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quittintime

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  1. Day 13 Wow, the fact that my journal is on the second page of the forum and the last post was just a couple days ago.. that's crazy! So many people quitting gaming! This is awesome. I felt a lot better towards the weekend, and this week has started getting rough again. Not a strong desire to play games, but that constant feeling of restlessness. The itch I can't quite scratch. I've ended up mindlessly going to Reddit all the time, and I think as a result I'm going to have to remove Reddit and a few other sites from my browsing. It's going to be hard, but I'm going to do it. Wish me luck...
  2. Hey Jimyree, welcome back. Have you considered selling your Xbox/computer to seal the deal? I am a PC gamer and detoxing from all games, and I'd sell my computer if I could but I rely on it for work. One thing I'm considering trying is to remove the computer altogether for things that aren't absolutely necessary to be done on the computer. Good luck on your fresh start, try to make / spend time with more friends that aren't gamers. By the way, if I quit gaming at your age, there's no telling where I'd be today. You are definitely making the right choice.
  3. End of day 9 I'm feeling much better than I was a few days ago. Today was a good day, it was the first day since my detox started where I didn't have work and didn't have lots of other things to do. I was worried that it would be the day with the greatest temptation to relapse, but I found it pretty easy not to play today, I didn't feel very tempted. My wife and I got up and ran some errands this morning, then we came back to the house and she wasn't feeling good and just wanted to lay around and watch TV. Normally, I would lay around with her and watch TV with her, but today I watched about half of a movie that was on TV with her, then got up and did other things. I felt so productive and good about myself to get up and do something, even if it was just cleaning up or doing laundry. I started reading The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. @Cam recommended it in one of his videos -- I think it was one about how not to relapse over summer break, but it was really a relevant video to what I have struggled with, which is feeling out of control. I'm going to try scheduling things in my life and building some structure into my day as recommended in the book. The real reason I chose this book to read first is because of something Cam said in the video. He said if you are a night owl, not a morning person, consider reading this book and it will change your life. I've always identified as a night owl, and definitely not a morning person, and I've known for a while that staying up late and not getting up early isn't really the best way of doing things, but I suppose I've sort of written it off as something that's a part of who I am, not something I can change. So, I was definitely interested and started reading today. I think I'm about halfway done, it's a really quick read so you should check it out if you struggle with mornings. I think one of the reasons detoxing can be so life changing (if you're serious about it) is that, for me, it is really starting to cause me to question and challenge some things I've thought about myself for many, many years. Things like that I'm just not a morning person, I'm more of a night owl and that's something I can't help -- This may sound really stupid to some people, but the idea that I can completely change this was novel to me. I've always just thought, some people are morning people, and other's aren't. I'm one of those that isn't. /shrug. But that's not true at all. Other things I'm rethinking are: I'm just passionate about games (this is a common one, I think).I have more control when I play games (Thanks for your perspective, @WorkInProgress -- you're totally right, playing games takes control away, when it actually feels like they are giving you more control)I don't have time to do the other things I want to do in my life -- I found that I had a TON of time today to do whatever I wanted since I didn't waste the day away playing games. One thing I'm still struggling with is finding interest in other less stimulating activities. One in particular that comes up a lot is playing board or card games with my wife. I love spending time with her, but for some reason playing board/card games just sounds terrible. Right now I'm telling her I don't really feel like playing a game, and she's really understanding, but this coming week I want to really push past the terrible feelings and play a few games with her. Who knows, maybe it'll be ok again! Thanks everyone for the thoughts, advice, and kind words! It really does make this a lot easier to have a community of people who understand what I'm going through and actually recognize gaming addiction as a real thing.
