JaniP

Day 8: It's jjjjjjjjournal time!! One full week in already, baby! (Edit: damn, would be a full 23 days already, if I didn't relapse for a week in the middle of it!) Feeling better every day, still lacking the vital means of stress management due to not being able to do gaming but I'll manage it somehow. No cravings today, which is a good sign :) Yesterday evening I decided to give a shot at trying to sleep around 10:30pm, which is actually super duper early for me. Managed to fall asleep almost instantly and to stay asleep through the night, but had some terrible nightmares... I am talking about sleep because it's a major thing for one's wellbeing - I couldn't take a good night's sleep for granted in many years. I had so much difficulties with sleep due to excessive gaming and stress caused by depression and such things. This morning I managed to get up at about 6.50 and I was feeling so much motivated to study, right away. Had my usual breakfast (which has become a habit now, YAY!) and headed for the university. Now I have already studied the whole morning and still have a couple of hours more to go - nevertheless I am not feeling stressed at all, which is awesome. One of the things that I need to be able to keep in moderation, is coffee. I quit drinking coffee like a month or two ago, switched into drinking green tea at first - consuming up to 8 cups a day. Not good :D Started having a slight nausea after a while and ultimately had some other stomach problems too so I needed to switch into drinking rooibos. Rooibos is actually good. I am still drinking it like a cup or two per day, but I got the same stomach problems from consuming it more... And I like to drink something all the time - I need to have the cup to satisfy my needs :D So now I have to manage with two cups of coffee a day, having one at around 8 o clock in the morning to kickstart the day and then having another one later, or to be more exact - right now. In the evening, I'm just planning to hit the gym and maybe look for some meditation guides, provided that I have time for that, before I need to crash onto a bed again! Gonna make this another productive day!

A truly inspiring journey so far. Will definitely remind people of how hard this addiction is to overcome, but that there's always a way out of it too. Keep up the effort, it will be rewarded ;)

Welcome! What an inspiring story, realized I was in a pretty much similar situation when I quit, having learned 4 languages, been a musician for some years, doing a lot of sports etc. but the gaming was still there to affect me and it stood in the way of my goals. It's nice that you realized the problem at the right time. I wish you luck with your journey and am hoping to hear more about it!

Days 6-7: Seems like I forgot to write anything yesterday, even though I was actually replying to other people here. Yesterday was a really good day, I started the day a bit off schedule in the morning, still managed to go through some major stuff from the last year's med school entrance exam (been doing almost all of them since 2011) and felt really good after getting a couple of problems correct. Afterwards I went back home and hit the gym in the evening, having the best workout in a while again. Also got to bed early again - seems to correlate with quitting games, I fall asleep 1-2 hours earlier now, which is a HUGE difference. This morning though, I have felt some cravings actually. Maybe not cravings in a sense that I'd like to game, but more like I miss all the content and the fun that I was having with my friends in game. I think that I feel like this because in the last week I have done so much work (studying, working out etc.) and now I am reaching the point where my mind and soul requires some kind of a relief, some form of stress control. For me it used to be gaming. I am hitting the rough part now - I am in a process that doesn't let me do what is the only thing that gives me feelings of pleasure and at the same time I know that if I relapse into gaming again, I am just delaying my goals and making the road to success and a better life more convoluted. **Woah, had to pause writing here for a second because the sentence in bold felt like visiting a psychiatrist and getting something out of my guts.** The next goal for me seems to be finding a thing that relieves stress. If thinking about hobbies, it's really hard for me to come up with something fascinating and new, because I have really tried almost every single sports-thing that you can come up with. These include soccer, ice-hockey, floorball, horse riding, squash, tennis, jogging, gym, x-country skiing, downhill skiing, snowboarding, swimming.... EVERYTHING :D The things I didn't try, are just the things that are not common in my country, such as american football and cricket. One thing that came to my mind, was doing some animations on a computer. This one, though, holds a risk again: I have noticed that if I am using my computer at all, it makes me relapse every single time at some point. Of course it's different if I use, let's say, the computers in the university, like I am doing now. So maybe computer animations. One temporary stress reliever used to be alcohol and partying, but cmon - I am applying to a medschool and have been studying enough about the effects of alcohol in the body. So no thanks. I just hope that the cravings will go away for now. It doesn't make it easier when I enter YouTube in search for some educational videos and then there are 10+ League of Legends videos popping up from my favourite streamers. Like wtf, I actually removed all the search and watchlist history from my account and still..... I am mad :D To be continued....

