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Posts posted by Elohim
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Day 5
I'm running out of Data so I might be unable to post my daily log for the next two days but I'll write in my offline journal and the upload it when I have data.
So today the cravings have lessened compared with yesterday. I'm feeling more confident in this whole detox process. I've started to notice a certain calm in my thoughts after these days without gaming. It's like I'm more aware of my surroundings and what I should do. On the other hand I'm having phisical discomfort and I'm constantly hungry (the later is good cuz I'm super skinny).
About filling my free time, I've been studying and reading most of the time. However the reading part is not helping me too much since I think it's keeping me away from reality. I've been exploring another leisure actives and I've decided cooking is going to be the one I'll focuse on for the moment.
Cooking would be my Resting activity. As for a mentally engaging one I've already have language learning. I don't have a particular Social activity in mind but just going out to pickup girls should do the trick.
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Day 4
Woke up a bit late since it's Saturday and I have no pressing matters to take care of. Still I had a nice dream and woke up extremely refreshed. I've being idle most of the day, reading, and eating. Also I cooked some Spaghetti with Pesto, seems I'm not such a bad cook after all, just a lazy one.
I've had the strongest cravings so far. Several times along the day I was very close to downloading some games to play on my phone. If it weren't for the fact I committed myself to this journal I would have given in to the temptation without a second thought and probably not regret it... for a few days.
Weekends are always the hardest when you are detoxing in my experience. You don't have work or school to keep you busy and there's always this cozy feeling, being home, alone, safe, and knowing that tomorrow you don't have to get up early, which amplifies the desire to game.
Tomorrow I'm planning to visit my parents for lunch. Every time I visit them I feel like I can stay away from games for a few more days. Also I'll find something to do later since staying home for too long really puts my willpower to the test .
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Day 3
Woke up at 6:00 am and had breakfast. Studied for a while and bought some groceries for the weekend. I had fecuent cravings but managed to endure and divert my attention to other activities such as reading studying, and doing chores. Pretty unremarkable day overall, but I feel I'm making progress, so congrats to myself for that ?
Mentally I've started finding myself making excuses to go back to gaming. Things like: "gaming isn't the real issue, u can play and still have a balanced life" or "nowadays everyone plays video games. It's fine if u do it to, u don't have to be perfect".
On the other hand I stated enjoying other things like listening to music, washing the dishes, sleeping.
Also since I'm short on cash, I've been drinking more water and less coke as well as cooking instead of eating outside, which could become another good habit
I'm trying to take it slowly and not put to much pressure on myself to change everything that needs to be changed in one go so I don't succumb in my endeavor. For now I'll be focusing on:
1-not gaming. 2-elemental stuff like eating 5 times a day, brushing my teeth, showering every day, getting enough sleep and drinking a lot of water.
Also Next day I'll start using one of those cool models for my journal instead of the current mess ?
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Day 2
Woke up early this morning had breakfast and spent some time studying. Then read a light novel till noon. I felt the urge to play a couple times but managed to channel it into my studies.
Since I was free till 5pm I was a bit worried being iddle would tempt me to play so I went to the store to buy groceries, hoping to prepare myself a healthy meal for the first time in a while.
Now it's night time and I completed all my duties for today. Although I'm feeling some gaming nostalgia and constantly remembering all the smallest details of my favorite games, my willpower seems to be keeping me away from playing.
Writing this journal was actually a pretty good idea. Now I understand how this can reduce my chances of relapsing.
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15 minutes ago, Self made miracle said:
Welcome. Hope to see you more around these parts. Best of luck on that test.
Thanks. You are the first person to comment, you just earned a trip to Brazil! Na, just kidding, I'm glad there's people like you here lending a hand with encouraging words.
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Day 1
Deleted all games in my phone. I had already deleted the ones in my PC before, so right now I have nothing to play. It felt like taking a mountain off my shoulders. Now I won't default to gaming unconsciously.
This is just the beginning. I've deleted all my games many times in the past, but only once managed to stay away from them for more than a month. Usually the first week isn't that hard, but after that I start getting anxious and end up impulsively downloading a bunch of games and playing nonstop till I fall asleep.
