info-gatherer

Day 75 Woke up and went to uni city. Realized I forgot my keys and so I’ve been locked out of home for the whole day. No big deal, my parents are coming to uni city tomorrow (not because of me, they would come anyway) and they’ll bring me the keys. I’m sleeping to my gf’s. Attended class from 11 to 13, then my gf wanted to go eating sushi so we ate a ton and slept half the afternoon afterwards. In the evening for dinner I made the “Summer salad”, one of my signature recipes: -Iceberg salad -Cucumber -Carrot -Red radishes -Sunflower seeds -Green apple -Salt & Corn oil (Optional: walnuts, pear) Then a friend came to visit us and he and my gf smoked cigarettes and weed next to me but I was happy to just smoke my eCig. I’m quitting cigarettes without even trying, I went from 1 pack a day to 0 with almost no cravings, this thing looks like a miracle! But I know it’s early to say that it worked. Hopefully next month I’ll post here and say that I’m a non-(cigarette)smoker. Only thing that bothers me is that I’m probably spending more than before. 1 bottle of eJuice sells for 8€ and lasts 2 days. I previously spent 2€/day because I rolled my own cigarettes. If my calculations are correct I’m going to spend twice as much as before. But it’s for my health and I’m happy to do it. Also, maybe in internet I can find ejuice at lower prices :) It’s been a week since I last opened a book, I should go back on studying asap. Not sure if I’ll wait for monday or start tomorrow. Checking out Edit: @Pierce and everyone else: don’t be scared to offend me and please correct my english mistakes when I do them! I want to improve and I’ll be grateful!

Day 74 A lot of stuff happened. This morning started in the worst way possible. I ignored the alarm and slept until 11. Then I surfed the net before gettinng out of bed and when I finally got up I immediately went to smoke a cigarette, with the sun heating my head. 5 min after getting out of bed I already had an headache and I knew the day was going down the drain. My grandma came cooking at my home and I had lunch with her and my siblings. Then instead of packing my stuff and going to uni city I watched TV for the whole afternoon. This way I missed the tennis lesson (is “missing” the correct verb? Skip maybe?) and I wasted my day. But at 6 PM I had this phone call with my GF, explained that I didn’t do anything the whole day. She said: “I think that in the last few months you learned that it’s never too late to live a meaningful day”. And I realized that she was speaking the truth. So I moved my ass and went out. What to do, what to do? I went to the vape shop and bought an eCigarette. Spent 120€. I tried it before buying it and I was surprised of how similar to smoking a real cigarette it felt. Really, amazing. I didn’t really mean to stop smoking, I wanted to buy it for future use, but I haven’t smoked a cigarette yet and I’m super happy of this new thing. It’s a very similar sensation. Also, I know that I’m not really quitting, there’s still nicotine inside this product, but I’m removing the great majority of the negative effects of smoking. I’ll quit completely in the future. As of now, I’m so so happy. Looks like magic. We’ll see if it will still look like magic even tomorrow morning, at breakfast xD I’ll re-evaluate in tomorrow’s entry. After dinner I texted one of my oldest friends. He came back in my city for the holidays, now he lives in Belgium and he’s finishing his master in engineering. We went out and got a hot chocolate. I told him about the detox and he was like “wow we’ve known each other for so long and I never suspected a thing. Did you really had a gaming addiction? Is gaming addiction a real thing anyway?”. Yes, I always hid so well. For some reason I felt proud of it. We ended up talking about politics. He’s a right wing liberal, and he’s getting involved in european politics. He’s meeting with european parlament deputates and so on. I’m a left wing social democratic, my ideas are almost opposite than his. We talked about immigration politics in Italy and oh man it was a hard talk. We couldn’t find common ground. Anyway, it was good seeing him. He also said it, “was good seeing you”, right before slamming the car door in my face without giving me the possibility of replying. tomorrow I have class at 11. This means waking up at 7.30. For gods sake. oh I almost forgot: MY REQUEST FOR STUDYING IN PARIS GOT APPROVED! Not at the most prestigious university, my first choice, but I was accepted at another university, one good enough, that I selected as a backup choice. Gonna spend 9 months there! It starts in september! @BigOlBeartic good seeing you again, and good to read (in your journal) that you’re faring well :) My brother knows but we haven’t talked about it. I will think about your suggestion next time I come back home.

