(Detroit, MI) As the winter months roll on and the days continue to be nothing but gray, it’s not unusual to lose your cool a little. We all have our different tactics for dealing with this cold, stark world. Some of us play video games, some of us golf, and others of us lock ourselves in a room with our friends to try and escape and finally feel something, anything. These are our stories.

Gladys, 63. I first started “rooming” when I learned about it from my stepson’s niece. The first time I heard the door shut behind me I knew I would be hooked. I have been going every weekend since, usually with the same group, but on other occasions introducing friends to the game. I have never felt so alive. 

Bruno, 29. Who decided to call us “roomers?” I am not okay with that. Why not “escapers?” That makes way more sense and it’s in the name! God. I hate my fellow roomers but you know what they say, you don’t get to choose your family or your escape room team. 

Claude, 46. I owe everything to running escape rooms. I learned so much within the halls of my local room that I use in my everyday life, you wouldn’t believe it. I also met my wife in the escape room and when we unlocked that final mummy tomb, I proposed on the spot with the key to the enchanted bookcase instead of a ring. She said yes and the rest is history. Excuse me, herstory. 

Tanner, 13. I sneak into escape rooms with my brother to trap people in there for longer than the game tells them. That’s when you see who people really are, when they think they are actually trapped. We watch as they start to lose their cool and then we leave. If they can’t figure out how to get out, well they don’t deserve to escape. Isn’t that the game?

Fleg, N/A. Nothing life has helped me feel anything quite like escape rooms. I mean, there is heroin, but I promised I would never go back. I don’t know what I was doing with my life before escape rooms. They really saved me. They made me feel again. 

Thank you escape rooms for making us feel in a world where it’s so hard to do so.

This article was written by Nathan Ellwood, who enchanted the world and lost the plot of this article if we’re being honest. Follow him for more on Twitter @NPEllwood.