Hey and welcome! Trying is indeed better than nothing and will always be a better starting point than not trying at all! For me it helped a ton to watch the whole video series from Cam in the gamequitters YouTube page - well I am still in the early early process of quitting (8 days in now) - but I did the 90 days detox once before already, with the help of this community mostly. What I'm saying is that I started from just "trying" initially too and it led to me not gaming at all anymore. The better way, of course, would be to decide right away that you don't want to damage your life and postpone your REAL goals anymore, and then move on with the decision of never touching a game anymore. Regardless of the decision you come into, this forum is a very helpful place with plenty of people in similar situation, you will be understood and heard. When it comes to the fear of relapsing - it's okay and part of the process, Also discussable here. Hoping to hear more from you here! -Jani

Hi there. I just happened to be browsing around the forums and after noticing this I just felt like I want to share some thoughts on this aswell: I am a musician too - been playing guitar and piano & singing for 12 years now more or less. I started composing my own music around 8 years ago. First of all, guitar and singing is a really awesome choice! I actually don't know how long or since when have you been playing (I kind of got the impression that you have been doing it before, then maybe dropping it out, then continuing - so I mean in an irregular basis) but here is something that you could find useful OR encouraging. So the things below are actually from my own perspective, may not be relatable and certainly some of it may sound even too simple and dull but I hope it helps: -You want to start slow. If you feel that there are some errors or other faults in your TECHNIQUE, you want to get rid of them first. This will improve the overall enjoyment that you get from playing guitar. Eg. let's say you feel your wrist, palms, fingertips or elbows hurting after 15 minutes of playing. When you fix things like that, it will become much much more enjoyable to play and this will keep you more consistent, because it's also more fun to grab the guitar in the near days to come! -When it comes to composing something of your own, you want to keep in mind that whatever you'd wish to create, should not be boundaried by what other people have done so far. Now, of course you shouldn't be copying what others have done, but instead thinking that there is nothing wrong with taking some elemets from other people's songs. For example: if you know that there is a song that you really really love a lot - let's say there is a really nice chord progression or a melody - you just pick up this progression or melody and start working out on that. When you are creating music, there will ALWAYS be people who might say "Oh, that's the melody from this and that song by *insert some really famous artist name here*, how dull, she copied it!" and then in the same crowd, listening to your music, there will be people saying that it's just original and really a nice piece of music done by you. This is just because of the fact that people perceive music in different ways. For example, you said something like and this is exactly that I am pointing to. I can't perceive music in that exact same way. And of course - it's natural and again might feel even a bit too clear (apologies, I am not trying to make you feel stupid). So, don't let this factor keep you from making music - if you are doing something by guitar and singing, piano and singing etc. - it's been done already, trust me. What you can change in these things, is being original with your own voice, with your thoughts in lyrics and things like that. -Then there is the factor called time. Ever since I started composing music of my own, I had the feeling that if I want to get something done, I need to do it fast. This was the wrong way to go, unfortunately. Maybe I was too immature or something, but I used to compose a song in just two days, thinking that now I have been efficient and quick. Maybe I was efficient but I think a mindset like this was actually based in my gaming habit somehow. I mean, that I actually wasn't sure, if I even wanted to compose something with passion, but to maybe find an alternative to gaming instead. Also, I oftentimes felt, that when I was gaming, I didn't want to take things to their end in a quality oriented way, but more like just getting it done as fast as possible, to be able to return to my monitor asap. This was actually true and it's true even these days, but what I'm doing differently now, is that I want to enjoy the process of composing. I actually want to concentrate on every single note that I'm putting down. At this point, I also want to introduce a powerful tool for writing down stuff (in case you didn't know this yet): I am using Guitar Pro 5 & 6 from Arobas music. It's a really nice tool for just making notes when you come up with a nice musical idea or when you really want to compose something. I actually presume you knew this already, though. -Getting into composing your own music needs the drive, confidence and the ability; all things you mentioned yourself too. When it comes to attaining these, one good bet is to just surround yourself with both listening to music and maybe playing some cover songs too. In the long run, this will feed you ideas and at the same time it will keep you occupied with learning new techniques, finding out chord structures and developing your voice. What I want to say here is that if you lack the drive and the confidence, there is no short way to attain them. You need to surround yourself. What I do believe in, is that you can actually do it, because I already see from your analytical point of view, that you possess all the good qualities of an artist. So what I'd encourage you to do, is just to keep yourself surrounded by the music. Your drive will then kick in automatically and you can get the real sh*t done. You shouldn't think like, you are not giving enough of yourself to the musical community by not creating anything, you will get there, don't worry. You are also in the game quitting process, and it affects the process of becoming a musician too. There is also a lot to get from that, too. Atleast I have been getting a lot of song ideas lately, simply from all the emotions that quitting games has brought up. Maybe you can create some ideas from this as well? -You mentioned that you have an Arts degree. Could you think about making use of this? I have a friend - ex-singer for my former band - who decided to follow his dreams and he moved to another city to pursue a career in music theatre. Atleast in my country this is a huge rising field in music. I don't know much about this but I can only imagine the effort that you need to put into one play. You need to do all the script, the arrangements and stuff like that. This became a really long reply, but I hope you get something out of this! I'll see if I can get back into this, if there are some questions raised. I wish you luck :) -Jani