The sun doesn’t smile at me, but apart from that I really enjoyed reading your post. I was raised with the utmost severity. since when I was a kid I was taught the importance of behaving appropriately, which meant for the most part being always damn serious and respecting the rules. Never taking it easy. And I was taught shame whenever I failed, never forgiveness. I can remember when I was a child and I always tried to hide my emotions to hurt my parents. I wanted them to know that I didn’t care about their authority. Yes, I did as they wanted, but I wanted them to understand that I hated them for it. As a price they had to pay for my obedience. So I suppressed my emotions, always hiding them: because of the reason I mentioned with my parents, because of shame with other people. I was never taught to show emotions, I always had to pretend. Like my father, who almost never showed his deep emotions. Now I understand that my parents were just trying to protect and mentor me, but back then it was hella hard. And it took its toll. I never developed a functional personality. In the last few years things got better, but I still am the usual edgy asshole unable to express his true feelings. I always have to wear some kind of metaphorical mask. thanks for what you wrote.

@Pierce I'm not sure whether you're talking about smoking or binge-watching videos. I will assume that you're comparing the two. Sadly, for smoking (and any substance-related addiction) you don't need a trigger. Even in the most wonderful days, every 40 min you get the urge of lighting up a cigarette. There's a source, though: I had a girlfriend that was a smoker, and I started because I wanted to emulate her. That's all. The more you smoke, the more you want to smoke. Both the psychology and the physiology behind the phenomenon are quite simple. As usual thanks for the kind words :) @Dannigan Thanks for the tips. I'll probably do as you suggest and won't try to quit smoking before the detox is over. Also, I know that smoking is bad. I always knew. But as Allen Carr puts it, "we don't smoke for the reasons why we shouldn't". Day 73 Woke up early, spent the morning on the Gamequitters website. I had neglected it lately, so I catched up with some journals. In the afternoon I went to pick up my brother after his basketball course. I noticed he was very impatient to go back home and play PS4. I’m very worried about him. He spends all his free time playing videogames with his friends or alone. He rushes homework because he wants to play more. When he’s not playing, he is watching some fucking youtube video from a fucking idiotic italian streamer, two hours or more every night before going to bed. He is 12, he has a social life, his school marks are very good, he does sports, he’s even had a girlfriend for almost one year now, he has a good relationship with the family, but I can’t help but feel scared for him. I know where he’s heading to. I walked his same steps. He has no interest for reading anymore, not even for watching tv with my parents. He prefers to use the evening for playing online with the xbox. My mum and dad don’t realize it, they didn’t learn much from me. They always prefered to just scream at me, without trying to understand. And they still don’t understand. My dad is a bank director, my mum a university professor. And they look so helpless when confronted with this thing they don’t understand. I don’t know how I can help my brother. We are not very close. When I try to talk to him, he always nods and pretends to understand. He respects me a bit, but he’s mostly scared. He knows that I don’t talk much, but when I do, I mean it, and I can get very depressed or very crazy. Anyway, I asked him if it was ok if we went to visit our grandparents before going back home. He said ok. We went and after 5 min he insisted for leaving. He couldn’t wait. It was good seeing my gp anyway. In the afternoon I received a call from a friend I didn’t see since october. He graduated in archeology in the meantime, and he came to my city because he’s got to take an exam here for the abilitation to be a tour guide. He’s taken a break from university, he says he’ll start studying again next year. We spent the afternoon together, and then he invited me to have dinner in the apartment he has rented. I accepted. We talked a bit. Not much confidence, a bit of suspiciousness, but pleasant evening overall. Tomorrow I should go back to uni city but I don’t want to. I barely spent any time with my parents in the whole week. I was always out or in front of my pc. Maybe I’ll wait for friday. P.S. My grandma broke her ring finger. Both bone and muscle are gone. She doesn’t want to have surgery, and she won’t be able to use that finger anymore. She said “who cares, I still have the other 9 fingers”. I thought she meant “I’m so old that it’s not worth fixing me”. I love my grandma, and I don’t want her to die, even if she’s very old and lived a happy life.

I feel you. When I started university and I went living on my own for the first time I was happy to have this freedom. I could decide whether I would go to class or not, whether I would study or not. I thought I could judge better than my university, I skipped a lot of classes because they were “boring”, “low-level” and such, and I only went to the best classes. Fast forward a couple years: I had impossible sleep schedules, I almost didn’t go to classes anymore, I spent all my days and nights watching movies or surfing gaming websites, I had no more friends because I never got out of home. It was terrible. Freedom is precious, but it is also a burden. It’s very easy to fail. Having someone telling you what to do, like respecting a class schedule and time structure decided by your university is much easier. A cowardly choice? “Freedom is too much for me”? I don’t know, but I can judge results, and freedom seldom got me anywhere.

