What happened was 1) Stress in a public place, 2) Feeling good for initially prioritising my mental health, 3) Used as a reward for reaching out and updating you here, and 4) Boredom when I convinced myself that 'zombie-time-goals' were the healthiest short-term option (though on my game, they never stay short-term in my case). 

What I thought and/or discovered was that no one was going to come knocking on my door (at home or virtually in direct message) because of the decisions I made alone, on and offline. A lot of my activities in the last 1-2 months, what with my new and existing social groups and the members in them were not planned very well. I put a lot into the new groups, and I guess didn't get what I needed. 

The same needs for reciprocation can be brought up here. It is not yours, or perhaps anyone's fault. I had an interesting and active first stage of my life, and between those things (and being me), I express a lot and usually have. The disappointment I felt in both myself and my 'circle' - including these forum pages - was enough for me to decide to withdraw (and delete my journal - wise, I am not sure, but I felt humiliated/humbled enough), and it could have been a longer period than just this last week. I have had my basic music collection + system recommendations, other random players and webpages in general to thank for that (and then my conscience). 

I noticed one main thing this past week, and that's my lacking in the 'balls' department. I may not even need different medication, if at all to fix this. However, I have not actually allowed myself to fully mesh with my physical/local community since living on my own. There is no assurance that this is even possible, but it is essential that I give it a go. I guess all I'm asking for is a 'good luck', like I finished so many of my previous posts with, but also because I don't want to just remember being mad at everyone and that you deserve this explanation and better from others.

Heaped personal messages to friends and family wasn't working, and being overly attached to the typing of 'the whole story' very frequently here turned out not to work well enough either. I want to be a kind of responsible that I haven't quite yet tried.

Some people seem to have mentioned merely 'having mental health' as though it were a bad thing - even having the conscious awareness of it. To me, that is appalling. Not now, nor in the future do I want myself or anyone to feel the need to play games on a machine (and be 'played' in return) any more or less than when I found GQ, one and a half years ago. What I want for us/everyone who resorts to the internet is conscious and good mental health. That's why from now I'll probably just lurk/stop by while trying to do life the way I need/was meant to. I might like posts or sometimes reply with praise/encouragement, but I am convinced way more of my life remains 'out there', or at least where I might really have to put in work, besides compulsively recounting my day/airing my thoughts.

Sorry for any grief. What also hit me this week is how fragile our collective ties can be, so I'll try to remember that as well. Peace,

Matt

I recently made the decision to quit gaming after realizing it was consuming a significant portion of my time and affecting various aspects of my life; including my productivity; social relationships; and mental health. It is been about two weeks since I stopped playing; and while I feel good about my decision; I am finding it challenging to fill the void that gaming used to occupy.

Before quitting; I would spend hours gaming as a way to relax; escape; and sometimes procrastinate. Now that I am not gaming; I find myself with so much more time; but I am struggling to figure out how to use it constructively.

I have tried picking up a few hobbies like reading and exercising; but I have not been able to maintain the same level of engagement or excitement that I had with gaming. I also find myself tempted to go back to gaming whenever I am bored or stressed.

Also, I have gone through this post; https://forum.gamequitters.com/index.php?/topic/11009-im-struggling-with-workday-gaming-addiction/ which definitely helped me out a lot.

I would love to hear from anyone who has successfully filled the gap left by gaming. How did you maintain a balanced life and find new activities that were just as fulfilling? Did you face moments where you felt tempted to game again; and how did you overcome them?🤔

Thanks so much for your help and assistance.😇

however, it's summer and many of my friends are on vacations, travelling with their friends or partners. and here i am, a uni student whose overprotective parents came to visit without much warning, judging me on my academics and personal life. i just want to watch youtube and watch reels 24/7 because I want to distract myself from this situation.

plus, i can't do half the things i wanted to do this summer because of my parents

i've been waiting for this summer a long time but now it feels like it's ruined. i just want to numb myself from this. i tell myself that "it's okay if you open instagram and scroll now, you'll enjoy life once your parents leave" but i know i shouldn't do it. idk what to do instead

what should i do?

