Tux

BigOlBeartic, I'm not really sure right now. I don't go very often on these forum anymore, but soon I will reach a full year without playing any game. And despite having almost reached a full year without games, I feel like I have not made progress in some areas of my life. Cam post on quitting gaming forever is nice, but some parts of it don't apply to me. Right now, if I were to play, it would not be for the competition. It would not be for the social aspect. I would be to avoid my real life, to avoid the day. My life isn't horrible, it's not a nightmare, there is not anything really awful to escape from, beside some kind of emptiness. But it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I'm tired of self-victimization.

Thanks you. It's not just nostalgia, it's because I still lack some proper ways to deal with stress, or relax. Just going outside is a simple start, but it's a habit I need to get for example.

Still going strong. It will be 8 months since I stopped completely in a few days. Still, I've been having big cravings, especially after exams, and also now that I'm in holiday, I'm also feeling them. For some reasons a few minutes ago I had a surge of extreme sadness. There this thought of playing again some specific games. I really want to create something, and the game in question, Rimworld, seem to partly fill that. Just so you know, it was the last one I binged on before realizing this problem is for life. Another one with a huge potential for binging is Terraria. When I posted here, I decided that video-games for me are over for ever. There is no going back. I want my live to move forward, not backward. Become a Man, and not stay a child. No matter how big what I build in terraria or rimworld, it will end up deleted. It's the worse waste of time. Going on the internet for hours is better, because at least I'm not reinforcing addictive patterns. This feeling of sadness will not go alone on its own. I feel sad, okay. So I'm going to do something that I like, working on some electronic stuff.

I have been thinking recently, about this whole addiction. It reminds me of the problem our society currently have with ecology. We got an industrial age that brought us a lot. But because of a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge, and no requirement from those who created the systems to think about the consequences, we have a lot of problems. Waste of resources, pollution... we know all of this today. But today, we are no longer in the industrial age, we are in the information age. And the same pattern is happening. There are very few regulations. So we are bombarded with stimuli, with ads that appeal to the most primal need in ourselves, with "news" articles that rely on us getting triggered by their titles just so we read them. Everything is battling for our attention. What will the consequences be ? Most of us here are either in our late teen, or even adults. And here we are, struggling with it. But what will happen for the next generation ? A generation raised by video-games, buzzfeed, instant gratification, social networks, youtube, extreme pornography, and constantly bothered to pay attention to the worst things ? The people behind this are identical to the ones who exploited everything they could to make a quick buck. Short term benefit, to the long-term detriment of everyone else. Advertisers manipulates us. They shape our culture, for the benefit of their employers. Short term profit, for long term detriment. Advertising doesn't want you to be happy. It require you to feel perpetually less than, inferior, so you need their product. Which will only "work" for a while. Even when said product is durable, and doesn't destroy itself thanks to programmed obsolescence, they make sure psychological obsolescence comes into play. Why change your smartphone every year, if it still work ? Because there is a new shiny one, with more things you never knew you required to exist ! Why change clothes every quarter, when they are still perfectly fine ? Because they are terribly outdated, by a few months, compared to the brand new ones that just came out ! Those people are shaping our society. We constantly hear about the planet, about pollution. But pollution is not purely physical. And the planet is not the only thing to protect, there is our humanity. How we can be more than just primal emotions. We reached a point where our specie can achieve a lot, yet our technological revolutions might just be our downfall.

This is just a quick update, I am still here. I did not have that much cravings recently, and I finally set up a calendar. I chose another on F-Droid that is simply called "Calendar" and it works nicely. This is also a nice way to see how much time I really have, and a way to organize myself better. If I want to do something, I can put it on the calendar and be sure that I will take the time to deal with it. Think of the amount of influence you could have to the open source community! Thanks to people like you I have the ability to even be online right now. The thought that something you have created is having a tangible impact on someone (or thousands) of people's lives would be amazing. I really want to contribute to something. But I need to practice more first.

