Fill in the words. Change the form of the words as necessary.
Hobby or obsession?
My elder brother is a diver. When he took up diving, I felt happy for him because he'd never (1) cared for anything but watching TV. He used to (2) sprawl on the sofa in front of the TV set and spend hours, days and weeks there. It deprived him of the real world and his communication skills were getting (3) affected. He definitely (4) preferred communicating via texting to any face-to-face (5) interaction. When people came to our house, he always managed to find an (6) excuse to escape conversations.
His new hobby — diving — meant physical activity and meeting new people and that's why we did everything to (7) encourage him. All (8) essential equipment was bought, a diving certificate was granted and my brother left for Voronezh on his first diving expedition. There have been lots of other expeditions since then, he has dived in any waters inside the country and abroad and has been (9) awarded different titles and certificates, (10) recognized in the world of "sea wolves". Everything seems to be splendid but this hobby (11) occupies his whole life and doesn't leave any room for anything else. He is sincere in setting diving as the first (12) priority and doesn't care for anything else, myself included. Is this normal?