seriousjay

I guess this is technically day 85. I went to a club last night for the first time in my life, and I can safely say it isn't for me. After about 10-15 minutes of dancing I just feel like I'm wasting my time. I can think of more productive forms of entertainment. It isn't even a great social atmosphere because the music is so damn loud.. haha. Tomorrow I'm going to start a gratitude journal, as recommended by the 7 Days of Gratitude from Calm.

Day 83 (I think.. day math is still hard) Well I'm back from my mom's house! It was much better this week than last week. I did end up ordering food one day but I felt a lot more in control while I was doing so, despite having ordered way too much food. I was otherwise just preparing food that my mom had around the house, and I went to the grocery store as well to get some fruits for my lunches. I'm really into the book I've been reading. It's called Broken Stars from the Universe on Fire series. It isn't *exactly* the type of book that I'd write but pretty close. I'm excited to continue with that. I also started reading The Power of Habit. I only went through the prologue so I don't have much to say about it but I identified it a while ago as a good book to move on to after The Willpower Instinct, mainly because building positive, constructive habits I feel is the next step to moving my life forward. Right now I just feel too disorganized and need to schedule my time better, and I think there's an element of that in proper habit building. So close to 90 days, but honestly, I feel like I've only just gotten started!

I don't really think the marijuana legalization is that big a deal. We'll probably smell a lot more of it right now, but I have to imagine that most people who would buy the marijuana legally were already buying it illegally. People seem to think that this is going to cause the country to become collectively high but I don't really think so.

Well I went to the gym today and got a whiff of it in the back for a few minutes.. haha. So far it isn't bad but I am still worried about randomly getting high while walking down the street..

Yep. I think too many people are stuck on the 90 days and treating it as a miracle cure for their problems. The fact of the matter is that just disconnecting from video games isn't going to solve anything. You actually need to put a great deal of effort into turning your life around. I know that's hard for many people because video games require next to no effort in comparison. If you don't put in that effort then you're not moving your life forward and after 90 days, you'll still be pretty much exactly where you began.

Day 76. Been a hell of a week. I spent the last 5 days at my mom's house and I believe just being at my mom's house is a trigger of bad habits for me. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I ended up ordering fast food. I had decided to order on Tuesday as a "one last time" kind of thing, and apparently the "one last game" rule doesn't just apply to games. There was one other thing but I don't want to mention it here. Normally I would have beaten myself up over this but I have decided to apply the principles of The Willpower Instinct and approach this situation with self-compassion as opposed to self-derision. I am spending the next week at my mom's house as well and this is a very important step for me because I feel it's very important that I conquer this obstacle. So I am committing to getting no fast food whatsoever next week. I've been able to do it for 70+ days so there's no reason that I can't overcome this hurdle as well. Curiously, I still somehow managed to lose weight despite going about 1000 over my calorie budget on average the last 3 days. Some positive things from last week: I finally started reading the novel I bought and I went through a quarter of it in 2 days, haha. I'm not a huge fan of the author's writing style but he's come up with a very interesting plot. Also, I finally started my Invisalign treatment, which does the same thing as braces. It doesn't hurt at all but it feels uncomfortable as all hell. I'm hoping that uncomfortable feeling goes away after a while, because it's driving me somewhat crazy LOL. However, this is a very important step for me because my teeth are badly misaligned and need to be fixed before it gets worse. Well that's about all I have for now!

Nice man! Keep it up!

Hey man, how's it going? Did you restart the detox?

Day 70. Hell of a day today. Took the kids to buy some halloween stuff, and I ended up buying a costume for myself for.. basically the first time ever. I actually feel like I'm really getting into the spirit of it, which is somewhat surprising. I ended up buying a costume of Ezio from Assassin's Creed. It looks pretty sweet! Then I did a nearly 3 hour hike. It was completely impromptu, but I'm glad I did it. It did take a lot out of me - probably because I hadn't hiked all week, although it was a pretty challenging route. Couple hours after that I went to the gym, and here I am now. I feel like I did 2 weekend days worth of stuff all in 1 day!

What you resist, persists. I've also found that accepting negative feelings and working through them works much better than trying to push them away.