But today I installed Terraria and played all day long, ignoring all the tasks and responsibilities I was supposed to be doing. The reason? Lately I've been having many cravings. All my friends from college play many videogames, and often they invited me to play with them. So I think hearing them talk all the time about how cool those games were, or how much fun they were getting, I started to think that I was missing on something important. I was burnt out, and thought that if I could start gaming in moderation, I could have fun with my friends too.

I didn't want to. At the start I could deal really well with all these cravings, but with time, it slowly became more hard to manage. I started to miss the games I used to play real much, too.

But I think that the thing that made me prone to game again the most, was forgetting my goals. Why I ended gaming for good, what did I want to do with my life.

Since the very first moment I started to play again, I knew I shouldn't be doing it, and I started feeling bad. An hour ago, I forced myself to get out from the game and watch one of Cam's videos about relapsing.

And then I remembered, and my perspective shifted. Right after watching the video, I uninstalled and completely deleted the game from my pc.

I was reminded what I told myself: I gamed enough for life. I quitted for good.

I also recalled all the good things I did in these three months: I started excercising everyday, studying for college (I even enjoyed it!), made new friends, and much more!

So when I came here, I read Cam's post about relapsing, where it says that we shoudn't see relapse just as something bad, but also as a possibility to learn. And just after reading that, I understood. Between the many reasons I ended up playing again, the main ones were:

1. In my college almost everyone plays games a lot, so it becomes really hard not to have cravings if all the people around you talks about it on a regular basis. At the start I managed to meet many people and make new friends without having gaming in common, though. I learned that even if everyone around me games, it doesn't mean that I'm missing something if I don't do it too. I can still engage and have lots of fun without doing it. In fact, I already did!

2. I was working all the time. I was burnt out. Though I've progressed a bit on giving myself permission to rest or relax, irl it's also very likely that at some point you get bored. But I couldn't bare to be so, therefore, whenever I was bored or got nothing to do, I was thinking about gaming. So, I reminded that it's ok to be bored. It's even good, I'd say, cause then you come up with something to do.

In conclusion, all I wanted to say was that it's ok to relapse. It just means you're struggling to better your life, and you just gotta learn from it. If you're depressed and believe that all that effort went to waste, you better think also about the things you did well! Be grateful about all what you achieved in your sober periods, no matter how many or how few they were.

And no matter what will happen in the future, the only thing you have to remind is that you're getting better everyday. You. Are. Getting. Better. Believe it, cause it's true. Cause it's what you want.

Have a great time!

What can I say? I'm ashamed of myself. I'm 47 years old and I'm still playing video games like a fiend and I have very little in life to be proud of. I can't tell you the amount of hours that I've thrown away sitting in front of my tv, mindlessly pushing buttons. I have removed all games from my phone and I have packed away my Xbox with the intention of putting it up for sale. I don't want to be this person anymore. 

This is like my 3rd attempt at quitting in 5 years. I have wasted enough of my life away in virtual worlds. Time to spend the rest of it doing something....anything....other than absolutely nothing. 

Anyway, this is DAY 1 for me. My guard it up. I can't do this anymore or I'll end up hating myself. I mean, I'm already sitting at a strong dislike of myself, I don't need my thoughts about myself to sink any lower. 

I have some interests that I've pushed aside to play vids. I intend to start focusing much harder on myself and my goals. 

These goals include:

1. Focus on health and fitness

2. Learn my synthesizers

3. Educating myself: I have a bunch of Udemy courses that I've downloaded. I intend to start completing them as well. 

4. Focus on my relationships. All the time I've spent choosing video games over real life has cost me dearly. Time to put more effort into being a better human. 

When I first joined this site I was no naïve. I was too focused on the short game. Of just quitting. I will try to address my emotional state and sense of worth more deliberately. 

