Julon

First two days went pretty good, I‘m starting to get back into chess a little. I played with my father, It‘s a lot more fun than I remember. We also bought a small drone to check if everything on the roof is fine. It‘s a good way to pass some time. I just don‘t know what to do with myself when there is no activity I can do. I‘ll usually listen to music for a bit, but even that gets boring. Meeting a friend often also sucks because that often means drinking alcohol or smoking weed.I‘ve thought about picking up a sport like fencing or some kind of martial arts, to maybe meet friends that don‘t always drink. I‘m just not the most social person though. I‘m like a different person when I‚m having gaming nostalgia /craving games. Rational thinking was turned off. And when I played the game was to ashamed to talk about, that I let it happen. For daily plans: I‘ve tried: Waking up early maybe do some yoga. Then go to the gym (which I often did ). Then I planned some time for online classes an school. But it rarely worked out. I don‘t really have a big goal, everything I try ( like music production, programming or mountainbiking) becomes boring very fast for me. Even though beeing good at those things would be awesome. I always want to be good at something but don’t want to work for it for a long time, without seeing instant progress, in some instances seeing the long way ahead makes me loose hope. It‘s funny because in games I could grind for hours and hours, but I could also see the progress and how much I had left until I reached my goal. So yeah finding goals/sticking to them is a big problem. There isn‘t anything that really means something to me.

Hello (again), It has been almost 3 months since my last post and I had my biggest relapse yet. Just before the school started (no more online classes) I got really depressed to the point where I couldn’t find motivation for anything anymore. I thought maybe playing one game for a few hours could help my mood.... Well I was wrong! I got back into a game called Planetside 2 (a very grindy game) where I somehow still had an account with hundreds of hours on it. I got addicted again immediatly and until the school started I didn‘t even leave the house once. And then school didn‘t really make things better. Because I was way to lazy to learn during lockdown, I had to learn all of the stuff about 1 day before each exam. That was one hell of a lot of stress. To cope with the stress I played everytime I got a chance and only started to learn at night (luckily my grades ended up being pretty good ) Hundreds of hours wasted on games later It feels like I have flushed all my progress down the drain. I have to start over completely. I deleted every tiny gaming account I had left (except a few I couldn‘t) and I‘m up for a fresh restart. I really want to start enjoying the progress, that was a big problem for me all the time. I‘m just too much used to having instant gratification instead of focusing on long term results, when something didn‘t work in a few days I already got frustrated. I hope i can be more patient this time. I‘m motivated to start again, going to keep you guys updated!

Day 41-44 I worked a lot the last days because I have to keep up with stuff from school i didn‘t do the last two months. I‘m really craving for any instant gratification, nothing can get me relaxed except gaming or browsing. (Books are too exhausting). I even wanted to play some old mobile games I haven‘t played for ever. I played for 1 hour and it felt horrible, didn‘t play because it was fun, I played because my brain could just turn off. I realized , that mobile games are still very much addicting, so I took the time and deleted my current apple ID, before I seriously start playing again. But I still need to find something relaxing where my brain can turn off.

Day 39-40 I have been very busy over the past days. Worked alot on a presentation and did yoga / workouts. When I have these short periods of motivation I still have to keep myself from over working, so I‘m trying to find a balance between working and pleasurable things like listening to music reading books and going outside. Thanks for the comment, do you have the name of the book?

Day 37-38 Still felt kind of down the last two days. I did yoga and my workouts. But quarantine is really getting boring. And now that I have holidays I have a lot of school stuff to catch up too... Don‘t know how I‘m going to find all that motivation... it‘s hard enough not to play any games right now.

Day 36 Had a depressing mood almost the whole day,, But sometimes you just have to get up and force yourself to do atleast something. So I went stand up paddling and found some motivation. After that I had my workout. Except a bit of learning for school, that was it for the day. Could‘ve gone better but atleast I went outside for a bit.

Day 35 Really boring day. I started with some yoga and did a lot of stretching through out the day. But i didn‘t find any motivation to so stuff for school. I went for short walks hoping that maybe I would find some energy to do stuff, but nope. Hopefully tomorrow will be more successful.

Day 34 Had a few online classes and avoided my phone the whole day. I now started doing a bit of yoga to improve my posture, which i did in the evening ( In the future I will do it in the morning since my energy levels then are really low then.), and after that I had my 1h workout. I watched about 2 hours of Tv which i will probably cut down to 1 hour or completely. I‘m also pretty exited that we ordered stand up paddles, they are a great distraction from gaming and get me out of the house.

