JaniP

Day 0 again (non-smoking journal): Yesterday was day 1 of not smoking and it was an instant failure. I had a rough day at work so on one of the breaks a colleague of mine asked me for a smoke. Boom. Bullseye. A relapse, not even 24 hours passed. Then I smoked like 5 more and was feeling sick and bad again. Today I had a day off and I spent most of it with a good friend. As we were chit-chatting I came clean to him - last time we stopped smoking together, at the same time, so I knew it would be easy for him to step into my shoes in this situation. Then I just ditched a newly-purchased pack of cigarettes and my lighter, went to the market and bought some nicotine chewers. Time to make a change for real now. This is going to be almost as hard as quitting games was. Atleast for the first two weeks ? And coming to gaming, I have felt no urges in the last two months or so now. It seems that I got the grasp of things in that field. Thanks to quitting games, I was able to work really hard this summer to get some savings for the uni-cemester and for living. Also I made some new friends during the summer so far. I feel so grateful to have done this journal here and this community has been of a great aid for me. It's time to concentrate on the future now and keep myself in this same path, which one day - if i am fortunate - will lead me to a great success in my life. Catching up here in a couple of days again, maybe in the weekend when this working spree ends ?

Starting a no-smoking journal here now: This is day zero. I started smoking again, just occasionally though, but nevertheless been doing it many times a week now. My goal is first to reach a similar detox, that I just completed. I smoked my last cigarette just an hour ago. Time to make a change and quit for good. It's probably my 15th time now. Last time I lasted over a year. This time I hope I can reach more.

Thanks man! Indeed it was two attempts!

In all its shortness: I completed my 90-day detox today. What a feeling, woah!!! ? Always happy after such "long term" accomplishments - especially with my nature which usually leads to quitting decisions that require a time span of more than one week. Cheers!

DAYS 89 - 90: I DID IT!!!!!!!! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!!!!! Well. Not quite ? Anyway, now done with my 90-day detox, feeling super awesome to have completed another "long term" decision and goal. I am super tired right now and heading to bed, tomorrow I am going to reflect on what I have learned in the past 3 months and going to go through my next plan here.

Days 81-88: Two more days, huh? So, I didn't check in for one full week now. I don't feel bad about it because I had so many other things to do. Work related primarily. Nowadays I use all my spare time on Netflix and music composition, while learning to play the bass. I will have a full revision of my situation, once I reach the ninety.

Days 77-81: Post number 100, hehe. Time has flown for real. Nine (9!!!!) days to go before finishing the detox. For once I have the feeling that I have truly stayed in a long-term decision that I have taken. Lately I had some vivid dreams (nightmares mostly) in what I was gaming again and I was feeling anxious and shocked after waking up - felt like I'd deceived myself! I am glad that it didn't happen. I was having four days of vacation and during that time I was mostly doing sports and having fun with my friends or playing bass and guitar. From tomorrow I am starting a few new projects in my life and one of them is doing programming again to catch up before the semester starts in the university. One of them is something related to my personal life and I have noted that having a journal like this can help in surviving and ending similar addictions e.g. caffeine, nicotine or porn. Tomorrow I'll start, what's hopefully a fulfilling week at work and will enjoy the increasingly warm weather for the rest of the week.

Days 75-76: The day at work was horrible but it also went by really fast. Yesterday wasn't really any different, only the weather was better. Tomorrow I'll start a litle 4-day vacation and I am still figuring out what to do during that. I already finished all the seasons of Rick&Morty from Netflix so it's going to be finding a new series, I guess. Friday at work will be chaotic, but hopefully a bit better sales-wise. Last night I dreamed of gaming. In the dream I was literally gaming and then noticed that myself - I felt devastated. I thought that I had given up and just relapsed out of nothing but then I woke up and was happy that it was just a dream. It happened to me like 10 times during the detox now. Weird.

Day 74: ... was a good day. I felt good - I'd say even blessed - through the entire day, both physically and mentally. I also had a nice day at work and managed to chillax with some quality TV-entertainment and by playing bass. Only had a couple of hours of spare time but I used it wisely. 4 more days until the weekend. 15 more days until "completing" the detox.

Days 69-73: Again, too many days of break from writing here. Nevertheless I think the main thing is still not relapsing. From Tuesday until yesterday it was just plain working working sleeping gym working - cycle and yesterday we had a night out with my co-workers and it was awesome. Oh, and actually on Thursday, I bought a new electric bass, so I can say, that I started playing a new instrument. For two days in a row now I had some cravings for gaming. Or you know, those feelings like "Oh, I can't even remember how was gaming, it might have been fun... Hmm, should I try it again, for old times' sake?" I bet that if there was one of my former gaming friends to provoke and seduce me into gaming again, I would have relapsed instantly in the last 2 days. But good that there weren't. Instead, I got to know my co-workers better and got introduced to bunch of intresting people. It's a start.

