James S.

Welcome! You got a great vision for what your life can be. Now is the time to take baby steps and begin to learn how to let gaming go. I definitely recommend the journal, it helped me keep myself straight on my journey. Just know bro it is going to be a process, so go easy on yourself!

Welcome back!

Days 99-103 Not much trouble over this weekend. I have to be careful with sci-fi movies I noticed last night. Watching StarTroopers and it was kicking up the Halo feelings. Spaceships brings feelings of wanting to fly my own. Trying to anchor myself in reality. Like I get bored with real life and I play in the alternative universes. I can ponder possibilities of how things can play out. Today's challenge is to learn how not to be bored with real life. I had a great visit with my parents over the weekend. We went out to eat and fellowship for a good amount of time. They are not used to summer in the valley. Listening a new song from Jeremy Camp. It has been hitting me hard. The video takes place in the desert. Lately our lives have been boxed in, fellowship with other Christians is hard to come by. Years ago I was a major part of our church and today I am a part of nothing. I been hurt by the machine we call Church. My parents and wife were saying I need to let the past stay there. I discern that this is a transition season, but it is not where I want to be. Maybe the problem is me. Working on my Samsung Galaxy S6 trying to see if I can improve it. Looks like Verizon were jerks and locked down the phone completely. So I can't troubleshoot the problem they never solved with the latest android update they left it at. Working on getting the last version of Android 6.0.1 and just stick with that. If I can get 1 a year out of the phones. It will buy time to get something better. Samsung Smart Switch app is nice piece of software. Shame I can't use it on Linux.

Days 97-98 Just another day in the game of life. Working, family members calling in favors after work >_< I am wanting to hit the gym, but I am getting some kind of muscle spasms on my side. I am not sure why, but I am waiting them out before starting up. No urges so far.

Days 93-96 It's been a touch couple of weeks. I got sick again and it am not even fully sure it is gone. Couple of times in my low points I question why I am quitting games. Thankfully the thoughts didn't turn into action. My work place there is a cart with different home entertainment devices we support, and sometimes they play mortal combat while waiting for calls. It really sucks if they are my line of sight. I have to block it with my computer screens. Always that draw, like a magnetic pull to the controller. I had a good weekend. We got some work done. I finally got that laptop out, that I failed to repair. It is in some working order, yet fragile. Car troubles are brewing. Chevy doesn't want me to get access to my transmission. Thankfully I found how it works to check the fluid levels. I am most likely going to get a flush done. How knows how old that fluid is and how much is left in the system. I am so looking forward to going up to my parents next month. I am seriously over due to get out of the valley. I hope one day I can move up there. I know it isn't going to be easy since most of my wife's family is in the valley.

Days 85-92 I been sick for the last couple of days. I still don't have my head on straight, it's hard to think straight. I will fill in the details later

I will check into Jordan Peterson, see if he teaches anything interesting. You are on the right track with your thinking, but it is missing a few things. Law was given to help reveal that there is a problem with the human race. At the same time, the law doesn't save you, but it just let you know something evil is brewing in the heart. "What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” -Romans 7:7 ESV "being responsible and sacrificing present for the future and thus having a good life" An all powerful eternal God who lives outside of our universe, yet the universe and everything in it is sustained by this God to exist. He would be the owner of our known world and universe. It would be his Kingdom, his property, like a country using power to project sovereignty, He is sovereign over all he owns. As Mom would say "as long as you are under my roof, you live by my rules". Humanity is a broken and fallen creation so we can't keep the rules even if we want to. At some point this eternal God, being a just judge will bring all evil into judgement, and that is what we want to be spared from. Not just a prison sentence that we lose a few years. We have an eternal spirit that will be punished for that time frame, eternity. Scriptures call it the second death. Thankfully the owner and lord of the world we live in prepared a way to help spare some of us from this coming judgement, the coming second death. He manifest and sent his son into the world to fulfill what the human race has been unable to fulfill. His son died as a substitute for those who would believe. To take our death penalty on himself, and gives us reconciliation with the eternal God who owns this world and it's future. Live out the rest of your life in communion and being loved by God. Those who believe become adopted sons or daughters into his eternal family. I hope that gives clarity of the Christian view of things.