This time I'm quitting for ever. I don't wanna waste more time on this stuff.
I actually have a test later today at school, but I feel confident about it so I'll study a bit after writing this.
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Got back from school, I think I did pretty well at the test. Could have gotten a perfect score if I had studied at least a bit instead of play games all day, but well there's no going back.
Anyway, I'm home and don't have any games to play. First thing I thought of when I finished my test was: "nice, now I can go back home and play a bit of AFK Arena". I instantly became concious of my defaulting to "gamer mode" but reminded myself I'm trying to quit.
I feel like I can survive the night without playing, but every time I remember those log in rewards and freebies my will power seems to slightly wane. Luckily writing this actually helps me stay in control of my urges.
I have a big essay to finish due tomorrow and I haven't even finished 20% of it. I'll have to stay up till 2 AM at least and continue writing all day tomorrow so I can send it before 10pm.
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Hello, I'm Leo and I live in the Caribbean. English isn't my native language, so please bear with me.
I'm 24 years old and started playing video games when I was 4. It wasn't an issue back then but as I grew older I began to spend more time gaming.
I mostly played rpgs (elder scrolls, dragon age, fable), strategy (age of empires, warcraft, starcraf) trading card games (Yu-Gi-Oh) on desktop. In my country everyone plays pirate games, so it's extremely cheap to be a hardcore gamer. I played pretty much every big single player game released between 2005-2014.
Eventually a friend of mine introduced me to Dota, and that's when I started to take gaming very seriously. I was aiming to become a Pro player, and spent all my free time playing Dota, watching replays and discussing strategies with my teammates.
When I entered college and moved to live by myself my gaming habit became much stronger. During week days I would play every minute I wasn't in school or sleeping. I even started to neglect sleeping at some point, waking up in the middle of the night to play till I fell asleep from exhaustion.
Gaming has greatly influenced my social interactions: aside from colleagues at school most of my friends where hardcore gamers like myself. Needless to say my contact with girls was very limited, which caused me major frustration and deep depression.
In 2017, after a long period of isolation, and continuous gaming with pauses only for watching porn, I hit rock bottom when I failed my 2nd year of college. I quit gaming cold turkey, and for a while life became very different for me. I found my passion in learning foreign languages, and started spending my time studying Japanese and Chinese as well as practicing them with native speakers which in turn helped me make new friends who weren't related to gaming. It lasted for a year and a half.
In late 2018 3G Mobile Data arrived to my country and with it endless possibilities for gaming. I already had internet access before that but not on a daily basis. I started playing mobile games online (Mobile Legends, Afk Arena, hearthstone, Ragnarok Eternal Love). In no time I was back to gaming all day. The chance to play online was something I always longed for back in the days, and now I felt every second not spent playing was a waste.
Internet is very expensive here and always playing using Data has taken a dent in me finances. All my money goes to eating, drinking coke and internet. I even spent real life currency for a couple in game transactions in pay to win games.
Now I'm back to the point where I HAVE to quit gaming or my whole life is gonna crumble. I did it once in the past, but I still can't believe I had the strength to do it in the first place. I hope I'll be able to repeat the miracle.
I'll keep a journal here keeping track of my progress.
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From Zero to Neo
in Daily Journals
Posted
Day 6
This was supposed to be uploaded yesterday but I didn't have Data so I'm doing it now.
I got a full score 5/5 in my test! I'm pretty happy about that. I went to class and in the night met with some friends and we eat pizza and talked about all kinds of stuff. One of my friends is also a gamer and he kept showing me the new games he had downloaded and some gameplay videos. I tried to politely refuse but in the end he made me watch some of the videos. Truth be told I didn't feel any nostalgia or desire to play from watching them and instead was repeating myself I don't game anymore.
Aside from that the cravings were almost non-existent today. I casually saw a Mobile strategy game I used to play in Google play store and for a few moments was tempted to download it but I remembered all the Pay to Win elements and the nostalgia disappeared.
I went to bed a little late after studying for a while.