Hitaru

Welcome!

You are a legend man, this is only the beginning!

Great to see your journal posted!

Ahá, great stuff indeed! Your intro is pretty intense, I still haven't gone completely through it. For now know that we know your struggles and we have your back. Welcome to the forums!

Better mood; "relapse" report later. Been feeling awful. Will make an extra push to do what I intended today, and call it a day. I can get over this. I have the impression I've been more assertive with who I am. It's... subtle things, but I'm proud of it. Not sure how to explain. Or maybe I am, but it's still embarrassing. Ah, insecurities.

From @AcupunctureFTW: Hey GameQuitters! I am a recovering World of Warcraft addict studying Internet Gaming Disorder for my doctorate. Right now I have a pro bono acupuncture program for any volunteers in the SF Bay Area. Free acupuncture! All you have to do is show up and be interested in working on quitting. Accepting all ages. PM of post here with your interest. I would love to meet you! Check out the article I wrote for GQ's here: https://gamequitters.com/can-acupuncture-help-video-game-addiction-recovery/ And my website here: http://www.limbicacupuncture.com Good luck with your journey! We are all in this together.

Have you developed a personal or professional project since you quit gaming and want to promote it? POST IT HERE, and only here. We're specially looking forward to hear about anything that could further help others in their recovery. You can also share the story about how did you came up with your initiative to inspire members to take the plunge as well. NOT ALLOWED: Promotion of video games, gaming clans, gaming related content... Illegal stuff (obviously), or anything that goes against Rule #1. Let's keep it civic and inclusive, people. Pitching, or obvious copypasta. It must be genuine or it will be considered spam, both by readers and the mod team.

Awesome @dwalk77! Great job, looking forward to those 90 days! I was also a PC/Steam player, and getting rid of it made all the difference for me.

Welcome to the forums Leon! Sir, you show great insight with your words! Seems that you have your current situation well sorted out in your head. That's a great starting point. I can bet you already have an idea in the back of your mind of what do you want to do with yourself, and now you would need a period of detox to give space and clarity of mind for that idea to materialize. My two cents at least.

Hi @Musta! You can use this list as reference. In general, you want to fill your time with 4 kinds of activities: - Mentally Challenging: something that you will feel motivated to do and improve at, that involves learning, practicing... It helps your sense of purpose. - Social: something you can share or compete with others, for fun and recognition, and to meet friends and like-minded people. - Relaxing: something to take your mind off more stressing, boring or complicated things in your daily life. Easy to do for maximum chill. - Physically active: something that encourages you to go outside to take fresh air, changes the normal atmosphere of home and your room, and that allows you to stay healthy. Ideally you should find a balance between these four factors, there's no magic rule. What works for you best, that's the best way. Let us know if this was helpful and if you came up with new things to do!

Damn right. Hasn't been good, but I'll be alright starting tomorrow, spanish hour. Sorry for the impasse.

+1 @BenB thank you for your bravery! Feel at home at the forums.

