I am a former WoW addict, here is my story.
Started playing when I was 17, about the same time I started smoking weed. Te two pastimes meshed beautifully and I was soon neglecting important things (girlfriend,job, friends) to indulege in my favorite pastime. Initially i played a shaman on a server with a friend of mine and got up to lvl58 a few months after game launch.
So my friend and I decide to transfer to a pvp realm, where I make a shaman and level him to 60. Raided with a top5 guild on that server and had a lot of fun. I leveled a hunter 60 in the meantime. Eventually all of my RL friends gravitated towards suramar server and so did I.
So I abandoned my three max lvl characters on other realms to play elsewhere. I leveled a war t 70 for BC, and followed with a shaman and a hunter. I was in the top raiding guild on the server for 8 months straight and the top geared shaman on suramar for most of that time. My account is now inactive with like 14k gold in the bank.
After that I have come back to play briefly, only for pvp. The highest rating I ever got was 2220 or something on a 3v3 team which at that time was like top couple % in the BG. I've had many other teams be close to that rating aswell but never quite made gladiator, many duelist titles.
So in the end:
6 top lvl characters
top 2% of all pvpers on cyclone US
endless hours I wish I could get back.
/end nerdrant