info-gatherer

So... here we are again. I had a “teenager” weekend, drank way too much, met new people, but I’m not embarassed about it. I was myself, I didn’t have to pretend to have fun because I was actually having fun. I think it’s good that I finally allowed myself to be a little more on the wild side after so many months of seriousness. I even went dancing and came back home at 4 AM, woke up at lunch time. I quite missed the feeling, but the real reason I enjoyed it without guilt is because I know that I am improving my life, giving it my very best every day, and I can relax every once in a while. Also, it’s been a boost to my self-esteem. I wasn’t scared, but I didn’t fuck up either. Last thing. As I said, I spent some time talking with this guy about videogames. I was really high but I didn’t say “I miss videogames” or such, I made it clear that videogames are bad for me and I quit, and repeated to him all the things I learned here. Yes, I wrote that I’d like to be like him and play videogames without the negative effects, but I always knew that it’s not possible (for me). This means that I have no more urge to play videogames and I don’t want to go back. I was even invited to a LAN party and I declined (while drunk!). This journey with the GameQuitters community has changed me. My perception of videogames and life in general is radically different. And the perception of myself, my self-worth, my goals, and my ability to commit has changed too.

Day 62 I’m drunk again, I got invited to dinner by a friend and I met new people and one of them is a nerd and we started talking about videogames and it’s been 2 hours and he’s so smart and I didn’t feel too much shame confessing I was a gaming addict and he is a gamer but not a problematic one he has a life and I’d like to be like him just enjoy games without the guilt and without wastingg my life

Day 61 I had a good day, studied a lot, was happy. Now I drank too much wine so I can’t answer properly, but thanks for the answers :)

I have the same way of seeing it. Also, they’re not REALLY my friends, not intimate ones at least. It’s just people that I spend time with and care for in some way. I don’t have close friends except a couple persons that live in other cities. Day 60 Got bullied again at tennis, but way less than last week. This is starting to really bother me and I don’t know what to do. The joke is always ambiguous and I never see it coming, and then it’s gone before I can even realize it and I miss my chance to answer back. This didn’t happen to me since middle school, it’s strange. Also, another strange thing is that those guys are sincerely kind with me and we talk about other stuff as well (nothing interesting but it’s relaxing anyway), they just like to make those jokes and I’m not even interested in replying, but I don’t like being made fun of again and again either. I could just run away and go playing tennis somewhere else, but I want to face this problem and fix it. Also I like our teacher, he is very good at his job and i learn a lot with him, that’s also why I don’t want to change club. I am so busy nowadays that I barely find the time to write this journal, but I am happy that I do it. It helps a lot. btw 2 months gone

@JanG thanks for the wise words. I fully agree with your point of view. Shame has always been a weakness of mine, I often make things bigger than they really are, and it’s good that somebody makes me face it. Only problem is that people can’t know that I quit, because they aren’t supposed to know that I was a gamer in the first place. I didn’t do my “coming out”. Maybe I should. Maybe it is just like the LGBT movement, you do coming out and inspire other people to do the same... Day 58 EDIT: 59! Ignored the alarm, woke up too late, missed the first 30 minutes of morning class. It won’t happen ever again. I had a discussion with one of my flatmates. I was more assertive, confident and honest than usual, but still I felt a bit like I was on trial. I DID explain myself in a clear way, but she didn’t really understand and after the 10th time repeating the same stuff I had to partially give up. Positive thing: I didn’t feel the need to smile the whole time, implying “I mean you no harm”. I was resolute and she felt it. Overall I feel more confident, less awkward in social situations (class, after-class, library). Tomorrow I have to clean the house and in the evening I’ll go to the tennis lesson. I’ll spend the rest of the day studying at the library.

Day 58 2 things happened: - I learned how to make sushi (and spent 20€) - A group of friends that I don’t hang out with anymore had a dinner together and nobody told me anything, I wasn’t invited. Now, I’m happy to be finally apart from them because that’s what I tried to do for a long time (there’s a couple very toxic individuals among them), but 1 or 2 of them are still friends of mine and I feel betrayed. I mean, I’m happy about the missing invite, but I’m definitely not ok with the silence & secrecy. Another thing that bothers (haunts) me is that one of the toxic individuals mentioned above knows my secret life (gaming 12+ hours a day) because I was so stupid to tell him while drunk, and now there is a high probability that everyone knows it. Even if I don’t game anymore. Is this fair? I guess I just need to accept it and deal with it. Accept myself and forgive my past self and care less about other people’s opinions. But I’m not ready to do that. It’s been only 50 days... Forgiveness and acceptance can wait...

