NEW VIDEO: The EASIEST Way to Stop Gaming
Moe Smith
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Posts posted by Moe Smith
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So I should clarify why I named my journal, "Moe's Fantasy Writer Journal." I am indeed an amateur fantasy novelist. I've been working on my first novel for about 14 years (inconsistently), and it is a major source of pride and passion for me in my life. As I continue my path down the line of not gaming, I hope to replace much of that time with writing. When I have the time and content, I'll include an excerpt from my book. Hopefully people on these forums will find that kind of fun! It should also motivate me to write a bit more.
So take Day 1 and fast forward eight days and suddenly I'm at Day 9. That's what time has felt like since I made my introduction and my first post, a blur. I've been sick twice, I've been busy with work, I've worked on school projects, I've worked on communication with my wife (that's a constant thing, always improving how we talk to each other), and I've been working on how to improve and re-balance my life. I have not, however, gamed at all.
If I said I didn't crave to game sometimes, I would be lying. It's still there, the voice that says it's ok is still there tempting me. But that voice doesn't have any power right now. It feels like the scene in Lord of the Rings when Grima Wormtongue is banished from his seat of power in Rohan. As he slinks away, down the stairs, he tries desperately to cling to his the influence he had a few moments ago. But the king is back to his right mind and he will have nothing to do with the conniving snake, thus banishing Grima from the kingdom forever!
Damn that felt good to write.
I came to an unfortunate realization today, however. That even though I don't have gaming ruining my life, I'm still not at a point where I'm happy or satisfied with myself. It was like I painted gaming as this evil thing in my life that was the root of all my misgivings. Now that it's gone, and I can't blame it, I realize there's a lot of work to do to become the man I want to be. Gaming may have been the cause for a lot of bad things in my life, but it also changed who I am for the worse. Now that the disease is gone, there are plenty of remaining symptoms to treat to recover back to a healthy human.
So that's what I'm working on currently. My diligence, my hard work, my communication, and my organization.
It's a long climb up to my peak, but at least I am going up. I'm not longer falling down into the darkness.
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I can relate to how you felt. I spent yesterday sick as well (I was throwing up, not fun). But for the first time in my teen-->adult life, I didn't want to just retreat to gaming when I was sick. I've spent legitimate time sleeping off a sickness in the past, but it was always after I had already gamed and felt I could go no further. Yesterday my main priority was to get better. I watched some Netflix, true, but I didn't even want to game! That was a totally new experience for me. It's interesting that I keep finding new things that I didn't realize were so influenced by games.
Also, just looked up what Duolingo is. THAT'S AWESOME! I didn't know something like that existed!
I seriously wish they had Japanese to learn, but I'll start off with Spanish and cross my fingers for Japanese in the future. -
Hey everyone,
So my name's Moe, I live in Utah, USA. Here's my introduction if you care to read it.
I've got a couple ideas that I've seen and thought up that I want to include in my journal, but honestly I haven't designed them yet. I'll finish it up in a day or two most likely. But for today I'll free-write.
I've been gaming for so long, I've only got a couple of memories from before gaming was in my life. Today is my first day off gaming in this program, and I feel pretty good honestly. I'm a bit tired, like I can feel my body lacking its normal high. I have no doubt that playing a game of League of Legends would perk my energy right up and make me feel better, but I know it's a lie that I don't want to indulge.
I had a pretty good day: I spent most of my time being productive. I filled out some much needed paperwork for Financial Aid at school. I studied the resources on Game Quitters for a couple of hours. I took a walk for about 40 mins and picked up my daughter from school. Then we went to her play practice, and I watched her dance and sing for a couple of hours. Then, we came home, made a bit of dinner, and she stayed at home with her grandma. My wife and I then went to a theatre and watched Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2 (Which was AWESOME!).
I've been doing pretty well for my first day with not thinking about gaming. But as my wife and I arrived home after the movie, she said she might have to drive her mom home. I immediately thought of how I could squeeze a game or two in before she got home and before we went to bed. This just proved to me how much I need to get over this affliction. I deleted all my games yesterday, so I don't have access to them right now, but it scared me that I have that reaction still.
So overall, pretty decent day. I'm new to this, so I'm sure I'll have more painful moments, but today it's a long, tiring, great day. I'm actually hoping tomorrow will be about the same. I don't think it would feel real otherwise.
Day 1: Complete
Best,
Morgan
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Thanks @Cam Adair! I'd imagine that we'll meet at some other time in the future. If not, then I'm sure we'll have more conversations on here.
@giblets that is very true about Superman. Honestly that's such an obvious part of his character, but I hadn't ever considered that weakness and allow for that option. And yes, your description is eerily similar. I didn't mean to deceive my wife about what I was doing for the day, I just did it a little, got sucked in, and suddenly my day is gone and nothing happened. Glad to hear I'm not the only one who's had that experience!
