TheNewMe2.0

2 years + Been two years since I quit gaming. Thankful that I've been clean this long. My life has a changed a lot. I'm focusing on doing nofap now. No porn masturbation or orgasm. It's going well I'm at day 35 there. So that's no substances, games and no PMO for my sobriety hat trick. Haha. I've made a lot of progress although it was slow and steady going for a long time. Then a catalyst occurred and I had a big life growth spurt. Now it's back to slow steady progress but the spurt has maintained. Three years ago till now I went from: jobless, gaming 4-8 hours a day, almost no exercise or spiritual practice and eating mostly microwaveable food to maximize time on the video games. 😞 Currently I am working as a counselor at a job that both pays and treats me better than I've ever experienced. I'm moving towards my LPC license this year. I'm involved in weight lifting, yoga and martial arts clubs. I have friends! And I'm dating 2+ girls at the moment hoping to make one of them my girlfriend and live that nice settled life if all goes well. 🙂 I've also progressed in my anime drawing, poetry writing and singing. Gained 10 lbs of muscle, improved my style and haircut. Become much better at managing my stress levels and being kind in relationships regardless of how stressed I am. I'm starting to take space ❤️ for myself when I need it. Last night I said goodnight and turned my phone to airplane mode at 7pm to just sit around and do wahtever in my room. Read, meditate yoga. I'm learning to not take cold showers because it makes me too cold for like days after sometimes. But I'm doing the wim hof method breathing and that's helping. I got up to a 4 minute breath hold one time. I think if I do a lot of WHM I'll be able to handle the cold shower aftermath. BEing in the shower is no problem but afterwards I be cold 😕 Love that breathing tho I put away my second pillow so that it like doesn't rub againt my area at night and cause temptation for PMO relapse. yep. May everyone on here get off the games and stay off. Or whatevers best for you.

@BooksandTreesThanks man, I appreciate your friendship too.

This is my see you again letter Positive: I feel like I've gotten a lot of good out of being here on gamequitters. I found hope and inspiration to quit gaming when I felt hopeless. I met cool people and we helped each other. I was loved and supported when the waves were rocky and the weather all a storm. I learned to focus on the positive because it will cause you to live longer. I learned about how to go about romancing a woman. I found strength and motivation to pursue my goals especially when it comes to abstinence from substances, masturbation, gaming, scratching my skin, sexual thoughts, etc. And I also found some balance to not pursue goals too much. I'm grateful for everyone who has posted on my page, sent love and encouragement to me @Icandothis@Realworlder@Theresa@BooksandTrees@Phoenixking etc. I used to feel really happy being on this forum, offering people encouragement and interacting with my regular peeps. But I think something is starting to change in my life. And yesterday I just felt like I've kind of done my time here. I've gotten what I came for. Training in how to maintain abstinence from gaming. In Thailand the people are often asked or even required to go live at the monastery as a monk or nun for 1 year then they get to return to the life of a layperson with a more enlightened way of being. I feel like I've done this with AA, Church, and now Gamequitters all of which I stayed at for a year and kept the good things I learned from them and will continue to do so. It's my time now to learn and grow in loving myself. Please Wish/pray/send good things to me. Sending love. TheNewMe P.S. I'm taking a break from GQ I may come back later to stay sober, check in with the good people and or to link you to my ebook. (I'll make it free :).

Hey Johebe, great job with all the progress you made. How you changed your thought from negative to positive about people who give 100% was amazing. Wim Hof says if you give it all you'll get it all. Of course I'd add take time to rest and do nothing. If you want some ideas for how to increase your strength to resist gaming let me know. I can offer options that will help. Keep up the good work.

Positive: I have made contact with an author I like and am modeling my first ebook after. And she has been very nice to me and is actually beginning to mentor me in writing and publishing a book. Her ideas are to get a website going which I was already thinking about doing. And sending out a newsletter or a blog. IT's pretty cool. She's into yoga too and meditation spirituality prayer . . . Now that I'm doing better I'm so much more like enthusiastic and happy and laughing singing seeing things as beautiful. I'm practicing 'good enough'. It's actually pretty funny and liberating. I don't feel an obligation to be the perfect religious person that obeys scripture 1000% anymore. I feel like I can see now what I feel is good enough. Instead of pushing myself to achieve perfection. Maybe I can push myself to be good enough. That sounds a lot better. haha. Thanks for reading. It will all work out