Day 57 Today I did the usual routine, went to the courses and studied in my free time, had a dinner with friends in the evening, had a good bit of discussion about italian history and then about berlin’s clubbing culture. I realized once again how far I got since I quit gaming. My life and my motivation have improved, and I feel validated from other people. Oh, I almost forgot. Today I approached this girl and we had lunch together, I found her not so interesting in the end but I’m honing my social skills anyway, so it’s definitely worth it. Pierce, do you know what’s the matter with Dostoevskij? Incoherence. His characters have the right to be morally and psychologically incoherent for the first time in the history of literature. I read this in a book and I found it to be true. He’s so modern in this regard. Not one of my favourite writers but nonetheless a very good one.

Day 56 Goal more or less accomplished. I read a 170ish pages novel, so I didn’t have much time to browse the tracker. I logged in once in the morning, once after lunch and once in the evening. By the way, the book was Il Giocatore, an italian translation of Dostoevskij. “Giocatore” translates in english as 1 player 2 gambler 3 gamer. It’s a story of compulsive gambling (I’m making it short and simple) and had many points in common with compulsive gaming. I underlined a couple sentences that I’ll post here as soon as I have some time. Tomorrow I must wake up a couple hours earlier than usual, so I’ll go to bed right away. I don’t want to miss the morning course. In the afternoon I must go to the other course with the scary professor, wish me good luck @Pierce Don’t worry about my “breakdown”, it happens to me quite often, destroys me for a day or two and then I’m brand-new

Day 55 I won’t lie, I spent the morning on the movies tracker. Even if the tracker I use is explicitly against every kind of gamification, (no bonus points system, no ratio, broad rank-up criteria and so on), I’m very hooked by it. I check it continuously, even if I don’t need to. I can feel it’s an issue and I should take it easier. The “quests” there are not daily, but monthly. I am just required to login every now and then, leave the pc open and seed my files, respect the rules, upload something if I really want to. BUT I am so scared to get banned that I stare at the screen for hours, watching the download/upload bars going up and down. I know that the more I am active, the less are the chances that my account gets disabled for inactivity/low contribution. I could just turn on the pc and walk away, it would be the same, but I don’t. I set this goal: tomorrow I’ll check the tracker ONCE in the morning, and ONCE before going to bed. Tomorrow will be a different day. In the afternoon I made a checklist, so I was sure to stay away from the pc. I got a haircut, went to my grandma’s, tried some vapes at the vape shop, bought a new pair of shoes (so strange, I went to but them with my father and we had a good time togther, like a real father and son relationship. We singed and talked). Checklist completed, I came back home and watched a movie. I say it again, tomorrow I won’t waste my day in front of a screen.

Welcome :) The first week(s) are always the hardest, then it gets easier as soon as you see actual improvement in your life. I spent my first week of detox watching TV non-stop, then it was a breeze. What changed? I understood that it’s not much about quitting games, but replacing it with something else that makes my life better. Mainly studying, in my case. Some tips: -the easiest way to remove youtube gaming videos is removing youtube altogether. I didn’t do this because I never had a problem with youtube (I watched Twitch), but I see a lot of people struggling with it and as usual cold turkey is the easiest way. If you want to try another path, or you need to use youtube for other purposes, there was a guide (I think by @stablish) that allowed you to install a plugin that removed the “suggested videos” feature, so if you want to watch a specific video you have to search for it. Also, I suggest to use youtube without signing in. Without your account you don’t have subscriptions etc. Finally, remove youtube’s search history (it’s different from your browser’s) so you are not suggested videos that “interest” (trigger) you. -since you’re not a smoker anymore (congrats!) you may find it easy to do regular exercise, like running every day or something similar. It helps your brain as well. -(edit) I almost forgot! Watching gaming videos is the worst possible thing that you can do in your situation and you did very well when you decided to stop watching them. It’s absolutely mandatory that you stay away from gaming videos during your detox.

