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Hello, Very good my friend. Thanks for the software name. I can only say that, me too... you are not alone. Hope you r doing well
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Hello, My friend. You will thank yourself in next 1 year for giving up this addiction... lets do it together. this is my first day.
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Hey! Don't worry, soon you'll fill the time gaps with other activities, hopefully ones that work out better than gaming. I use Excel spreadsheets to write sort of a list/schedule for my days!
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Morning 1. Already hit my first detox symptom lol woke up an hour before alarm dreaming about multiple video games .. yet at the same time I had been neglecting getting up before sunrise when gaming so already off to a great start actually doing more things that are in my best interest. While the brain swimming in dopamine is like, "wtf why did you delete all those games u idiot", it is time for me to focus on the best part of detox - robust uninterrupted morning routines and flow states
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Social Anxiety I work in a career that caters to helping sick people. It's a people-job, yet I am not very well suited to it. I hide a lot of my social anxiety through a mask that I wear to my job every single day. I'm also introverted, so the energy required to be around people is overwhelming to me and I end up feeling quite drained. That's why I chose to go part-time for now, to allow my mind and body rest until the next shift at work. Gaming with strangers online, talking to them on Discord or TeamSpeak, was an easy way to socialize. It also kept me house-bound, and a bit isolated from meeting people face to face. I suspect that a lot of gamers are introverts or have shyness/social anxiety issues. I have felt a lot of shame about my SA. Despite coping with it, I did have two long-term relationships in my life, and a large social circle. When my relationships ended, I was back to square one, being alone. My significant others' friends also left, as it was too awkward socializing with them after the break-ups. Understandable. I just turned forty last year, and I'm still alone. I haven't been on a date in over seven years. Yup, it's been a while. I'm scared as heck of the dating scene too, and I am definitely not an online dater. Consequently, while gaming, I developed a crush on somebody that I gamed with regularly. But he was off limits due to his own relationship problems, and other issues he had to sort out. I confided in him that I had a crush, and he quickly dismissed it with a laugh. We continued to game together, but I knew that my naïve decision to tell him about my feelings had somewhat changed how we behaved around each other while gaming. It resulted in just a friendship, which did not extend itself outside the gaming arena. . I felt lonelier than ever. It quickly dawned on me that I can't spend the rest of my life hiding behind a computer, and filling a void. Online friendships are no substitute for real life relationships. Don't get me wrong, I still consider these people my friends. They know things about me that are quite personal, and vice versa. It's quite a phenomenal occurrence, actually, that people are brought together through a gaming experience. But I digress. My social anxiety has continued to be a crutch, deterring me from getting out there to mix and mingle, not necessarily to find a date, but to find new friends again. I'm doing my best, though. I'm starting with a small meet-up group that shares the same interests as I do. I'm boring..lol....I just love doing crafts, so I joined this group. I'm not big on sports or clubbing, or all of the modern things that maybe younger people are up to these days. I just want to test the waters a little, to see if I still have the ability to make new friends and brave the outcome no matter how it turns out. So yeah. I don't want to use gaming as an easy fix, or a place to hide away from the world anymore. I also want to be a bit choosy about which social outlets I want to attend. I guess I'm finnicky that way. When you've been tucked away in a clam shell for so long, you don't want to throw yourself into some frenzied crowded and noisy room. I have to start gradually and aim for small successes. Baby steps! Lastly, even if I do end up alone in life, meaning without a significant other, it doesn't mean I have failed, or that I am doomed. At least I can say that I tried, and I put forth a brave face in a world that can sometimes be cruel. I hope that I can learn from these experiences no matter if they result in good or bad outcomes. Peace all, and thanks for reading. I am so long-winded! lol
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30M looking to quit gaming, starting today :-)
choijiah replied to FenderUser's topic in Start Here & Introduction