Hello, I can sympathize with you as I have similar regrets. The best advice I can give is to ride it out. Regret, like all emotions, passes with time. In the meantime, engage in activities that you can be proud of to replace gaming. One other thing you can do to try to trick yourself if you really need a way through it is to tell yourself that maybe one day, when you can play games again without feeling like they're pulling you in uncontrollably, you'll go through those games. That day will come and you will probably tell yourself that you don't even care anymore at that time. Telling yourself that you'll play those games one day may help to relieve the feelings of regret.

Just curious, when do you guys notice your perception of the passage of time start to change? I feel like I'm still in video game mode with respect to that. It's been just under 2.5 months but it feels like it's been forever.

Day 69. Mostly a post just for the sake of having a post. I don't really have much to say. I do feel a little bit like I'm grinding my way through the days lately. I don't have as much motivation as I had previously, but I think that's normal. I knew at one point it was going to happen and I had to be prepared to continue based on a commitment to the process as opposed to excitement or motivation, which obviously didn't work before. So far so good!

Thanks for your reply! Yeah I think the emotional ups and downs are just the ebbs and flows of life. Part of it is that I haven't really quite found an effective way of dealing with the downs to get my mood back up. Obviously before it was so easy to deal with it by just gaming. I'll spend some time this weekend brainstorming ways to deal with my down days. Yeah as far as the writing I just gotta sit down and do it. Like I said I'm going to start by reading a bit and then going from there. I'd like to think I'm more than just hanging in there.. haha. Things are overall going really great for me.

Day 64. Had a really nice evening tonight. One of my friends came over and we had a nice dinner and played some card and board games. I definitely feel a lot better emotionally compared to the last little while. Just gotta keep it going.

Well especially for us, it consumed such a large part of our lives during our formative years that it seems like it would be very difficult to just forget about them entirely. Regardless, I actually think I found the solution in chapter 9 of The Willpower Instinct. Accept whatever thoughts come up without trying to push them away. Observe them, feel them, then focus on the breath and pretend like your breath is gently blowing away all those thoughts. Basically exactly what meditation teaches. I'll definitely keep that in mind going forward.

A therapist might be helpful. However, specifically from the point of view of practical application of therapy techniques to video game addiction, I don't believe there has been nearly enough research and practice put into it in order to confidently say a therapist would be of any real use. You'd definitely need to find one that not only specializes in addiction therapy, but has had success in the past with putting people on the right road to recovery. I had a therapist in the past, but I can't confidently say one way or another if they helped or not. I'd like to think my sessions with her did ultimately help at least a little bit. However, to have success in therapy requires something very important from you: the acceptance that you have a problem, and the willingness and resolve to apply the strategies and techniques they suggest. A therapist cannot magically cure you, they can only point you in the right direction. It requires effort on your part in order to make it work. When someone says therapy didn't work for them, this is probably the reason why.. myself included. All that being said, I feel like if you have accepted you have a problem and are prepared to make the commitment to deal with it, you don't really need a therapist. Do a little research, ask some questions on this forum and put into a place a plan of action that will work for you. There are so many examples of people bouncing back strongly from video game addiction that you can pretty much take the high level approach that they took and just modify it to suit your personal needs.

Argh! I had a whole post written out and it's gone because I pressed something that made me lose it all. Let's try this again. So I spent some time thinking about this before replying. On the writing stuff, I'm finding it difficult just figuring out where to get started. Should I read the novel and short stories first? Should I just start writing ASAP? Should I do them both concurrently? I'm so stuck on trying to figure out the "right way" to go about this, but there really is no right way.. just find the way that works for you. So I'll start by planning on reading that novel and short stories and once I've developed some momentum, actually get started on writing something. For the social skills stuff, I think what I posted previously was completely overblown. I'm making very good progress on the social side. I've made one very good friend who I communicate with almost daily, a few others who I would consider good friends, and I'm meeting new people every week. If anything, I would say I perceive the fact that I haven't found more people that I communicate with a lot by this point as stagnation, however, at the same time, there is such a thing as too many friends I think. If you talk to too many people too often, you won't have any time left for yourself. I think I'm pretty happy with where I'm at for being just over 2 months removed from having no outside social contact whatsoever. Now, I want to be dead honest about something at this point. I think the main source of my negative feelings lately is that I've been thinking too much about video games. Not even just random thoughts about them too, I've been proactive about thinking about them. It's just that I wish I had played Far Harbour in Fallout 4 one more time. That being said, I know that "one more time" will lead to one more time of Starbound, then one more time of Terraria, and so on. No amount of one more times in any video game will truly satisfy me. These thoughts are not making me feel good and are definitely affecting my mood. The stupid thing is, when I think about how much progress I've made so far, at the gym, on the social side and everything else, that does make me feel really good. Would you say this is something that I just need to ride out, or is there something proactive I can do about this?

