GrainSiloEnthusiast

Damn right! You can do this. Welcome!

You're in the right place. Welcome!

Yes, please do take credit! If it wasn't for your comment I really think I wouldn't have thought up that search term. You rock ;D

This really resonated with me. I did two different detoxes, 30 and then 60 days, and both of those times I decided to go back to gaming. This time I feel like I really don't want to go back, even though I wasn't entirely sure at first, but I like who I am when I'm not gaming so much better. I'm happier and more productive, and more at ease when relaxing and not being productive. I no longer constantly feel like I have something to get done.

I truly appreciate your comment, unfortunately these are not suitable as a replacement for me, as I would have to render everything myself from scratch basically. At that point I might as well just be drawing. I can't conceptualize nonexistent 3D spaces in my head alone, otherwise I would just be doing that. The reason the Sims works so well as an architecture sim is because that's exactly what the original game started out as anyway. I really wanted there to be something out there that was like the Sims without the "live mode", but that doesn't exist yet. The Sims has so many tools that make building simple for someone like me that really just doesn't get it otherwise, and I tend to renovate preexisting houses rather than start from complete scratch anyway. It's certainly a pickle to be in. But as I type now it's the only "game" still on my computer, and I consider that alone to be a victory. I started to hate the actual game play of the Sims anyway, so hopefully it won't seduce me haha. EDIT: I tried googling "something like the sims but just build mode" , I hadn't thought of trying that exact search before, and I think I might have hit a gold mine. This reddit thread helped me find this free program and I think I might cry, I'm so happy... I'm going to have to try this!!! I might have found what exactly what I needed!

I've been wondering about Respawn... What is it like?

Today is day 7! Made it a whole week! I'm writing this entry from my phone so the formatting will probably not be as I would wish. Just a disclaimer because I'm weird about that kind of thing lol. My wife isn't quitting gaming, but she doesn't really game that much anymore anyway. She's more likely to just watch a game on YouTube than play it herself. It's not going to become an issue for me unless she neglects me for games, but in the past it's more been me neglecting her, I don't really see it being an issue. However she doesn't really understand why I want to quit forever. I was talking to her and I brought up deleting my steam account and she was quite confused by the whole thing, wondering why I don't just change the password or simply not use it. We went on about it for a while, to ease her mind I decided I would just give her the account. She can change the password to something I won't know, and she won't have to feel like I deleted the account for dumb reasons. I don't even have that many games on there anyway. The only game I was thinking about keeping was audiosurf, but I'll find some other sort of visualizer. It's not that big of a deal. That leaves the only game on my account on the computer being The Sims 4. As I've mentioned before I want to keep it because I really enjoy building houses, and I can't find any replacements. If I could find a dedicated program for building houses and doing interior design, I would probably just try that instead. I can't find anything I wouldn't have to pay out the ass for, they're all designed for professionals, they probably have a very large learning curve anyway. But if having The Sims on my computer becomes an issue, I'll delete that too. It's not something I ever spent any money on *cough COUGH* so it's not really that painful for me to go ahead and be rid of it if necessary. One of the arguments I brought up with my wife about why I want to quit, was that I really don't like who I am when I'm gaming. There was a time a couple weeks ago when I got so frustrated at a stupid puzzle in FFVII, that I couldn't advance without completing, that I tossed the controller. It ended up hitting her hand and hurting her. I never want anything like that happening again. Even when I wasn't trying to do anything harmful I still ended up doing so. The level of anger I experienced when playing video games is dangerous. In general, gaming no longer lines up with my values, no longer fits into the way I want to live my life. I want to be a good wife. I also want to be a good mother to our potential future child. I want to be a good mother to the cats I already have! I want to be an illustrator. I want to play instruments. I want to spend a lot of time outside. I want to read and listen to books. I want to live a peaceful life filled with simple pleasures. These things are my motivation, my reasons to quit. I know now that cold turkey is probably the only way for me. As each day goes by I realize this more and more. I feel free now, like a weight has been lifted. I tried moderation. It worked for a while. But honestly I just feel so much better with it out of my life completely. The fact that I'm writing this sitting in our giant backyard, soaking up the sun, listening to the ambience of the birds and bugs and the traffic from the nearby road, is a miracle to me. If I was still gaming I would probably be inside right now, sinking into my bed. Find the reasons you're here right now reading this. Cling to those reasons. Fight for those reasons. You never have to pick up a controller again. Just for today my thoughts will be on my recovery, living in enjoying life without the use of games.