Days 4-5: So yesterday I really didn't even want to open my laptop (except at almost midnight, when a song idea caught my attention and I needed to write it down to a notation software) and I didn't even write this journal. Overall yesterday consisted of studying, helping my dad with some spring chores in our backyard, gym workout and a dinner with my family in a restaurant. It was a really nice day without any cravings at all and I was actually surprised that even though it's a weekend, there have been no urges to game whatsoever. I feel like really getting a grasp of my life at the moment; I am sleeping well, eating more every day, craving to get to the gym more (this didn't happen in a looong time) and also I feel like getting up from the bed earlier in the morning. Also, I think that this journal helps me keep my stress levels down a bit easier, because I am writing all the hardships and worries here. I feel more self-confident overall and I feel it in my physical being too. This morning I got up earlier than usually on the weekends. I had some nice breakfast again and turned on the TV to connect my phone into it and start watching Khan Academy videos about human physiology and anatomy - one of the best ways to revise the high school / university anatomy subjects. Overall feeling for today is that I feel a bit lazy - in the way that I feel like I wanna procrastinate and delay every possible thing for as long as possible. Probably I just need to rest a bit too after such a long week like this. I have been almost constantly doing something in fear of getting gaming-cravings. But I guess that's how this works in the beginning.

Day 3 (Includes reflection on weekends and how I relate them to gaming): An ordinary morning, woke up at around 7am, had a good breakfast again and headed for the university. Feeling maybe a bit more tired than usually but I think I can blame yesterday's workout. So far I spent the morning revising biology for the entrance exam and trying to solve some harder excercises (old entrance exam tasks). Also noticed that the forum was down this morning, so I couldn't log in earlier and write this at the time, when I am usually logging in and writing, but that didn't seem to distract me too much from studying and my schedules overall. I don't have any special plans for today, but this is going to be the first weekend after quitting gaming again. Some reflections: - -Weekends mean more freetime when I was gaming, I would usually use ALL of my freetime gaming. This time it will be me vs. the boredom, which will certainly take over at some point, no matter how active I'll try to be in the weekend. This is of course due to my brain telling me to do something fancy (ie. gaming) because hey, it's been used to it in the past months now, so almost nothing else will satisfy its needs for the "excitement rush". I think one major thing in battling such situations, is to reflect it beforehand, just like I am doing now. This actually reduces the stress of thinking about what to do, immersely. Of course, I could make the weekend NOT TO HAVE so much spare time, but then again, I need the time to recover from this week too... I need to do some self-reflection on this tomorrow afternoon. -Weekend means more loneliness I never had too many friends at a time. At this moment there is one guy in my city, that I can call a friend - all the other people are just some common faces that I see in the university or in the centre, and I know them because some of them maybe were on the same courses years ago, were going to the same high school like a decade ago, or are in some other way less familiar to me. Of course this affected my gaming habit too: it was super easy to make friends even at home, just by doing online gaming. Or well, I also had my gaming friends who would STILL be my friends, if I didn't choose to kind of "leave them behind" in the process of quitting gaming. I have noticed that their behaviour - even when meeting them face to face irl - usually led to me relapsing again and again, because of the way my conversations were like with them. Of course I can also blame myself for this. During this detox now, I'll have a goal of making more friends. -Weekend reminds me of gaming Well, the essence was already in the paragraph title. -Weekend promotes activities This is the key to having fun, when not playing games, probably. All the major activities are actually on weekends. I just need to keep my eyes open and who knows, if I stumble to some nice event even in the weekend to come. Or if I'll just have another cup o' Joe with my friend in the city centre... Or if I will just stay at home and maybe start an audio book or just watch a movie? More reflecting to come in the weekend.