Days 67-68: Days are still all full of work so that's why this has been just posting my work-routine over and over and over again. Yet again, I woke up to reach work at 10am and did my own personal best in sales at work. Today I was thinking that my whole life so far, I have been a travesty of consistency: gaming was the only thing that I ever did consistently. Even when I was in school, I would maybe take a sprint of 2 weeks of studying, tell myself to carry on with that and then gaming would ruin it in a matter of moments. Then I would go again back to not studying for another 2 months and miss on every single hard or challenging thing - now, after the medschool exams I know that I would have had what it takes to overcome those hardships in studies... Feels bad to realize it now, but there is no going back. Good that I can still make a change and be multiple times more efficient by doing some research. And actually I don't even need to be more efficient than what I just was - after all, it got me pretty close to burn-out this time. Not recommending that to anyone! For some reason I feel like I want to write something here now.. Can't come up with an idea... I feel anxious because the exam results are coming this week... Well, I can always be grateful. I am actually grateful to myself that I was able to go through all that hard period, during which I was studying so hard, got left by my ex, I was working out, I had quit smoking, I quit drinking alcohol, etc. At the same time I managed to leave behind something so dear to me - gaming. I have to say: I haven't gained much yet because of it, I didn't even expect to gain. Maybe my self-confidence has gone up a little and I am now a bit more talkative and happy? Then again, I can't enjoy myself on my sparetime, as I used to. I am still in the "gaming cooldown". I actually wrote a poem about anxiety and panic attacks: You have been so cold So silent, yet so bold Your heart's pure gold Sands of time turn into mold Your head is filled You fear, that sand is spilled From the hourglass For you it's such a weightful mass You seem to be afraid Confused to seek the aid Every grain you cannot raise It's but a dream you should not chase Your head is never numb Your heart beats like a drum Situation's unforeseen Anxiety makes a scene Your chest goes up and down Your mouth is dry but your lungs drown You are just out of control You seem to be afraid Confused to seek the aid Every grain you cannot raise It's but a dream you should not chase You see your figure in the glass So many times the feelings pass Still they are always coming back You perceive the ruthless vile attack You will learn to suffocate The fear of meeting your fate You will have to medicate Your mind when you're so astray This is how I use my spare time nowadays.. :D Suddendly, I also started showing interest in the arabic language and the islamic culture. Maybe more towards the former. One of my best friends is a muslim, I will have more interesting conversations with him now. Why am I even writing this much? Well, it's still calming me down. As I was telling in this journal before, I suffered from panic attacks and anxiety and I got a prescription for an SSRI med. That is probably causing some episodes like this? I feel that my thoughts can't fly like they used to, but still it's easy to write here. Now I should try getting some sleep, the meds took that away from me last night aswell...

Days 65-66: I've reached a point, where I am seriously questioning my next move regarding my life. It's surely the aftermath of quitting gaming (for which I actually have developed a new mentality lately, I am not thinking of it like I was before) and I have worked hard to get to this point. The entrance exam results will arrive this week (the week starting from tomorrow) and of course this raises questions in my head: what should I really do, if I don't get in? Should I start coding again? Should I continue in my current job? Should I carry on as a musician? Should I move abroad? Many questions... One thing is for sure: I don't need gaming to comfort me in case of failing this time. This is a huge step from last spring, when I got the results and the result was a miserable failure. Back then I relapsed instantly. My detox is soon over and I need to start on reflecting, what to plan after ending it. Probably just making it a "180 day detox" then... This coming week will change a lot of things in my life for sure...

Days 62-64: After a long week at work, midsummer finally arrived. Today I was celebrating in the centre with a couple of friends and I came back home like an hour ago. This is obviously bad for my sleeping rhythm because it's 3:07am at the moment... Well, midsummer is only once a year. Having a day off tomorrow (today) so probably gonna spend it with some music work and watching TV. Also I have an idea of starting a new habit in my life: I want to start getting up at 5:30 every morning. It has surprisingly many benefits, as I heard.

Days 60-61: Again working my butt off this week, as usual. Today was terrible in almost all fields of life: it was cold and raining outside, no customers at work really = no sales, I was tired after sleeping bad, etc *add complain here* .... :D Nevertheless, I am making good progress in getting more and more into the gaming-free life. Nowadays I am still not even thinking about gaming anymore and I am coming along without my gaming friends, better and better each day. I will be using most of my spare time on music composition and watching TV now during the summer, as I have been doing now for over a month or so. It just seems a good way to spend my time after working hard - my mind is kind of really fresh every morning and I can sleep well after relaxing the evenings. Midsummer is here in 2 days so then I will have more time off work! Yay!

Day 59: Spent the day mostly by watching TV, eating and playing guitar. Got a friend of mine to hang out with me a couple of hours ago and we went to see the night-life in downtown. Realized it's not my thing that much anymore... Not feeling bad about that though. Or well, there is one thing: women. It seems to be hard to find any "company" these days in this country if you are not 1) using Tinder or 2) drunk at a bar. Neither of those is interesting anymore. How to turn this positive? Gotta think that at least I have time to study and develop myself now, huh? :D Tomorrow I am gonna watch a couple of episodes more of "Vikings" and then probably start learning a new language OR doing coding again to get prepped for the autumn - in case I don't get admitted for the med school. What an intresting turn of events indeed.