Day 84 Oh snap, I am 6 days from 90 ? I plan to reward myself with Game Quitters hoodie to represent at work. They freeze us to death here, so it work out great ? Work was a little tough. baby's sister needed us to stop by and pick up a few things. We had a good time with her sister and new guy. They made a great Italian dinner, it was a pleasant surprise. We need to do that more. I am thinking the season I am in must be transitional. Nothing is fully grounded at this time, things are coming and going. Instead of being upset that we haven't ground ourselves at the new church and all, I am just going to embrace that it is coming. Like a part of me is expecting things to fall into place, and I become a cog into a big machine again. Yet that is not what is playing out. Like the life we used to have is over, and I can't seem to figure out how things play out right now. It all seems to be just day by day, whatever challenge comes up this week. What hoop do I have to jump thru today.

Hello Ikar, I welcome your questions and I hope thru them it can help you in any complicity. A disclaimer before I answer your questions and comment. Everything I share is from a Christian world view. I won't try to evangelize or force my beliefs on you. You will see things from my perspective is all. Did she know about your addiction before and were you in a state of a self-diagnosed addict or were you in denial? She didn't know my addiction to video games due it not being a topic at the time. It was a long distance relationship between Connecticut and Arizona. At the time I knew I had a problem with gaming, but I didn't know how to label it. My gaming addiction was low on the totem pole at that time. Were you married by that point? I moved to Arizona and we started from scratch. It took a number of months for me to put her old laptop together. Eventually I got my own computer and I started to game again. We married before I started to game again. Was it the sole marital vow that kept you together in the toughest times, because it's the vow that cannot be broken and there's no other way out than to solve the problem? The glue that kept us together was God and love. We both came into the agreement that I was her God chosen husband and she is my God chosen wife. We are total opposites. she is a fireball and I am ice. She would get set on fire with a problem, I had to walk away and pray. She cool down and we work it out. After the forgiveness we would come back stronger from the ordeal. I had my emotional problems, a child that never became a man and she was an abused girlfriend of other men. She seen the absolute worse in me and I have her. She is my best friend and I can't image life without her. I had no self confidence in myself but she seen the gold in me. I found she was humble, which to me is worth it's weight in gold. God been the one to melt our cold hearts when thing gone south. "I'm also asking because I had this "narcissistic savior syndrome" at least partly in my mind when I started dating my ex. I was sure I could "help" her "cure" her depression and that this would create an unbreakable bond between us. It was a reasonable assumption, but I forgot about the fact I am probably no better off than she was, as all I did with my free time was gaming/Twitch and I gamed even more after I quit my job, quite early into the relationship. She left me eventually, throwing me into chaos and eventually allowing me to reform myself into a way more self-conscious and responsible person that I am now." I feel you on that. I had a hero's complex where I wanted to save everyone else but myself. I thought I could help my wife overcome her emotional problems and depression using the lessons I learned from God working on me. After my wife got hurt from betrayal of certain family members, her thyroid gave her serious trouble, ongoing battle with depression, and I over reaching to help others. My actions put my wife into the hospital for a suicide attempt. I had to learn the hard way to stop trying to save my neighbors and stay focus on my home. To get my wife the help she needs instead of thinking I could fix her. I paid my dues for being a fool. Sounds like you did too. Just learn from your mistakes and let them help you grow stronger. For some people loving themselves is very difficult to do.

Day 83 Good day at work. I thought I was running behind, but I got there 15 minutes early. Kinda nice to take my time, get my coffee/water together. I am on chats this week, and I was able to create a home budget template using spreadsheets app. Planning our finances and such. Night time I just wanted to help my wife feel comfortable, but it comes at a cost of mounting housework. Like we clean off the breakfast bar, and less than a week later it is covered in stuff. I think I am becoming like my Mom, always trying to keep up with housework lol Scary thing is we don't have kids yet. Playing around with an idea or a mind set. I have an addictive personality. I fought and still fighting two major addictions. I am starting to think to use my mind set to fight addiction to fighting failure in my life. Even with video games removed from the picture, other things have easily tried to fill in the place of it. I am not at where I want to be.

Hello fawn_xoxo, I have a cousin named Fawn. Every time I notice your daily journal I think of her. =) That is a very good question. It bothers me a lot to see her in this condition. She has a lot of potential and time on her hands. Instead of using that time to better herself, she stuck in the quick sand. My expectations are low to medium for her due to health problems, but it hurts me to see her like that. YET other side of the coin when I became married the roles were roles were reversed. She was highly active and capable, and I was the damaged goods. Between her health and emotional problems that came later and my bad habits that kept manifesting. I paved the way for to become how she is today. She switched from "Gaming is causing problems", to "you can't beat them, join them" mentality. My mind set is if I lead the way to get her in the current condition. Then I will have to lead the way out of it and set the example.