When I started to detox I experienced the same feeling: everything is boring except playing games. Give yourself a couple weeks and you’ll start to enjoy life again. The reason why everything seems boring is that - as you already noticed - gaming is a huge stimulant, and everything looks flat in comparison. But this is just the addiction mechanism at work, the same process that got you addicted in the first place. Beat it and you’ll not regret it. About social life, well, I pretty much suck at it, but anyway I’ve noticed huge improvements in the last couple months. Not thinking about games all the time means your life gets more interesting and if you spend a lot of time out of your house you’ll automatically get to know new people. You may like them or not, but I advice you to always spend time with them, even for a short chat. It’s a good training exercise for honing your numbed social skills.

Hey @Dannigan :) Thanks for the kind words. The friends I’m hanging out with in this days are my oldest friends, we’ve been together for years and since we live in different cities we seldom see each other. We are also very different, diverse characters, not many interest in common and so on. If we met today for the first time we would probably hate each other lol. But we’ve been together for a long time and they’re very dear to me. Apart from them, I barely have friends. And most of my friends, old and new, are very different from me anyway. I like spending time with them, but I rarely feel real empathy towards them. I mostly feel like I’m alone, even when I’m with other people. Yes, I don’t get bored, but I’m not fulfilled either. Day 72 (spoiler: high level of negativity) The person with the best social life on the planet spent litterally the whole day on the movies tracker. I want to explain why, and what are the consequences. The movies tracker requires me to leave my pc on as much as I can. This means that as soon as I wake up in the morning, my pc is there, and I can’t help but sit down and check it to see if everything is running smoothly. Then what happens? I see the opportunity of filling a request or uploading a file. I sit down and do it. One, two hours pass. Then another, and yet another one. The more I upload/fill requests, the more my rank levels up. Tonight I made it to VIP. Sounds like a video game, right? The feeling is indeed similar. I have my little xp bar and all I have to do is make it to the next step. But I really don’t care about my rank, nor about the leveling feeling. I do it out of fear of being banned. I could log in just once a month, but even this minuscule quantity of gamification manages to get me hooked. I want to show them that I am a good user, I can contribute, so they don’t ban me and I can download everything I want.... even if I don’t watch movies anymore because I spend all my time hunting the rarest release.... How stupid I am? How worthless? I downloaded 3 TB of stuff, I watch 2 movies every week, I don’t need to download anymore for atleast 2 years. But hey, what if I really want to watch that specific movie that is obviously impossible to find in public trackers and that I can’t even buy because the industry is so god damn greedy and copyright laws are so fucking outdated that they would be obsolete in the VHS era? But I am better than this. I can ask more to myself. I need and want to respect all the efforts that started more than 2 months ago and lead me where I am now: in a much better spot in my life. I’ll seed the last movie that I uploaded and then I’ll log out of that account and I’m not using it until the end of this spring break. My mom likes to use my pc, she’ll do the seeding when I’ll be in uni city. I’ll download a single movie a month, deciding the title BEFORE I login, just to keep my account active. I’m done with this rankup bullshit, and I’m done with wasting my time. To be more clear: GOAL: Don’t use the movies tracker until the end of the spring break. Not even logging in will be allowed. Tomorrow I will go out early, have a good walk and stay away from my room. End of the rant. But not end of the entry. Next topic: smoking. Today on the StopSmoking subreddit there was the picture of a guy that spat blood in a cup. He’s in his thirties, just been diagnosed with 3rd stage lung cancer. HOW MUCH FUCKIN STUPIDITY DOES IT TAKE TO SMOKE THOSE CANCER STICKS? I really don’t know how I ended up like this. (Yes, I know, but still it seems a dream.) I said so many times in this journal that as soon as I finish this detox I want to quit smoking, but I don’t even feel prepared. I don’t know if I must buy a vape or quit cold turkey, for example. I don’t know if I will get fat, or whether I’ll be able to focus on my books or I’ll think about cigarettes all the time and fail my exams. If I will go back to it one day. I don’t know anything, except that I want to be free. I feel very isolated and in danger, and I don’t see the way out. I will rely on sheer willpower for surviving the day tomorrow.

I apologise, I’ve been quite lazy in the last few days and I didn’t read other people’s journals. I’m just very busy. Day 71 Went with friends to an amusement park, spent the whole day there. I met the new gf of one of my best friends and she’s ok. In the evening we roasted some meat and had dinner all together. Then we played Trivial Pursuit but we didn’t manage to finish the game bc it was getting a bit late and people wanted to go home. Holidays are just like this, a bit of it is very healthy but after a couple days I get tired and I want to get back to “work”. A pleasant day anyway. Had no time to surf anything.