Technically, the week is not over as there is still today to deal with. But I made it through my holiday week without touching a game. I only had a dream this night, where I was playing a game and suddenly realized in the middle of it that I had relapsed. These dreams seems to get more and more uncommon, the last was was earlier this week. I am still afraid I will relapse during the week between the end of my job and school start. Or during the holidays I will have when studying. This is why I need to commit to this. I must finish this, deal with the real issues. I am tired of always being quitting games, only to find myself back in. I spend a lot of time on a computer already, there is a lot of thing I want to get out of life, and games are always holding me back. As I said in one of my replies, I could easily spend decades if not centuries playing games. Anything related to them would be the same thing. I once entertained the thought of game development, but there are for more interesting things to develop than games. Can you imagine a life of only playing games, then when you are not playing games, you are making them ? Well there would not be much time left for anything else. At least for me, moderation is not an option. It is a delusion.

I used to spend hours in front of the computer without problems. Now that I am working on things, instead of consuming content, it is harder to stay stuck for hours. Getting bored is natural. But I am not sure if feeling restless like I currently am feeling right now is normal. I think this is starting to pass, but it is impossible for me to stand still. I did some Origami just because I could, maybe focusing on something intensely which is manual helped, I don't know. I feel a bit better. I think I'll need to find activities where I can focus on something manual intensely. Any idea ? Maybe drawing could be something interesting. I want to draw on the computer too, but maybe just drawing in real life can be a solution. Gardening is something I like, but I do not have acres of forest to tend to. It takes some time every once in a while, but I can not come back to it everyday. I am continuing the modules too. I am at more than 90 days now. The Your Brain On Porn website explain how it takes a while for the brain to heal. I am grateful I have no problem with pornography, but the science is the same. This is addiction. And since I spent most of my life exposed to games, it will take more than 90 days to get healed properly. This is all explained on their website, there is a protein called delta-fos-b that reinforce specific behavior as a teenager, which mean I will need something like 150 days to heal. I am going to work on the issues behind gaming too. There is many things I can do when I am not playing.

Following your dreams takes a lot of courage. Do not blame yourself for that. Everyone make mistakes. We always hear about those who dropped out of schools and made billions afterward, but we never hear about those who drop out to follow their dreams, without getting much success. WHY do you keep coming here ? HOW can you solve those problems ? I once read the story of a guy who wanted to kill himself by jumping of the golden gate. He survived it, and he tells, when he jumped he suddenly realized how this decision was completely stupid, as EVERYTHING else in his life was fixable. It will not be easy. There will be ups and downs. You need professional help. We can only help you so much, none of us here is a professional, even if we might have some knowledge to share. It takes a lot of courage to ask for help.

Another dream. In this one, it was like a switch was turned on in myself, and I would play a game. After that, I'd realize I screwed up everything. I felt really bad. If I really do relapse, I can be sure this will be how I will feel. There is not a lot of things that can be done to prevent those dreams, beside continuing with Respawn. I did not work on it recently, I better get back to it. I am really afraid of just losing control, and starting to play again non-stop. Especially since I have a full free week ahead.

Yesterday for me was No Screen Saturday. I really needed to take a break from the computer. I did a lot of things, cooking, gardening, did some cleaning too. It was an interesting experience. One of my motivation was a fear of going on the PC, get out of control and start binge playing games. I think I am getting used to the idea that I am not going back to them. I had another dream of games recently, to my surprise I just quit the game in the dream. I hope the next dreams are similar, this is a good feeling, realizing you dream about stopping, not about binging. I will probably do more of those No Screen days. This is very important to have plan, to have things to do. I though I had put down a lot of things on my list, yet I did almost everything. Limiting the computer can be a good thing, in the morning for example. Wake up, take a shower, eat, then go on the computer if you have things to do on it. I still have big urges. This is really annoying. A part of me realize how trivial games are, how they are a waste of time and how they mess with my head. Another part of me want to play them. Yesterday, when I finished most of the activities I had planed, I did two things. I did some origami (Japanese paper folding), and after that, I picked up a book on mathematics I have lying around. When I was heavily into video-games, none of this was possible. This is not the only reason, I did not know some powerful ways to study, I did not have a reason to study mathematics so of course I did not work on them. I was not used to getting stuck, having to work a while to get something. Since I would not "get" maths quickly, I usually did not work a lot on them. I am often thinking that the geniuses of our times are probably stuck between pornography and video-games. When TV arrived in the lower classes, school results plummeted. It was much easier to get in front of the TV than to work on mathematics, English, history, whatever it was. I never was someone who enjoyed TV much, but video-games were there. I am not sure what made me realize how harmful games were to me. I never bought into the media's narrative that games make you violent. Would a psychopath play call of duty, or my little pony ? Of course he would probably play the former. Add to the mix parents that have no idea about it all, lack of communication, lack of efforts. If I do a little thought experiment in my head, I am getting an answer to a rationalization I find myself having. If I work fully in the morning, then I can use the afternoon to relax, do something else, like video-games ? I could also spend the time to go outside, run, try some of the sports that I want to try, draw, work on mathematics as a hobby, write a book, get a blog, learn a language, do some gardening... It would be also easier to make friends outside. In fact, I made friends in video-games, a long time ago. One of them for example was living on the other side of the planet. Great. And I am not especially social in games anyway.

