Manhotelle

The biggest problem for me is that i can't stop gaming for more than 3 days. My schedule keeps me busy all day long until late evening where i am supposed to be doing my studies on my laptop. That's when i usually give up. Whenever i just think of studying for a moment, i start getting hard cravings, convincing myself that "it's fine and i can play a little". Now i am afraid, even terrified, to study, to be alone with my pc. What should i do?

Day 1 I couldn't stay out of games without journal. I've been gaming a lot in past 3 months, despite my previous progress. I lost hope that i will ever be able to drop games again. I guess, i'll have another try.

Day 1 I relapsed hard. I dropped my journal for 10 days, watched gaming stuff all that time and even played games for 2 days straight. But i don't feel ashamed or guilty. I am sure now that games is not what i want. When i relapsed, i let myself fully enjoy myself and have fun. And in the proccess i realised: i had enough fun here. I want to explore new options. I do not trying to drop games anymore - i am learning new ways of having fun. P.S. i started attending volleyball training and it was a lot of fun! I want to contunue improving there:)

Thanks man, never thought of giving up. Even when i sound desparate and pessimistic, it is only of my strict approach to self-analysis. I decided to allow myself to take an honest look at my actions and find the most obvious reason why certain things keep happening. I do get sad of bad results of course, but i am learning to learn from them :)

Day 19 I am finally home! In last days on my work i was quite busy so i skipped a lot of daily notes here, but i still tried to keep up with my plan. I do not miss my workout (which got harder a lot in the last 10 days) and morning meditation! I read 10 pages of a book almost every book (skipped only twice in the last 2 weeks) and doing more of my homework now. Doing pretty great!

Day 15 Goals: 2/4 Bonus: -/2 It was wrong approach. I think i dropped hardest goals before they happen to become habits. I'll figure it out.

Day 14 Goals: 2/4 Bonus: -/2 Definitely need to fix my sleep schedule fast.

Day 13 Goals: 2/4 Bonus:-/2 I want to sleep.............

Day 12 2 goals completed, bonus goals remained untouched. I still struggle. Struggle to convince myself that i'm doing right thing. That giving up some "fun" won't make my life worse, but better instead. That i will feel better doing anything, except gaming. I did not forget how painful were all of those days to me. I played and cried inside. I pretended to be happy. I absolutely sure of it. But i still afraid of changing my life forever, even though it would mean to fulfil my dreams. I don't want to lose my paper world despite knowing it is fake. Who will i be without it? When i decided to give up on games i didn't see any other option, but to follow somebody's advice and push through. I will do everything in my power to be free from my addiction. But i did lie to myself and i want to stop doing that. I gave up on myself when i stopped playing games. I finally admitted i was wrong and my whole personality with my bad habits and attitudes are wrong partly or totally. Somehow it was the hardest thing to admit: i was wrong. My way of life was wrong. I couldn't wholeheartadly do things i need to do to be more happy. Instead i feel guilt for being myself. I don't know what to do with it. It does not dissapear. It remains. I am doing good things everyday, i am applying Slight Edge principles, i become better day by day, it is noticable already, especially in my physical condition. But i still confused and i can't ignore it, like in past 3 weeks. I wrote all of that and now i feel like i don't know anything about my true self. I am not even sure if i do really feel this way or is it just moment of weakness. Probably i was honest with myself. I want to spend more time being honest with myself, but i probably need to learn how to do that.

Day 11 Goals: 2/4 Bonus missions: 0/2 I have not enough faith in myself. I do know logically i can complete my goals, but i don't believe that. Working on it.

I did use BetterHelp site at first, but my chaotic life with bad internet and a lot of traveling offered me no chance to make a proper conversation with my therapist. He was kind, but his advices were basic unfortunately. He was talking a lot about discipline in general, but didn't offer any precise plan or anything to stood on for a few days atleast. And then i found GameQuitters's site and Cam's book "Respawn". Well, getting advice from former hardcore gamer turned out to be exact thing i needed. His points and methods were excellent and i understood a lot about myself. If you still struggling with gaminf, perhaps " Respawn" can help you. Wish you luck, mate.

Day 10 Here i am again. 10 days! Goals achieved: 3/4 Bonus missions: -/2 I found myself struggling with my sleep schedule lately. I found new friends out here and spent a bit too much time with them after job. I like having fun with tgem, but it showed my weakness i have to cover quickly. I am lonely and i have no idea how to deal with it. What bothering me the mist is that I might relapse because of this again. I have a lot of "friends" in cs go. They don't have any connection with me and i did build the thickest wall between us i could, but... I have no computer out there with stable internet connection. Real challenge will start when i will get back to home and spend a lot of time alone with notebook and internet in my hands. What should i do to feel less lonely? Does anyone have any idea? I know i can get out of home if i feel about to relapse, but that is not a solution. I need to feel myself comfortable at home again.

Day 9 Goals: 2/4 Bonus missions: 1/2 Nothing special happened.

Day 8 I had not enough sleep, so i meditate. It. Was. A blast. I haven't been so effective for months. I have been so good, i finished almost all of my goals in 4 hours, despite all work stuff i was doing. Without a single minute of procrastination. It felt like i was a machine, i just did the best i could without hesitation. Everything was working like a clock until 13:00. At that moment i started to feel sleep deprivation and it was fast. Despite that i finished all my goals at the end of the day and even spent some time on my bonus mission! The most effective day by far! P.S. i noticed that my urge to finish things quickly didn't disappear. I but transformed into strong desire to get things done, because... I wanted to get those things off my list and do what i want to do. And i quickly imagine what i wanted. And there were no games in that imaginable list: freelance, an excellent english, good programming skills, finished exams and volleyball. I also think my disconnection from internet helped a lot. I didn't check my e-mails, nor i did read reddit.