Anyway, I'm back. I pray that I have the mental strength to see this through and put video games behind for good. For life. 

speedrunning is dedicated to spending weeks, even months, refining a single playthrough, and at any point if something isn’t smooth enough, you have to start over. It’s not something you can do in a spare-time hobby because its about beating the time, not playing the game, and you can’t do that on your occasional spare time.

You sit in a dark room, probably recording yourself, and you spend hours and hours of your time focused on an overall time to beat, maybe even by just a few minutes. You shun time with friends, family, socializing, your awareness of the world’s events dwindles. You compromise your relationships because you’re hyper-focused on applying a very specific, extremely specialized skill to probably not but hopefully shave off the total time taken on a particular couple of video games.

You don’t explore new games or new tech. You aren’t developing coordination and multi-tasking skills for other uses, you’re just repeating a process over and over for it’s own sake. You’re not puzzle-solving and sharpening your mind. You’re not even play-testing games to ensure quality for thousands or millions of potential players. You’re not developing anything. Your skillsets aren’t transferrable to anything. You’re not learning anything, not improving the world, not increasing your job qualifications… you’re not even improving your quality of life. If anything, you’re making it worse.

If you’re creating content for entertainment—there’s a LOT of other things you can do with that, with greater outreach and more impact.

Speedrunning isn't a casual hobby or sport of entertainment…it’s an addiction.

.

Take something like figure skating. The activity in of itself, like video gaming, is harmless. You’re performing a dance with moves that are very difficult to pull off, and more difficult to perfect with timing, grace, and strength. Even if you’re not competing, you’re exercising, you’re increasing balance, coordination, and learning about yourself physically. You can make videos on it, you can entertain people (it is dancing performance, after all). You can apply your skills to be an ice skating coach and make some decent money. There’s a community of other skaters to get involved with. You can challenge yourself with hockey-style skating or explore freestyle ice skating.

But speedrunning is the videogame equivalent of figure skating for the Olympics to get a gold medal. You can’t figure skate casually and as a fun side hobby to be a gold medalist. You have to start young and practice so thoroughly it consumes your life. So many young girls get trapped into it and race themselves to “keep up”, improve, learn, shunning friends and family to beat something as the absolute best.

But at least with figure skating, the routines are different, the dances you pick are different, and there’s a few real-world, and physically healthy, applications available from it. You can’t make $30 / half-hour coaching speedrunning.


---
That has really resonated with me and makes me really want to dedicate myself to real life goals, I dont have to be the best but I want to learn some real life skills and hobbies that I can do to really better myself and show real life improvement. Right now I've been trying to learn that guitar I've had for 10 years and work on my spanish speaking skills. 

I just do nothing and games in the day because it feels good, but in the end, I just feel really guilty instead. I can’t convince myself that it is bad when my computer is nearby. 
 

Is there a method for even just temporarily delaying a craving?

Well I’m sick and tired of this behaviour. I previously managed to stay game free for 90 days and I’m aiming to manage a full year now. The hardest part is not looking for news about releases and consoles as I like to watch clips on Youtube. But maybe I can find some way to get around this in the near future. If anyone has any advice on the matter I’ll gladly take it. 

It's been a long time since I last logged in this forum, glad to be back.

Today I just need to put some thoughts out of my head, so that's what I'll do.

Where do I begin...

After, like, 5 months since I finally quitted gaming, I relapsed.

Again. 

I thought it'd be final, that it wouldn't happen again, that now I had it under control, got myself under control, but no. This strong temptation to play a game had to get the best of me one more time. I couldn't help but deceive myself. I gave up, and it's fucking frustrating, specially after all the progress I made in these months (or this year).

I started a new carreer in college, got good grades (bc I studied), got to meet many new friends, I came to be more social... I even started talking with a girl I like recently.

I'm usually optimistic in general, but the reason I'm mad with myself is the moment this relapse is happening. It's just the worst time possible to do it!