Hello Christopher. I can feel almost everything you had been through. And your story motivated me. I decided like thousand times that today is the last day i play online game but I kept coming back again and again. Game is not interesting infact but the skills I have, the community, the history, memories, the habits ... it was so hard to let go , gaming was my life for such wasted 10 years. Visiting this forum, reading stories is the most powerful method to give it up, . Thanks. -
Day 203 13.10.19 Gratitude journal Today I am grateful for a great family. Today I am grateful for a nice weekend day. One amazing thing that happened/I did today ----- Workout/run more than 9k steps Meditation 20min (in the morning) Visualisation and daily affirmation did a bit affirmation Reading (1hours of studying for the next exam today) studied only 1 hour, but read around 6 hours and did my spanish session my wake-up time 08:30 Weekly Goal(s) start waking up before 7am regularly, (maybe another month of miracle morning is in order), study everyday, have perfect days in a row and find healthy and productive ways to relax Monthly Goal to study everday no matter how small the amount, 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 3 Month Goal getting my degree, avoid the comfort zone as much as possible and get 90 days of no webnovels, sweets and porn done! What went well today: (NP:1/NW:0/NS:0) did my meditation and my daily spanish and studied a bit, read a lot, What I could have done to make my day better should have down a bit more Tai-Chi and streching What I will do differently tomorrow/What I have planned for tomorrow: wake up around 8, go to university, study at least 6h (7 would be nice), do some Tai-chi and extra strechning excersise in the evening Weekly summary, thoughts and improvements for the future ----
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I loved it for the most part! Obviously the cinematography was beautiful and Joaquin Phoenix's acting was fire, but I also really liked the overall message. I do feel that we as a society have really failed to help the mentally ill, and the movie did a good job of reflecting the lack of empathy and assistance for those kinds of people. How about you?
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Day 13 - 10/13/2019 (Total days w/o gaming: 10; streak 0 days) I really turned this day around! Unfortunately I started the day watching gaming content from 9am - 2pm so I can't to my, "total days w/o gaming." But the moment I recollected at 2pm, I was able to focus and be productive. Made a quick recovery from my cold and am feeling 100% already. I was in bed all day Friday afternoon and Saturday and was just so bored that the cravings took over so I watching gaming videos basically the whole afternoon and all of Saturday. This morning I felt better, but the habit just carried on. I know I technically relapsed, but I'm actually more impressed with myself that I relapsed and was able to make such a quick comeback. The last four detoxes I tried, the moment I gave in and started gaming or watching gaming content, my will kindof just shattered and It really took 1-2 months to get back on my feet and commit to a real detox. It's more important to me that I can get back on my feet quicker since I know I will relapse at times. I say I'm doing a detox, but I'm really planning on quitting for the long run so my goal when relapsing is really to bounce back as quick as possible. Ideally I wouldn't relapse at all, but that's a goal for the long run. Anyways, at 2pm I got off my couch, turned on my, "SelfControl" app and blocked youtube, twitch, and twitter which are the sites I waste all my time on. Opened my phone checklist app and started cranking away at my dailies and weeklies since it is the weekend. Cleaned the whole house (didn't get to the yard but meh), did my laundry, did a bunch of smaller tasks, then I went skateboarding, got some exercise in there and saw some friends that happened to be there, went home and cooked a decently healthy meal, took the dishes out of the washer and cleaned the rest of the dirty dishes, called a friend, called my parents to chat, and now I'm here writing my journal. I felt pretty shitty Friday, Saturday, and this morning since I relapsed, but I've really been able to make a full recovery doing things and with my mood. Feeling awesome right now 🙂 I'm glad I picked myself up since at the skatepark today I landed two tricks I've been trying to get forever now (literally years). So fuckin happy I got those today. Can't wait to go back and solidify them and really add them into my bag of tricks. Gonna meditate and hit the hay. Got an early morning tomorrow and I needa stay on-top of this rhythm I'm feeling. Looking forward to day 14 and another great week.
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Have you ever spoken to a therapist about video game addiction?