Had no internet so missed my daily note ? Day 7 Nothing special: 2 goals achieved (did workout and read a book). Nothing comes in my mind what i had done useful on that day, despite 1 thing: i had an urge to finish my unfinished business right now. I had a feeling i need to do everything right now and use maximum effort, but... i resisted that feeling on purpose. Instead of rushing recklessly, i observed what were the obstacles that day that gave me enough trouble to finish up my daily plan. I came with obvious results: lack of sleep and messy thinking, because of it. And i gave myself a promise: if i know that i might not get enough sleep, i will get up 10 minutes earlier and meditate. And with that thought i ended my day.

I was so happy too!

Day 6 Wasted day. Took day off on my workplace and slept whole day. Main goals achieved: 1/4 only workout Bonus mission is done. (3 arcticles)

Day 5 Results are ... a bit intriguing. Nothing excellent today. Sleep deprivation kicked in right from the start and i didn't do much in my plan. Fun part is that i didn't have cravings for gaming that day, not even a single thought about them. Instead i had a lot urges to eat unhealthy food, those godlike patties we have here (our cook was baker before (i apologize, i should capitalise all letters:she was BAKER. Her baking is on a whole another level). And i ate them a lot this day? As for yesterday's plan, i read a lot on freelancetowin.com (10 arcticles) and did my physical exercise. Not much, but not bad either. My biggest disvovery yesterday is that activity i was craving the most was volleyball! I was playing it in school days for about a year and had a total blast, before i got injured. When i was doing my physical exercise, i realised i was craving to hit the toss again that hard, that i even did some runups and jumps training to have some fun. I wish we have recreational volleyball league here. Hope i won't gave up to patties ever again... ?

Day 4 Quick summary of day 3: 3.5/4 main goals achieved (finally did my exam prep! Only half of the page's translation is done) Bonus missions are untouched yet. I did some self-analysis and that's what i noticed: 1) Days i spent without meditation are tend to pose more stress. 2) Success i had in previous days created a desire to have more success. Success leads to even more success i suppose. 3) Self-reflection seems helpful right now. But i think of it more as of a double-edged sword. On a bad day it may be quite harmful leading to repetition of bad things happen throughout the day instead of learning from them Plan is not changing: 1. To read 5 pages of study 2. To do workout 3. To translate 1 page of the book 4. To read 10 pages of slight edge Bonus missions will be different and their number will temporary decrease to 1 task: 1. Read 2 topics on freelancetowin.com P.S. another day without meditation combined with sleep deprivation. Let's see how it goes today.

Thank you an awesome advice! I will add this to my plan after my exams!

I read "Slight Edge" right now. I find it amazing in every aspect. It affected me so much, i set a goal to translate it to my native language (Russian that is) applying those principles i use everyday now. I want my best friend, who doesn't know English at all, read it one day. P.S. For some reason nobody translated it to Russian yet.

As i said earlier, you did it last time for 3 months straight and you will prevail again. Good luck and don't lose confidence in yourself. We are here, if you face some obstacles on the way?

Thank you, Matt! I am glad i have a possibility to hear from like-minded people here. Day 3 I felt a lot better, still sick though. My mourning routine is ruined right now, i barely had time to sleep well, so i decided to skip it for a few more days until i would be able to get up earlier. 3 goals i did complete: i read 10 pages of the book, translated 1 page and did my workout (even got some progress there). I promised myself on day 2 i will find time to complete those goals and i did, even though i read the book right before bed. On day 4 i will complete 4 goals this time.

Day 2 My condition got even worse. Just reading books now.

I gave up and watched gaming news for an hour. I got sick yesterday and layed on a bed half of the day reading the book (60 pages in one day, yay). I got bored and gave up to temptation. Funny thing is that i am not sad. I knew why it happened (my colleagues are playing games a lot on workplace, so i cant isolate myself from gaming totally) and i didn't play games, even though my colleagues have cs:go installed on their PCs. I said myself no to gaming, because they don't help me follow my dreams. I think i need to change my strategy a bit: before, when i felt bored and tempted to play games i walked away for 10 minutes or so (workout is not an option, i do mine 10:00 am every morning now ( i managed to do that yesterday, no break there :) )), but yesterday i could barely move with fever so i read a lot, it was fun. But it didn't lessen my boredom, just hid for sometime. I think i should have done my mental engaging activity in that moment, my bad there. Day 1 What is it that changed with last 10 days of my detox? Well, practically everything. I changed the way i lived everyday and changed a bit my philosophy to fight not someday, but today and every day. I fight for my future with those small steps i do. So what have i completed from yesterday's plan? Let's see: 1. Nope, still escaped this one. I have an idea though, but later about it. 2. Well, success there, big one even (6 times bigger than my initial goal). It is good thing and bad at the same time. Good thing is that i read a great book. Bad is that i used it to escape from my completing my goals (i was sick, that's true, but i still could have read something for my study atleast). Now i know reading books became my comfort zone again! That's great! 3. I had no access to computer and i don't do translations on a paper on purpose (i have a new friend, a girl, who's willing to redact my translations! But i don't want her to waste time on my paper mess ( my writing is straight awful)), but i could translate it on a phone. It's unfortunate i haven't thought about it yesterday. I gave up too easily still, that's an issue to work on. 4. Success there too. I did them before i felt bad. Bonus missions were skipped. Today's plan is the same, except first topic: 1. Read 5 pages of textbook. I will start small to break that fear of "doing things you couldn't do as you wish in 3 years". Rest of the plan stays the same, bonus missions included. Workout might be skipped due to illness, but i will think about it. Let's go.