WorkInProgress

This feeling crept on me over a while (even before I quit all games). Games doesn't seemed fun anymore and I felt always bad if I played them (couldnt't stop to either though). As I commited to the detox and actually managed to stay away from most of my binge habits (did some anime/youtube/random stuff) I felt like I could not only feel stuff again but actually think for my own for the first time in a long period. Like the autopilot was off and I had to steer my emotions and brain on my own again. Great feeling to have :). That was what drove me back to not gaming even after I played a bit after the detox again and again. I just feel better if I am not gaming at all.

Welcome to the forum. Such changes in life bare the possibility to change yourself for the better. If you don't know how to start besides deleting your games here are the fundementals explained: https://gamequitters.com/video-series-1/ Do you plan to have a daily journal rhytm? If yes I would advise your to plan a specific time for it (after breakfast, before going to bed, something else which suits your lifestyle). THis way it becomes a habit and way easier to follow through. As I did this detox over 2 years ago I found especially LoL hard to quit. Instant gratification and the possibility to dig myself in another world and subculture and escape from the things I feared I couldn't do, had become automatic. Especially the relationsship with my wife did really suffer under this. Use this shitty experience of getting dumped to become the most awesome version of your self. If you'll need anything feel free to ask here or somewhere else in the forum and I'll be happy to lend you my brain. I try to look especially often in the new journals to give feedback, because it helped me so much as I got feedback from people who don't get payed for it.

Detox: 16.10.2017 - 16.01.2018 (Porn and unproductive Youtube added for last month) Week 8 (15.12.2017-22.12.2017) Still no sugar. I am more productive then I was before and using my time more efficiently lately. I use the time I have mostly to spent time wiht ym family and doing chores which is fine by me because my family is still priority nr.1. If I have some free time liek right now I should do more programming to finish that damned skill before christmas. But right now I think posting on gamequitters for half an hour is a quite good past time for relaxation. Soon there will be christmas. We allready have a beautiful christmas tree standing in our living room and I am really happy to have our first christmas as three. Things are still sometimes challenging and especially my mobile usage has to decrease. I often think I am productive (with reading ebooks on my phone or listening to audiobooks) but in reality it leads to me beeing not present and taking longer for easy chores or not paying enought attention to my wife. I try to read on kindle app with an audiobook playing on 2* speed if I have some time for for it. Maybe this will help to remember topics better (because two senses are used). I didn't do porn and wasn't really unproductive wiht youtube but isntead selected the content I consumed pretty well. Still room for improvement there though. I think if I keep getting tougher I can spent time consumed in time producing more content (programming writing). Especially the realisiation that to teach is a good way to learn stuff and keep it in memory should empower me to produce more (tutorials or summarys of content I consumed). Next year I'll have a fairly big commute to work. I think I'll use my new laptop then to write things out without internet. Will need some planning though (downloading sources etc.) I am pretty active wiht housework and helping my sister renovating and carrying my babyboy around so I am feeling ok with my missing excercise right now. I also loosing weight ( am around 78kilo) right now. So I feel like I am doing not optimal but not bad either on the fitness front. It feels like I am on track and I just need to steer a bit from time to time that I end at my destination.

Missing you

I did the same after a few months of posting in secret. Was really liberating and brought us closer.

Yeah that is sometimes the thing. It has it benefits but it can also suck dick if you don't like that admin/bare bone stuff. Linux Mint is awesome. Their are other similar beautiful and low maintenance distros like elements os or many others. Windows can be a fine choice and has some nice software developer programs. These zealots of any technology are just annyoing. For some cases some linux distros are better for some ohter cases Windows is a great choice. It is just a tool not a vengeful god people!

I know this feelng just to well. Fater studying for arounc 7 years of an engineering subject I am afraid that I know nearly nothing of the subjects. But I am sure it would come back way easier now if I needed the knowledge. And iI did some career switiching anyway and it seems to workout without me knowing anything of this stuff again:) If your job doesn't pay enough to be sustainable search something else. You cannot forget to fear the opiton where every thing stays the same. It is sometimes riskier to do nothing then to do something bold.