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Hey everyone, I'm new here as of today. I've never thought about adding journals to an online section before, but hopefully that works well! Thanks for all the great different types of journal entries you've posted. I'll likely Frankenstein them together to form my own version. I'm starting to get excited... I think. Hard to tell through the gaming fog, but I'm going to do it!
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Hey everyone,
Today is day 1 for me without video games. It's not my first attempt at quitting, but I believe it will be the one that sticks permanently. It is also day 1 of the 90 day detox for me.
I met Cam at a talk he gave about two years ago in Utah. At the time I wasn't ready to really give up my gaming addiction, nor was I ready to accept help. I've always kind of had a bit of a Superman complex, where I think I can do everything and anything. So I thought, egotistically, I could figure out how to conquer my addiction on my own. I've been holding onto that notion for about the last 12-14 years.
Yesterday, I splurged on gaming and didn't fulfill any of the obligations that I had set up for the day. About an before my wife and daughter got home for the day, I knew I needed to get started on dinner and that I had done nothing for the entire day. I got pissed off at myself for about the 1000th time for having a day like this, and I uninstalled all my games. I even scoured every file in my computer that was even remotely related to gaming, and deleted it. Since I had done most of the before, I knew it wasn't enough and that it wouldn't stick. Therefore, removing games from a PC when they could just be reinstalled was essentially meaningless.
At this point, I remembered that I met Cam and heard a bit of his story and what he does. I remembered he had formed an organization called Game Quitters and I thought it might be time to suck it up and get some help from a person who specializes in this exact subject. Thus, I'm here today.
Throughout my life, gaming has taken away job opportunities, robbed me of my money, prevented me from working diligently on my passions, kept me from finishing my book that I'm writing, caused breakups with past relationships, caused serious fights with my wife, encouraged me to neglect my precious wonderful daughter when she wants to play with her daddy, caused me stress and depression, made me absolutely loathe who I was, screwed with my vision, blocked my motivation throughout my life, lulled me into a non-athletic body when I truly enjoy sports, and most frustratingly of all made my bachelors degree take 11 years long when I'm smart enough to pass all my classes with an A.
I'm so ready to be done.
After half my life, I am FINALLY willing to admit that I'm not Superman. That I don't have the tools I need to conquer this ailment of mine. So I'm attempting to be humble and admit my faults here. I am a video game addict, I have been since my family first got a gaming system in our house, and my brother tortured me with the rights to play it or not. I'm ready to be done with this plague on my life, and more than anything I want to be the real me. I feel like my soul is covered it sticky tar and I want to scrape it off to reveal the real me.
If you've made it through that massive wall of text, I both applaud you and thank you. Today I'm admitting that I'm weak. Tomorrow I hope I'll be a little stronger. And eventually I hope to be the true version of myself that I haven't been since I was an uncorrupted kid. I'm hoping everyone in this community can help me. So thank you in advance.
Best to all of you,
Moe
Moe's Fantasy Writer Journal
in Daily Journals
Posted
@giblets Oh I know! It really is awful! It's been so long since they were good enough to get in the playoffs. But I am sure this is the first of many years in a row that it happens.
So I have a confession to make for the future. I'm going to break my streak today. Today is day 20 for myself without games, which is awesome! I tied my longest previous streak as of today. I haven't broken my streak yet, but I do plan to by the end of the day. This might seem awful, and like I'm just giving up, but really I want to start over on my cleanse. There are several reasons for this.
1. I haven't been utilizing or following any of the material from Respawn. I just started my streak, watched a couple of videos on day 1. Since then I've just been living my life and i haven't committed to using the program yet. That needs to change.
2. I have been craving games very strongly for a few days in a row now. I know that's part of a detox, but I don't feel like I'm making the progress I need to. I'm on day 20, but I don't feel any different yet. Largely because I'm not committed to what I need to be doing.
3. I've been substituting my gaming with anime and Netflix. Not to the same degree of hours as I was when I was gaming, but I've still got a mindset that's similar enough to gaming that I know I'm not doing things correctly. Like whenever I have a spare moment, even if I should be working or doing homework, I watch a show instead. Stealing time when I don't have time to give, that sort of thing.
4. I'm watching porn still, which has been a symbiotic relationship with gaming pretty much for my whole life. I feel like if I keep watching porn, those same triggers are going to be pulling at my gaming tendencies as well.
5. I'm not being productive like I really want to be, and like I really need to be.
And I think that's about it for now. But basically overall... I'm going to break the streak tonight. And blatantly acknowledge that it's broken. The 20 days I've put in so far aren't as worthwhile as I think they should have been. There have definitely been a few nice moments, but not enough to feel like I'm 22% done with my cleanse. So instead of pushing through it in a half-assed manner, I'm going to start over and do things the right way.