Ooooh how ironic my english sucks, I didn’t have a breakUP, I had a breakDOWN. Sorry @Cam Adair and everybody reading this

Day 54 Today I had a... major... minor...? everything is relative, I guess I’ll just say that I had a *edit* breakdown. It was as if my depression and anxiety were trying to come back to the surface, emerging from the unconscious. I thought my hearth would explode, I was scared of anything, suspicious of people, disgusted of everything except my girlfriend. I had this strong headache and nausea. Cigarettes made it worse. I can’t wait to finish this detox and try to quit smoking forever. Your guys’ posts helped me though a little bit. I thank you. I decided to come back to my parents’ home for the weekend, chilling a bit, trying to heal. Now it’s 10 PM and it already got somehow better. Everytime I take the bus on my way home (1 and a half hour) at some point I see this yellow square house. Every time I see it, I imagine Lee Sin, a character from League of Legends. Next to the little yellow one there’s another house. I imagine Swain, another LoL character, looming over it, menacious. That’s every time I take that bus. It started as a mental game, because I couldn’t wait to be home and plug in my pc and play some lol. Now it’s just surviving images, printed in my mind, without any link to reality. It’s strange, and beautiful. I see them and I realize that I’ll never be free, I’ll never be completely free, because they’re watching me, judging me, and finding me guilty of bringing them alive, once again. During that hour I also listened to Cam’s TEDx talk, podcast episode 7, and found it refreshing and brilliant. It had a clear political stance, it could change something in the way things work in our world.

Well I didn’t think about this. More studying and ever-improving social interactions is all I need to be honest. Then I have other goals in my life, but they are more like dreams... I’d like to get a PhD after my post-graduate course and become one day a teacher in university (how curious, that’s my mothers job and I NEVER thought I would want to become like her in any way). Another goal/dream is writing and directing a film. I’m very into art house movies and I want to make one. And another dream, the oldest and most important. It shaped my life. When I was 4 I really wanted to become a writer, and that’s been my ultimate goal ever since. But now I don’t see it like that anymore. I don’t want to “become a writer”, writing as a profession, trying to sell my book(s) to publishers, be famous etc. I “just” want to write a great book, sooner or later. In my free time, without a contract, not as a job and not as a slave of the market. And I don’t care if it will get published or not. If not, I will publish it online and free of charge. Concluding, a real goal I actually have now is to stop smoking. I will do it after my gaming detox, as I decided when I started this journey. ——— Thanks for the tips about my course, but in the end I sent the mail. I choose 3 subject, and specified the order of preference. I’ll get what’s still available. Updates about this will come soon. ——— Day 53 At the tennis lesson the other 2 guys made fun of me, again. The whole time. I don’t get whether they don’t like me/my attitude or they’re just taking advantage of my remissive personality. I’m very sorry about this because I thought that I was being quite a decent human being with them, acting properly, being sociable, and so on. Today I realized at least a part of the truth. It was so obvious, all their jokes were about it! How could I miss that??? They think that I am gay! Joking about gay people is so out of my sphere of consciousness that I didn’t realize it!!! Lol I have this quite high voice, and it gets very high expecially when I laugh. I have some feminine traits and gestures. And!!! they talk about pussy the whole time and I never joined in the conversation because I’m not 12 year old. Well I guess I’ll explain myself next time, maybe they don’t like me just bc of this :) I now go watching the movie that I didn’t have time to watch in the previous 2 days, good night everyone!

You spent 3 hours on it but in the end you figured it out. It’s not only about solving that single problem, but getting better at solving the whole class of related problems, what G. Bateson called “deutero-learning”. I’d say it’s worth it :) just my 2 cents

Now, THAT’s a list of goals! Also, I suggest you to -replace YouTube with Spotify or similar services for music, it’s not a trigger and works better -I understand why you’re banning movies, but as a movie lover I have to say that not all movies are equally a waste of time. For example art house movies and documentaries are not, in my opinion. Maybe you could put a rule that you can only watch movies you have got in DVD, so you would be forced to go and rent one every time instead of browsing your favourite streaming service and having instant gratification But these are just details, the important thing is that you are committed to changing your life in a meaningful way and I root for you!

Day 52 A collegue asked me to answer some questions for a scientific research project about “your ideal psychologist” or something like that. I was very surprised to admit to myself that I was answering very positively to questions about my happiness and personal satisfaction.

Just sleep on it, but be sure to come back tomorrow :) We’re waiting for you.