During the past months, it was much easier to resist gaming, if I had a craving, that is. Because of college, I had many responsibilities I had to attend, so not even cravings were frequent at the time. But now that the period had just finished, I have a lot of free time again, and as opposite as in college, where things sort of arranges things for me, now I am responsible for managing my time and what to do with it.

I feel that last part was one of the two most important reasons why I fell back into gaming. I... simply had forgotten which were my other goals. What do I want to do after finals are over? What had I planned for vacations?

The other reason, was that I was tired. Well, I AM tired. From college. And now I don't feel I have the energy to do all those things I wanted. "I just want to relax", I thought. "I don't want to think much now, I'll wait a bit until I relaxed and then I'll continue with my projects again".

The third reason, finally, is the one I mentioned before: I started making progress with a girl I like. To me, this is a really big deal.

Look, for a long time I considered myself a shy, even anti-social guy. Today, though the social aspect is still difficult for me, I think I progressed a lot, specially with girls. I have some friends that are girls, I don't get as nervous when meeting new people or starting a conversation, I hold more eye contact... I'm still pretty naive, though more perceptive than before. And recently I got to know this girl in college, she's one of my classmates in a couple of classes. We met to study together for an exam, and quickly we had good vibes. From then we started hanging out before class, and at some time I noticed something was developing. We both couldn't stop smiling when talking to each other, I made her laugh (I'm horrible with humor)...

I think I like her, and I had the chance to ask her out, but I missed it. Again, this social thing is still very difficult for me, but I'm trying my best. Now that classes are over, we no longer have those opportunities to hang out, so how I see it, this is the final chance. And in the worst moment possible, instead of trying to overcome this struggle, I gave up and got back to gaming.

SO. FRUSTRATING. AARGGHHHH!!!

Now it's been a week or two since we last met, but I like to think I still have a chance, that it's now or never, but each moment that passes makes it seem more difficult.

I'll be really honest with you: this happened to me before. This is really embarassing for me, but I just don't want things to happen like those times. I don't want to lose oportunities anymore.

Sorry for that part, I didn't want to deviate from the purpose of the post but like I said it's really important for me so I wanted to put it out of my head for a bit.

So, it's just been a couple days of relapsing I think. Most of it was going all out, gaming many hours a day nonstop, then regretting it and uninstalling all games.

I keep saying that I'm just spitting thoughts here, that you don't have to mind this, but you know what, maybe I do need some help. This things are tough for me to speak, and while it's easier for me to put out here on a post, it's hard for me to open up in front of other people. Didn't really had the oportunity to either. So if you please could send me good vibes, just supporting me with a quick reply will mean a lot. Thanks guys, really.

To be honest, I found the whole idea of having an addiction hard, I still do.  My counsellor said I needed to be careful self-diagnosing and making what might just be behavioural issues pathological and suggested some alternative ways forward so I'll try those.

Feels good to write about it, but I'm not sure where to go from here because on one hand I feel free allowing myself to do it, but I really need to put plans in place to control it.

I brought 3 xboxes one was 360 as I wanted to play some old games and 2 xbox ones (one didt have a disc drive so brought another one). I wanted to play some old game I haven't played and then my 2nd relapse was to play fitness games on xbox but I struggled to do that.

Currently Really craving getting the new lego star wars ( which im probably going to buy) as I want to play my favourite characters,play through favourite parts of the movies and to explore.Mayve I just want to control and be in that universe which I love.

When i brought game pass None of the games really interest me I'm very fussy and only like NBA,Lego,Star wars and marvel. I get alot of cravings to play games but when I actually play them I'm sort of disinterested and don't want to play it which is a continual cycle which also causes me to buy new things all the time. One of my bad habits is I buy books but don't read them love the feeling of buying something feel like I always need too.

