BooksandTrees

I read your diary. I was also severely addicted to Runescape and owned two clans. One clan I owned was from 2007 to 2011 during my late teens and one I owned from 2016 to 2018 in my mid to late 20s. Each clan had people in my age group and I didn't feel alone. I wrote a few big diary entries over the year about how these people are not actually your friends. I miss the discord voice sessions and talking to people, but once you voice your displeasure in gaming you will lose them all. My therapist compared them to alcoholics at a bar trying to get you to drink with them. It took me years to understand why I was addicted to runescape. I always thought I was an introvert and stayed online most days. The issue was all I did online was try to make friends and talk to people. My life outside runescape was terrible. If I actually played the game for exp I would be so far past a max account both in rs2 and old school rs. I'd play castle wars and then clan wars for hours. I wanted friends so badly. I now have many friends from college, work, and hobbies to keep me away from gaming and it has helped. As for female posters on this website I would suggest talking to silverlining, vera, lea, and Catherine among others that I've followed over the past year. There are more. I just know them the best if you're looking for that perspective as well. If you have any questions feel free. Welcome to the forums.

Thank you for writing this. That's very true about perspective. Sometimes I feel fortunate to be alone in certain situations or I'm glad that I'm emotionally secure enough to not date someone terrible for the sake of not being alone. It's definitely a test of will to avoid bad relationships. There are women who have entered my life and I know right away that they're not going to open my heart up or sing the tune of life I'm hoping to sing. This kind of dreaming might have me looking for someone impossible to find and I'm fine with that because I know when I find her I'll cherish every second with her.

Tonight I face some loneliness. I haven't rock climbed in a bit. I worked late this weekend but I also saw friends and family on the days I didn't work. I watched hockey and enjoyed it. I'm just a little lonely is all. I may have mentioned this in the past, but my way of thinking has shifted from trying to leave my mark doing something incredible to be idolized by to trying to live a wholesome life. I want a hug when I come home. I want to fall in love and see a new world in my lover's eyes whenever I look into them. I want to hold someone and understand what unconditional, cherished love means. As close as I am with my parents now I just can't look at them with happiness anymore. It's tough for me to sit across from either of them and look them in the eyes. I love both of them and I also hold a lot of memories of them hurting me. I've forgiven them and no longer hold visceral hatred towards them. There's just something in my heart that pulls away from them when I'm with them. My soul is almost detached because of what I've experienced with them. It's a whole other life and I'll never allow myself to trust them at such a deep level again. That's what hurts. That's why I'm empty most days. I wish I could find someone who I just can't live without and love them so much. I'm not looking for them to save me. I just want to experience the journey of love and happiness. Overall, I'm happy. I'm in a wonderful place in life. Sometimes I see documentaries of people doing things and the first person they celebrate with is their wife. I long for that and hope I can find someone who could ever love me that way in return.

Enjoy this moment. Be mindful of the clarity in your mind with less brain fog. This is something that will get better over time and you'll appreciate the journey you're on. It's nice not having a "Pull" in your head to play games because you're craving it. It's nice to have no brain fog from exhaustion after gaming.

I agree with everything you said. I just felt like there was something missing and I can't tell what it was. I'm having a difficult time putting it together. I think he was the best live joker I've seen. He was true to the comic. I was kind of disturbed by the murders even though that's what he does in the comics as well. I just felt like the plot was missing something.

I'm still not there yet. Sometimes I do every 2 weeks. 3 years though and no regrets. You got this.

I see a therapist every Tuesday and have done so for almost 3 years. It's saved my life. I was afraid of how severe my depression was and after 2 coworkers at my old company commit suicide I needed a therapist. It took a year and a half for me to tell him how much video games were crippling my life. It took that long because I didn't know gaming was the problem. Therapy, this game quitters community, and my patience has gotten me almost a year without gaming so far. I highly recommend therapy to anyone even if it's for a little bit.

I also saw joker! What did you think? I have mixed feelings.

I haven't been able to read much of your forum, but have you considered why you have been gaming and what it brings to your life that you are not getting in other areas?

Thanks for the words and reading along! I appreciate the support and if I'm helping others then I'm equally grateful. It's 50+ weeks btw, not days! I think I'm at 359 days lol.

