My name is Laura and I am 30 years old. I have been a member on here for a month or two, but I am just now feeling courageous enough to tell you about my story. My story did not start at a young age. Although I played video games some on play station and computer, I never had a problem with stopping to live out my life and I always was pretty focused on my goals and dreams in life. Before my addiction, I loved the person I was. I was very active, I was a runner and ran around 30 miles a week. I loved the outdoors, I loved being around people, I loved working and achieving goals daily. My addiction began in December of 2018. Yes, I have only been addicted for a little over a year, but this addiction has brought so much destruction in my life that it is overwhelming sometimes to even think about. The first game I came across in December of 2018 was not really a game, but more of a virtual world called " Avakin Life" I honestly don't know why I even downloaded the game, I was just curious about the virtual interaction, but little did I know, this would become very toxic and ultimately I quit a job of 5 years that I loved because of this game, I think that has to be the worst mistake I have ever made and I don't know if i will ever forgive myself for it. The next game I downloaded was "Imvu". It is similar to "Avakin Life", but it is more graphic and explicit. This kind of led into something else that I don't feel comfortable discussing on here, but for the most part, I am not addicted to those games anymore. The game that I can say I am fully addicted to is "PUBG", there have been weeks that I have played it for 80 hours. I feel like this game has control of me. I dream of this game. Its the first thing I think about when I wake up. This is scary. What is the most scary is my mental health right now. I could probably write a book about what all this addiction has cost my life. I can sit here and say that I am at the worst place I have ever been in in my entire life and I know for a fact it is because of this addiction. I have ruined my relationships, jobs, my health, my mind. I have lost so much because of this addiction. I also find I am addicted to the social interaction of video gaming. I put my gaming relationships first before the people in my real life and 9 times out of 10 my social relationships on games ends very badly. I want to stop gaming, but my addiction is so severe that I don't know how I will ever overcome this to be honest. I am very thankful I found this group though because no one in my life really knows all of this happened because of my addiction, my family thinks it is my mental health.