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Yzal joined the community
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I will quote what I talked over with another forum member on exactly this point: Did you ask yourself why you choose to play rather than do something else? This question holds the key to recovery. I responded to this question when I was 16 years old in the following way: “because gaming is just like any other task, be it sport, socializing, cleaning the household etc”. This answer had very important repercussions. It was like trying to say: there is a clever way to game and escape any bad consequences in your life. The following couple of years illustrated to me my mistaken belief. Success is “hard coded”. What this means is that you will hit a certain barrier as a gamer after which no amount of mental reframing will make you feel that you’re okay spending days playing. Mentally it will be very taxing. If the president of the country and his ministers would have told you that you’re okay as a gamer, you still wouldn’t be able to reframe it. Same goes for alcoholism and gambling. This realization made me cautious and I haven’t reverted.
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Positivity feeds Positivity, Negativity feeds Negativity, Poverty leads to more Poverty, Money can make more money, A small amount of gravity can lead to even stronger gravity over time, One healthy habit often leads to more healthy habits, violence often leads to more violence. While not always true, I generally find it to be true that most things lead to a multiplicative effect, especially if we allow them. In the past when I got really into fitness, I found eating healthier always came naturally. On the other hand, I've consistently found that the more I game the more I crave gaming. Similar situation with awhile back when I got addicted to chocolate, the more I ate, the more I craved it. And in this situation I feel like if you're already having cravings, gaming is you essentially feeding this cycle. If you didn't have cravings in the first place, then I don't think gaming will necessarily negatively impact your life. Will the cravings stop if you quit? Maybe, although I do believe it is possible. You're probably the only one who can answer that, since the only way to truly know is to quit and wait for the cravings to go away at which point you have gotten the answer. - Today
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Need help: Youtube and Netflix instead of gaming??
Southern Northerner replied to Boltuschkin's topic in Ask the Community
I do indeed feel like I miss out on new information especially since about half of the YouTube videos I would typically watch would be more on the educational side. But what I came to realize was the key difference between knowing / being familiar with a topic and actually understanding a topic. And most of the videos I would watch on YouTube would inform me of the topic to the point where I felt like I knew it, but if someone actually asked me to explain something in depth, I would not be able to. The other kind of information I would receive from YouTube is news and updates on what's going on in the world which I feel like I'm missing out on now, but I've also come to realize that most of the things I am informed of on YouTube are negative and since I can't do anything about them, it ends up causing pointless stress. I have also realized that really knowing and being up to date on all this information, really doesn't positively benefit my life in any meaningful way. The other half of content I consume on YouTube can only be described as entertainment and nothing more. And since most of the videos in this half fall into the gaming category, I find other than just wasting my time, it also contributes to having more cravings towards video games. What I have found helps me greatly is to look really critically at your habits and really establish for yourself why they are bad. Our brains are constantly trying to trick us into justifying our addictive behaviors, sometimes to the point where we convince ourselves we don't have a problem when we actually do. To find examples of this, just look around you at the many people who will tell you they don't have a problem with using their phone, gaming, with abusing alcohol, drugs etc; even though they, to an outside observer, obviously do. I believe many people fail their journey into quitting games simply because at some point they manage to justify gaming in their lives and thus no longer believe they have a problem. And this is where making it really clear to yourself from the start, why these habits are harmful in as much detail as possible allows you to fight back when your brain starts attempting to justify these habits again. Regarding mindless chilling on YouTube, I defiantly miss it... I miss it a lot actually... Now that I don't mindlessly chill on YouTube, I'm finally actually realizing how many problems I have in my life: Mental, Emotional, Health, etc. And now I can't ignore them, which is really scary since I'm so used to running away from the challenges in my life. What effect having to face all these things are going to have on my life is yet to be determined, but surly facing my problems and not running away from them will, in time, have a positive effect on my life. Don't know if this helps or applies to you but this is what I've experienced thus far and I thought I would share. -