Hi again! The Good: I'm sorting myself out. I bought a Passion Planner (thanks again to @burn-x for the recommendation!) and it's quite well made, it has potential. If done right, this will be a great year. A very organized one at least! I am certain that I can do what I have in mind for 2018. I don't mean it as self-back patting and that's what makes it so exciting. The Bad: I feel flailing in my commitment of living my life game-free. Last night I played some (a whole night actually) of Spore after watching a gameplay video in Youtube. Was I as happy and entertained as my brain convinced me I would be? Not really. But I did it anyway. Despite not being that fun, the anxiety of writing this, recalling the experience and handling life in general is giving me the cravings. I can clearly see that it's not a normal want, just fancying some games. It's a brain response to a need of forgetting about this anxiety I permanently suffer in a background noise manner. Playing in order to relieve stress, and get fun as a by-product; not playing in order to have fun, and relieve stress as an extra. That is the whole point of why I cannot play games, in moderation or whatever. It's great to have it so clear in my mind, honestly, and it makes it easier to manage, but I'm still troubled. And it doesn't give the best image for the Game Quitters brand having a Community Manager that plays games. I have to make this work. The Ugly: My panic is getting worse. My hands shake, my chest burns. I think I'm reaching the point of maximum resistance, which leads me to procrastination, paralysis and The Bad. In a weird way of seeing it, the more resistance I find, the closer I am to getting things done, given my nature. I have realized, perhaps thanks to the habit of constantly repeating it to others (?) that it's not about video games themselves, anymore. When I arrived here two years ago (my goodness), the concept was very simple: "Either I quit, or my life is over". The execution of this concept was the hard part, I made it and I couldn't be happier about it. While I was in immediate recovery, read detoxing, I was of course restless about the future, but there was an urgent priority which was finishing the 90 days, take my mind and body out of games, so on. Then there was an urgent priority of traveling, putting myself away from home and bam, there was I in the Sahara desert. From that point on, things in general just happened. And it was good, don't misunderstand me. But... there's still the lingering problem. The 'noise' I mentioned earlier. And it's basically fucking up the experience of everything else. Messing with my work, my relationships and my wellbeing. And shit, it's tough, this. Honestly yes, I'm scared as fuck and I'm not sure how to proceed, and I'm much less sure that I can handle it by myself. Will I need to go to a psychologist? Take pills? I'll do everything in my power to not reach that point, but I'm not sure how my state of mind ends and my state of "brain" begins, know what I mean? It's not just being sad or bored or unorganized. In the moments were I'm the happiest is when I feel "worse", more intensely. That's not normal. Maybe it's truly genetic, as some people have other things. I'll make my homework about it. My quest continues.

Welcome! I'm ****, the Community Manager. You can post a topic in the main section asking for feedback, make a poll, these sorts of things, we'll be glad to help. If you have something specific in mind (say, an article, an interview...) you can expand your idea in this same topic or write me directly (contact info in my profile as well but anyway: ****@gamequitters.com). Glad to have you around!

Saddest day of the year was quite meh for me in both ways. Not so sad. Currently working on the "organizing my life" part. Optimist prospects.

Welcome, @ThatFrenchGuy! There's a long answer right away, but the short answer would be: "Dude, are you me?" Of course every experience is different, but as an also gifted (with all the circumstances that this "condition" brings), also high school master procrastinator, also not so healthy relationship with parents, also emotion control issues, even also aspiring political sciences graduate, I think I can safely say that I get as close as it can get to "I know how you feel". The expectatives of others man, get rid of them. I'm 23 and I'm struggling like hell with this, when I was 19 it would have been a suicide mission, but this is the way. Let me guess, either if your parents have a professional preference for you or not, there is an implicit agreement that you must be the best in whatever you undertake. Probably you also have this agreement with yourself, because it was a learned behavior or because heck, being smart makes you ambitious. Anyway, if this happens to you, it is bullshit and won't serve you. For me it used to be (and sadly still is sometimes) the whole point of existing, doing something and acing it. No no, the point is taking that sentence you have probably heard all your life "You can do whatever you want" and make it real, take it to the next level. Do what you want because it's what you want, no matter the others, or your expectatives of "What you should be doing". You should be doing what you want to do. And of course there are several kinds of want. You want to play games because they are satisfying, they provide instant gratification. The short-term good emotions of entertainment and relaxation are necessary, and you have a lot of alternatives to get the dopamine, that's what hobbies in general are for, including gaming. The problem with gaming is that it's sabotaging your longer-term goals, and that's when it becomes a problem. My suggestion is, take 30 to 90 days without gaming, and in the meantime look for alternatives to cope with the anxiety. Learn about the reasons why you play and observe yourself out of the fog of video games. It can be a learning experience and you can always take back gaming afterwards. [I'll probably expand this later with {stuff}.]

You've got this, be persistent!