My phone use with youtube is bad I go on it all the time can't do much without having it on as well eg:when I'm eating or putting cream on. I put it on when I'm bored which is alot of the time and don't know what to do in a day. I write things on to do list sometimes but are short, don't take long to fill up day and/or I put it off and do them.

I watch gaming videos on youtube all the time can't help it my brain craves them and hasn't changed this is what I watch/listen 90% of time 

All I do at night is scroll on my phone.

When I come back from work I just want to relax which is normally what I do the whole of the next day and don't do anything I just don't know what to do.

I have been referred to a gaming clinic as j still have 2 months before I get a assessment Im like why not buy lego star wars, can finish story in that time so I'm able to play it and try it so it's off my mind but might be wasting my time like I always do and time is going by so fast I'm already 19 now!

I live with my mum and I'm not very independent and struggle to be self reliant I rely on other people alot. Maybe I need to go away from my house as I'm maybe too comfortable right now I don't know.

I have a couple dreams,ideas and asprirations which I would like to try but feel like I can't, it's too hard, too far away etc.Dont know how to start and try some of them.

I hope this makes sense I'm not very good at this at all I'm sorry. 

Thank you so much.

Might have forgotten to say a few things to say but need to get some sleep now :).

Edit : today I test a new thing for me : no wifi at home (and no video game)

Since I quit gaming last time, I moved cities, found a decent full time job in IT, got in shape, decided to go back to uni to get an engineering degree (i failed out first time due to gaming) while still working full time, travelled a bunch in the annual leave breaks.

First 2 years of uni went alright, i had all HDs and decent project work.

Gradually work started getting more hectic with new products i had to learn to support, but I prioritised uni instead and kept falling behind. My boss at the time was super nice and kinda gave me a pass a lot of the time, but i was starting to spin wheels.

I started developing bad habits or stopped keeping up with the good ones to try stay on top of the marks.

I didn't realise how much of a marathon it would be rather than a sprint. It seems i had enough for 2 years but the degree is 4.

I thought I'd take a break from work and went to Taiwan to do an engineering internship at a research org. The trip was amazing, but savings were beginning to run out.

Came right back to an intense 3rd year semester of uni with 2 major project units. At the same time i got contacted by a recruiter from Google and passed the first online interview. Decided i was going to focus on it instead of looking for a (more realistic job opp). Had to juggle preparing for an in-person interview and finishing the projects.

I took the hints from the recruiter in a completely wrong way and my interview prep was all in vain. The interview was such a disconnect that the guy straight up cancelled whatever else they were going to put me through that day. This was more than a year ago and i still cringe at how bad it was, like how did i even get there, why didn't they screen better in online interview???

I was almost out of savings and hugely demoralised. I called my old boss literally 15 minutes after the interview and asked if i could get my job back. Luckily I could but I'd have start in a low place again and under a different manager.

The new boss is a bit of a micromanager...

I kept going with uni part time.

Corona hit and it was the first time i couldn't keep up with uni. We started working from home and it became so hard to stay motivated.

Working from home is also so impersonal, at least it turned out like that at my work. I used to talk shit with colleagues all the time and they are all great team players who would put me into a good mindset, they are passionate about what they do. I pretty much lost that support network to corona. Can't separate work from home anymore.

Never built an engineering studies support network, been lone wolfing it the entire time. Mainly because i didn't have time for social life anyway, and it was fine until then because i socialised at work.

My last project reports were honestly shit and the lecturer gave such terrible feedback(no sugar coating whatsoever to say the least) that i just quit the unit. I think i would've passed it but in the moment i felt like i wasn't going to. I still got an HD for one other unit but not without struggle.

My girlfriend lost her job due to corona as well. The place we were staying at became too expensive, and its benefits of being close to work/public transport/shops completely disappeared. So we moved to a cheaper apartment in between my studies.

This is southern hemisphere btw, Australia, so it's second semester now. I was really looking forward to the units in this semester originally. The move effected the first few weeks back to studying - i didn't do any. Felt so behind and under pressure that I decided to quit for the rest of this year.