(Added) Sugar Detox - 28 days marked and counting (13 to go) 100 Days of Thanks - now 1/5 complete Duolingo - I had done a bit of more Spanish than Norwegian today, but then again I am taking a day at a time with the two (I didn't know Mom could do some German like Dad would, but it was my friend's heritage language (in case you are not confused with his native language called English).). CBS!Isaiah - my workbook is finished for now until tomorrow morning during the fellowship meeting Epic Fail - The reason why I finished the book today is it made me wanna do more Spanish Duolingo for like one lesson every 3 chapters of the book. What was so funny and weird is I completed it on José Martí's 167th heavenly birthday EVER (eh, he died exactly 104 years before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released to the cinemas)! Have you read his poetry before? Then you should look it up on the Internet for more information. In the search bar, type in "José Martí", click on the magnifying glass button, and viola! You got results about him! I don't know what happened to the Hungarian poet I learned a bit from back in 2017 with "Blood Rose Rebellion", but I must be on the search for him in some way. Anyone help me who it is? Thanks! By the way, The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora was a very predictable book. I can't tell you spoilers ahead. Note: this is a story aimed at "children and young adults". I'm out of a targeted demographic. Who cares? Next paragraph... I mean everyone in my generation is literally into Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, and Game of Thrones with some bit of HSM in it growing up. But then... they went their own separate ways instead. I am different from everybody and it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I mean these franchises are overrated back in the day, it is that bad, nobody cares... I was in love with the original Percy Jackson series back in 2012 and it was that good. It wasn't until a few years later in 2017 when I did the Left Behind series and I just wanna wrap it up before the uber-democrats get more and more crazy for the agenda of "everyone is getting a fair share". My 2018 entry in my secondhand plum primrose journal will be posted on my blog sometime this year for more specific details, but I just don't want to link it. I will do something different within the same website. I have sleep to work on... 😴😪😴😪😴😪😴😪
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Those cinnamon rolls look amazing. How did they turn out?! Can you send us some! 😉
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Hi! I am so sorry you are feeling bad my friend. Change IS hard. Our mind wants to keep us safe and comfortable and protected. When you are growing you will always experience pain as well. From what I’ve read, you need to make 1 small change at a time. Focus on what is really a priority first. For you, that seems to be studying. Work on this shift for 30 days, and then layer another shift. I hope this helps. You are doing great. Don’t give up... just keep putting in the effort. Have a beautiful day my friend.
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I love your photos! Thanks for sharing!!! Can I ask where you went in Colorado? It looks beautiful. 😊
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I'm not too sure, and out of respect for my friend and his daughter I don't want to share specific details. Only that they had to go through at least 2 psychiatrists to get a proper diagnosis. Sometimes it takes a while to get set up with the right person.
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Well, it happened again. What started with watching Twitch ended with me going to sleep at 7:30am after playing a game. I could see it happening a mile away. During the day while watching live-streams + YouTube videos I'd already told myself that I was going to download these games that I used to play. Man... I don't really know what I'm feeling at the moment. I'm not annoyed at myself. I think I'm still trying to process what's going on. Its been so easy in the past for me to get back to normality after gaming, but these past couple of weeks I can't seem to accept the fact that I can't play video games again. I can't tell if giving up alcohol completely has had an effect, I'd regularly have some beers a few times a week and so the empty evenings haven't helped. On the other hand, when I'm back in Chiang Mai I'll be living with my girlfriend. I know I won't be gaming then, I can't let her see that version of myself. She knows that gaming is a problem for me, although due to the language barrier it's difficult to get across how much of a problem it is. But even with a perfect routine, diet, sleep, and so on. I can't see myself actually wanting to quit gaming. That's the biggest problem I have right now. I can't see that there's a problem. I don't have the desire to go through with it. I just want to play games. I just want to watch Twitch and play games and go back to being a Twitch streamer. Even though I know, in my heart and my mind, that I don't *actually* want that for myself, I seem powerless to stop myself. I've been ignoring my therapist for days, despite the fact that this cycle of self-sabotage is exactly what we're supposed to be working on, I just can't be bothered. I know that I need to take action, I need to delete my games and block the damaging websites and just do work. I know that I can't expect things to change on their own. I'm not doing this post to get advice, I'm just trying to get my thoughts into writing. In other news, I've been working on a super exciting GQ project which I'm genuinely looking forward to working on. Which is something, I guess. I'll post an update later this week, and maybe talk about my experience in Ho Chi Minh (every single thing is still closed due to their new year so I'm having a great time). Peace.
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Agree. Except... I called the "basement" floor as my own since I live in a house that is a half-century old. To be honest, I have a learning disability since age 2 and I can't have a job for the past six or so-ish years now due to the social security income by big government. Worse case scenario: I am never gonna have $1k in savings and $200 in checking in a long run. Anyways, welcome to GQ. Good luck!
