game now; I had reached my goal and yet I still couldn't drop it. It seemed I would be compelled to continue playing ad infinitum. The way the game was integrated into this object that I utilized for the majority of my other home-life tasks was part of what made it so difficult to shake. It was on the very device that I had to use nearly every night for my homework, whether it be for typing up papers or doing research via the internet, and I was on the machine during most of my downtime anyway to talk to friends or surf the web.

And while I'd certainly had very strong phases where I'd been into other games before, part of what made Minesweeper different was how simple it was to play. Most of the other games I'd fallen hard for were either played on a separate module (like a video game console) or at least required the insertion of a disc into the computer and full devotion of the monitor's visual field (I couldn't minimize Heroes of Might and Magic 3, for instance, or pause in the middle of Centipede). All I had to do to start a game of Minesweeper was double click on the desk-top icon and it would load in an instant, and the game space only took up a fraction of the computer's memory and field of vision; I could open the game while still in the midst of an AIM conversation or reading an article. On top of that, most of the other games were a lot longer as well. With Minesweeper I would often rattle off a series of games in between or even whilst performing these other tasks.

To further set the scene, junior year of high school was the most difficult year of my life academically - college included. This was largely a self-made mess. I was taking a full course load, seven classes (six of them honors options) with no study hall. One of these was the most personally conceptually challenging class I've yet encountered: Physics. In addition, while I'm sure others would argue, I remain convinced I was one of my grade's best (or worst?) procrastinators. I would get home from school, watch some TV and browse the net, get called up stairs for dinner, return to the basement, chat on AIM with friends, and then watch more TV, often from the computer chair, for hours, and hours, and hours. Within a few weeks I was faced daily with a mountain of coursework that I'd almost invariably put off until the last possible day. I'd stay up so late every night that instead of web surfing when I first got home I'd take a nap instead until dinner. I couldn't break out of the cycle.

All of this was further exacerbated a few months into the year by the insertion of the Minesweeper addiction into this routine. At the beginning of the year I started to get behind because I was lazy and unfocused, but soon I was so overwhelmed by the unyielding barrage of homework that it became too scary to stare in the face, so I would latch on to any diversion possible, and indulge it for as long as possible, before finally attacking the mountain of assignments piecemeal during the wee hours of the morning.

That's the insidious thing about addiction, the way it sneaks up on you, often as an outlet during your weakest moments before evolving into something far worse. I wasn't looking for a new pastime when I started my Minesweeper binge that winter, but soon I was hooked on this dumb little game like nothing before. My right hand would throb after near-daily multiple hour sessions. I soon feared long term effects like carpal tunnel. In those precious dwindling hours when I would sleep, I dreamt about Minesweeper for weeks. Even when conscious I'd see tiles of colored numbers and exploding mines when I closed my eyes.

And again, a large piece of what made it so hard to break my compulsion was the game's ease of access. It's much easier to curtail an impulse when there are barriers to entry, even if it's just a few extra moments of time or effort. But often without even realizing I was doing it, I would open up Minesweeper with two clicks of the mouse and be on my way, when I had generally come to the computer for a very different purpose. And even when it was a conscious decision to play, because the games were so short it was extremely easy to rationalize letting myself play "just a few rounds," and soon two minutes would turn into two hours. If each round took an hour to play I would have never let myself start in the first place.

The game held a magnetism over me. When sitting at the computer I would have this deep craving to play that would demand to be satisfied. I'd even get anxious and start breathing faster. So if and when I fought back and tried to resist, my mind would force me to continue thinking about it when it was right there in reach, and accomplishing other work on the computer became exceedingly difficult. When I caved and let myself play I'd feel a release, and probably a rush of dopamine, but when I blew a good game, I'd yell and want to bash things.

Though only partially driven by Minesweeper, when I reached my lowest point my goal was to start my homework by 2 AM and get to bed before the sun started to rise. And I often failed. Of the nearly 2000 students at my school, I'd be surprised if any of them got less cumulative sleep than I did during that school year. Every day at school I felt like a living zombie. I had to fight to stay awake in nearly every class. I was always cold. I even nearly fell asleep in the shower a few times, doing the head-bob, which was minorly terrifying.

So how did I overcome it? How did I free myself from the game's spell? It's pretty boring really. Like most other bad habits I've had in my life, from pulling my hair when stressed to incessantly toying with the corners of my notebooks during class, my proactive efforts to quash it proved almost totally ineffective, but after a while it seemed to simply burn itself out. After a month or two the craving began to fade, and before long it was gone almost entirely. Inspiring, I know. If only real hard-core addictions were so easily alleviated.

In the time since, instead of getting hooked on things and enduring them until they wane, I've attempted to adapt so I don't fall into another trap. Today my primary tactic is to just try and avoid gaming altogether. I haven't lived in a residence with a video game console in 5 years. I have never once downloaded or played a single game on my phone and I plan on keeping it that way; having the internet constantly at my fingertips is distracting enough without letting games enter the equation. During college I did play a lot of team Halo with my roommates, but it was never an issue to the same degree, and, in contrast to Minesweeper, it was much easier to just physically remove myself from locations where Halo was available when I needed to get work done.