Welcome back! Well done with the new plan on how to stick to not game! Do you use some specific guidelines/apps/group sessions for the meditation, if I may ask? I have thought of it too but can't find my way with it... I tried the app Headspace but that thing wasn't made for me. Cheers! -Jani

Yeah, this was actually one of the best days in ages! And I actually thought at one point, that there would almost be none of the good days left for me... And yes, I do play guitar! Alongside gaming it was my hobby for like 12 years now, of course gaming took most of the time in the recent years and thus I couldn't concentrate on playing the guitar as much as I would have liked to. Now I can use my time better practicing that :)

Oh, didn't know about this :O Maybe I will take a look this evening. Thanks!

Day 2: YES! Woke up a couple of hours ago, feeling fresh after a good night's sleep. Probably it was good because I wasn't staring at my monitor until midnight. Also, there is a really wonderful thing that I have noticed during the morning: I feel no cravings at the moment! Anyways, one thing that was different this morning, was that I had the time and willpower to make and eat a good, healthy breakfast: some oat porridge, rye bread, quark, a vitamin drink, none of those existing in my previous breakfast routine. In my gaming life it consisted of this: coffee. After breakfast I decided to hit the gym - for the first time in many many years in the morning. What a daystarter! I used to try to do it in the morning but I felt that I was always short of energy when I got there. This time, I think, the breakfast helped a ton. Now, feeling more fresh than in ages, I reached the university library again, ready to get started with my studies for today. Yesterday was a really good day in terms of studying, so maybe today will bring some success too... Well, even if it doesn't I still feel that I already accomplished something with this gym thing. Plans for this evening include fixing my bike, watching some educational science videos and continuing a composition that I started for my band. For the first time in a while I feel excited to do something different, than gaming. And it's only day two. :)

I have had this thought of setting up some kind of a system for myself to keep myself occupied throughout the detox. I mean something like a calendar or app to remind me to do things or anything like that. Why am I asking for such a thing here? Well, since you guys are ex-gamers too, maybe even some of you are of a similar procrastinating and lazy sort, like I am :D So the thing is, that I am extremely lazy in using and/or managing a regular calendar and I wanna ask you guys for advice: do you use something (app, calendar, journal, anything?) to regulate your days, keep yourselves busy and your minds settled for weeks or months at a time? Some easy options? Can be even harder/more complex but if you feel that you profit from using such thing, please share it for me :) Thanks in advance guys! -Jani

Yes this is exactly what was going through my head yesterday. Also for me the diamond rank was the goal for many years and it seemed that I really can't quit before I reached that. And now when I did reach it, it feels completely worthless - unlike any other reachable goal in real life. God, I actually feel better after gathering willpower for 15 minutes to decide, whether to go to the university or not, and here I am in the university library now - feeling even better than after years of work put into League. And yes, it does take a lot of stamina and resilience to go through the detox - heck, even at this moment I am again going through some cravings (after only like 20 hours without playing) but now it's more reasonable not to play. Also, these cravings are more like the ones, in which your brain wants to game but you don't necessarily want to game. Below lies the best explanation: I think that it's easier to quit when I can draw a line between these two and recognize them. Now I definitely don't want to invest more time into gaming. Let this be my Day 1 post for this journal again.