Perhaps it would help to go through this in a logical manner. The definition of addiction (from here? Addiction is the repeated involvement with a substance or activity, despite the substantial harm it now causes, because that involvement was (and may continue to be) pleasurable and/or valuable. Let's explore this a little further. I'll go by only what you've posted so far: 1. Addiction includes both substances and activities (such as sex and gambling). Simple enough. Gaming would be the activity in this case. 2. Addiction leads to substantial harm. I would say video gaming has caused substantial harm for you, and came close to causing permanent harm (suicide). 3. Addiction is repeated involvement despite substantial harm. It's important to recognize the distinction between this point and number 2. This point says repeated involve despite substantial harm. So, the substantial harm has already been caused, but you continue to engage in the activity regardless. We see that in the following passages: Gaming caused harm for you and your family. Your family in the sense that your mom gave you money for something that was supposed to benefit you, but you wasted it instead. So she suffered a loss due to your decision. 4. Addiction continues because it was, or is, pleasurable and/or valuable. Now this one is a little tricky. You kept repeating over and over that you didn't enjoy the games you played, and that may be true, but there is something else going on here. This is dopamine and the brain's reward center at work. Games cause tremendous amounts of dopamine to be released, which activates your brain's reward center. Any time your brain recognizes an opportunity to get more hits of dopamine (in this case, video games), it will try to convince you that getting that thing is good for you and will make you feel good. However, your brain can't tell if something will actually make you feel good or not. All the brain understands is that there is an expectation that you will feel good - not that you actually will. You may not have enjoyed the activity at all, but prior to engaging in it, your brain convinced you that you would. This is a vicious cycle that repeats over and over again until you finally cut it off. --- I mean, you are very clearly addicted to video games. However, until you accept that fact there is nothing you can do to break this cycle that you've created for yourself. I hope thinking about it more logically helps at least a little bit.

Tell us why you think you're not addicted.

Day 61. I've been getting a bit down on myself lately. I just feel like I'm stagnating a little bit. Some of those past fears, insecurities and whatnot regarding starting something new have crept back up. For example, I've read a bit about how to start writing a novel/story, I've actually bought a novel of the genre I like, and I've found a bunch of short stories to read, but I'd rather just watch Netflix instead of get started on any of that. Secondly, I feel like my momentum with respect to my social skills has tapered off a bit. I don't feel like I've really made a whole lot of progress there lately. I suppose I still have a lot to feel good about. I'm still going strong with going to the gym and hiking, I'm still going out at least once a week meeting new people, and I'm still keeping up my eating, habits at home and other things. I suppose this might just be one of the ebbs of life that I'm experiencing. You're not always going to have great positive momentum. Sometimes you're going to feel like things are moving slower than you think they should. I'll try not to dwell on it too much, just keep moving and doing the things that I'm doing and hopefully things will turn around.

Day 60. I went to Gate of India today, as planned. Somehow it didn't feel as satisfying as the other couple of times I went. I finally got everything I need for my contact lenses but I still feel so much hesitation to put them on. I really don't know why, it's not that big a deal. I'm also so close to getting under 200 pounds for the first time in I don't even know how long. That's pretty exciting! Maybe 2 more weeks.

Day 58. I didn't plan anything for tonight and I figured I would get quite a bit done that I wanted to do and... nothing got done! It's 8:45 and I'm finally sitting down able to do some of that stuff. LOL!

Day 57. So after speaking to my personal trainer, I've decided I won't be actively pursuing women on online dating sites for the time being and instead focus more on myself. I think this is a good idea since I seem to be getting too emotionally invested in it. It's just going to become another addiction.

Nope, I'm using Match and Zoosk. I actually ended up buying subscriptions to these sites so I could send out messages, so I'm a bit tied up with them at the moment. I don't have much motivation to start on another site due to how much time this is already taking to manage.