BooksandTrees replied to RB1's topic in General Discussion
I'm still not there yet. Sometimes I do every 2 weeks. 3 years though and no regrets. You got this. -
Have you ever spoken to a therapist about video game addiction?
RB1 replied to RB1's topic in General Discussion
I actually met with a therapist two weeks back for the first time. This last week we had our first official session. Yes! I should have posted on this discussion board I made. I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but just that first session did wonders for me. I've concealed my depression basically my whole life and just speaking to a professional who I knew would not judge me for my words made all the difference. He didn't even really suggest much that first session, but just listened to everything I needed to say and that was like treatment for me. I will continue to go weekly until I trust can trust myself to stay on top of my life by myself. I'm not there yet and don't think I will be for a while. That's the goal for now. -
That's jaw dropping to me... Ok well now I'm just overwhelmed with inspiration :)
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Have you ever spoken to a therapist about video game addiction?
BooksandTrees replied to RB1's topic in General Discussion
I see a therapist every Tuesday and have done so for almost 3 years. It's saved my life. I was afraid of how severe my depression was and after 2 coworkers at my old company commit suicide I needed a therapist. It took a year and a half for me to tell him how much video games were crippling my life. It took that long because I didn't know gaming was the problem. Therapy, this game quitters community, and my patience has gotten me almost a year without gaming so far. I highly recommend therapy to anyone even if it's for a little bit. -
I also saw joker! What did you think? I have mixed feelings.
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Hi. In my quest to determine if I am addicted or not to video games, I happened to do some reflection this afternoon about how my personality changed as I played an MMORPG. Now, I'm already a testy person by nature, I just have a short fuse sometimes. But when I grouped up with people to complete a difficult dungeon, I'd easily get irritated over and above my norm. My irritation would sky-rocket from zero to ten in under thirty seconds, especially if we were up against a tough pull. I didn't rage at people in the game, as in swearing left-right-and centre. But boy did I show colors I didn't want to show. I could empty a room with my tone of voice sometimes. And it wasn't easy to calm down either. I'd feel tension in my neck, shoulders, ringing in my ears as if my blood were boiling. This wouldn't dissipate unless I went for a long walk afterward, which I rarely did. I'll bet my blood pressure went through the roof too. I hated myself for it. I spent some years practicing anger management strategies, but all that went out the window while playing video games with other people. That's one of the reasons why I want to tone down video gaming, or stick with single player games after my detox, if I decide to moderate. Or do away with gaming altogether because it drastically influences my mood in a negative way. I also teamed up with people who eventually broke and became irrationally angry too, due to the stress of a difficult fight. And I know these people weren't normally like this. It was a revelation to observe, and really disturbing sometimes. And we call this a 'game'? Yay, what fun.
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Thank you for the kind words @Ikar. I just try to see it as a learning experience, thankfully at this point, most of the negative emotions are gone and sometimes I'm glad for the better parts of the relationship. End of the Week Had a few thoughts of playing games at the start, but I'm riding of wave of being grateful for not playing games anymore. It's really refreshing and again I've been more in social in the last three days than the last two months! I've also done more studying in the past two days than the last two weeks! Becoming a lot more productive 🙂 Porn and vaping quitting has been harder. Watched porn once since the start, I sort of forgot the reason I quit, maybe it'll be a once in a week kind of deal, still a large improvement. I'll do more research tonight and see. My friend and I both decided to quit vaping today, so we using our last bit of e-juice and then we threw everything non-saleable out. We plan to sell the vapes. So both porn and vaping are Day 1 of quitting. The vape cravings are pretty hefty, but what helps is being outside and envisioning a life without a dependency on drugs. Plus, vaping always made me super anxious afterwards. However, I'm worried because I still romanticize it because I've had a lot of good times around it. It's a work in progress, this is furthest I've ever gotten to quitting vaping. It was hard as hell to quit before because my ex vaped and smoked like a train so it was always within reach. No excuses, forward with optimism. Thanksgiving in Canada tomorrow, think my mates are having a Thanksgiving dinner, lol if any of us can cook a turkey. If not, it's a holiday, going to workout, do some work and go out to anything I want haha.