I have seen other people here mention things like nofap or compare gaming addiction to drug or alcohol addiction, so it made me wonder who else here is struggling in other ways outside of gaming. It is very common for addicts to be addicted to several things in their lives, not just one particular vice. Most recovering addicts I know still smoke cigarettes and over consume caffeine, some of them gamble or have porn/sex addictions. Et cetera. I want this thread to be a safe place for people to share their experiences, please let this be a judgement-free zone! (Content warning for drugs and self harm...) Like most of us here, I'm a gaming addict. I'm also a recovering drug addict. My drugs of choice were weed and abusing my gabapentin prescription, acid and benzos when I could get them, alcohol occasionally but always in excess, so a relatively "softcore" druggie but it destroyed my life nonetheless. I am also recovering from a self harm addiction stemming all the way back to age 12, cutting and hitting myself. I have 19 months clean and sober, have been getting better at not hitting myself when I get mad, and I haven't cut myself in about 3 years. If it wasn't for getting sober, I actually never would have realized I had a problem with gaming, or even go on to realize I was a hoarder. I generally just began pursuing self improvement! I have made so many changes for the better. So I actually find myself very grateful for those years I wasted high every day, the lessons I learned in recovery were well worth it. Even with the ups and downs I still experience as life throws crap at me, my mental health is better than it's Ever been before. Fighting gaming addiction is just another step on the path to a fulfilling life for me, I've been down this road before and I surely will again, but my experiences have made me so much stronger.

As a recovering drug addict, games are Exactly the damn same. An addiction is an addiction, period. I learned to moderate my gaming, but the second times got tough, I was right back where I started. Now I've realized that just like with drugs, when it comes to games, one is too many and a thousand never enough.

Yes! Masturbation can definitely be healthy... as long as you don't end up becoming addicted to that too! Which is why places like r/nofap exist, because some people really do need to cold-turkey beating their meat. Definitely try to maintain moderation so you don't ruin it for yourself ahaha! I think up to once or twice a day is fine as long as you're not letting it impede your life otherwise. I tend to go days or weeks without doing it, but I used to be a total chronic fapper when I was a teen lol. I don't really have any sources that can't be found on Google, but I know I personally feel best when I relieve myself when I need to be relieved, and I don't over do it.

That IS a banger tune! Thanks for sharing that with me, it made my day a little brighter.

Today is day 5. I have been watching a no-BS just-story "playthrough" of FFIX. I had been playing it right before I sold my switch to my best friend, I had been planning on playing through it one last time (with all cheats on to make it faster and less "game-y") it as my way of saying goodbye to games. But I ended up just selling it to them because they were available the next day, I figured that there's no time like the present, and I can just watch the rest. The day I sold my switch was Day 1 I know a lot of people have struggled with addictions to streams and let's plays, so I don't recommend this to everyone. I am a recovering YouTube addict but I have been doing very well in that regard since I unsubscribed from all non-music channels and deleted the app from my phone. The music channels very seldom upload too, so I typically check YouTube once a day at most and it's only for 30 seconds to see if there's any new songs. I also have a chrome extension that hides recommendations, comments, and other YouTube rabbit hole triggers as I see fit. Since I share my PC with my wife it is a lot easier to moderate, and the 2x speed feature is a huge time saver, I think I really made the right choice to just watch the rest. Just seeing how long the videos are, about 14 hours total, makes me realize how much time I'm saving by not gaming. I'd have easily spent 30+ hours even in an all-cheats playthrough, because I do a lot of wandering around and opening every chest I see. I also watch maybe 30 minutes at a time on average, when I'd play it'd been 1 or 2 hours at a time, that being moderation! Sometimes I would play even longer. I know this because the last game I played all the way through during my final binge weeks was FFVII. Over 60 hours even though I was using all the cheats! On top of time saving, it saves my mental energy and emotions. I don't get angry when watching someone else play the way I do when I play. I don't have to do anything frustrating or tedious. I don't like who I am when I game. I still have anger issues in general but I'm working on them and avoiding triggers is helpful. Even with the times I've been irrationally angry recently I'm a WHOLE lot better than I used to be a few years ago... scares me just thinking about it! It's so much easier now for me to just go outside when I see how pretty it is and just enjoy my cup of coffee or whatever. I used to feel pulled to keep working on finishing up the game so it was harder to slow down and smell the roses. I also spend more time with my 3 cats, and the time I spend with them is higher quality. I can tell they appreciate it! All in all I'm quite happy with how things are going so far. I'm already happier and more relaxed. I wonder what a whole 90 days will bring...

If you don't like streaming I think it would be well worth your while to find something else to do during that time instead! Life is too short to waste it on something you don't enjoy.

I'm not a christian, I'm agnostic with some judiasm and buddhism influenced beliefs, but God also told me to quit gaming. I think it is very important for you to keep that contact with God, and try your best to live in gratitude. Gratitude has been my biggest healthy coping mechanism!

"Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable." This quote is from Narcotics Anonymous, but is applicable to gaming addiction as well. But let's also keep in mind, being powerless over the fact that we are addicted doesn't mean we are powerless over our own actions! Every day we can make the choice to not game. Every day we can make the choice to pursue healthier hobbies and goals. We've got this! You've been doing great so far. Keep it up, I'm rooting for you!

Yep, this quarantine has really been eye-opening! Glad you're here.

I love your use of poetry. Very creative!

How have you been doing?

Today was day 4 of my 90 day detox. I'm probably not going to really return to gaming the way I did before with my 30 and then 60 day detoxes, which were just to reevaluate my relationship to gaming. I actually did learn to moderate, and all was well for a good long while. But I had a couple weeks of binging recently due to the loss of my first pregnancy, and that helped me get completely sick of video games and ready to "declutter" them from my life. They no longer *spark joy* haha. This time I'm just doing a detox to completely cleanse myself of anything that even resembles gaming. I want to re-learn how I used to live as a child before games took over my life. There's a few games out there I can use as creative tools, like the Sims for architecture and interior design for example, but that will also remain off limits until August just so I don't slip up. I want to focus on screen-free activities for a while, though I'm not setting any hard limits on that right now, I can focus more on that again later on. I recently started drawing and journaling again, and I also picked up the psaltery and kalimba (instruments). These have been really good for me! I haven't really been actively learning any songs or trying to relearn how to read music yet, I've mostly just been messing around, but it's awesome. There's something so sensory pleasing about the whole experience. I love how tactile it is. Really good replacement for gaming. I've also been reading and listening to audio books more frequently again, which has been good. My family set up a private NA meeting for my wife* and I to attend so we can have face-to-face meetings again, something I've been dying for. Zoom just doesn't do it for me in the same way. So yeah I'm also a recovering drug addict alcoholic etc, addiction is something I've known well since I started cutting myself at age 12. This is nothing new to me. Getting sober is actually the only reason I ever realized I had a problem with gaming, only reason I realized I was a hoarder, and a whole lot of other things. Best decision I've ever made! But anyway these face-to-face meetings are going to be really helpful for this too, we talk about all the aspects of life that addiction touches so they will support me 100%. I have found blogging to be quite helpful for me... I seem to like writing. So I'll probably keep doing this daily journal thing, if not necessarily daily. *(yes we're gay just to clarify, I was the pregnant one, don't want to confuse anyone lol.)

#MAKEBADART If you don't make bad art you'll never make good art!

Small achievable goals are a great way to start, sometimes just remembering to take your meds is a huge feat. You can use the "x effect" to help stay on track, basically just marking a calendar to remind yourself you've achieved your goals for the day and letting that little mark be its own reward. I used that method when I did my detoxes, helps keep track of the days and reminds me to keep moving forward.

I got into Game Quitters quite a while ago actually, but with the intention of learning to moderate rather than quitting altogether. I did a 30 day and then later 60 day detox. I actually did find myself with a healthier relationship to gaming when all was said and done! But now I find myself utterly sick and tired of video games in general. Part of my apprehension to quit gaming entirely for good was that Animal Crossing New Horizons was coming out and I've been a fan of the series since I was 6 years old. I got bored within a month. I spent all that money on my Switch, accessories, and several games that I got just to pass the time between then (mid December) and ACNH's launch date... I'm in a very privileged living situation in which I have only a phone bill so it's not a super big deal but it's still money that could have been put elsewhere. I find myself with little interest to play even games that have good worthwhile stories when I can just watch them on YouTube, generally on 2x speed and only in short bursts. (I'm also no longer addicted to YouTube which is a huge feat for me, so the number of games I'd actually watch are quite small.) Especially with having just miscarried my first and so far only pregnancy, my life has been put into perspective in many ways lately, and I find myself longing for a future in which I play little to no games. I still consider keeping a few around, like the Sims, simply for the creative aspects. I like using the Sims as an architectural tool more than anything, time spent building houses feels productive and creative whereas level grinding for hours does not. Same goes for Creative mode Minecraft with mods that make building much less tedious. If I can be creating something it feels a lot more meaningful. Ironically COVID and my miscarriage both helped me reach this point, because I played a lot more in the last couple of months and it's really opened my eyes to how much time I've wasted over the years. I don't regret all of it but I do regret a lot of it. I yearn to relearn how to live as I did in my childhood, lost in thought and imagination. I'm finally creating art and reading again, after a few weeks of severe depression following the loss. It's time for me to start living real life again and face the future head on. Sorry for writing a novel here, it was quite therapeutic to get it all out though!