Lord, I am not in a good place to write a full post at the moment, but I wanted to post to at least say you're on the right path even if you are facing adversity. My first few months quitting games was a disaster. I remember the 24 hour binges and the sicknesses that followed. I also feel for you with your son. Something you stated where you were upset she moved on in life and you haven't yet struck a chord with me. The feeling of shame is one of the most painful feelings we experience as humans. Recognized belief that we are a failure, messed up, let others and ourselves down. It is emotionally and mentally crippling. But it's also powerful. You have the choice to change. Guide that feeling of shame and regret into a guiding light of hope that you never want to feel that bad again and that you'll always fight for yourself to never feel it. Every day isn't a fight. You can do small things each day. When I fall into a rut I rely on my routines to give me guidance. I sleep and wake up at the same time to stay cognizant, eat 3 to 5 different sized meals a day to stay nourished, and keep good hygiene with showers and brushing my teeth. Then I add some more activities. Slowly my routine gets me through the worst days. Notice my routine makes my body and mind healthier. It promotes better decisionmaking over time and lowers depression. I exercise after that or do whatever to improve. It took me years to realize I only played video games because I was lonely and wanted achievement. I made new friends at societies and clubs and work. I then tried out new hobbies until some stuck. I went from gaming 6 to 18 hours a day for almost 20 years to nothing. Next Saturday I'll be 1 year clean and I don't struggle anymore. I don't say that to brag. I say it to show hope. I got tired of crying myself to sleep each night. I got tired of being lonely. I got tired of hurting myself. I got tired of waiting for people to help me when nobody ever would. I learned to love myself. I also had the help of seeing a professional behavioral therapist once a week and still see him. It's a social interaction and very insightful. I don't take medication either. We game to fill holes in our lives. Don't try to just quit games. Give yourself time over the next few months to explore your heart and mind to realize what's missing and what you need to replace. Find healthy and fun stress outlets. Success is determined by how high up we bounce back after hitting rock bottom. Your ex wife is a human you can't control. You can control you. This is your life and your time.

Welcome to the community! I hope you find the right combination of life balance to find your way through this. We'll all be here to help.

I just saw 'Joker' today. Very similar feel to 'Taxi Driver'. I enjoyed the Joker character, but the movie I need to think about more.

Today marks 51 straight weeks without playing video games. 1 year will be quite an accomplishment, but it's not a goal of mine. I'm not sitting here strictly trying to reach 1 year. It's just a year on my life without gaming. I will keep going as it is not a burden on me. I'm just proud of myself every day for being able to move forward and appreciate the support from people on this thread who have helped along the way. I've done a better job at not abusing porn the past few weeks. I think I know that I'll be watching it until I meet a girlfriend. The only way I'll be able to make the transition from porn to real life is by watching porn less when I really don't "need it". I'm letting cravings be the thing that directs me instead of stress. I've done a better job at channeling stress into something positive for myself like speaking to family, friends, exercise, and cooking. Also, I can watch hockey again and release stress by celebrating. I had a coworker let me down over the past few weeks. They were supposed to help me with a project that was fast tracked and they completely blew my budget, lied about how many hours they worked, didn't work hard, and gave me a poor product riddled with errors on a consistent basis. They even took work from my other coworkers to guarantee they had something to charge hours to at work. This is because there is a secret policy at work which allows people to "work overtime", store the hours as comp time, and then go on a vacation with those comp hours. So this person scheduled how many hours they needed to work each day from August until November to do this trip. They then steal projects from people and says they are doing the project. It has left my other coworkers with nothing to do for several hours at a time and stressed them out. We recently had to stay late several times this week because of it. I'm disappointed because they are someone I viewed as an office friend and I see now how I was so wrong in trusting them. I told my boss about it because I was asked and I was disappointed. I don't know what will happen in the future, but it's not correct to steal from the company like that and I wanted to take action. It's not right to manipulate others (tell me they're working), lie about their product (it was a bad product), lie about hours worked (they were in the office no more than 40 hours a week, charged 50 hours, charged time worked through lunch and we don't get paid for lunch), and then talked to people all day and distracted the people who they stole the work from in the first place! Unreal. I was nervous about this. I don't like causing trouble and for some reason action-oriented situations always seem to follow me. They do not define me though. I know I did the right thing. Each day we are faced with choices to do the right or wrong thing multiple times per day. Your character as a human determines the outcome of those situations. The outcome of those situations determines your character over the course of your life. You're either a saint (sainte) or a grinch (grunch). If you can quote the reference I made in the last paragraph I'll reward you with something minuscule and non-physical.