Day 70 This morning I surprised myself and decided to go hearing Mass at the church. I’m something like an agnostic and certainly not a christian, but I didn’t go for so long and it’s been a huge part of my childhood, so I went. Then I had lunch with my whole family. In the afternoon I decided to go and play tennis again. I was so tired: last night I slept 5-6 hours, I ate like crazy at lunch, chainsmoked the whole day, the muscles behind my neck still ached because of yesterday’s afternoon... after 10 minutes I was already exhausted, after 40 minutes I gave up and went back home. I spent the whole evening surfing the movies tracker, even if I knew I should not. I’m not happy about it, but it’s spring break and I don’t feel too much guilty. Maybe I should... who knows?

Day 69 This morning I went out with a friend and we talked a bit. We didn’t see each other since november. In the afternoon I played tennis again with my friends. I played VERY GOOD and everyone was “wtf yesterday you were terrible what happened”... One of them litterally ragequitted after I beat her twice in a row. I think it’s also because I tried a new racket and I feel way more comfortable with it, so I’m bringing it to uni city and replace the previous one. I won most games and it felt very good because I’ve finally seen some progress after so many (<15? Lol) lessons. And so the whole afternoon went by. In the evening I watched a movie. Then I made the terrible mistake of wasting 3 hours on the movies tracker. I actually spend more time uploading stuff and partecipating to the community than watching what I download... This is not ok and I’ll fix it. Goal for tomorrow: log in no more than 2 times into the movies tracker. Tomorrow I’m going out for lunch with my whole family and I’ll eat many tasty things. My dad says that I’m getting fat and that’s probably true to an extent. I’ve never been fat. Well when I will quit smoking I will do more exercise, but for now I’ll just try to watch my diet.

Day 68 So... Came back to parents’ home. Spent a couple hours uploading some movies on the movie tracker. Then I got out and went to play tennis with some friends. It started to rain so we waited an hour in the car and when it stopped we played for half an hour. I was the worst player indeed but I had fun. We’re probably going again in the next days. In the evening I went out with the same friends and my sister. We had dinner, then we went to play Bingo (it’s gambling, but not a strategy game, so I get bored. I spent 3€ and my friends 8 or so). Then we went to play bowling and I won (hehe) and finally, the last game, we played pool. Before going back home we went to eat again, we had italian bakery products. Overall I spent quite a lot of money tonight but it’s ok, I had a good time. Now it’s 4 AM and I apologise, I’m so tired and my english probably sucks. Gaming-related thing of the day: I played bowling and pool while being literally surrounded by arcade videogames and I didn’t watch a screen once. But it’s getting natural, I don’t need anymore to force myself to look away. I didn’t have the slightest craving. Goodnight

:) I’ve already been there. Not a real alcoholic, but a problematic drinker indeed. And then I just stopped drinking. Now I’m mostly sober even in social situations. I very seldom drink, and when I do, not as much as I used to. I think that the difference between a problematic and a non-problematic drinker is that the first gets drunk not only when he hangs out with friends, but also alone in his room. I don’t do that anymore.

When I started this detox, I knew for sure that the week I’m going to face would be the hardest one. The real test. I learned a lot in this 2 months and I am now confident I will not game. I will keep myself busy, go out with friends whenever possible, try to study, spend time with my parents. There will be downtime for sure, but I’m here because I want to re-state my commitment. I did fine until now and I will be successful at the end of the holidays week. I will probably journal more often in the coming days. My bus leaves in 10, I better get ready.

Day 67 I woke up half an hour too late again. Then I went to the library, and didn’t manage to study much before I found out that the library was closing for the holidays. So I was put at the door. At that point I decided I would not study for the whole day and 1 Went to a friend’s home and spent a couple hours with him 2 Said goodbye to my gf, we won’t see each other for a week 3 Went to tennis After the tennis lesson I had nothing to do, I said you know what fuck it, I asked one of my tennis mates, the 30yo bank employee, to go out for dinner. He accepted and we got to know each other better. I think it’s the end of the bullying. We had a big burger and a beer, he insisted to pay the bill and so I didn’t even spend a dime. Pleasant day overall, tomorrow I’m going back to my parents’ home.