@giblets well I do not trust password managers, I prefer to keep my passwords safely in my head. But if I were to use a password manager, I would probably use this one. But I never used it much to begin with, so it is not possible for me to give you a good opinion on it.

If there is one characteristic I would use to describe you Cam, it would be dedicated. Those videos are a lot of help. I still did not set up a calendar, but I planned a lot of things for tomorrow, as I have decided I'm going to do a day without using the computer. I have a week of holiday and will try to implement that. This is about knowing what to do with your time, and I want to try it. If I were to accomplish the whole list I did this morning of the projects I want to accomplish, I would be busy for 40 years if I did them one at a time. I am maybe optimistic or pessimistic for some of those projects, but what is clear is that playing video-games would easily fill more than 120 years of my life, 8-16 hours per day. I spent a lot of time grinding for things I do not have anymore (games stuff). If instead I had grind real skills, I would at least have those skills as a legacy. Setting an arbitrary deadline is a good idea. In some case it might even not be that arbitrary.

I have not started using the calendar just yet. I am going to get about a week of paid holiday next week, so I will be able to get some rest. I have been having strong urges to play. On the way home, I was rationalizing, that if I work in the morning and play in the afternoon it would be okay, but it will never be. I spend too much time on the computer already. If I work the morning, I need to do something different the afternoon, or at least have the possibility of doing something different that is not in front of a screen. I think I never had urges like this. Telling myself that this time, this is forever seems to have changed things. I want to do so many things, games will just be a time sink. I feel depressed, I am too often thinking about them. Imagine being in the Matrix, one day, you wake up. All of your life memories will be around what happened in it. There is so many memories of my life that are tied to games, this is depressing. I thought about making a list of everything I want to do, and put next to it the time I will need to finish them. Now that I am writing this, there is something obvious: the time needed to finish some games is unlimited. You can not finish a MMORPG. Randomly generated games offer unlimited replays. I can learn a language in 6 months, become good at it in one year... but finish a game, master it ? It will take years of dedication, for one game. Learning a language is difficult, you need to keep doing it especially when it become hard. Games are designed to be just hard enough, to make you continue playing as much as possible. I do not believe it is possible to change my life if video-games stays. The last time I tried, the urges were not as strong.

I have heard similar things on this subject. This is the kind of structure that can be very good for me, but on week-ends I tend to rationalize and not go straight for my cold shower, which set the mood for the day. I can get into that habit to get more out of "work free" days. Thanks you for the advice. To get rid of my gaming problems once and for all, I decided to commit to this, which meant buying the elite Respawn. I am currently at Module #5: Control Your Time: How to Stop Wasting Your Time and Be More Productive. Sometimes, just what Cam is saying is making me overly emotional. This time he said that gaming was part of a routine, and looking back it really was. School, homeworks, gaming. School, homeworks, gaming. At the time gaming helped me go through school since I did not have a lot of friends and kids at that age can be very toxic, be mean for no particular reason. I hate saying this but it is what it is. But this is the past. Back then I did not have that many resources (if any at all) to deal with my problems, start be more assertive and defend myself and make some friends. I really hate telling about this, even if I might need to, it makes me feel weak. I am scared that I will not get rid of gaming this time again. I do not know if I will, but so far I am making everything in my power to make sure I do get rid of gaming. It has been in my life for more than a decade, even if the last years I have reduced the time played by a LOT. By the way, Cam recommends using a calendar to set up a routine, however he recommends Google Calendar. Does anyone know of an open-source software that can sync between devices (even if I have to do something on my side) and work similarly ? I found one called Etar, does anyone have an opinion on it ?

