Interesting discussion, i gave up WoW... actually can't remember when i gave it up ive been that busy since. A bit of background for you, im 30, im married, ive got a baby due erm... sometime in the next 24 hours!!!! eek! I started from Closed Beta 1 and was addicted within days of playing it. My Xfire profile shows a final play time of 1390 hours but thats nothing like close as I eventually turned Xfire off so i couldnt see how much i was playing. I quit once, sold my account, bought another one and started from scratch again, I quit again, then went back to it a couple of months later. Ive been a guild officer twice, i had 3 level 60s BWL equipped when i sold my first account and 2 level 70s Karazhan equipped when I quit last.
The key to getting off WoW is to establish a life outside of WoW bit by bit. I began first by regularly meeting up with friends on a Thursday night to do sword fighting (any hobby will do!). The key is to mentally block out Thursdays as a WoW playing day. After a few weeks I settled into that routine, next I began to arrange things on weekends, either visiting friends or going away somewhere, even just going for a walk with my wife, something to get me out of the house for 3 hours or more. The hardest part was the next bit. I quit raiding. I stopped signing up to raids, I said id be available if I was online but I refused to guarantee my attendance. After a short while I stopped getting invited to raids, once you stop raiding, you stop playing. Seriously try it. There really is nothing else worth doing in that game if you don't raid regularly.
This is where the earlier gradual building of the hobbies came in. Once I quit I had a life I could turn to, I had friends, hobbies, things to do, places to be and at no point since have I felt the addiction kick in. I get the odd twinge, for example the Southpark WoW episode was on the other night and I got that warm WoW fuzzy feeling but not a burning urge to play. I just recently got into Enemy Territory Quake Wars (i was previously a mad FPS gamer) and ive got back into the routine of playing for an hour or so then logging off and doing something else.
With a baby due any hour now the fact im off WoW is in my opinion immensely important to me, ive seen courses failed, families broken, jobs lost, even houses lost from guild members during my 2.5years playing it and I swore that person wouldn't be me.
So, there is hope out there you just really need to focus on your "REAL" life before quitting then eventually you just find that quitting is a natural progression as you have better things to be doing than sat at your PC grinding the same thing over and over and over and over.
Good luck