During the last few months i watched so much junk YouTube and have not been dealing with stress like an adult... Even after quitting uni i couldn't stop the bad habits yet.

Finally, i got recommended some gaming videos on YouTube around last week and been watching them almost every day, unable to get out of vicious cycle.

Writing this down it looks like it was bound to happen. Even though I'm probably cherry picking the events and personal faults i think lead to this, I didn't really prepare for the marathon and i prioritised it over basic health upkeep at times. It's hard to step back and review until you realise something dramatic is happening. It took a long time to slowly spiral out to this. And even this level is still so much better than where i was before i joined here first time.

I have got to remember to be grateful for having a somewhat stable(hopefully) income at this time. I didn't go back to full gaming. I didn't go back to the original game i was obsessed with. I'm grateful I'm not alone.

Right now I've resolved to quit gaming again. Try and get some good habits going.

I want to become more resilient and less swayed by emotions/stress.

I want to reignite the passion that spurred me to get back to study in the first place. I only have one and a half years worth of uni left, I'll be going back next March. I want to prepare for it by getting better at academic writing.

I want to make some friends with similar goals, whether it's staying off gaming or self-improvement, or engineering/programming.

Hopeful, but it's still a lot of hard work. Let's go.

I am a game addict and recently relapsed. I have stopped for 2 days now and the dopamine withdrawal is pretty hard to deal with, especially when I think how good i did last time.

I keep thinking perhaps if I have a sponsor i wont have to do this back and forth.

Hope anyone here is interested to be my sponsor or we can sponsor each other.

I am trying to exercise more to fill my days and continue my hobby to get some new goals in life.

Feel free to DM me, thanks and much love.

The game is good, but I have played it all - even the newest expansions, and THERE IS NOTHING NEW FOR ME TO DO THERE.

Yet, I did it again.

So, as I have said many times, I am old.  I'm 59.  And what I have proven to myself over the last 3 weeks is this:  I STILL HAVE THE FOCUS TO WORK AT SOMETHING FOR 10 HOURS A DAY.

So that's good, right?

I AM SO READY TO BE DONE WITH GAMING.

I know I'm going to face my work again tomorrow morning, and get that feeling in my brain that I absolutely MUST do literally anything else, but I need to press on.  I need to think of billable hours as renown points, and payday as a conquest goal.  

I have uninstalled, and I'm taking all the additional steps too.

• Uninstall the app
• Shift+Delete the installer from c:\downloads  (Shift+Delete removes files without putting them in the recycle bin so you can get them right back).
• Delete the security key app from my phone.
• Cancelled my subscription

I know, guys: the lockdowns, business failures, and rank political climate are sending a lot of us spiraling.

Add to that the fact that those of us seeing counselors CANT GO SEE THEM.  At least not in California.  

The depression is taking hold, and I AM TAKING A STAND.

This is MY LIFE dammit, and I want it BACK!

The problem was, I still had not cured the underlying issues with why I gamed in the first place. I was seeking help, and only a couple of weeks til my first appointment with  councilling. It just all got so hard. Dealing with depression and self worth. The lack of supports and access to mental health is bad enough. But when life gets really heavy and you would rather escape than doing something even more drastic, you are not left with much in the way of choices.

Argh!!

So here we go again...

In my opinion, video games are identical to alcohol or drugs. It triggers uninhibited release of happy hormones in your brain, which in turn makes you want more. The only way to handle video games is not to play it -at all-. One cannot even touch one drop of this poison. 

I struggled so much to the point where I had to sell my computer. I've never been happier. I have a 2011 Mac Air now which can only answer emails and use Microsoft Word (with lag), which is more than enough for me. I think that for most people, they really do not need much computing power. So if you are struggling with constant relapses, consider selling the computer / gaming station! Then you'd have nothing to relapse with when you want to, and by the time you wake up the next morning, the urge is decreased or gone.

Let me know your thoughts!