Days 79-82 Nothing exciting happened. Saturday it was slow and from where I was sitting I could see my coworkers were playing Mortal Combat. I was watching a bit, but I could feel magnetic pull to the game. Like something mindless, animal reaction to want to take the controller and win. It was a little scary, thankfully I distracted myself to not watch anymore. Wife became sick over the weekend. We had to visit Urgent Care on Monday. I picked up a bad headache myself. Totally useless other than taking care of my wife. She is hooked on The Last Ship TV show. So we binged.

Hey JaySK, When fighting any addiction it is a battle, a fight, a struggle. You are going to be attacked on all sides to get you to submit to your addiction. Rationalizing is definitely one of those tactics to slowly deceive you to drop your guard, to disarm you. Do know that this is a process and you will have days where you will relapse. Just know that it doesn't mean you failed, just an opportunity to learn what your weaknesses are. Learn there is places you can't go anymore, people you can't see, things you can't have on your devices. It is a learning process and one day you will reap the reward of a new life. A life without gaming.

Days 77-78 I been getting more sleep lately, reduced some of the stress in the morning. I been watching The Last Ship with my wife, she hooked lol What bugs me is she is playing her game on one of her old phones right next to me. I can't force her to change her mind like I did with gaming, but it is no fun to see my addiction become hers over the years. She says she can stop any time, but all I see her do is playing and watching youtube at the same time. I had no success getting into the gym. I am going to try to make it this coming weekend. My body is screaming that it needs to be strengthened. I am almost tempted to look for a more physical job than a call center work. The strangest thing is happened, I am slowly taking up cooking. Normally I am too impulsive with the process, but I been doing simple stuff. I made dinner for the last few nights for us.

Day 76 Back to work day... well OMG I don't want to go to work but I got to push thru day lol Last couple of mornings I been on a diet of Sevendust music. The song "Ugly" keeps talking or matches the state of my soul. I think I am just angry, but I am not sure why. First time ever I am angry about my weight and I am gearing up to go to the gym. I am going to be realistic, focus one pound at a time. I know I don't know enough to truly fight this fight, but I feel like I need to start some where. My 6 month goal is to drop 30 pounds, my ultimate goal is 230 pounds. I am so tired of how miserable I feel in the mornings. I know my wife can sleep in all day, but I want to get to bed earlier. I like to get good sleep, enjoy waking up, have a cup of coffee and get to work early instead two minutes late. Twice this week being half a sleep I almost had a fender bender for not noticing cars turning in. This has got to stop.

Days 71-75 Nothing too exciting the last couple of days. Well I had a waking dream over the weekend that I was tired and I started to play games like I used to. Then I became aware of what I was doing and I was like "Oh Sh!t!". Then I woke up realizing it was just a dream lol It seriously messed with me. Weekend was good. We spend some time with my father in law. DVD project was a success. We got an old 46' flat screen TV, and to get anything on it I had to hook up my computer to it. I been enjoying watching Youtube on it in full screen. I think I am at the point that my old gaming computer is going to be broken down into Media computer for our new TV. Watch shows and Youtube from with the wife. I been working on my older laptop for projects. I think I like to setup a remote desktop access if I need more muscle when working on a project. All is well so far.

Day 70 A good day overall as well. Watch a movie with the wifey. I made some progress on the DVD project. To my surprise it works good. I just need to add video select option and some polish. I can't wait for my client to check it out. Our male cat was pushing the boundaries last night. We had to throw him into time out to mellow out. I suck as a disciplinarian, trying to help my wife where I can with that department.

Day 69 A good day overall. I didn't do anything big, just small steps in the right direction. Blessed with some food money. Amazing what a prosperous nation I live in. Food is provided, but in many parts of the world food is very very hard to come by. I wish my affairs were in order that we can give. Well it is a worthy goal to achieve. I just finished watching a show about a vampire apocalypse. Nuclear attacks with a nuclear winter to follow. Kinda was getting me to think what would we do if Phoenix got nuked and we survived. What would we do to survive? My mind going into scary places. I almost want to sit down with my family and talk about how we should handle an emergency. I am just feeling thankful today.

Days 66-68 Last couple of days feel like a blur. Go do this, go do that. Eat this, eat that. No real attacks for gaming, but I am coming to a conclusion that I picked up a new drug. I been looking for a decent show or movie to watch. TV shows are dangerous because it is like a stretched out story that can take hour and hours to finish the store. The Whole binge thing. I am planning today to finish the last two episodes of the show I am watching. After I am done, I am going to tack streaming TV shows in with gaming problem. My physical health is screaming for attention, and even though I am not an athlete I gotta find something physical to do to help get in shape.