I‘m Back, to be honest I did not do well at all. Over the past Days I have been loosing faith in myself, mostly for not beeing able to keep my promises. I always start of very ambitious but then I end up where I came from. I don‘t even realize when all goes wrong It‘s just like a repeating cycle. At the start of the week I had some personal problems. But I could’t deal with those by just thinking about it, trying to find a solution. No, I went back to watching youtube and playing stupid browser games. When I‘m afraid of something, my old habits are the thing that I go back to. And usually this is what makes it even worse. Normally I‘m even too afraid of talking about my feelings, the feel of being judged for not being “normal“ makes me sick. Thats also one of the reasons I have never told my parents or anyone anything about my problems/ feelings, they think I‘m living a completely normal live, but they almost know nothing about me. I always wanted to tell them about my addiction after I quit completely and turned my life around. But now might be a better time maybe. Taking this “time off“ really made me realize how important journaling is to me. Gathering my thoughts at the end of the day and communicating with others. The days I journaled on were much better mostly. So from now on I‘m going to actively journal again.

Not going to be journaling the next few days, I‘m taking some time off the internet, want to see if this further benefits my journey.

Day 33 Today was super boring and I couldn‘t find motivation to do productive things. Finally though I have removed my phone completely from my daily live. I realized that even listening to music all day is too much dopamine through instant gratification for my brain. Now that everything I can escape to is gone, it‘s the first time I‘m really feeling like going through a detox. I feel restless constantly and have crazy mood swings. But it‘s actually good that I finally see some withdrawal symptoms, because before it felt like nothing is changing. I hope that the less exiting activities become more exiting in a few days after avoiding almost all the instant gratification dopamine. Streaks No gaming: 33 Days No (useless) browsing:5 days

Day 32 Another fairly productive day. Did 20 minutes of cardio learned for about 4 hours and went for a walk. Just in the evening I watched some TV because I was exhausted. Streaks No gaming: 32 Days No (useless) browsing: 4 Days

Day 31 Today was a very succesfull day. I actually replaced all of my freetime with productive things. I worked out for 2 hours did some stretching and learned for 3 hours. It‘s actually one of the first times I have learned without beeing under pressure because of a deadline or a test. And it‘s a way better feeling when you accomplish it because you wanted not because you had to. Streaks No Gaming: 31 Days no(useless) browsing: 3 Days

Day 30 1 month without gaming.... to be honest not that special for me. Since i didn‘t fill my time with alot of productive things during this quarantine. But I‘m proud that I do sports every day now. I‘m still staying away from my phone as much as i can now. And today I got atleast a bit of work done. Streaks No Gaming: 30 Days no ( useless) browsing: 2 Days

Day 29 Today I worked out for 2 hours and did some stretching afterwards. Then I did about an hour of an online course. The rest of the day I just enjoyed being outside in the sun since the next days are going to be very rainy. Streaks No Gaming: 29 Days No (useless) browsing: 1 Day

Day 28 Watched a stupid amount of youtube videos today because I was too lazy to start the day off right with a workout. The only things I did later that day were doing about 20 min of cardio and doing about 30 minutes of an online course. I‘m going to put my alarm clock out of my reach now, so I can finally start waking up early Streaks No gaming: 28 Days No (useless) browsing: 0 Days

Day 27 Not much motivation on this rainy day today, the only things i did were 20 minutes of cardio and stretching. Streaks No gaming: 27 Days No (useless) browsing: 4 Days

Day 26 Started the day off again with a 2 hour workout and a bit of stretching. Then i finished some school work, but avoided mathematics, because it‘s really annoying. My goal for tomorrow is to learn at least 1 hour of it. Streaks No Gaming: 26 Days No (useless) browsing: 3 Days

Day 25 today I had a lot of zoom meetings and I also learned for about 2 hours. Also did my usual 20 minute cardio and stretching routine in the morning - really helps get the day startet. Streaks No gaming: 25 Days No (useless) browsing: 2 Days

For me it is that one thing that keeps me from anything productive. It‘s the biggest problem for me. I would like to browse only a bit, but i know that i can‘t control myself then. It‘s a major trigger for further problems like gaming.

It sucks obviously, but I try to learn from it. My phone is locked up at night now and I take it out after breakfast.

Day 24 Today I had many zoom meetings, what‘s really good, because learning on my own is still a pain in the a$$ for me. I didn‘t waste any time on my phone and had the best workout in a few months. I‘m still working on my efficiency though, I‘m not getting that much done at the end of the day - I take forever in the transition between different tasks. Sport in the morning definitely has helped a bit, but I‘m still too slow in my opinion. Because of that the days go by like nothing right now. The last 2 weeks felt like 2 Days. Streaks No gaming: 24 Days No (useless) browsing: 1 Day

Day 23 I have to admit, that I was on my phone for almost the whole day and even went to bed pretty late ( 1 am). It was raining so I could‘t go outside. The only good thing I did was doing 20 minutes of cardio and then some stretching. Streaks No Games: 23 Days No (useless) browsing: 0 Days

Day 22 Used my phone in the morning after waking up for 2 hours. I think I‘m going to switch to an alarm clock so my phone isn‘t in range. After that I had another workout and then learned for a little bit. In the evening I watched one movie and then went to bed. My goal is now to sleep at 11:30pm. Streaks: No gaming: 22 Days No (useless) browsing: 0 Days

Well I do most of it in my house or in the forest. Here in Germany no sports field is open too.