Jump to content

NEW VIDEO: The Dark Side of Gaming (Documentary)

SuperSaiyanGod

Members
  • Posts

    355
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by SuperSaiyanGod

  1. 7/10 day. I think. It's hard to measure this when so many exciting things happen at the end of the day. Today I woke up quite early, worked a little and then went to sleep again. That sucks, it was only supposed to be a short nap. But afterwards I went to a theater piece my friends were making (and they were much better actors than I am), the same one I talked to Cam a year ago when we had a coaching session. Then I went to a lecture and then decided to skip one in order to work a little more, but I was convinced to go to another one, on how to become a psychologist that works in courts and the like. It was amazing, even though it wasn't a very interesting topic. Right now there's a discussion going on in our group about forming a new student theater, which would be extremely exciting. I immediately had a ton of ideas for that. Today I didn't even have time to game or watch porn. But I had urges for the latter, espacially after the theater piece which had some sexual stuff. Oh well. Right now I'm working, trying to prepare for a workshop I'll be co-hosting, which starts in 7,5 hours. Damn it. I'm majorly stressed out. I also have a lot to do tomorrow - pack up go to my parents' house, study a bit for a class, and some miscellaneous stuff. So I'll have to get up at 6am. and be incredibly well-organised at the beginning. I'm probably gonna get 4 hours of sleep. Oh, well.
  2. 7/10 day. I spent the day completely disregarding any discipline, except for when it comes to porn. So I ate a lot of junk food, gamed a lot, but didn't touch porn. Yeah, I guess I can consider that a success. The day was pleasant and had a nice board game session at the end, and that made the day a 7 instead of a 6. I was a little bit stressed that I won't be able to study for Tuesday (I have two things I have to prepare and haven't started yet, but only because of my poor choices), but it turns out I have tomorrow morning free, so I'll be able to study then. Good. I think that's all. Edit: I mean, I have no idea if this approach could ever work. But I can give it a try, I have a lot of time.
  3. Quick update, different plan. Okay, I talked to someone yesterday and I got a little advice. I'll try to focus only on porn, and only start with the other things once that's under control. So I'll allow myself to do anything as long as I don't masturbate or watch porn. And so it's gonna be a lot easier to deal with boredom, my number one trigger.
  4. Quick update, 4/10 day. Today I reactivated an mmo game for quite a lot of money. It gave me 2 months of play time, and it turned out to be crap, it's so boring and not at all as exciting as I thought it would be. So for the last hour I've been trying to think of a new game I could play. I gamed today just because I'm bored.
  5. Please don't give me advice, I don't think it makes any sense if I'm not asking for it. Quick report of an okay day. Let's see. So far the day is clean. I had a bit of work. I went to the meeting with my friends, where I was santa claus, but it wasn't terribly exciting. Now I'm going to lie in bed and watch anime until I fall asleep. It was a good day, but I wouldn't write here today if not for the need for consistency. That is all.
  6. Back to the front. Okay, new plan. Or actually old plan. I always get happy when I abstain and then I write here a lot. But when I don't abstain and basically make all the wrong choices, I suddenly lose the will to write here. But writing here is supposed to be a thing that helps me stay on track - so it's stupid of me not to use it. The only thing I have to do to stay clean, at least in the beginning, is the same thing I wrote before: let go of unwanted thoughts immediately and use all available resources. And so from now on I'll make sure I write here every day. No matter what happens. (Unless it's so good I don't have time, in which case okay)
  7. Dude, that post is from a year ago, I haven't had that thought in months. I don't ever play online games. A day is a success only when I stay clean in regard to porn and masturbation, everything else is ridiculous compared to that. Need for change. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to call this. It's the middle of the night and... Well, I suddenly I have the strongest feeling of a need to change that I have ever experienced. I'm almost ready to cry. It's a sort of a bitter feeling, because I'm looking at my past. I was watching porn and I heard a song I used to listen to on loop while jogging. I miss it so terribly. If I had healthy knees, it would go out for a run this instant. Suddenly I have a terrible need for direction in my life. For action. I want to run, or at least exercise in some other way. I want to have real sex. I want to grow, read books and be interested in things, so that I can have things I can talk to people about. I know changing is the easiest thing when you're about to go to sleep. But at least I can make a plan. Fill out the spreadsheet with all the red marks I've neglected. Place the junk food I bought today at the garbage. Tomorrow I can purchase some weights, so that I can do at least some exercises without engaging my knee. And check out an interesting non-fiction book. That's all.
