ceponatia

Love how detailed your journal entries are, gives me lots of ideas for things I can do.

Awesome post! I can definitely relate to a lot of your "why I quit" list. I also consider gamers, on average, to be very toxic and negative and just don't want to be a part of that anymore. I think a big part of that is that the most vocal members of the game community are the ones who spend all day either gaming or on Reddit (so... us, lol) and they are not mentally healthy or happy people. The ones who just casually play for 30 minutes to an hour every once in a while aren't going to be on the Steam forums talking trash all day or sending developers death threats on Twitter. Remember Gamergate? I bet virtually everybody involved in that argument was a video game addict. It's so nice to be able to think clearly and not get triggered by insignificant things like a bug in a game or someone no scoping you. Lol

@Alexanderle yep! Sometimes we even think people don't like us or HATE us even though we just misunderstood something. I've become friends with lots of people I used to dislike because I thought they disliked me first. Lol

So true. I am normally very quiet and shy but I started just at work by saying hi to everybody I saw in the morning. Then I started asking people how they were. At first people just say "good" or whatever, but after you've talked to the same person a few times they open up to you more and a conversation starts.

I understand how you feel about your friendships. When I gave up alcohol a year and a half ago I lost almost ALL of my friends... not really because they didn't like me being sober but because I had been such a bastard to them while drinking that the shame was too much to stomach while sober. I'm also very slow to make new friends... I always get on with people but when it comes to actually finding people to spend time with outside of work or whatever... I just don't know how to make the first move. So you're not alone in that. We're still young in our new lives though and we'll find people that mesh with our new visions of ourselves.

Even on a slow and lazy day you still worked out which is something the majority of people don't do on even their best days. Good work. 🙂

I want to start working out again but maaaan I'm so exhausted all the time. Might be caffeine intake. I get 7-8 hours of sleep and still feel like I could snooze til noon.

Day 3 (yesterday) is when I most felt like gaming so far too. I don't know if it was because I had the day off of work for some appointments, so wasn't really that motivated. I even got as far as reinstalling uPlay but I stopped myself from actually playing anything. Just watched movies all night which isn't much better than gaming but at least it is breaking the habit. I'm back on the ball today. Hopefully you make it through the day okay! I believe in you. If you start feeling like you want to play something, immediately try to do something else. That's what worked for me.

Said the experiment was full when I tried

DAY THREE Missed a day, but it was a good day. Worked my butt off at the office and then still had the energy to study and prep lunches for the week when I got home. That took up most of my evening as I've been trying to go to bed earlier in order to have more energy. Not working that great so far but I'll keep it up. Today was pretty good as well... didn't go to work as I had TWO dental appointments and then I just sort of cleaned up a bit at home. It's only 6pm now so I'll probably read a bit before messing around with some music software and then heading to bed. I did think about gaming today which I expected would eventually come up, but I've managed to hold it off.

I'm not saying that there are no attractive women out there in their 40s, that is demonstrably false. However, finding one who doesn't have kids (complete dealbreaker for me) or some sort of disorder (like alcoholism) gets harder the older you get, because most well adjusted people are married by now. I'm no catch myself. I have a lot to work on and that's also a contributor to why I don't actively date that much. It's not that I don't ever get offers for dates, it's that the offers I do get aren't appealing. I'm not giving up, that's not what I was trying to say. I'm just saying I get the same feeling Jay gets about FEELING like I'll always be alone even though I logically know that's not true.

I have a lot of the feelings you described in your first post on the Match situation. Even if I don't care about the girl whatsoever (that sounds mean but I just mean when it comes to online dating, they don't even really count as people to me until I've been talking to them a while) I still start swirling into a vortex of "why did she stop talking to me?", "What am I doing wrong?", "Am I going to be alone forever?" etc. Sadly, as I've gotten older the "Am I going to be alone forever" bit is starting to have some truth to it... mainly because single women my age aren't exactly prizes. Again, sounds mean, but I'm just being honest. Funny enough I've even had that "maybe I should just become one of those 'alpha males'" thought but it's not really something we can just decide to be, unfortunately. I don't have any answers for you, just letting you know that you aren't alone and I understand how you feel. On the bright side, I have had a lot of girlfriends in the past so if you keep working at it, it DOES happen.

I had a really good streak going in mid-2019 where I had my Echo set up to turn my bedroom lights on at 4 AM and start playing music. That will get you out of bed fast! I made a point to not touch my phone until I'd had a shower at least. Then I meditated for 20 minutes and did some yoga. I got turned off to meditation pretty quickly; I never saw any benefit from it whatsoever and still don't know what all the fuss is about. I think it's just something trendy to say that you do. Yoga on the other hand, I was definitely more flexible and more toned than I am now even though I still work out. I'd like to pick that up again.

