Hi, I'm MegaTiny. I'm 31 and this is my journal. I'll start with a little rant about why I'm here: Why I'm doing this I'm in the enviable position of not needing to have a job thanks to shares from my previous one. The downside of this is I had to leave that job of five years mainly because video games were seriously affecting my work i.e. jump before pushed. I'd both stay up incredibly late playing them and try to secretly play them at my desk/take extra long lunch breaks. It severely damaged the quantity of my work, but because everyone there liked me and my addiction has made me a practised liar, people just assumed my boss was a demanding arsehole. And I let them believe that because it made keeping my job easier. This has been a problem for me in every aspect of my life and doesn't go away no matter what the situation is. For example when I was doing a snowboard instructor course in Canada for four months I would sometimes make up an injury so I could stay in to play stupid online flash games all day. Or when I was in Central America on an amazing tour with a beautiful girl, I spent the whole thing dreaming of my next Dark Souls build for when I returned, getting genuinely grumpy that I couldn't be doing that right then and there. I could list many, many more, however as pretty much the epitome of a high-functioning addict no one has ever even questioned my gaming bar one very posh girlfriend who was worried it would affect my posture. So let's bring this to present day: I've had a full year off work at this point and achieved almost nothing. The other day I played OverWatch from 8PM to 10AM. Hating myself, the game and everyone on my previous team, I logged off and opened up Reddit. After browsing through all of my usual gaming subs I stumbled across the infamous r/askreddit post linking to this site's sub. It was like a lifeline. Seeing all those stories and watching a few of Cam's videos, a little switch went off in my head. Everything people had written resonated with me and I saw, not for the first time, that this is something truly serious. Something that I need to take care of if I'm ever going to achieve anything in my life. I'm getting older and it's do or die. So here we go! Long term goals Quit videogames for goodBuild good habits around eating, sleeping and working out. I am already pretty knowledgeable on eating and working out, having lost 24KG in the past six months, but my sleep pattern is a disasterComplete my personal design projectImprove my digital artwork skillIncrease local social circle, as most of my good friends don't live in the same city (or in some cases country) as meHave a romantic lifeBe a bigger part in my family's life (brother/sister/mum not wife and kids)Avoid ever being in this situation again (NSFW language warning) Goals for the week (it's Thursday already but hey, goals are goals) Remove access to my video games - √ -Finish implementing basic systems for personal projectPractice art for every day that's left - X -Spend time with my family - √ -Re-connect with one pre-existing local friend Sign up for counselling --- Day 1 --- Woke up: 11:00 (recovering from preposterous video game binge the night before) Bed time: 00:30 Diet: Quesadillas, but cooked healthy meals for dinner and the next two days. Workout: Nothing. Social: Noting now that I visited my brother in London earlier this week and had a great time.Called my Dad who lives in Ireland, costing me a small fortune.Arranged a meet up with some old work friends for Saturday.Artwork: Nada. Weekly Goals: I started today by steeling my heart, packing up all of my consoles, and taking them to the local electronics exchange. Made a tidy £360 off of my PS4 and Wii U (not amazing I know, but I needed rid of them fast). I already gave my Xbox One to my brother as I wasn't playing it so that's one less thing to worry about. Then came the hard part: coming home and removing access to my Steam, Battle.Net and Origin accounts. This was incredibly hard to do. I felt serious anxiety pangs as I clicked the verification links that would scramble the email and passwords associated with them, like I was killing a pet dog. Seventeen years of my gaming life gone in fifteen minutes(I've had that Battle.Net account since Diablo 2 came out). It's already been a success though as I instinctively went to click on both Steam and the Blizzard app when I was bored this evening. I've also cleared up 700GB (!) on my hard drive. That's the fun, vindicating bit over and done with. Taking these steps has strengthened my resolve ten-fold, though I know the truly difficult part will come with letting people know. I have no idea how I'm going to tell my buddies that I play Heroes and Ark with that I'm not coming back. I imagine it's the last time I'll hear from them after years of good times online. That thought upsets me, and I hope reconnecting with local friends will help somewhat. Cheers if you've taken the time to read this, I really appreciate it. Things that went well today: I got rid of all my video gamesRoom no longer looks like a garbage tip