  8. I wrote about 250 words yesterday, and went to sleep when I felt like it would be easy to fall asleep. Today I woke up at six, was happy about though a little tired, then took a shower, meditated, exercised and planned the day. Then I took a nap, when the alarm went off I put up another one and then I overslept, waking up it the last moment when I could make it to the classes. So I didn't do anything, anything that I planned for the day. But that's not a big problem. I'm clean. Also, while napping I had a lot of meta dreams, and they weren't the ones I had previously, about relapsing. Instead they were just sexual dreams, but the didn't actually produce any urges.
  9. Back at square one. You know what? It's the same deal as a week ago - I spend my time gaming and watching youtube, and scrolling, I don't eat anything except junk food and I masturbate to porn a couple of times a day. Now it's a bit after midnight and I can't fall asleep. Partly because I woke up late, but probably mostly because of the died I've been indulging in during these past few days - because of which I now have trouble breathing. And so I've decided to stay up all night and write as much of a short story as possible. I think I'm gonna write on paper so as to not have to look at a screen for hours. I've done this only once before, I'll make sure to post here whatever results I have. I'm not gonna lie, I see this 35-hour period in which I'm not going to go to sleep as a sort of penance or catharsis.
  10. Relapse and thoughts. I relapsed with porn yesterday, because I thought I could just look at it a little and it wouldn't be a problem. Actually, I thought the thing I'd look at wouldn't even count as porn. Right now, I really don't feel like writing here. Which is actually why I have to do this. Every time I relapse and keep relapsing, I lose the will to write here. Or maybe it works the other way? I wake up extremally late every day, unless there's something I absolutely have to do in the morning (though studying never counts). That's why I don't have time to exercise and meditate. These two I also don't do, because I live in the living room and I don't want to do these on view. Only two or three more days of that though. About the over excess of sleep, I have no idea what to do. Even going to sleep early doesn't change anything.
  11. Still one day clean. Today I screwed up with a job offer - I could a Santa for 7 hours and get eight fuckloads of money for it. But I hesitated because I've never worked before and every job offer is terribly scary for me, especially one where you have to talk to children and people in general. Anyway, a guy was supposed to call me, and since he didn't, I suppose they found someone else. Damn. When I talked to a friend about how good of an offer it was, I was about to accept it. Oh, well. For now, tomorrow I have a lot to do with my club so the day's gonna be awesome anyway. I have urges for porn, specifically to watch a particular set of photos. On one hand, I don't like it that I won't be able to look at them for the rest of my life, even though they are only mildly sexual. On the other hand, the freedom I can get is definetly better than that.
  12. Status. One day clean. I didn't exercise yesterday and I meditated in the evening, with a lot of distractions and I was falling asleep a lot. All that because right now I live in the living room and I really don't feel like exercising on view. Also, I had two tests recently, for which I've been studying, and these past few days I didn't have anything to do really. But today I got a list of questions for the next exam, so I think I'll spend the next week working through them, even though the exam is in February. Also, yesterday I went to sleep a little after 8pm, with a plan of getting up at 6am. I woke up at 11am. I'm a bit angry, but I'm just gonna try the same thing today.
  13. Here's my tip - don't be awake at night. In my case that's the basis for all recovery and all discipline.
  14. It helped me get consistency when I realised that neither quantity nor quality matters when writing the journal. It doesn't need to be a page long every time, it doesn't need to follow any template, it doesn't need to be forced in any way. I just write what comes to mind, and the only thing I do is give titles to the paragraphs after I finish writing, so as to help me navigate through it when I read it later. And so, sometimes I write a few words, sometimes ten paragraphs, and that way I never have to force myself and by now it's become a very pleasant habit for me. I don't even write every day, sometimes I forget about it for a few days when I'm focused on, you know, life. Other times I scribble notes on receipts and tram tickets several times a day, because I have to much to write that day and I don't want to forget it. On the other hand, I don't find interaction with others in my thread useful or desirable. When I want advice, I just ask for it - otherwise I just leave it there for everyone to read, maybe it helps someone who reads it, but I write it mostly for myself. I almost never read anyone else's journals, and I don't even know what's going on on the rest of the forums most of the time. Usually when I want discussion, I go to r/stopgaming.
