Laney

I love the no complaining tag, since you mentioned optimism was a thing you wanted to work on in your first post aha. The way you said you were robotic and logical makes me think learning python will be a good fit for you. You should find a hackerspace near you and get involved! "Hackerspaces are community-operated physical places, where people share their interest in tinkering with technology, meet and work on their projects, and learn from each other." Also a few questions: 1. What is this visualizing thing you do in the morning? 2. What is your main source of sugar intake? (Drinks, carbs, candy, etc) 3. May I adopt your journal style? I love the pre-built sections to focus on!

Progress pics: 6 of 8 perler badges (missing red beads, postponed for a while). Not really into pokemon anymore, but it's quite fun. Going to make or buy a display box with glass that he can hang on the wall. Framed picture #1 Science fiction is totally my thing. I love the future, discussing theories on the future, thinking of products that will exist in the future, etc. These pieces of art will be for my two homies who have been in my futuristic pen and paper tabletop the past two years.

You do have a point though, the whole concept of a support group isn't to scold or criticize someone. It's about being there for someone if they choose to travel this path. I'm surprised at how empathetic and kind this community is. You guys really made it easy to set aside my pride and try this out.

Thanks Cam! I'm excited too. It really means a lot to me to be able to give my friends something physical and more expensive than normal. We're all youngins with no houses, not much furniture, and definitely no art to our names. I'm pretty stoked for their reactions (They are my tabletop game buddies of two years) And the handdss! It's pretty fun, I never really explored the creative area of myself except for music. Going to have to look out for new ideas or clubs to join. Maybe learn to paint. I know you speak a lot about learning languages, have you learned any yet? Ahahaha, seeing them all neatly in their own little bags makes me the happiest person ever. About the mom thing, I know it isn't really my fault but I wasn't necessarily a good example for her. I would speak highly of my games, and how they helped me develop, the cool people I met. Now she's chatting with people and playing games with her phone and I'm the one who feels ignored. The only thing I can do is try to be a better example than I was before, maybe bring up how I'm quitting games and just try to keep the conversation open with her so she can reach her own thoughts on the matter.

I would say that I was definitely part of group 1.5 when I found Cam's youtube video's. I was addicted enough to acknowledge it was a problem(I had to google it so obviously I was kind of aware), but I still didn't want to accept it as a problem because my identity and most of my life was being a gamer. I'm still not even group 1 entirely, as you can tell from my introduction post I'm only quitting Online Games and not RPG's. Honestly, I think the addiction word made me take this whole thing seriously. Without the term gaming addiction and the way the website articulates the Signs of Addiction was very eye opening for me and humbling. It brought me back down to earth because of the shock factor of the whole thing. It made me connect the signs mentioned to my life. We should never stop being honest because we might hurt someones feelings. This is a personal choice and accepting the addiction is probably the biggest first step. The hardest step. But it wasn't until I watched the "Why You Should Quit Gaming" video Cam made 4 months ago that I was like, "f**k it, you have to do this Laney." Including a section for this too might be a good idea.

Sober 3 days, During the day, Work and Christmas shopping/wrapping had me so tired I didn't have the energy to work on any crafts last night. Watched tv with the fam and went to bed early. Didn't think about games, not even my phone minigames. Although there is a passive "You should plan time to play more of ____ rpg, Laney". I haven't really acted on it, and I'm not sure if I plan to any time soon. Reflection Space I always thought holiday = FREE TIME! But looking back I see that mindset is false, and I created that imagined free time by ignoring them. My family is constantly busy during the holidays, traveling, prepping, planning, spending time with each other, spending time with friends. I'm really disappointed in my old self and how I handled and ignored family because of games during holidays. This year, I will connect and celebrate. How do I connect to my mother when she is addicted to tv shows and her phone games? Is it my fault that she's turned to games when all I did for years was go into my room and not spend time with her?

Thanks Django, I know that I probably should remove them as well but the damage a few RPG's a year does to my life compared to just one MMO is almost negligible (Although I know my eyes are clouded and biased since I haven't done the 90 day detox, which is why I'll track my RPG gaming in the daily journal). I'm glad you responded saying that it didn't work just cutting out the online ones. You replaced that with different games and reached the same spot you were before. I guess I can see myself doing the same, we'll see how it goes.

Sober 2 days, 12/16/2015 Been focusing on arts and crafts Christmas gifts for friends. First project was framing two pieces of art, involved project because I didn't pay the $70 to have the mats cut and installed for me, so I have to cut them myself. Framed one of the two pictures, one left to go. For my third gift I am making a Pokemon Badge Display Box with perler bead badges for a longtime friend. I put it off because I hated how all the beads were mixed together. So over the past few days I organized ALL THE PERLER BEADS to be color separated. Used to look like this and now it looks more like THIS! Feeling pretty good about making progress on my gifts. I've put the perler bead one off for two years! Will post pictures of all completed projects when they are done Gratitude journal 1. I woke up easily, made awesome coffee and got to work on time. 2. Met a really cool person who turned me down, but I'm glad I know them 3. My co worker is back from school. It's wonderful having his energy back at the office. Edit: Here's my completed project!

Hi guys. SoCal born and raised and computer major. I really respect everyone on here and the community has made me feel like this whole journey is possible. But firstly I want to be honest and say I'm not 100% quitting games. I'm here to quit what I'm addicted to--online games. I'm 22 and I've played online games since I was 12. The way I played it was unhealthy, my father would have to unplug the computer to get me to go to bed some nights. Then I took a computer major in university to prove to him and myself that my interest in games had been a healthy good thing in my life, I really showed him! It's not healthy, it is addicting, it makes me bored of everything else and it keeps me from family, friends and lovers. (not to mention school and work). What started this--I hadn't played an mmo in four months--was opening Aion to get extra winter event items for a friend. Immediately it was more than just logging on for the daily gift, I played six hours that night. More the next day. It freaked me out how fast this response kicked in. I actually googled "game addiction" during work because I couldn't stop thinking about the game. I found this community and amazing team leader Cam and it immediately resonated and inspired me to try and make a change--for good. While I don't think I'm ready to give up story RPG's, I am definitely ready to give up the never ending story of online games. RPG's are easy for me to set aside for friends family and work. I don't feel like I'll fall behind if I don't play, lose the opportunity for gear if I log off, or let down others by leaving. Basically, I don't feel like I'm addicted to story based games with an ending, just online games. I'm unsure about the whole quitting all RPG's as "gamer girl" is something I have always defined myself by (since I was young enough to use a controller). But my RPG usage is very few and far in between. I am going to be aware of my RPG gaming from now on, space it out a lot more, and include those in the daily journal section to observe/notice any signs of addiction. Thank you for reading, Laney