  4. Thanks @Cam, just watched the video you posted and looking forward to the new one tomorrow.
  5. After my first post yesterday, I felt a little better after writing about my situation. So here's the start of my 90 day detox journal. I'm also going to check in on a few different metrics each entry and rank them 1-10 on how I'm feeling that day. Overall Detox Goals: - 90 days without gaming or gaming-related sites/videos - Also removing mindless TV watching. OK to watch 1 or 2 specific shows each week, but not to come home and crash and turn the TV on to watch whatever's on for hours. - Trying to reduce/minimize overall computer time, but it may be difficult since I am a programmer for my job and I sometimes do freelance at home. Day 6 Attention/Concentration: 4/10 Irritability: 9/10 Depression: 5/10 Restlessness: 9/10 Today was a typical day at work; I got stuff done despite some intermittent problems concentrating and wandering off to reddit or other timewasters. I generally felt like the day was going really well until I got home. Wife and I ate dinner together at the table and she asked me what I wanted to do tonight. I said I didn't know, but looking back on it, I think I wanted to just be alone to think and write about how I'm feeling, but I was scared to tell her I wanted to be alone, because I was afraid she would get upset for me not spending enough time with her. Well, she got upset anyway because I said I didn't want to play a board game or card game or watch a movie together, and I didn't have any other ideas. She says she needs quality time together. I know that's the #1 way she feels loved by me, and it's yet another reason why I'm deciding to detox, because there have been a lot of times gaming has gotten in the way of me loving her the way she needs, because I either don't want to spend time with her, or the time I do spend with her, I'm not really "there". My mind is off thinking about gaming. At any rate, she says she needs quality time and that sometimes I should just force myself to play a game with her. I got upset because I felt like she really didn't understand how I was feeling but was trying to tell me what to do, and I lashed out and raised my voice. I'm not proud of it, and even while I was still lashing out I was thinking to myself "I don't recognize this person that I am right now". Needless to say, I left the conversation feeling really ashamed. I apologized for getting upset and she apologized too, but it definitely still stung. I think one of the reasons it started to upset me so much is that I needed to feel like I was in control of my own life. Like I can choose what it is I want to do and when I want to do it. Gaming is all about having complete control over your character(s), whether it's WoW or CS:GO or Overwatch or Starcraft or Skyrim or what have you. When I'm at work, I do what my boss tells me to do. When I get home, I really want to feel like I control my own self, and without gaming, I'm realizing that I don't have that feeling anymore. I think her simple suggestion came across to me like a command, like I didn't have a choice in the matter and that at home, too, I wasn't able to control my own life. Of course that's not what she meant, but it was easy for me to take it that way. The thing i don't know is, should I look for other ways of feeling "in control", or should I be looking for ways to change myself so that I don't need to feel "in control"? Maybe both? If I'm honest, I am a bit of a control freak. I never have a problem telling others what they should do, but I often take offense when someone tells me. I want to feel and be independent, not relying on anyone else, and that's a large driving factor behind wanting to run my own business. So I don't think that's 100% bad, but I can definitely see how that can be really bad when at the extreme. I think my gaming has allowed that part of myself to grow beyond what it really should be. I gave myself unlimited gaming, which gave me unlimited sense of control, and now that I'm 6 days without both, I'm reeling. I'm having a really hard time knowing what's true or not about myself anymore. I used to think that I was just passionate about gaming -- clearly a lie to mask my addiction. What if I'm not the person who wants to be in control and in charge? What if that's just an aspect of my personality that has been severely warped by gaming? I think this early into my detox, it's hard to tell. I really hope to get some clarity on this and much more like it over the course of this 90 days. So, new concept/idea: Gaming addiction is personality cancer. It stifles and suppresses some parts of your personality and allows rampant, uncontrolled growth in others. Neither is a good thing.
  6. Thanks @AlexTheGrape, @Viking, @dullage. Really appreciate it.
  7. Thanks @TruthfulPirate, I appreciate the kind words. I hope your girlfriend is as patient as my wife. I couldn't do this without her.
  8. Thanks @Cam Adair and thanks @Abimael. I've always hated running, but now seems as good a time as any to give it another shot. I need to lose weight, too, so that will also help.