  15. Status - rock bottom. It's 5am. I look to what my life looked like before the longest, best streak of my life, which lasted 11 days. I look at where I was and I see the exact place I'm at right now. It's 5am and I was about to go to sleep, making another vow to quit in the morning. I spend my time lying on the couch and watching tv series, gaming and masturbating to porn. I wake up later and later every day, I don't feel like going to a grocery store, keeping the apartment clean, attending classes, studying. Anything that requires me to walk further from my couch than kitchen I don't feel like doing. And anything that requires me to take my eyes off the screen. I only eat junk food, candy and ice cream, and I only leave the apartment when I absolutely have to - when I'm out of food or when attendance is mandatory. A few minutes ago I was making another vow to get clean in the morning, but I had to turn my computer on again and get rid of it all right now, because otherwise I definetly wouldn't do it in the morning. I would just go back to the pattern. I'm gonna get up at nine, draw a new spreadsheet, go buy real food, and get clean. I'm gonna spend the day reading a couple of different books and then consciously stop at nine and go to sleep. With tv you can't stop consciously, because there's always another episode you have to watch; nor can you with games, because there's always another level you have to play. With books - you can just put them away with satisfaction. Please don't write to me with advice.
  16. Relapse with porn. A heavy one, at least three hours of porn, and physical pain afterwards. Now I'm going to sleep, I had some junk food urges but I didn't buy any. The paper still looks pretty good though. I'm going to go on with the exact same deal as before. It I get back on track right now, it will be like exercising a muscle. Some urges for porn are still present, but tiny. Mostly the "I already did it today so the day won't get any more red". Yeah, good excuse. The paper can still look incredible at the end of the month. And if I get back on track right now - one relapse every 10 days is an amazing progress, it's a lot better than 3-8 times a day plus junk food and gaming, no studying and waking up at noon. One other thing - after the relapse it's so much easier to focus on studying, without all the urges. Although maybe yesterday was just a bad day for concentration.
  17. The hard part begins. I stayed clean yesterday, but I'm gonna be honest. The only thing I wanna do right now is watch porn. I fantasize actively on and off. Even when I don't fantasize, I feel this preassure. I look at my spreadsheet, where it's only 6 days left to the biggest goal of my life and I don't care. There are two thoughts in my head: either I relapse right now, which I don't want to do, because I want to fulfill my goal, or I power through the rest of these 17 days and relapse then. I'm rationalizing this in every possible way. That I can always do that again, that I won't be able to do it anyway, that I'm allowed to give myself a reward for going so long. That once every 11 days is great progress. The thing is - now and then I get this period of easy, and when it ends, I quickly fail, because I can't bare the hard part for more than a few days.
  18. Lotus - maybe in a couple of years. But I hope I can get good enough with normal sitting to be able to meditate in that position. For now I need a chair. Yeah, I've got urges. I'm fantasizing on my own, though it could be a lot worse. I've got this feeling that I could just open up a website and go to town, and I build that up in my mind as the best, most exciting thing in existence. I'll now go to sleep and surf them. I was going to write "try to surf them", but no. I'm going to surf them.
  19. Constant, measurable growth. I've started juggling almost two months ago. It was a nice challenge, but right now I'm not juggling as much and I'm not seeing almost any progress. However, these past 10 days I've been stretching and meditating daily and I'm seeing progress there. Meditation for 20 minutes doesn't seem very long anymore, but I'm not going to increase the time yet - I'm gonna stay at 20 minutes for at least another month. I still often have that thought "when is it going to end", but it usually comes quickly by that point. I've also been stretching my legs (little progress) and past few days I've also been practicing sitting cross-legged, because that always used to be a problem for me. I want to improve my posture, because that would be better for my social interactions, and I also want to improve my breathing, which isn't going well when I try to sit/stand straight. And so at the end of every stretching session I sit down cross-legged for at least 5 minutes, and today I saw real progress. I no longer tremble that much, I don't have to shift position all the time or hold my legs in order to keep straight, or readjust my back all the time. At first, the 5 minutes was very long, but now I can just put on a youtube video what is 7 minutes or longer and sit through it, without thinking about my back a lot. I'm going to keep increasing the length of that more often. Yesterday I also started doing some other exercises to help my back and breathing and they are going poorly. Which is the point I think. They are actually painful, but hopefully in a few days it'll be better. Now I'm gonna meditate. It was a mistake to eat before stretching and meditating.