I understand very well your struggle about your account. I sent a mail to delete mine, and felt the very smell of freedom, but then I “changed my mind” and I didn’t complete the request. But I see that everyone who has deleted it is happy about it. I thought about selling the account too, but I was never convinced. Is 100€ (or whatever sum) really worth deprieving me (or you) from the pleasure of saying the catharthic “yes, we had a good time together, but now it’s time to say goodbye forever”...?

Well I guess I’m not the only person on earth who would thoroughly enjoy to spank his boss, but I still want to say that I can relate. The dude (or the girl) doesn’t respect you, and what you can do? Absolutely nothing. It’s very frustrating. Just carry on and you’ll eventually get your freedom back when your contract expires. Looking back at my only working experience, 5 months in a start-up last year, I have to say that it was very hard at times, but I learned A LOT about how to deal with people & a lot of other stuff, and in the end it was 100% worth it. I hope it’ll be the same for you :)

Day 51 The professor didn’t get mad at me. Instead, I sadly made the poor choice of making fun of HIM (I swear, just the most innocent of the jokes) and he heard me. Gotta have a hard time at his course from now on if I don’t prove him that I’m a good student & a chill person. This is why I already thought about a question that I’ll ask him as soon as he walks the door of the classroom next monday. Hopefully, an intelligent one, but he’s to judge. Everything else is fine. I didn’t have the time to call the yoga gym, I just studied all day long. I can see a progress in my social skills. I’m a bit less anxious and slightly more willing to talk to strangers without making a fool of myself. I’m also slightly less in a hurry in everything I do. I usually do things fast, I’m efficient, I don’t waste time, but I’m starting to relax a little bit more. Also, I don’t know why I’m mentioning it now, after 50 days: I never told anybody that I was a gamer. I was deeply ashamed of it. Now that I closed this chapter of my life, I think that one day, when I’ll be 100% clean, I won’t be ashamed anymore and finally tell my friends or anybody: “you know, I was a hardcore gamer, I spent 12+ hours a day playing online. But now I’m fine, I don’t do that anymore.” Concluding, I want to thank you @BigOlBeartic for supporting me and reading my poorly-written uninteresting shit every single time, it’s very kind of you edit: I’m spending the evening answering journals and chainsmoking on the armchair. Guess it’s not too late to do something more healthy. I finish this cigarette and clean the mess of my room, it’ll take 1 hour at least. Then I’ll watch a movie and go to bed.

Hi there :) I just finished reading your journal and it looks to me you’re doing great! I was impressed by the part in which you wrote that you looked at your Sims’ abilities leveling up instead of improving your own skills, THE SAME SKILLS that your Sim was learning. That helped me figure out something important. I knew that games give us a sense of accomplishment, but I didn’t understand how they are actually trying to emulate life. I thought about the hours I spent leveling Cooking, Fishing, Tailoring etc in WoW and felt so stupid. Also, reading the description of your dream was very enjoyable. It looked like a page from a good novel.

Day 50 I like the courses of this term. I like my life, what I do and how I do it. It won’t be easy but I am putting the right amount of effort into it. I just need to keep doing what I do, slow and steady. I completely forgot about those yoga lessons I mentioned a couple weeks ago. I will check tomorrow if they still accept applications. My weekends are too boring. I need to think about it and make a plan. There’s much room for improvement. I still didn’t write that email and tomorrow my professor will probably publicly make fun of me or get angry at me. I didn’t write it because I don’t know what to write. It’s about choosing a topic for a lesson I must “teach” to the class. Every student must choose a topic, and I’m one of the few that didn’t. That’s because I’m very ignorant about the history of the world after 1945, and the course is about italian politics between 1989 and present day. I think that every thing I choose will be a failure. What I had to do: learn more about the available topics and choose one. What I did: ignore the problem. Fuck me.

You’ll be more focused after every day of detox. After the first 2 weeks I had already transitioned from 4ish hours of study a day to 8-10 hours.

Day 49 Everything going smoothly enough. Absolutely uneventful day but still I had 0 cravings. I played the guitar, watched a movie, slept a bit, talked with my gf. Tomorrow is Monday and I have 4 hours of lessons, including 2 hours of that very difficult course I mentioned some days ago. I didn’t write an email even if I had to, but apart from that everything is fine. Relaxing day.

Welcome. I had a lot of problems socializing in the past, and I escaped in videogames as you did. But the truth is that gaming is a loop that makes your life harder every day. It’s hard to make friends when you’re stuck in front of a pc. Congrats for deciding to quit!