That sounds terrible and random at the same time. Maybe a gold bond powder in the future?

What ended up happening to your foot where you needed antibiotics?

Don't lose hope and don't hold a grudge against the ones who say no. You gotta own this and own yourself. You have a lot to prove. You're making your way in life and establishing the next chapter of your life. Don't cry over this. Keep focusing on yourself and learn to love yourself more. You got this. You're doing great, on track to graduate with a strong degree and are providing yourself with a path to walk on past college. I still haven't found anyone, but it makes me know that when I finally find a woman who DESERVES ME that I'll cherish every fucking second I have with her because she's that special. It's worth it in the end. Also, listen to Falling Apart by Papa Roach.

That's awesome. I'm glad you went into this detail. I felt bad providing criticism, but I really want to know more about you and just see how you're progressing and what's happening. Obviously, it's your choice to speak about what's going on in your life. I just think it's important when we hit those struggles to keep diving into it and exploring what the issue may be.

Welcome. Don't bother editing your first post. Keep posting new updates so people see you're adding responses. It will get your post recognized and you'll gain some supporters. Looking forward to tracking your progress.

I started building a website for my hockey stories and podcasts that I mentioned a few posts back in the hobby post. I'm taking a break from the cartoon because it's just so overwhelming. I went through my post, analyzed the blue vs red ratio and content, and realized I wanted to change my focus. I've been able to develop this website for a few hours at a time. I'm learning a lot and I'm surprised how eager I am to keep developing the website. Once it's fully developed I'll share a link to it in this thread. It will be a hobby I'm interested in and I won't be stressed out about creating the website and such. I was so stressed out about the process of web design that I ignored my passion for hockey writing and also ignored other hobbies. I'd get overwhelmed with what I had to do. Now that I focused and learned about my problems with hobbies I'm not treating this website like a job. I'm just excited for it.

I've felt the same way. I didn't crave porn or masturbation for like 12 days, but decided to masturbate because I was so stressed out. I just realized I had a lot of sexual frustration pent up. Only issue is I've watched porn every day since. I don't really crave it right now though. I think I will stop the nofap thing, but I'll try to limit the porn being involved. I recognize it as a strong resolution to sexual frustration and stress when exercise and individual success can't calm that storm.

Thank you for the kind words. You'll get here and even further. I know it. Sometimes the best focus is not focusing at all and moving forward with keeping yourself busy, learning, and lots of introspection. Don't be sad for something to not be sad about. Be happy you're trying and supporting yourself. Loving and supporting yourself is the greatest gift you could ask for from yourself.

This has been an issue with my dating adventures as well. I don't like to travel and I feel like social media had influenced people to travel so much. Travel blogs make a ton of money because they entice you to do it. It's an addiction. An expensive addiction.

I am starting to think the experience of finding a woman is more important than finding a woman and having her. Dating apps are not the answer. I think if we live life pursuing our interests, eating at our favorite restaurants, and being a positive member of our community that we'll find a woman. That woman will see us for who we truly are and grow fond of us because of our true selves, not 6 gimmicky photos and a cheap biography. Continue teaching, learning, and participating in our community. You'll find someone who walks at your pace and isn't using you.

Mohammad, I apologize for being critical of you for your recent posts. Please accept my apology if I sound rude. I just read one or two pages and all you say is you didn't play a game today. You're failing and restarting your day counter and then getting angry that you're failing. Write down why you're failing. We're all strangers here. None of us can offer you help if you're not going to open up and elaborate on why you're failing. I don't know what your hobbies are, what you do for work, do you live alone or have family, are things stressing you out causing you to seek video games as a stress release??? Since you're not writing about trying to change or giving any details about your experience quitting video games all I can assume is you're going on shear willpower to quit games and battling every day. When you battle every day eventually you lose. Discuss why you're seeking video games, what in your life is a trigger, and formulate some ideas for replacing the need to game. I played games because I was lonely and wanted to get attention and achievement. I now do better at work, rock climb, play board games, and eat out with new friends. I have zero cravings anymore. It's not a battle for me to stay away from games now because I've discovered why I played and replaced the needs. I'm 50 weeks in a row without gaming because I'm no longer fighting. I'm living. I apologize if I sounded rude, but please elaborate on your experience and let us help you. Nobody is going to be able to help if you're just writing a day counter.