On a broader scale I certainly still let myself indulge in enjoyable activities every day, they're critical to recharging the batteries, but I try and limit them to those that are either mentally or physically healthier, or more finite (I even cancelled my Netflix streaming account years ago because I hated the constant pull I could feel it exerting on me when I was bored. I'd find myself watching junk I wasn't even interested in and just feel worse afterwards. Cutting the cord was one of the better decisions I've made). Writing is of course one such new hobby I've adopted, and in a perfect juxtaposition of its therapeutic value relative to something toxic like Minesweeper, my life has been pretty stressful as of late, but every time I've sat down to work on this post, the weight of that stress has been almost instantly lifted. Instead I feel fulfilled, and constructive, my mind is having fun, and I simply quit when I get tired, not when I beat some arbitrary number.

Going back to college though, as you may have inferred Minesweeper was only part of a larger problem, or more precisely a symptom of a larger problem I had with staying on task. While my seemingly unbreakable loop of procrastinating on my school work and losing sleep did improve a bit after quitting the game, it was certainly still intact throughout the rest of high school. Going into college, I knew I had to seriously re-hardwire my habits if I was going to survive. I was scared enough that thankfully I was able to; I still remember having to fight my instincts in order to walk away from my computer and into the study lounge the very first day I got back from classes. I certainly had lapses and streaks where I'd veer off track, but nothing like the sustained waking nightmare I put myself through in high school.

Though there was one scary episode.

Junior year of college somehow the topic of Minesweeper came up with one of my roommates. I mentioned to him that I used to be pretty good at the game (I can no longer recall what it was exactly, but the best time I achieved during my binge was somewhere in the 60's). Despite knowing it was probably a bad idea, my ego got the best of me and I offered to let him watch me play a few rounds. We went over to my laptop and I opened the game for the first time in years, but it all came surging back: the rush I 'd get, the strategies I'd employ. Short term it worked out well - my friend seemed almost dumbstruck watching me fly through the board, which boosted my self-esteem in suitable proportion. But I had opened Pandora's Box, and after he left the room I couldn't quit playing. I told myself that I just had to prove to myself that I could still do it, I just had to get one sub 100 time on Advanced, and then I'd be satisfied.

After a number of hours lost over the next day or two, I'd done it. But just like in high school, the game wasn't ready to let me go. It only lasted for about a week, if that, before I fought it off, but the desire was back as strong as ever. Minutes would turn into hours, homework was being shirked, and sleep was being sacrificed at the altar of the Mine. It was awful. I couldn't stop myself. It was so easy to just open it up, so tantalizingly close at hand. Finally, I knew I had to play tough, I couldn't let this spiral again, there was a lot more at stake now. As I'd watch my cursor subconsciously track over to the icon, I learned to catch myself, and not give in, to buckle down and focus on my class work, and within a few days I'd regained control. It was a little frightening though, knowing how easy it would be to get sucked back. The dependency was still there, lying in wait, just below the surface. It probably wasn't a fluke either that, not including junior year of high school, my junior year of college was probably my most academically taxing.

In the years since I don't think I've opened the game once. I'm afraid to. I felt like I was playing with fire a bit just by writing this post. After all, I am using a laptop that has Minesweeper installed. And yet, in spite of all the distress it's caused me, some piece of me can't help but feel weirdly proud about the whole thing (as evidenced by showing off to my roommate for one). As much time as I lost to the game, in my "prime" I did realize that I was getting very good at it, and as dumb or nerdy a skill as it might be, on some level the continuous improvement felt satisfying, even a little rewarding, despite the great cost it came at. My brother once told me he thought anything in the world could be fun to watch if the person doing it was was extremely good at it, and I think he might be right. That's sort of how I feel about Minesweeper anyway; it may be completely trivial, but in comparison to the global population, I may be better at that game than almost anything else.

I don't know what to make of the fact that both (or all three if you include college) times I got into the game, it was initially in an attempt to impress others. That's certainly not why I began playing any other computer game. We'll just chalk it up to an odd coincidence because I'm getting tired and that seems beyond the scope of this essay-or-whatever-this-is.

It is, I believe, important to underscore though, that when I think of Minesweeper today the primary emotion I associate with it is still fear. I have never had a harder time fighting off a persistent craving. I'd feel so powerless to stop sometimes I was nearly reduced to whimpering. So I can only imagine how vile, how miserable, how truly wretched an actual addiction would be. My tale is comical (sometimes even intentionally), I barely scratched the surface. But people die from binge-gaming. Or binge-drinking. Or drug abuse. Or obesity. I've watched and tried to help close friends struggle for years with battling substance abuse. So more than anything, I'm just thankful that I have never had to know what that feels like first hand, and hope that I never do. I got a taste, and I've had my fill.

Note: An abridged version of this piece first appeared in Page & Spine as "Lord of the Mines," this was published retroactively to the date of writing.