@Pierce Night shifts and rotations make it harder to build a daily routine and/or sleep schedule, but what I found is that, generally speaking, sleeping a little bit less makes me feel better than sleeping a little bit more. Also, staying in bed after waking up makes me feel groggy and sleepy the whole day. I know sleep is different for everyone, I’m just saying what works for me :) @Dannigan <3

@Pierce I’m a peaceful guy, it’s always difficult for me to play the bad cop. Most of the times (almost always) I do not even care about the problem itself, I am good at adapting, but people think they can disrespect me for this reason, and that’s what I don’t like. I know I need to improve this aspect of my personality. Saying “it’s ok” to everything is a bad strategy. Thanks and nice story btw :) Day 66 I partially lost control over the Lupin binge-watching. Yesterday I went to bed a little too late again. I slept to my gf’s. Today she woke up at 8 and went out. I was supposed to wake up before 9.30, but I ignored the (9 AM) alarm and went back to sleeping. Because of this, an embarassing thing happened. The houseowner had to come and fix the washing machine. He arrived while I was still sleeping, at 9.40, and found me alone in the house. I apologized, got dressed as soon as I could and left. Then my normal daily routine happened, but in the evening I felt very tired and I just watched 4 hours straight of the anime. I lost too much time, and even worse I missed on my goal of moderating. This is not going to have any bad consequences in the near future, because tomorrow I will have no time to watch anything anyway, and on friday I am going back to my parent’s home for a week (Easter holidays). However, I’m sad about this little failure. I hope you people out there are faring well. Love you all.

No worries Bear, I got the message :) thanks Day 65 The usual tuesday. “The Highlight”: I called a meeting with my flatmates bc I couldn’t stand the situation anymore. I was direct and told people what I think, in a polite but firm way, and explained that I don’t like their behaviour. The issues I tried to discuss got mostly ignored (I repeatedly accused my flatmate but she didn’t reply nor talk) but in the end, quite unexpectedly, the thing didn’t escalate into a severe arguement and we started joking and everyone left with a light hearth. “The bad habit”: I went to bed a little too late in the past 2 days and woke up feeling not so good. I watched Lupin the IIIrd anime and that’s why I went to bed later. I didn’t miss any lessons because of that, but I slightly lost my sleep schedule (it’s now shifted half an hour later). I’ll keep a close eye on this and try to be more careful.

Hi Danny, welcome :) League was the last game I was addicted to, and probably my most played game. I am now at 60+ days game-free and stream-free, and writing this journal is helping me a lot. Just be sure to check-in here every day and you’ll be where I am in no time! On this website you’ll find all the support you need. The community is very nice and helpful.

Heyy thanks for sharing :) I didn’t know about the abc form, I guess one never stops learning. I’m not sure I understood everything, the 2nd stanza is expecially obscure to me (but hey my english sucks, so...) Don’t worry about losing motivation, it will come back eventually. Maybe try to enforce a strict set of rules to prevent you wasting your time and your momentum. I specifically advice you to ban let’s plays and every gaming-related internet content. They just make detoxing more difficult.

@Dannigan cheers dannigan, and thanks for the feedback about the title of this journal. I was thinking to change it because there are 1000 journals with a similar name but I guess I’ll keep it as it is until the 90days mark :) @Pierce This time it was something very different, probably linked to a phisical and not only psychological disease. Day 64 updates tonight edit: good day, didn’t study but went to the courses, spent the rest of the time in an however meaningful way: I had a long chat with a fellow student in the afternoon, watched a 1-hour movie, talked several hours with my gf. thanks everyone for all the support and the nice comments I received lately. I really appreciate it.

Day 63 There’s something wrong today. It’s not about what I did (relax all day long watching a movie and then a couple hours episodes of an anime), I don’t feel guilty. It is something more deep. Something like an anguish without fear... it’s difficult to explain. I think it is also because I smoked too much and my lungs are asking for mercy. Maybe my body is just too stressed. I’m sure after a good night of sleep everything will be fine. Goodnight everyone

Are you safe and happy? No need to change. Are you safe and unhappy? Or more specifically: what are you trying to stay safe&protected from? What scares you? You’ll never find out if you don’t break the bounds of your comfort zone. And if you already know the answer, then it’s even more worth going for it.

This is exactly how I feel about games as well. But you have this very clear and honest way of saying it. Beautiful. CONGRATS for your 90 days!

You’re doing great, but you need consistency. Just do one little thing at a time. The detox should be your main concern. You made it 40 days, you can make 90 with ease. You were one of the first persons to reply to my journal when I landed in here and your posts have always been a big inspiration for me. You taught me to set goals, not just sit my ass on a chair for 90 days and hope not to be too bored. You have the right mindset, and there’s absolutely no reason for you to fail. Start over and do it, maybe take it easier as you said, don’t set up TOO MANY or unrealistic goals. A step at a time. As always, I root for you and am willing to give you all the support you need.

Imo approaching a GROUP of girls is generally a bad idea, unless you are introduced by someone. 1v1 is a better scenario if you want to get to know the person. I’d love to read some poetry by you. Are you ok with posting it? Or PMing it?