  20. First time real urges. Yesterday I went to bed quite early because I wanted to wake up early today. Didn't work, I didn't get up at six and instead got up after nine. Doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm 10 days in. The other important thing is that I had quite strong urges as I was trying to fall asleep. I was thinking about porn and what I would be looking at if I were to look at porn. I had serious nostalgia. On one hand, the content that I miss most - even the thought of it excites me. On the other hand, this is some pretty sick, HOCD stuff. It has nothing to do with real sex. Anyway, some of the thoughts I was letting go of, but they were coming back. Some of them I fed on my own, to a point where I got a physical reaction. And some of them I think I started myself. But with every one of them, at some point I got a hold of myself and started letting them go. Then new ones appeared, and I let go of them as well. Finally I went to sleep. The nature of urges. Through all that, I realised that: none of these urges are an actual threat to me,all of these urges go away, especially when I utilize a meditation approach,the point of no return only comes when I start acting out on them. In the past, even to a small urge I would react immediately, and that physical feeling was something I couldn't let go of. Now I realised that even a strong urge is just a temporary thing, and in no way I have to react to that.This is a way in which I was finally able to understand the concept of Urge Surfing. That guided meditation only stresses me out, because that woman is going way too fast for me to process it all. When I do it on my own - at least yesterday it worked well. Shifting perspective on addiction. Oh, I'm having trouble expressing what I think. I always felt like my addiction and me were the same thing. Now I think that a huge part of me is actually conscious and whether I act out is a matter of a conscious decision. Fear of more urges. I know that these urges from yesterday are still there, and I know that they are going to keep resurfacing during the day. There's also a matter of an account I have on a pintrest-like website for porn. I know I could just block the images, go there and delete the account. But that's how I relapsed last time. Something triggered me and I decided to just take a peek - and then I binged for a couple of weeks. So I'm just going to leave it there for now. At some point I'll probably forget the name of the account and it'll be over. One last thing. I think I'm getting more and more concentrated on porn - and the more I think about it, the more I want to go back to it. I'm gonna leave my apartment in about two hours and only come back after classes. That'll at least do for the next several hours.
  21. Morning pride. I'm clean. I'm so clean. I've never been so clean. Nine days, and it couldn't be less difficult. Usually after a couple of days I'm drowning in fantasy and urges. This time it's been NINE DAYS, and I've only had very minor urges and short fantasies - which were easy to get rid of. It's also nine days without junk-food and gaming, but I've done that many times before, I don't even think about those two anymore. If I can stay clean of porn, then there couldn't be anything easier than not gaming. Evening urges. I'm having some porn urges. I'm having nostalgia and some fantasies. Some of which I didn't let go of immediately. I'm going to continue with the plan - let go of fantasies and use resources. And so I'm going to listen to one video and then meditate in bed until I fall asleep. Dream of relapse. Just now I remembered that I've had another one of those this night. It was a lot more horrible than the ones before, a lot more vivid. I think that's a good thing. It reminds me of how much relapses suck without having to relapse. I'm grateful for them. Faith. I'm not a believer, but now that things are suddenly going so well, I'm starting to doubt myself. I've had a mystical experience two summers ago, it was the strongest feeling I have ever had, and it ended my suicide thoughts in a split second. I'd been having them quite often for years, and now I have an impenetrable barrier against them - whenever one appears, it's as if an outside force is dismissing them, without any effort. I'm not going to explain any of that. But I've been always thinking a little about Jesus's teachings, and now I'm thinking maybe he has something to do with what's currently happening. I don't think I'll ever believe he actually exists, but hope might be a better word than faith in my case. If I wake up clean tomorrow, it'll be 10 days. Right now every new second is the farthest away from that prison I have ever been. Words. I'm thinking a lot about the words I'm using. I try to use I will rather than I might. I try to never use I can't or I couldn't. The only problem is with if. On one hand I want to use when I wake up clean tomorrow. On the other hand, this is one area of my life where I'm not sure I have total control. I don't know if it's good to feel so cinfident with my capabilities in this specific matter. Perhaps I should wait with that.