Days 63-65 I been damaged goods this week. I didn't play video games, but I buried my head into TV series I been watching. I am thinking I need to hang up streaming TV shows which is ironic since I work for a streaming service. Unstable should be my middle name. Something doesn't go right or the way I intended it. Instead of brushing off the dust and moving on. I self loath, then it takes days to figure out I am broken. Like walking on thin ice each day, when I fall thru the lights inside flick off. Everyone has a burden to bare, this is mine. At least now I know.

Day 62 Start of a new work week. It was pretty easy going. When I got home it was a different story, I was craving to default to games for some reason. My wife playing her games doesn't help matters. Thankfully I crashed on the couch instead and nodded off some. Ironic thing was it was our 11 year anniversary but we were both too beat up to do anything. I plan on making it up when we feel better. I wanted to plug some time into a few projects but my lower back was hurting too much. I am not sure the way I am sitting is triggering it. Ended up watching a few episodes of the Strain.

Days 58-61 This week has been very weird. Between sinus infection to back pain to going to church for first time in long time. I had a few moments thinking about Halo or other games, but no action behind them. Like I am so busy trying to get things done or sorted out, only time I have is watching Hulu or farting around on discord. I am realizing I have some skills in sketching. I taking lessons on youtube to develop them a bit. Not much else happened. Back to the grind tomorrow in full steam. See how we do.

Day 57 Work was a little tough due to still having problems with coughing and an irritated throat. We had a little crisis during the day. My wife noticed our other skittish cat was taking swings at our first cat. She wanted to get the other two out of the house right away. Did some research and I found why our two new arrivals are trying to attack our first cat. Issue with cat pheromones. My big idea of changing potties caused the cats to think there was rival in their territories. They wanted to fight it out. We went out, bought a new bin to make into a potty and did a lot of cleaning. It was a tough project between my wife and I. We are both paying for it today. Hopefully it should make things safer and reduce tensions. I found there is such a thing as feline pheromones that can help calm the cats down. First chance we get we are going buy diffusers for the apartment. As I was trying to pass out I had a nostalgia moment with another Chrono Trigger song in my head. I was too beat up to worry about it. Next I know I am out.

Days 55-56 I been sick the last two days, nothing serious. Enough to stay home from work for ? Tuesday more or less just a kick back day. Honestly too much of it was watching a TV show The Gifted. Trying to finish season 2. I did get some household stuff done but nothing major. Wednesday I didn't want to repeat history and I really applied Right Now Counts Forever. Went out for breakfast with my wife and mother in law. Good food and fellowship. Sold my Mother in law in going up north with us, only condition she wants to get a motel room of her own. She has serious anxieties with the freeway, so we have to find a way to distract her until we get out of the valley. I took advantage of my free time to knock out some stuff for my mother in law. She lost her long standing employment and she needs help getting work and supplies. I knocked out a lot of stuff to help out. Only major project left is her business logo. I tried to work on it, but pinta program kept crashing with my linux system. I am not sure if unstable due to plasma desktop. Installed Mate desktop to see if it work better. I ran out of time though. I made some strides in my bible studies. My problem was I got lost in the knowledge and concepts of Reformed faith, but I never fully applied them in my life. AKA a hypocrite. This time I am taking it slow, and apply what I learn bit by bit. I want to honor my teacher and the reformers by getting truly what they are teaching and living it out.

Day 54 I got a few household things done. I let my client know the repair was a bust, parts are way too expensive. She understood and waiting to save up for a new laptop. I am thinking of trying one more time, but I want to wait till I get a tool or two first. I got two media projects to work on, but I was emotionally drained for some reason. I passed out twice with my big boy Raynon right beside me. Pretty much a mindless evening, watching some streaming content. We had to do the switch, moving our cats around so be better environments for them. To our surprise the hardest part was our original cat. She still emotionally scarred from the assault from last weekend. I had to use compressed air to scare her in the back of the apartment. Cats are doing fine now. We will keep it this way. I had to work like an ox to make sure everything was set up for the cats. Lower back pain after cleaning both potties. I really want to get back on the horse with my Christian studies this week. My current struggle is unlearning my secular mindset. I was grown up during the time where the concept of life without eternity, life divorced from eternity. I didn't come to Christ for the concern of my eternal soul. I came to Jesus, because I was a broken man who needed rescuing. My goal is to make my creed "Right now counts forever" and truly believe it. Other issue that I am working on is I grew up like many with the whole "Jesus loves me" message. That message is not the true gospel, it is a liberal version of it. Jesus does love those he saves, but he is also the Lion of Judah. Gospel is about God saving sinners from...God. I still struggle with that, with knowing the wrath and anger of a holy God. I don't know where this journey going to take me.