The emoji in the title sums up my situation right now perfectly.
Hi guys. I have been here before, yet I relapsed. My name's Valerie and I'm 18. I live in Britain, Hampshire. Basically when I first quit, I replaced my laptop with a Chromebook and I immersed myself in the helpful tips from this community and from Cam in particular. I did this particularly because I was a likely candidate for Oxford, so I decided to quit gaming to focus all of my efforts on getting in. So I got the offer from them, studied hard, pretty much forgot about gaming, rediscovered a love for reading and for writing, had my exams and, although I didn't yet get the results, I have an inkling I did well enough. I will begin studying English Literature at Oxford this October, and I hope to become an author in the future.
That said, I recently started my summer holiday. A long one, too. From 17 June to 1 October. I have been keeping up pretty well, reading about 5 or so books since the holiday started... But I'm relapsing. Well, at this point, I relapsed. Way before my holiday, I met a guy whom I now adore and we are in a pretty good relationship. 'Problem' is, he's a gamer. I wouldn't want to give him up, but he's an Overwatch scrub and I go over to him rather often. Whenever I came over, I would play Heroes of the Storm and League of Legends on his computer-- yet at first, as some of you (or all of you? not sure how common this is) can relate, you see the game for what it is: uninteresting, toxic, and boring repetition. Frustrating. Just not worth your time. But every additional match makes you like it more for whatever fucking reason. And then eventually you're in.
So I asked my boyfriend (he works in IT) if he could please fix my previous laptop (since it breaking was another motivating factor to quit). He did this Saturday. And basically I have been playing League non-stop.
My problem right now is that I am divided in a way that I don't remember ever being. Emotionally, I want to play. When the night falls and I have nothing to do, I get excited just thinking about playing. But rationally, I know it's a bad idea. I have so much I want to read. I want my life to go in such a different direction.
Yet I am not sure I have the willpower to stop. I feel like a drug addict who went clean and then suddenly got a taste for their fave drug again. Like even though I played obsessively only one day, it felt like it tapped into such a deep network, such a well-entrenched past. It's almost like that past never went away, but I merely dusted it off. I nearly cried yesterday at the prospect of losing control again, at having my mind go foggy again 24/7 except when I'm gaming, at being consumed again by this division between my emotional craving for gaming and my rational, guilt-stricken side that wants to do good by me.
I guess this post is a call for help. Part of me just wants to play. I really don't want to be here in a way. This is the rational me reaching out. But I just feel so cheated out by not indulging. Yeah um.
Please help.