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Today was good. My books came in thre mail so I can read before bed again. They're thre rest of the pierce brown books. Finished 3 projects at work and got another very far along. I spoke with my therapist about life. I think he's in agreement that I am too black and white. An example of this is I don't want to date women until after my exam, but I've said that for 4 years. I could have had a 4 year relationship to the point where she'd understand and support my study habits. Another example is I told my closest friends I can't see them for 4 months because I have to study. Realistically, I can't study for 56 straight hours each weekend. You get my point. I'm going to practice balance similar to that yellow note I posted above. I feel better this week doing it. I got 8 hours of sleep last night and am happier. Today I went to therapy, then went grocery shopping, then cooked cinnamon rolls from scratch following this recipe: https://www.tastesoflizzyt.com/homemade-cinnamon-rolls/#wprm-recipe-container-18003
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Day 277 No VG - 277 days, no sports news - 8 days, NF - 3 days, SOB - 3 days, NNO59 - 3 days, NIA1030 - 2 day, NLAF - 3 days, NSOC - 3 days, Meditation - 0 days, No Internet Saturdays - 0 week, Post-It Weekends - 1 week. @Ikar, yeah, it's surprisingly effective at cutting through anxiety and actually just being a more effective person. I also find it becomes easier to handle difficult stuff earlier in the day when I'm fresh. I hope it works for you, too. --- Work up and down. Got distracted a lot by other people. I'm close to the point where I can start hiding in my inner sanctum that I moved to where I can do focused work. Right now I've just had a ton of physical papers to handle, which is far easier to do at my desk. Also, found less of a need for an internet fix tonight. That's nice. Habits are starting to come back into place.
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John's Diary - Search for Discipline
ElectroNugget replied to ElectroNugget's topic in Daily Journals
[ GameQuitters : 28 // Meditate : 17 // PornFree : 0 // NoFap : 0 ] Very late post, I should seriously be in bed right now. I'm really tired all the time and I'm acting out, staying up late, not abstaining from porn, not getting as much work done as I could be each day. I don't know if the whole exam season kinda left me burnt out or something but I feel like I'm out of oomph, and with the new semester starting up this is a bad time to be out of steam. Very worried that this year will just be another 'same old me' year. More bad sleep. More failed commitments to change. Just feeling low. -
Day 7 I have been dreaming about paying games. And then when I woke up, games were on my mind. I specifically thought about crafting factories in Factorio. This game kept my occupied for a while. I just love the way you progress building your first malfunctioning mess of a factory, and then put everything you know in to something better. I remember that after my 6th build, I actually felt sorry about the fact that I could not really use or share all this new knowledge in my daily life. Well... except if I would start a youtube channel or something... Its funny to see were craving comes from. Thinking about games like this usually makes me want to... well... play games. Now that I decided not to, I'm looking at it more consciously. And you know what? I am starting to feel a bit nostalgic, I am saying goodbye, farewell... It will probably take a while. We had our fun. But its time to leave it behind. Today I will be working on my projects I will do bookkeeping and taxes Lets read at least one chapter in Respawn
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God, I REALLY want to play a video game. I had to ask my friend to stop talking about the game she was playing because it's getting to me. Then I had a gaming dream, probably brought on by our convo.
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Tuesday - 2020/01/28 - Day 3 Happy to say I made it to day 3, and I have my first therapy session coming on Thursday, using a online tool called better help. I am looking forward to exploring more of myself and digging deep into my subconscious mind to begin healing in new ways. I think for along time I have been desiring somebody to talk to about how I am feeling and someone to validate that the way I am feeling is ok. I have also picked a book on the 12 steps of AA which I am hoping will also help guide me through new ways of learning about myself.
