I wasn't allowed to have games.
Somehow in my senior year of high school I got a b&w copy of Pool of Radiance for our Macintosh, and the degree to which I spent all my waking hours on it no doubt confirmed my parents belief that they had to keep me away from the stuff. I never got to finish it.
So instead I focused all that gaming interest on AD&D. GMed my own world for three years in high school, then played in someone else's game while I was in college. In my Junior year of college I discovered Daggerfall and played it on a friend's computer. Then I got my own computer and it...well, it was a slow downhill after that, though I managed to not let it hurt my schooling. Especialy since the only game that has truly stolen my time/soul from me was EQ, and I was out of college by then.