You get stronger if you go through tough days. Not the other way around. Make a plan for the next time you would usually binge and do something else. It doesn't have to be productive. Maybe go for a walk or visit some friends or family. Anything but these bad habits you build over time. This isn't the way out but you plan with the cognitive part of your brain an alternative in front and then you'll need less willpower to evade your negative behaviours. If your able to do this a few time it gets easier and easier. The key is to plan in front when you are still in control so it is very easy to follow through with it. A side effect is that you'll become more mindful of your own behaviour which is always a good thing.

Sry to hear about your relapse. What happened? Was their a specific trigger? Thinking about the relapse can help you to prepare for future similar situations.

That is exactly what I have done so many times. Escaping from stressful things and feeling shitty about it afterwards. It is hard to face the fact that yourself aren'T what you want to be. Not the one who is easily doing the things you want to do. It shouldn't be a surprise but somehow it feels bad everytime again and again. The thing is that this fear of failing is a root cause of procrastination. Seems illogical but it is still true. You'll need to look at these exams and challenges as a way to test your knowledge and to motivate you and not as a exam which evalulates your. It truly doesn't. It just evalulates your knowledge in a distinct topic. That has nothing to do with you beeing awesome or shitty. It is a chance to see where your knowledge needs to be improved and give you the chance to improve it. And be it only your studying habits. See the benefit in the challenge and don't be afraid. There is so much to gain and in reality very little to loose.

Good job. Now it is time to do a great study plan and start small with it. Otherwise this will overwhelm you. Don't postpone starting that is the most important part

It seldom helps to see the bad things gaming did to you even if this isn't intuitive you'll need to see the good things that come from not gaming. You want to become another person. A person free from clutches or addictions. Free to do how you like. Free from having to do things only because the are comfortable and you are used to it. A person with high self-esteem beeing in control of his own body and mind. What your feeling right now is just the detox. It is normal to struggle. But this will pass as soon as you are able to accept that this haven't to be you anymore. Sitting around drinking and playing meaningless games just that you don't feel lonely. Thats you only you if you choose to be that person. You can be the proactive person who uses the free time to do something awesome. Or you can choose to relapse. It is your choice. Everytime you choose against relapsing, everytime you try again after you relapsed you stop beeing that person who is ruining his life with addictive behaviour and becoming this second awesome person. Btw. this doesn't mean that your accomplishiment your clan or your time gaming was bad. You took a lot of great things out of it and it helped you in your past. But you can honor this in your mind and choosing a different lifestyle for tomorrow. I like the time I had playing with friends online and competing for endless hours. I liked how I felt if I watched these replays and beeing part of my little niche gaming culture. I am still so much happier how my life is now after I freed myself from the burden to have the pressure to game all the time because nothing else felt satisfying. These things aren't contradictory. Remember the good but make your decision anyway. Not because you have to, but because you are free to choose it. Because you chose it at the start of your detox. You owe this to yourself.

I know this feeling. Sometimes prioritization works great sometimes you just do a little bit of everything and need to get back on track to see improvements. Still a little bit from everything is better then doin nothing. I wish you success at going into productive mode again.

Not gaming is a win even if it sometimes doesn't feel like it. Hope you become well again soon.

The reason why you should quit the detox and my biggest problem in self-improvement summarized. https://simpleprogrammer.com/2014/12/29/want-accomplish-goals-become-finisher/

Welcome I am looking forward to check out your daily journal

I also do my "coding" on Linux. I learned a bit of C in University so I thought it would be good idea to start with C/C++. I did some object oriented samples and semi-useful projects but never produced anything real. I also tried some pyhton and bash scripting. But after I found a job as a atlassian software consultant I reorienteted and right now just do learn by doing projects. Right now I am programming an alexa skill for my echo which will give me the age of my newborn child in weeks (I am always struggling to remember :D). To do this i learn some basic javascript and node.js. I recently am in strong favor of doing small projects and learning on the fly what I'll need to know instead of trying to "master" a programming language which is in the end an impossible task. This way it hopefully sticks because I apply it immediatly.

Also have these friends and coulnd't understand it either. BUt well I just can't play normally or in moderation. I always binge and obsess and owuld still do if I would still game. Some peopel have healthy relationship with gaming others don't. The same goes for alkohol.

I am very interested in software development and do some programming myself. What language/tech stack you did programming in the past?