It could be a good move because it's really easy in the age of cloud storage to just reinstall your games. I've quit gaming a few times in the past and was able to cave and get a game installed in under an hour. If you still need a computer for school stuff, you could sell your PC and get a low price laptop that can't run games very well. It's tempting for me but I'm an IT major so I kinda need to have a PC. lol

DAY ONE Pretty motivated, as I'm sure everybody is on day one. I got through 4 videos in module 1 at work this morning even though I couldn't technically delete my video games while I was at work. I uninstalled everything when I got home and cancelled any subscriptions I had. I'm not going to go hardcore today... don't want to burn myself out. Just going to relax with a movie after studying and cleaning my room (which is kinda messy from all the neglect brought on by gaming). A positive side effect to this is I won't be drinking any soda in the evening because I really only craved that when gaming. Might lose a little bit of weight! I already lost a lot when I gave up alcohol but there's still some hanging on for dear life. Looking forward to tomorrow when I'll pick some new hobbies. Already have some in mind...

Hey, Kevin! I work in the legal field right now (not a lawyer though), good luck with your education. Quitting games for good will definitely be beneficial, I know what long hours are required for a legal profession. Friends are usually what pull me back in as well. I used to live on the west coast so most of my friends live out there and are also gamers... playing games with them feels like "hanging out" even though we barely even talk about real life while doing so.

I feel like all of our stories have similarities. I'm a little older than you (38) but can remember getting hooked on all of the same games you mentioned. While I have had girlfriends, I haven't had a "serious" relationship in over a decade and haven't even been on a date in 4 years (despite trying quite hard, lol). For me, there's a lot of regrets about my past in that there were amazing beautiful and intelligent women who were interested but I ignored them in favor of booze and games. The saying goes "don't compare yourself to other people" but it's difficult when you're almost 40, a freshman in college, and all of your friends (all 2 of them) are working in extremely high paying professional jobs and married with families. Most days that feels like something I'll never have... it's just too late now. But that's defeatist thinking. We can always start to get better and our future will be better than it would have been if we just kept doing what we were doing. Maybe it is too late for me to have a family but I can at least live a life where I'm not a slave to purposefully addictive entertainment. Cheers to you and I look forward to seeing you get better.

It's rough because you really have two situations going on: your addiction and his addiction. They seem related because you both played together, but they're really two different phenomena. Relationships are always very complicated when you're dealing with addiction. Alcoholism has the AlAnon support group for wives and families of alcoholics but nothing like this exists yet for gaming addiction. Certainly, but shooting heroin also makes heroin addicts happy. Dopamine is a heck of a thing. 🙂 I'm not going to try to give a bunch of advice because, while I do have a lot of experience with addicts, I'm new here and I'm new to video game addiction. I think it's admirable that you're trying to help your SO but one thing to keep in mind is that he won't quit unless he wants to. Chances are, we all got here because we wanted to quit, not because someone threatened us or begged us to quit. It might be different with gaming but in all my time coaching alcoholics and drug addicts, I've never met a single one who successfully quit because of somebody else. Keep your chin up and focus on your own addiction for now.

I can relate a lot to your post, @Julon! I'm older now but my childhood sounds very familiar. I also didn't eat much and was picked on for being short and very thin (was called "Smurf" until 12th grade 😂). It's funny because the stereotypical view of the game addict is the exact opposite of what we were, physically. My parents tried locking me out of my computer as a kid but I, too, discovered how to bypass that. You and @Netzwerkeralso bring up a good point by mentioning how many things are tied into gaming on some level. YouTube is a big one, and also Reddit for me. I just haven't found it to be productive at all for me to be surrounded by gamers while trying to quit. It makes me build up a lot of resentment toward them and then I give in to cravings. Keep coming back to the forum! One thing I've learned from my recovery from alcoholism is how important community is.

Hi everyone! So I first read about game quitters in 2017 and was passively active in the Reddit community, but I never really committed to quitting. I was also a HARD CORE alcoholic at the time and my gaming and drinking were very closely related... couldn't do one without the other. I'm happy to say that I gave up drinking for good in mid 2018 and haven't touched a drop since, however I still game quite a bit. While I'm certain that I'm a video game addict, it's nowhere near as bad as my drinking was so I never had much impetus to quit. I still maintain a job, go to college, and all that... I just wish I did more productive things in my free time. I'm trying to get back into music production which is a hobby I had when I was a teenager and was replaced by drinking and gaming. I write, but not at my full potential because instead of researching my topics and editing my drafts, I play video games. I'm tired ALL THE TIME because I don't get enough physical activity, eat like crap, and stay up til midnight gaming. I am a peer recovery coach for alcoholics and drug addicts but when it comes to video games I obviously still have a lot to learn... and we're often not the greatest at treating ourselves without help! So in short, I need to quit! Looking forward to learning from all of you. I bought this program instead of buying a game which would have cost $10 more, so I'm already ahead. Just a quick question though... in module one of the elite program, the video says I should already be familiar with the 90 day detox. I haven't seen this anywhere yet. Have I missed a step?