Oh dear, I relapsed almost instantly after quitting, I think 6th of this month... Wow, I lasted for 3 or 4 days :D Went back to playing League of Legends, played until today and decided to quit again. I was talking about the need of feeling like I am tired of losing in the game or just tired of it anyway. So, before I quit, I was maybe 20 games away of my long term goal, which was to reach the top 1% in the game. What happened? I reached it 3 days ago and instead of feeling like achieving something, I started to think that what does this actually matter? Like, who would actually give a crap about what I had achieved now in the game? No one. Then I started thinking: What if I could achieve my goal of getting in to medical school? Well, maybe not many people still takes a note, but atleast I wouldn't be feeling self-ignorant, like now, that I think of what I achieved in the game. I think this was the trigger I really needed... So, the plan for this time? Quitting again, going cold-turkey. AGAIN dissembling my computer AND this time also telling my parents to hide it from me. My motivators will be: getting emotionally stable(r), getting new friends, chatting here, maybe reading reddit(/stopgaming) getting an admission to a medical school, maybe getting to know girls?! :D At least now I am super excited to quit, unlike last time, when I still kinda felt awkward and felt that I hadn't achieved my goal in the game. It's actually weird how empty achieving it made me feel then. One factor to make this decision again, was also reddit, where I found a post, which was 110% relatable and I instantly started thinking about this. I wrote this on phone, there might be some errors here and there, sorry :D And thanks for checking on me Tom :D Gonna be back in business again now.

Hi and welcome! I am in the same situation with you pretty much. It's really nice of you to think that your gaming habit is probably going to have a bad influence in your younger brother, use the thought of this as your willpower trigger. I also had a situation where my younger sister (22 yo) was saying that she is afraid to introduce me to her friends because everything I did was gaming related and it would give a bad reflection of our family. Well, that's harsh but there is a seed of truth in there too :D I am not too close with my sister but if I'm thinking of relapsing, I will use it as something to give me more willpower not to relapse. I am also intrested in travelling, even tho I never travelled on my own yet. Would be nice to have some thoughts on travelling and destinations here as well :) Anyway, hoping to see more of your posts and I wish you all the luck - like I was wished too by this awesome community. Also, starting the journal and being consistent with it might be even more helpful than you can imagine ;) Give it a shot! -Jani

Day 2 So it's almost 1pm here in Finland right now, yesterday's gym workout took it's toll and I couldn't get up at 7:50am like I would have wanted to. It's been something like 48 hours without escaping real life. Again feeling cravings since waking up, it's like having a different mindset when I wake up and when I go to sleep. In the evening I was full of motivation to stay gaming-free but now in the morning I was almost there to reinstall League, ask my friends to play with me and have some fun. I think staying in contact with those people is now one of the only factors on why I would relapse... I don't really have any friends outside of gaming and getting new ones seems to be really difficult. Before, I got to know new people by taking part in some university parties etc. but I feel that partying is only going to drag me down, I haven't really enjoyed it anymore. When I previously quit gaming, I was playing games even more and it was screwing my life up even more, but I didn't feel cravings like this back then. Now I am literally experiencing the part, where you don't enjoy anything else than gaming in life, because gaming - as a huge stimulant- doesn't have a competitor in other activities. Knowing this is now helping me survive this part of the journey. I literally feel how my brain wants to game, but I don't want to, because I know it's gonna screw up my studies and other life. My plans for today are as simple as fighting the relapse, watching a travelling documentary series, drinking some Rooibos (I can recommend this to any of you guys who are going through a lot of stress or having difficulties sleeping, it's a miraculous beverage; 3-6 cups a day is enough) and studying. Maybe I'd play the guitar too or try to come up with new lyrics or riff ideas for my band.