Soon 1/3 of a year!

@destoroyah Hey thanks for your input on training. I was/am pretty serious about calistenics/body weight training and for this you don't even need weights at the beginning. The problem with your plan is that I can't lie my baby somewhere easily without him crying. So it isn't possible to jsut do10 push-ups and then give him attention again. It just doesn't work that way That leaves some training wiht the baby as weight which could be fun for both of us but before he can hold his own head the possibilites are limited. I also am trying to improve other skills right now which are to me more important then to have a great cardiomuscular fitness, where she takes over the baby. Out of birth related aftermath I also try to clean/wash our clothes/and cook for us. To make it clear she is doing all she can and more and is very supportive of me but it is jsut difficult to make time for non essential things right now which will get better as my son gets older and she fully recovers It could be considered a bit rude that you'll just assume everything is easy for me even if you don't know my actual situation or how it is to have a newborn which needs you or how my relationship looks like (I didn't really told to much in this journal out of good reason), but I appreciate you trying to help out. Next time just don't assume things but better make suggestions and I would appreciate them even more

okay let me explain: We feel productive if we achieve something hard and our body produces dopamines to make us feel great about it. It does so also if we just imagine this successes or doing something like gaming were we achieve successes which doesn't affect our life. So after a while We get addicted to the easy dopamine rush and stop chasing real live improvements. Our live seems to suck. In addition to this effect we fear changes and our emotions will make us feel bad if we try something difficult (until we mastered the difficulties). I never tried something hard as I was gaming because I felt so damned bad if I tried and failed. And I feared that feeling. After quitting gaming I started to try a lot of stuff (meditation, excercise, programming) and while it helped to feel productive for a while I didn't made too muhc progress in either of the topics and felt liike I was just procrastinating my real tasks with some self-development fluff. The problem I had/have is that I had non projects linked to this bigger goals like beeing more aware/fit/skilled. After watching a few videos and taking this course on faster learning I realized that these projects are the missing puzzle piece to actually improve in a meaningful way. My problem was that I am unable to break down the big goal in little goals. So for example I want to be a software developer. I tried a few diffeerent programming languages and technologies and started to "learn" them. I build examples and made my self familar with the language and the environment. I read a lot on quora and in programming books while solving example problems. I learned a lot but I am still far away of beeing a professional or even producing a more medium complex application. I feel like I made no meaningful progress. That is why I started to set myself little goals of what I want to learn and make the scope for it so small that I'll be able to achieve my goal in 1-4 weeks. My current goal is to develop a simple alexa skill for the amazon echo whcih will tell me the age of my newborn son in weeks. To do this I searched for resources listed them and tried to figure out a rough outline of what I would need to learn to be reaching this goal. Then I judged if the scope was to big (if I could realistically reach the goal in 1-4 weeks with half an hour effort a day). If it would have been too big I would divided it intosubgials. Like running an example skill on my echo. If I have the working skill I will start a new project which will be related to alexa programming if I am still interested or something else if I don't feel like it. This way I see my progress and get my dopamine rush of doing something productive without overwhelming myself with too big to unclear goals. It is a success in itself but is also helping me in my overarching goal of becoming a software programmer. So no the projects don't have to be connected but they surely can be if you feel like it. The goal can be bigger but the criteria when your project (and not your over arching goal) is finished should be clear and manageble to finish in 1-4 weeks (less time would mean it is too easy to feel meaningful, more that it is to hard). The keypoints are that you keep the scope small, the steps to finishing the goal concrete and make a proper realistic plan ( how much time do I have / am I able to put into this per day/week). So in your case it could be a project in language learning. Maybe something you'll want to be able to do in germany, which you did easily in your homeland. I don't know your german skill level but going out to a reastaurant and only speak german with the personal could be such a project. If your able to not evade into english and make yourself understandable you would finish the project. For this you wouldn't need to have a perfect grammar or a big amount of vocabulary but some sample phrases wouldn't cut it either. So the learning plan could be like identifying the usual phrases in german for ordering food and beverages and paying the bill. Also some smalltalk would be a great addition. Then you'd needed to create a list of foods you like to eat and what the words for them are in german. You have some experiences in learning german allready so you should be able to predict long this would roughly take you to learn and if it is a good scope. If not you could make the projects scope smaller or bigger. This way you are in control on what and how you learn it and you'll get to finish a project and reap your dopamine reward. I hope this made it clearer. PS: Relevant blogpost on this: https://simpleprogrammer.com/2014/12/29/want-accomplish-goals-become-finisher/

DO you have smart goals for your fitnesslevel weight? If not now could be a good time to implement them (you'll now about basic work-outs and expected rated of lossing weight and getting muscle or improving at different excercises).