- Yesterday
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Day 310 28.01.20 Gratitude journal Today I am grateful for being productive. Today I am grateful for a nice day. One amazing thing that happened/I did today 1) really productive today and even managed to clean out part of my stuff I did not need anymore and always avoided taking care of Workout/run more than 13k steps 90min Tai-Chi Meditation 15min (during the day) Visualisation and daily affirmation did more of my affirmations during the day but my visualisation stayed the same so far Reading (6hour(s) of studying for the next exam today) studied 6h+, but did not my usual spanish exercises, listened a bitto my favorite dnd podcast as reward during cooking my wake-up time 08:30 Weekly Goal(s) get finally a fixed sleeping scedule, study/learn something everyday, have a perfect week and find healthy and productive ways to relax, meditate more, use a different, use at least a new word everyday to bolster my vocabulary Monthly Goal to study/learn something everday, be more grateful for everything in life, find the joy of living in the moment, think hard about my values and what kind of person I want to be, stay vegetarian or rarely eat meat, stay away from porn, anything related to games, webnovels and guilty pleassure fantasy books 3 Month Goal to finally getting my degree, avoid the comfort zone as much as possible and try to get 90 days of no webnovels, sweets and porn done! What went well today: (NP:3/NW:2/NS:0/NM:1) did my a bit of usual meditation but not my spanish session , studied more than my planned amount, had a nice Tai-Chi session, cooked two great meals and had a unbelievably funny chat with one of my best friends at a coffee shop What I could have done to make my day better: could have studied an hour more and done my spanish session, also should have started my day more dynamic also meditated more What I will do differently tomorrow/What I have planned for tomorrow: wake up at 8, study 6h+, go to university, go to the Tai-Chi session in the evening, meditate more, cook a bit, meet a friend for coffee in the afternoon Weekly summary, thoughts and improvements for the future ----
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Day 4 Another day without gaming. Today I finally motivated myself to learn some stuff for school. Was quite boring but it was a good distraction. In the evening i went to the gym once again, sports really motivate me and I don‘t have to think about gaming for a second. Therefore I will try to do some kind of sport every day from now on.
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I'll look into this.
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SSjoshi joined the community
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Detox(14) ????(1) Sleep was weird last night. I just passed out at 6 woke up at 2, then passed out again at... 5:40'ish? Then woke up at 9:30'ish'. W/E Dreading going this extracurricular activity. I keep telling myself that it is better than nothing, but it's a hard argument to make sometimes. I'm so afraid of something but what? Is not my current state what is to be dreaded? I don't get it.
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wastedlife94 changed their profile photo
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wastedlife94 joined the community
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Day 282: I studied and slept during the morning, took the exam and went for the practical philosophy course in the evening. I really enjoy taking those courses, as they are all volunteer-led and the lecturers are friendly, charismatic and I can have a good laugh with them sometimes. Day 283: TBA
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Day 63 NF 34 Np 17 Med 3 It's my new aim to post to forums right after the gym to get off technology before bedtime. Meditations going well since setting the timer. My workout advisor is saying to take rest days, that they're important. This is okay with me, but if I fully rest like, nothing but walking around and sitting. I'm going to have extra free time that I don't know what to do with. hmm . . . I guess I can read more. Maybe write a poem or draw anime.
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Day 60 (172.6 lbs) Goals for the week 3 Gym Workouts: 3/3✔️ Practice Guitar at least 15 minutes/day: 6/7✔️ Set up a date for next week with at least one new girl. ❌ No using Pornography. Masturbation is fine but no porn 6/7 ❌ Diet. Stick to my calorie limits 5/7 Sign up for Muay Thai Classes.❌ Rough week. Had to work late several nights over the week and put in hours over the weekend. It was hard to make time for dating or Martial Arts classes. I was super-stressed last night and couldn't get to sleep and looked at porn. Broke my 52-day streak. I'm going to start a new streak today. No reason to go back to it. I feel way better when I don't watch it at all. This project should go out Tomorrow or Thursday. I'm hoping for tomorrow so I can get back to normal life. I'm just trying to maintain right now and not binge-eat. Video games are still not a temptation as I don't have a console in my house.
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The Jeff nippier recommends the upper lower split
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Hi, I am catching up on your thread. How is your SO doing? It’s extremely brave of her to come to you with these feelings and it shows the trust she has with you. One thing that is helpful is a safety plan. When these overwhelming feelings come up, is there a safe place she can go to. Who can she call? Is there a sensory item she can have, a stress ball, lavender oil, blanket... that can ground her in her body. Maybe just give her one of these items as a present. Also, from a women’s perspective, our hormones have a lot to do with suicidal feelings. Please be sensitive to this. It may be especially hard during winter season or certain times of the month. I hope this is helpful. Talk soon my friend.