I was not the kind of guy who goes to a fast food very often before. Now, I am the kind of guy who NEVER goes to a fast food. There is so many reason to avoid them: the food, of course, but also how they treat their slaves (or is it their employees?), the business model they have... McDonald for example, they are criminals in white shirts. They go as far as to make the light in the restaurant uncomfortable so that people leave earlier, to make more space for others. And this is just one example. Not the worst. I had another dream this night, unrelated to video-games (at last). Guess what, it was a nightmare. Which made me asks myself a few questions. In the nightmare, I was in deep troubles because I had some exams to pass, and did not study a word of them. As in dreams like this, it was super-important stuff, and I was overly emotional (okay please don't call the cops on me, at some point if I recall I was strangling some dude). I could easily dismiss this as another nightmare, which are not uncommon for me to have. But I decided to dig deeper with this. Because this is the kind of event that can still happen in my life, as it did happen in the past (except strangling someone). I miss a year of school in the past, because I was not focusing on studies, and was playing too much games. The routine was, wake up, do some computer, go to school, at the end of the day come home, run through my homeworks, and play, a little too late into the night. I never had any real difficulties with homework in the past, and my mother was always making me do them. Then another school year started, and suddenly she was not there anymore. I gradually slipped with my grades. Then after several years, I reached the "critical mass" of not learning: not enough knowledge to simply go through class without working. I can not continue like this, and let things like that happen to me. Each time this is the same story: Okay, the exam is over, boy, that was stressful. This time is the last. I will work on those things seriously now. And in reality, I never change anything. Just thinking of it, I have been doing the same mistakes over and over, for years. I am thinking about this, and I am asking myself questions about the whole thing. If I were to give advices on how to miss a year of school, how to mess up exams, what would those advice be ? When I want to make a change, what are the obstacles I find in front of me ? I have not gotten used to having troubles understanding something. I am not used to trying, over and over, experimenting different things, to learn something challenging. Enough storytelling. This year can be different, and I am not going to make my usual speeches on how this year, I get it all right. I am not a politician, I am not here to make myself blind promises I will not keep. I am more of an engineer. I need to figure this out, find tools and strategy, and apply them. Studies will be my number one priority. When I really want to work on something, I get up early, and work on it before anything else in my day. I am going to do just that for classes, as well as other techniques. I prefer to use this for personal projects, but if I also set up a time where I stop working on studies at the end of the day, and am free to work on my projects, go out... then I am sure it will be much easier to pursue my own projects. After a day of school, you just don't come back home, happy that you still haven't finished the day since you need one or two hours on your lessons, homeworks. Motivation for this is hard. But coming back home, and being able to pursue your passion, the hobbies that you like ? Of course you won't get as much as you could have if you did them first thing in the morning. But you will more easily spend hours on something like that, than on complex class material, that even if you are interested in, is just work.

I had some pretty bad jobs in the past, like working in a fast food. This was not a good experience.

I'm not getting especially nervous about them, I've been having them regularly for a while now. It is just really annoying, it's as if games are the only thing I can think about in my sleep. I really want to be able to think about different things, especially when I just keep dreaming about the same games over and over. Concerning my job, well so far it's the best one I've ever had (it's far from perfect, but it's in my field) and I am not impatient for it to end. I can enjoy it, improve my computer skills with it... So far I'm not being talkative, but I just don't have that much time. I hope to be able to post a bit more, and on other topics too soon. It might even be a new hobby to start when I will have more time.

I had dreams about games this night. I could learn to control my dreams (that's called lucid dreams), but not only it's something I would need to finish instead of just starting it, but this summer I just don't have the time. I have a full time job that is far away from home, and so just writing this here is done in a time crunch in the morning. Anyone familiar with this know that you need to write your dreams as soon as you wake up to remember them (because what's the point of controlling them if you can not even remember that you did it ?). Right now, I have some things to finish first. Not only am I doing this, as well as Respawn, but I already have a small project undergoing. It's a little program with a GUI (basically it's not a command line utility) that is supposed to help me organize myself with my projects. So that I have some personal accountability, and before starting a project I can ask myself the right questions, like, how much time will it take, what do I need to do daily for it, etc. Just moving forward with this need me to invest some hours in it every day. Right now, I can't put those hours somewhere else, or it's another unfinished thing. If I never finish things, I can never fully learn from them. This is made in C++, using GTKmm and SQLite3. I also use Glade for creating the graphical interface. If I finish this, I'll have some real experience with those tools. Not a lot, but it's something I'll then be able to build onto. Starting and not finishing mean I never have any meaningful foundation.