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Cravings becoming stronger over time, instead of less
CornishGameHen replied to all4game's topic in General Discussion
I appreciate this answer. I am not sure if I am really addicted to video gaming either. I'm here to experiment and determine if I get any cravings at all, and what emotional response manifests when I crave games. What part of gaming do I crave? And if I cave into the crave, will I lack the control to stop gaming? I've been a casual/moderate gamer the past couple of years, with some intermission as well wherein I didn't play video games for weeks. At one time I was addicted, but there was also a family tragedy that I was trying to cope with. -
Aw crap, missed a bunch of days on here again. Wonderful! I'm just going to transcribe put up the raw notes that I have for each day so that I can catch myself up quickly. Day 10: Went to a rodent aseptic surgery class, left work early and got lunch with friends. Went on a night hike of Mission Peak with my parents, and did med school stuff for a few hours afterwards with the help of caffeine. Overall a fun day! Day 11: Spent a day with my dad and watched Joker. Also watched the new episode of My Hero Academia. Day 12: Spent the whole day working on medical school stuff. Took a break to watch the niners absolutely stuff the Rams! Decided that I would like to run a triathlon and spent some time today on the internet looking up training plans. I think working towards an entry level race could be a viable project that I could do during this period of time if hiking proves to be too big of a time investment.
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Quitting Gaming - One Choose
CornishGameHen replied to WilliamSilent's topic in Start Here & Introduction
Hello William, It's good that you posted and shared. Whatever you can do to get away from gaming, do it. Please watch Cam's videos on YouTube as well. They are quite inspirational and cut right to the point. I know that reading posts here can be almost overwhelming, with the amount of journal entries and posters. Watching his videos is a quick way to remind yourself about gaming addiction and its pit-falls. Keep in touch here, write a journal, etc. Best regards. -
You have a vibrant way of describing your turmoil with gaming. For a person who speaks a different language, your post was very well written. Anyway, moving onward to what you wrote. I think you have very good intentions. I hope you are able to follow through somehow. It's like biting the hand that feeds you, as an analogy. You work in the industry that pays you, yet you loath it as well. I used to play a game which incorporated loot-boxes into the system. You'd buy the keys with real cash, open the lootbox, and voila...your reward can be anything of value for armour or jewelry, or nothing of value at all, like cosmetic clothing or stupid housing items. It bled the community dry and many people left that game because of nature of gambling. And it catered to people who didn't have much time to play. (like me, for example). You buy the lootboxes to get the armour, which would allow you to join raids that required better gear to play the dungeons. So, now you're combining gambling addiction with gaming addiction! I hope to hear about your efforts to combat this problem in the future.
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New here, though my problem is not new
CornishGameHen replied to FeatherHeather's topic in Start Here & Introduction
Hello Heather, I liked reading your post. Thank you for sharing. I hope you are doing ok with the detox, if you have already started it. It would be cool if this forum had a sub-forum for single parents too. -
Congrats on your decision CGH I've no doubt you will find answers to many of your questions here, we are here with you!
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Aw thanks that was 30 days without any kind of digital technology, lot of book reading! I will journal here as I get back into the swing of things.
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It's too bad you won't be journaling online, but I understand why you choose a paper journal. I guess post back here every so often to briefly summarize where you're at. Congrats on the 30 days of no-gaming too, and your previous successes with going past 90 days. It's sure a lot farther than what I've done, so kudos!
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Day 0, No games with my life. Having previously made it well past 90 days I know the drill, let's do this GQ :) Made sure today to remove games from my computer and from the backup drive I didn't remember to clean last go round. Eventually I will again attempt a 90 day digital detox but I have got to take time first to detach gaming from my life again then for a digital detox to be successful I think having a local "offline" accountability partner is most important. A wingman that will not just tell you its time to get out of the house but will be in your driveway honking the horn. Got to get into making friends like that, for darn sure.