Positive: I'm getting better. Slowly but it's happening. I'm practicing living in the possibility not the probability. It's from a decent book I read called Om Freely free ebook. It inspired me to write a short ebook of my own. I'm taking a break from writing the ebook though so I can continue practicing the tenets of my own book. Eventually I'll be so well versed in them myself that I'll be bale to better explain them and they'll have a better energy to them so people will feel good when they read it. Just a short something like 30 lessons about 5 sentences each or less. What's that like 1-2k words? Nothing very much. One of the teachings would be 1. 'Good enough'. If you're struggling with something being imperfect just think good enough. This toast is a little burnt, good enough. I don't have perfect skin, good enough. You get the idea. For the title maybe Good Enough. My mom helped me come up with the title. I smiled at life I accomplished affirming three days in a row so I'm buying myself a small reward hooray I am grateful for gratitude mom's help w/ title and syrup yum Everything will work out

Positive: My mom says I look to be walking better. The interesting thing is she said that the day after I tried doing a visualization I learned from the book use your mind to heal your body. So maybe it's working? I'm continuing to visualize like they said to. I smiled at Vipassana I accomplished doing wim hof breathing I am grateful for WHM, vipassana, and loving kindness. Good luck

Positive: I'm practicing reciting the buddhist 5 precepts and 10 virtues. It's been helping. I even got a client to meditate on energy and determination with me to help us go achieve our goals. Hopefully he uses it in a positive way. Hehe not like , 'I'm super determined to eat burger kind everyday.' Sorry no offense to BK it's just not that healthy I htink. Mom's still making me food, she said I look like I'm walking better today. I'm beggining my journey to memorize and recite the 8 limbs of yoga. I'm starting small by just memorizing one each day and thinking about it for a little bit instead of just memorizing 5 at a time like I did with the virtues. It's good to go slow. Like that XX song Crystalized. I smiled at bluberries I accomplished a little bit of Samadhi or oneness I am grateful for my portion control. I'm eating 50-80% of what I used to each meal. And I've gone from 175 lbs+ to ~170. I'm 6"1 Good luck

@RealworlderThanks. About 5lbs to go. just trying to get there gradually. Ya Idk I'm trying out a new meditation timer app. I'll see how comfortable I feel with it. Gratitude: I'm grateful for my spiritual friends I talk to. I was struggling a lot with affirmations, but now I'm dialing back the intensity a lot. Trying to start small, baby steps and simplify. So I guess I'm grateful for affirmations. Idk if I'll be able to do them but I'm resting in the possibility that I'll actually make some headway with them and do better. I'm generally better at visualizing myself thinking/speaking them but not very good at actually speaking or thinking them in my own head. Maybe I'll just focus on what I can control here and work on visualizing myself thinking/saying them and that will generalize into helping me think and say them just normally without requiring visualization. Like how the runners visualize running a lot and I'm sure that's a lot easier than actually running the race. I'm grateful for prana and drawing in new energy each day so I can survive the day. I'm just trying to survive right now, once I do that I'll think about doing more. So I'm grateful for surviving and my grandpa who said, 'I came I saw I survived.' In reference to going through the adversity of the Great Leap Forward. And I'm greatful for this book on visualizations. Even though it's not perfect. And I'm feeling ridiculously uncomfortable with it at times. The things he teaches have been helpful. Especially the stuff about medications/placebo, calming down. But really just that he encourages you to make your own visualizations and states the idea of gradual progression in the visualization starting where you think you're at and steadily moving towards the goal till you're visualizing success. It will work out

Just think 'Stop hurting/harming yourself.'

For sure man. Find a meditation that works for u.

Today I'm grateful for lionsroar.com which has provided me with some useful articles with which to help me out. Also for just doing a little bit at a time. The Buddha said if you practice just a millisecond of metta each day that would pay off your debt to society for living as a monk or nun. So I'm practicing going small instead of going big all the time like I used to. I'm a lot like excess from The Flash who kept going big just for the sake of going big to try to impress her dad. I like XS. She eventually learned to slow down.

Hey good job with the goals I read. Those all look good to mee. Uhm you can like practice some form of meditation and or connection with a higher power in order to overcome your hunger pangs as you do calorie restriction/portion control. Also you could try out thinking about Christian Bale who lost like a ton of weight for his role in teh machinist. He said, 'When I felt hungry I just read.'

Love that superhero quote. Also this bottom line is good. AA they say don't have any reservations like going back to the addiction once you're retired. I mean if you think about it. There are two lives for you at retirement. One where you don't do much other than game and all the things that you've worked for decades to build in your sobriety fall by the wayside. And one where you can keep going with the momentum you build up. One filled with loving connections with people you deeply care about. And passions that make you feel more fulfilled and positive about yourself than gaming ever did. The choice is yours. Good job staying off the games

Stay chilling finch.