Thanks you. So for simplicity, I will consider this as day one, even if I have been game free for more than 2 months. It's going to be harder this time, but I have decided that games are gone for good. No going back to them ever. Just changing to this mindset instead of one where I "might" (it's not even a certitude) come back, it makes a HUGE difference. I actually need to plan for things outside of the computer, instead of waiting for a relapse to get busy. It is probably the right move because it actually feel hard. As if I am discovering an empty space in myself. Hope I'm not scaring anyone with this. I should be just fine, but it takes some time to register.

OK, let's do this. I'm 23. Studying computer science. Since someone asked on my introduction thread, my favorite GNU/Linux distribution is Debian. I have tried to quit games in the past, but I always came back to them. There was several reason why, be it a lack of interpersonal boundaries (not saying no to someone inviting me to play), a failure to find a healthy way of stressing down, or simply, rationalization. Believing that I can moderate it. I even tried game development, I had a great idea for a game, which would have taken me more than a year of full time work to get somewhere. I have stopped this. If I want to program something, it will not be a video-game. So what is different this time ? It's not 90 days, it's for ever.I'm committing to it.I will find a solution to each problem that arise.I did not succeed in the past because I did not do the three bullet points above. At some point, I thought, I would come back to them. When I'm 40, 50, 60, whatever. I saw the journal of someone who is 66 here, so there is not going to be an age where I can binge play. And I'll probably want to enjoy real life much more. If I'm not coming back to them, it mean I have to move on. Deal with this once and for all. I did not take the process seriously. Having a badge, having a number that goes up is essentially worthless if you're not doing anything to deal with the problem. It will take the time it will need, but I want to free myself from them. Which bring up the last point. Without games, I need a way to rest, after a day, week of work. I have read Cam's article, where he identify four needs. Not all apply to me, but I will have to find a solution for each one that applies to me. Focusing on Game Quitters will mean that I will be able to deal with each problem, and find a permanent solution.

Thanks both of you for the welcome too. I'm a Debian user, although I'd like to try to get good at Gentoo at some point, it's considered the hardest one and I'd love to join the "elite". What's yours ? Thankfully they are not all I know, but there's definitely a feeling of emptiness, like a part of me is disappearing. I've started the detox approximately two months ago, but only yesterday did I decide that games have to go for good. It was the first time I felt like this.

Well, hopefully this time it's the good one. What made you relapse ? Did you believe like me you could play in moderation ? Was it a friend that invited you to play ?

Thanks for the welcomes. How long have you been doing this ?

Hi, I just subscribed a few hours ago. I'm not really new to StopGaming and Game Quitters, as I tried to quit in the past. However, until now, I always came back to video-games. My first try, I had several relapses, because I didn't say no when someone invited me to play a game. As a student of computer science, video-games are really common among my peers. Then at some point in the summer, something in me "clicked", and I binged for a week on a game. Then after that I was more or less avoiding them, and at some point I went back to them, only to stop again. And once again, I started playing only to see myself waste a complete week-end being mentally stuck on a game. This is when I realized I need to do this and commit to it. I'm currently at two months of no gaming, and I believe I've understood what mistakes I was making I didn't commit to this process completely. It's an addiction, and it take a lot of focus to deal with the problems associated with it. It will takes some time, but I need to sustain the effort. Another reason is that I kept in my mind the possibility of coming back to games. Maybe, when I old, I could play again. Maybe when I reach some goal in life. I've decided that I'm going to stop playing video-games forever. This mean that there is no turning back, no reason to get interested in them, and that I need to focus on my real life. I did not expect this to make me emotional since I had tried in the past, but just telling myself that it's over forever makes me want to cry. I never had this reaction before. I'd say it means I'm walking in the right direction. As if now, I'm quitting for real. No moderation, only real life. It sound a bit weird though since I'm basically going to be a programmer in my life, but it's far more real than games. The benefits are much, much bigger. I need to participate here, get involved. Hopefully, this time I will finish this.