I found it helpful to have projects with a definable and measurable goal and keep them small enouhg to be able to finish them in 1-4 weeks. If your are able to actually finish these projects you'll focus more on your progress and where to go from there instead of having guiilt. The key is to cut out every distraction ( for example if you want to build a blog you'll just learn enough of the different technologys that you are able to make a decisive plan how to set things up and ignore all the details or comparisons). THen you'll write your own little actionplan and act on it. TO have such projects which are small in scope will help you to feel accomplishment on a regular base and learning things for real instead of accumalting a diffuse body of knowlege or skills wich aren't really actionable in your life. What to learn should depend on your life. That's how I hope to escape the binging and the lack of drive.

Detox: 16.10.2017 - 16.01.2018 (Porn and unproductive Youtube added for last month) Week 6 + 7 (01.12.2017-14.12.2017) Still no sugar. I still don't work out. I tried a bit of the 7min work-out and really like the principle. Right now there is jsut no way to find a fixed time for a routine. My whole day depends on the baby and his habits. I tried the weeks to have some daily routines and even installed a habit app to check them but I won't be able to enforce a daily routine until the little boy is a little bigger. I could do it but I don't want to because it would influence my wife in a bad way right now. That's why I'll focus on a few flexible things I try to accomplish and generally cutting out bad behaviours instead of focussing on daily routines and goals. The alexa skill development is more complex then I thouhg but I will finish this project anyway. It will jsut take longer then excepted. I definitely need to finish started projects because giving up to eraly because something different which is interesting pops up. I watched an interesting video by john sonmez talking about the areas he deems important to master. He thinks they are health/nutrition fitness/attractiveness wealth/money and the way how to think analytically and learn things effectively. THe reasoning is pretty convincing. Everything you'll need every day or which makes oyur life better every day is ipmortant enough to learn about. That's why I became interested in nutrition. There is a lot of pseudo-science out there and a lot of cultish movements which I like to avoid. I bough a kindle book which sounded sensible( Good Calories, Bad Calories). We'll see what I get out of it. I still listen to a lot of audio. Lately I focus more on books instead of podcasts because they seem more in depth and aren't keeping me busy wiht new concepts every day. Right now I feel like I am in a good place and I see how I start becoming more ambitious in a lot of areas. This is energizing and much welcomed because I most often are to easily contended to reach a better then average knowledge or skill level at any topic. The key is to cut ruthlessly. What I don't need to learn will not be learned. I need to learn only the things I focus right now. This will be alexa skill development and a general self-development topic of my choice where I start a project or try-out. Right now this is the zero sugar thing so i will try to accumulate a sound body of expertise in the nutrition field to further improve my nutrition. I think this is really important to be healthy and energetic and it will help me a lot in the long run even if I am eating pretty good right now allready I think there is a lot of room for improvement. We'll see where it takes me. My first project is to read the book and figure out things to improve in my daily diet. My improved self-discipline will help me to test these things out consequently for a bigger amount of time. After I did this I will focus more on fitness/excercise/buildingmuscle. Or maybe I will explore the meditiation thing further. But I won't try to do this all at the same time because the past has showed again and again that doing to muhc things/habitbui,ding at once will just end in procrastinating the really important stuff. Things I do focus right now: My family, Body hygiene, no sugar, starting successfully in my new jo alexa skill development, nutrition. Things I cut out: Podcasts, youtube videos unrelated ot the topics above, excercise, meditation, learning skills I don't need right now for my projects, gq-forum browsing, porn Audiobooklist: Finish innovators, find other nice books about the history of computing or biographies I didn't listen to in that time (the cool acid Test maybe?) Things I read: Curiosity app, Fossbytes app, Finish principles, Good Calories Bad Calores..., most properly other books in that area