Thanks! I started a new journal before noticing this though. It's actually better that way because I feel that I started something new. I went through my old journal too now and the struggle there really doesn't differ a lot from what it's at the moment!

Day 1 24 hours in now. Already feeling urges to start gaming, but I managed to come to the university to study and to write this journal. At first, in my introduction post I hesitated to start this journal because I thought it would be time consuming and because I already started one a bit over a year ago, when I previously quit gaming. As mentioned in my introduction, I am going for the medical school entrance examination, which will be held in 1,5 months from now. I have already studied pretty hard for 3 months this year, and over 8 months in total. One of the main reasons for joining this community again to fight the addiction and get rid of it for good, was to beat this entrance exam and by all means not to let gaming ruin it for me. So I was having a break from studying environmental ecology, sitting in the university hall and surfing in the internet and I remembered a guideline, that if possible, "try to take a break, while doing something completely different than studying, go for a walk, doodle, talk to friends etc.". And I came up with starting this journal; it's actually a good pastime in the university to write it - it keeps me occupied for maybe 15 minutes at a time, which is a nice amount of time for a break, and at the same time my mind kind of resets. Or atleast I think it does. Plans for today include studying for a couple more hours, so that I can reach minimum of 6 hours of studying today and then moving on to the gym. After that is, what makes me nervous: the boredom and feeling of not knowing what to do. I know it will hit me again. At that point, so far, I have been gaming and filling that time with gaming related videos and studying strategy for League of Legends etc. But I think it's already half a victory, that I acknowledge this will happen and I just need to take action not to let it happen. Maybe I will take a little longer workout today then. Maybe do more stretching at the gym, then playing guitar after that and even taking that to more detail too. Maybe creating a schedule for training some harder guitar stuff? It's gonna be hard 90 days for me, if I need to think like this every day... Luckily, I have this community to rely on :) The future daily updates on this journal might be shorter, or might not. Anyway, this is the start of it. Time to move back to the studies!

Nice effort on that one again, I appreciate it :)! I am writing this on my phone, so can't go too much into details. Surely the thing for me right now is the full 90 day detox, going to get started with that. I just mentioned the 30 day -thing to illustrate some kind of time frame for getting rid of the withdrawals, boredom and social anxiety. This is not the first time I'm quitting games so I already know it will take me some time to get adjusted. But that was just an example :) I think the main thing is that I am on the right path right now - I feel that I might have chosen the right pill. Also you are right about the mindset that I had - the one in which I am waiting for bad games etc. I was thinking about it today and I found out that I need to be rational about the whole thing. Then this helped too: I visualized myself achieving my goal in League of Legends - that was maybe me being in the top 200 players of my server - and then I thought "what now when I achieved what I wanted to achieve? Did I achieve anything in life? Nope. Anything valuable? Nope. Does anyone acknowledge what I did? Maybe in the League community, but somewhere else? Don't think so." Something will definitely hit the fan in the weeks to come. I am glad to count on this community. Thanks again!