  22. Very quick update. Thanks guys. I've got no urges! Why? I don't believe it! I spent today with my friends, hosting the charity event we also had yesterday. I got up early, did two hours of power, left quite early and got home quite late. Feels good. Now I'm gonna go read for pleasure, and tomorrow morning I start with the studying. Urges and fantasies. I found that it's important to write about every small urge or fantasy in here. I'm going to continue doing that. Writing about these things helps me grasp them, see that they aren't really that terrible. Today I had some romantic fantasies, about the girl who kissed me. But I let go of these thoughts too, though they returned a couple of times. Fantasizing doesn't help with with absolutely anything, and I know romance fantasies often lead to porn and sex fantasies - that means they are triggers, and so I'm going to avoid them. I also avoid any small triggers in movies and TV shows, which I don't watch that many - take yesterday, when I knew an episode was about porn, so I skipped it. Can't ever be too cautious. Hope. Tomorrow I'm going to be over half-way into my greatest, most desired goal. It really helps that it's just 18 days, instead of an entire month. Next month will also be split into two parts, so that the goal is smaller. But today I let myself think that tomorrow I will be 10% into the 90 day goal. I'm so happy how far I've gotten.
  23. Status. If I stay clean until I wake up tomorrow, it's the scene by the scarecrow again. Not that it's anything else than a matter of decision. For now it's 7 days, wow. It's going easy and the trip helped A LOT, I met a lot of interesting people and had a lot of great, inspiring conversations. I got a contact to a student theater, and I talked to one girl about making some music together - which she says she's down for. Yesterday I've been playing guitar for quite a while, because she's a lot more talented than me. I also didn't screw up my sleeping cycle even though during the trip I was awake for 40 hours straight. And during the trip I didn't skip meditation or training - at 7:30, when the party was slowing down, I just went to take shower, then left and sat by my favorite river and meditated; I simply started a new day the way I always do. When I got back, everyone else was asleep. I didn't waste today either - I left home early because of a promise to a friend, but then I thought this was a great circumstance, because being outside with people keeps me busy and makes it ludicrously easy to stay clean. And so I spent the entire day with friends from my club, we were hosting a lottery to help fund a local hospice. It was a nice success. Then I went to one and a half lectures, and then to another event organised by my club - a meeting on how to become a sports psychologist. Overall, the day has been grand. New occurence in recovery. The night has been easy, probably because of all the lack of sleep I've had on the trip. I went to sleep at 8pm and woke up at 1am, feeling quite well. However, I had a little trouble falling asleep again, and at one time, when I was half-conscious, I started masturbating. It was the first time during this abstinence and it was unconscious - and it lasted a second. I immediately realised what was happening and bolted upright. That was automatic as well, it just happened. Maybe a part of me is taking over and building a barrier against acting out? Maybe the will to stop is suddenly so powerful, that it controls my movement without me having to think about it? Maybe the terrible dreams of relapse did a damn good job? I hope it's true - and it that case I want more of them. By the way, my reaction to a 6am alarm was the same - it took me .45 seconds to get up. It didn't go so well for the 5am one, but I'm not complaining, I feel good. Urges and kisses. I still miss it though. I want to go back to that warm place. But I don't think about it at all - when a memory arises, I let go of it. Speaking of warm places - a girl kissed me twice during the trip. Nothing romantic, just friendly. But it felt so good. I think I'll pass on that fake warmth and shallow excitement if this is what's waiting for me down the road. Progress. You can see it below - I'm so damn proud of myself. I'm almost halfway into fulfilling the greatest dream of my life. Plans. The next two weeks I'm going to fill with studying. I have two test coming up and I want to do as well as possible - but most of all, I want to learn as well as possible. I think I'll be spending a lot of time at my college building - and enjoy zero urges for hours on end.
×
×
  • Create New...