There's been a pause in my postings. This was because several factors: @Regular Robert gave me some interesting insights which led me to try to take it easy for a day at least... And that day was disastrous. Literal hand-shaking anxiety. It's no secret that my working habits are currently crap. And ironically, they are crap because I don't have hobbies right now. And I don't usually hang out with friends. So yeah Robert, you opened my eyes man. I can't quit Game Quitters completely and cold turkey but I need to improve my afk life freaking pronto. For me and for "us". These days after coming back to travel have been shit. I even played a bit of the same game I played the last time. But meh, I could clean up my bullshit and I'm ok now. Somewhat. HOWEVER, in that same "professional" field, things are going good. In the romantic aspect as well. You get back what you invest in, you could say. So nice. No more rambling. I'll just get my life in order and report back.

Nuevo post: Tutorial: "Cómo deshacerte de tu cuenta de Steam PERMANENTEMENTE" (sin venderla o transferirla).

I found this template @Cam Adair made some time about, I'll share it here for future reference: To make it easy for people to share their stories, is here the template I have created. I see this as something we will continue to improve over time: Share Your Story Examples of other stories we've shared so far are here - don't sweat the formatting, I'll take care of all of that. You can remain as anonymous as you would like: Please share the name you would like me to use: What is your age: What country are you from: Questions to think about: Here are a few questions to help you get started: When you started gaming? What games? What did you like about gaming? When did you notice it becoming a problem? What consequences did you start to experience? When did you decide to quit? Did you seek help or support? Start the detox? Relapse? What benefit(s) have you gotten from quitting? Is there anything else you'd like to share? Guidelines: Minimum 600 words If you can, use the questions as prompts and structure, but feel free to write your story in free-flow form. Submit your draft to cam@gamequitters.com with the subject line [Community Contribution] Bonus: You may also record a video of your story and submit it also. Example. Really appreciate you being willing to share your story. I'm hoping that we can get as many of these as possible, because the more stories people see of others, the more likely they are to take action themselves and commit to changing their own life. Send me the draft and we can go from there. If you need any support from me on this, let me know. I'm happy to help you through it. - Cam

That's the point most people seem to be missing. It's not about "Ok, gaming disorder now exists because I say so. Signed, WHO". Authority for the sake of authority is a dialectic fallacy. What's important is to make the headlines, so people can think by themselves: "Is it? Really? Am I playing too much? Is my son playing too much?", etc. The specific criteria is going to take more time, the debate so far has been "Video game addiction is not real, because no one has seriously reported problems with it" , while all the cases (even deaths) were dismissed as exceptions. Now it will be harder to look away from the issue, and in my opinion that should be celebrated. Flu scams aside.

Welcome @Michael Lee! It's completely normal to feel at edge when you first quit, or when you first make a change in your life overall. It will pass, if you allow it the time to pass. It's just a feeling inside, it won't really harm you, keep it in mind. It passes, and then what remains is the you who is doing something worthy with life. And if it comes again, you remember this. You can do it! I read in your intro that you were struggling with social connections outside gaming, so this reconnection with your friend is really good news. About your gaming friends, you can try to find another activity together besides games, or keep them in your contact list even if you don't play anymore (you can still visit them if they live far away, etc.). If your bond doesn't survive beyond games, don't feel sad or missing out. That's just life happening. Cherish the memories, you'll have other friends by then. When you're looking for things to do to fill the idle time you have now, try to add things that will put you out there. New friendships will just happen if you let it happen naturally. And we have your back if you ever need to express yourself! Looking forward to your journey!

Keep 'em coming!

Nothing that you can't manage, you were brave to face a whole new country, you'll be able to handle social contacts. As someone who was really incompetent with people back then, be patient with yourself. Most of your worries are in your head only, and once you learn to be comfortable around others you will never 'unlearn' that skill. It's totally worth it, so don't give up! Awesome update, almost two months!

First challenge successful, great job! Also thanks for the Passion Planner recommendation, I bought one to test, will send feedback soon.