Wow, thanks for giving some time for such a response! I am definitely in the brink of deciding. Usually the decision has been really easy to make after getting too much frustrated by losing streaks in-game or by bad teammates/missing school/making friends mad etc. Now I have been waiting for such a thing and it's really hard to quit, when everything is going so well for me in the game after all these years of training. Jeez, I think this is about willpower this time. Willpower and just the strength to keep on a decision. You mentioned considering that this habit is out of control. Well, it is :D Who am I to cheat here, if not myself? Also to make things clear, I have been studying for 3-6 hours daily since January so I have a good chance of passing the exam, but ONLY if I keep studying even more now and that might be the biggest motivation for me to quit. So even though the exam will be there in such a short period of time now, I have already given something like 3,5 months of studying (+ the same studies once earlier, last year). Maybe the thing is that I really need something like 30 days without gaming first, to get used to the real life again and to start feeling good about doing other things too because of the dopamin-endorfin - system, that rewards us when playing games. Also, it's true that I am a kind of person who would feel bad for myself if I failed the exam because of gaming only. I remember writing some kind of a journal here daily when I used to be on this forum. Maybe that could help even now? I don't know, last time I found it not to be too helpful, more like enlightening maybe - and also keeping my thoughts in not gaming and to have something else to do at the same time. I think it's time to put my PC away now, lock it down to a warehouse or something. Actually it has taken me something like 10 minutes to write this reply now and I started feeling that I can do this. Dannigan, I want to sincerely thank you for your reply, you might have just changed something in this young man's life :) Now I need to start figuring what to do next - after getting rid of this PC. And for Cam, thank you! My username used to be Yani, I'd be glad if you checked it :)

Introduction Hello! My name is Jani. I am turning 25 this year and I'm living in Kuopio, Finland. Initially, I found the Game Quitters community a little over a year ago, when I had just quit gaming and I was looking for some comfort and support to carry on with my decision. Now I noticed that my account had been removed/moved/hijacked (??? :D) and thus found it impossible to use my former account that I had here - would have come in handy to use my story from that account as a reference and I even tried searching the forums for my introduction back then. Well. Time to make a new one here. I was here actually before, how I got here again? So I had been introduced to this community about a year and a half ago. I had been gaming compulsively for around 8 years straight and I noticed that my quality of life suffered heavily from that gaming (more to come about that soon...). What happened, was that I actually managed to quit, FOR SOME TIME. It was maybe around November 2016 when I quit and I didn't relapse, not even a single time, until maybe July 2017. I had sold/given away my computer and I kind of reunited with my "gaming friends". At first the idea of that felt so good because I never had too many friends overall and we actually didn't do gaming at that time. Also some other things happened but I think mainly the reason for relapsing and spending 1000€ again for a new PC, was that I reunited with those gaming friends, that of, maybe 1 or 2 have still been playing with me and have almost been my sole social network aside from my parents. My history I started gaming probably when I was 3 years old and been gaming ever since until now - not counting the break of 8 months last year. My studies were heavily affected by gaming (Counter-Strike, WoW and later my devil, League of Legends) and I almost dropped out of high school and suffered from depression for some time during my first two years of university studies. I am a computer science student in University of Eastern Finland and actually one reason of me relapsing was also related to my studies - the environment gave me too much influence to work around computers and all the discussions around me were gaming / game dev. related. This was a key factor. Then in Nov 2016 I decided to make a change, so I quit gaming cold turkey and started to pursue a degree in medicine (=the entrance exam), which is infamous for nothing else than studying so hard, that you basically can't have anything else in your life, until you get in. So I studied, 8 hours a day for over half a year, until ..... I failed the first entrance exam. Well. Again one key factor for the relapse. It was maybe two months after the exam when I said to myself something like: "Okay, you tried your best so you can't be mad at yourself. Now it's time to have fun thought, do you want to have fun? That's right, now you can play a little if you want to...". And so I joined my friends for a couple of matches of League of Legends. It was that evening of July or August last year, when I started feeling the regret and self-deceptive feelings, that I am feeling even right now when writing this post. I felt that after the entrance exam, it will be a significant time until the next time I can try it again, so I figured that maybe I can kill this time by playing League and trying to keep it in some safe limits. Surprisingly, I actually managed to keep playing for around max. 2-3 hours a day, sometimes not even playing every day during a week. This lasted from July 2017 until maybe 2018 February. So what happened in February? I apologize for opening up like this, but this is again one of the key things. I had been keeping my eyes open for girls for a long time already. During the time when I wasn't playing games, I actually didn't hook up with even a single girl - for obvious reasons like studying and doing sports and other stuff. January 2018 I then met a really nice girl, who was kind of everything that I had ever been dreaming of... I remembered ruining one relationship with gaming in like 2012, so this time I figured that maybe it's better to stay away from games again. What happened then? I wasn't feeling bad because I wasn't playing - I had the most awesome time with my new girlfriend and I was almost solely spending time with her, both of us enjoying it. Until it came to the point that the girl told me that she needs some space. I had gone too far. I wasn't playing games so there wasn't anything else in my life, than my girlfriend. And so she left me, or more like we decided to break up together. I felt devastated and I still feel - this all happened like a month ago. Now ever since that, I have been playing League for 5-15 games every day (= á 30min/game + other gaming activity => 5-14 hours a day). I'm having the next medicine entrance exam in just 1,5 months from now and I feel really scared that I am gonna fail that too now because of gaming so much. I still feel that I am not even ready to quit but my mind tells me that I should. Even before posting this, I was thinking that "maybe I can take a break now for the rest of the evening and play again tomorrow. I am really afraid I am a lost cause already because nothing else in life seems meaningless, intresting or fun anymore at the very moment. Of course most of this is only temporary but nonetheless I still feel really scared and most of it is because usually my mind tells me to stop playing but not this time (I have been doing pretty well in ranked ladders in League now so I also get to feel moments of success through gaming daily => keeps me more addicted). There is a silver lining too, I already made a working contract for the summer to come so that will keep me occupied, I have been actively going to the gym all this time since I quit gaming last time and I also play guitar in a band. So, this is my Hail Mary now - only half-ready to commit on quitting, but ready to hear your opinions on my situation and how I should proceed about this. Support is needed and I will certainly be thankful for it. I did it once already, maybe a second time too? :) Sorry for a really long post. -Jani