  9. I'm 5 days into my 90 day detox, and feeling a little crazy, so I thought that writing some of this stuff out may help me out some. I'm 27 years old and have been gaming most of my life. I remember playing my sister's NES, and the euphoria on Christmas morning when I got my SNES. I've had lots of consoles and built many PCs since then. Gaming in school didn't seem like a big deal, because I easily kept my grades up with minimal effort. My parents complained that I spent too much time on the computer, but ultimately I was an A student, so they didn't really do anything about it. The first feeling of addiction I had was with Starcraft, as I'm sure so many others have had. I loved playing the game with my friends, but then I found that I wanted to be online all the time. I tried to nail down rare Battle.Net names and trade them for Starcraft CD Keys. I'd use those keys to power bots which could flood a channel and attack enemy clans. Then came Warcraft 3, and then I got into Counter-Strike. A few of my friends at school and I created our own Counter-Strike server. That was awesome. We started playing World of Warcraft together, then some went separate ways, but I kept playing. I have lots of very fond memories of playing World of Warcraft when it first came out. I had a great sense of achievement of having one of the best priests on the server, and being a part of a 40-man team which did things nobody else had done yet on that server. I became lead healer and then raid leader, and that was awesome. I was able to lead my team to victory -- a team mostly comprised of people older than me, and nobody seemed to care that I was in high school. Freshman year of college I got paired with a random roommate who has become one of my best friends, and he was an avid EverQuest player. I got him to play WoW with me, and we played together for years afterwards. I always dreamed about having a really powerful, sweet gaming computer that could play all the games I wanted on ultra settings with no lag, and after I graduated college and got a full-time job building websites, I could finally afford it. (Well, I couldn't really afford it, but I bought it anyway). I met my wife, got married, and she learned that there were some nights I just needed to be alone on the computer, playing my games. She isn't a gamer. I tried to get her to play with me but it never stuck with anything we tried. She helped show me that the times I was really stressed out were the same times that I often needed to be alone at the computer. About a year into our marriage was when I got the sweet gaming rig and really started playing a lot of games again. I quit my job around the same time in order to work for myself as a full-time freelancer, and I did pretty well for myself. As a contractor, I more than doubled my annual salary, but I worked ALL the time. I just couldn't seem to get all the work done. I was blowing deadlines and my estimates were all off, and all the while I was gaming every time I felt like it or felt stressed - which was a lot of the time. It wasn't unusual for me to spend 1 or 2 days out of the whole week just playing games all day and all night long. There have definitely been times that I told my wife I couldn't spend time with her because I was so buried with work (and I was), but when I sat down to do the work, my hands would instinctively open a game, and I would spend the rest of the night doing that instead of working. I feel really guilty about that. The time I spent with her didn't seem as fun to me anymore. Not that I didn't love her or enjoy her presence, but it just wasn't the same as gaming. I'm sure this is ringing bells with others reading this. This year I stopped freelancing and took a full-time job again because I couldn't get my workload under control, and I needed something I could leave at 5:00 and come home from. Turns out, I really just came home to game most nights. As of last month, my wife and I have been married for 3 years. She has had an unreal amount of patience for me. We found out that we're expecting our first child, which is insanely awesome, but terrifying at the same time. It really got me thinking about my life and what I'm doing with it. I don't want to be in a 9-to-5 job forever. I want to own a business. I loved the feeling of ownership and success that I had when I ran my own freelancing business. I want to create and own something that will provide for me and my family for years to come, and then I want to work because it's fun. I want to have financial independence from an employer, and to be my own boss. I have had a few different ideas of how to make that happen, but none of them included hours of gaming every night. So, I started wanting to quit, or at least cut back on gaming. I tried, and then Overwatch came out. I wasn't going to buy it, and then a friend of mine gifted it to me. Shit, now I have to play. That night I stayed up until 4 AM playing Overwatch with friends, and yes I had work the next day. I felt guilty for not playing, since he gave it to me, and guilty for playing, because I knew it was a waste and I was making my work life miserable. Finally, I came across some of Cam's videos and the Game Quitters site. Everything started to really make sense -- the reason everything else seems boring, the reason I go to games when I feel stressed or upset. the erosion of my willpower. Everything was ringing a bell, and all at once I realized I have been legit addicted to gaming for years, and I knew I needed to detox. Today I'm 5 days into my detox, and I have all the signs of it. I've definitely had mood swings, spells of depression, boredom, gaming dreams, urges to "scratch the itch" that manifest in mindless Reddit browsing, opening the same websites over and over, even though I just looked at them. And I'm feeling a little crazy. I told my wife all about my detox plan and she's been super supportive and patient. I told her last night that I feel like a crazy person off his meds, and that's really how I felt and feel. I know I need to fill the gap that gaming leaves, but right now I can't imagine any hobby or anything else being able to even come close. I'm hoping that as my detox continues I will begin to be interested in other things. So that's my story. Day 5 and feeling crazy. Hopefully this helps someone else, but at least I feel like it's helping me to say it.
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