Days 27, 28 and 29: So again it seems I had three days that I spent out of my room During these three days I tried to ignore stress by just going to the gym/jogging and watching TV. The rest of the time I used playing guitar and practicing for the audition, which is tomorrow. It feels extremely difficult to keep up with this journal now but I am trying my best, so even if I am writing here like this (say 3-4 times a week), I can be really satisfied with myself. The upside is that I have so many things to use my spare time to, that I remember this journal at midnight when I am supposed to sleep Anyway, there were some questions about the game addiction diagnosis and initially I was the one who started talking about it and suggesting it, since I had read about it. I actually had a talk about it with my doctor back in the days when I was heavily depressed and he told me that nowadays they do some diagnoses on gaming addiction too, but it's a new trend. What comes to the diagnosis tool used; well as I told before, it was my own initiation on the topic and it also came up just minutes before that when we were talking about accepting the fact of being addicted and accepting the need of help. I wasn't given any drug-prescription (like bupropione, which is used a lot to cure gaming addiction) or even actually a document of a diagnosis which leaves me wondering if I ACTUALLY had the diagnosis yet. I will have more meetings all over the winter so if it's of any help to this community to get more information about - for example - the diagnosis of gaming addiction or anything else related to that, I am happy to provide it when I know more

Days 24, 25 and 26: This week has been really busy, haven't really had any time at all to hang out on my computer. All in all, I had some very unstable feelings during these 3 days but I left them behind with a meditation routine that I started to practice. One major thing was also that I went to a psychologist (in the aftermath of my depression) and I was now DIAGNOSED with gaming addiction. So now in addition to using this method to quit for good, I will actually be having therapy for that too . The rest of the time I spent only doing my homework and watching NHL since I was given a four-day-long free watching period for viasat. Tomorrow (today) is a day off so I might actually be doing something else than just schoolwork

Days 21 and 22: I just spent resting at home and watching TV. Also went out for jogging. Apart from going to the toilet and eating, that was really everything I did and everything I put my thoughts into Day 23: Today was a studying day again. In general I have a good feeling about this day and about my situation right now. It has been 23 days without gaming and I am just getting happier and more open to the world. I am actually getting comfortable with studying for example. I also got asked about my goal for, let's say, the next 6 months of my life. I have one single goal and that's getting a scholarship for medicine studies in my hometown. Today I also started learning two songs with the guitar for the audition to a local band next week. It's going to be super exciting to start training with new friends and the goal is that I will be playing on their gig in mid January. So it seems quitting games is still pushing me onwards in life