Captain_Pilz

Day 2: I have made great progress in the month that I was not playing video games or consuming YouTube. For the first time in my life, I am confident that a gaming free life is what I am after. The month sufficed to rediscover a bunch of things that are very important to me. For the most part those are science and music. I also feel like an active social life is much more important to me than I think. Spending a day with my grandpa and going to a festival with my dad were two of the most beautiful moments of the last few weeks. I do not feel ashamed of myself as often, as intensely or as long as I used to. This used to be a huge burden. Furthermore, I discovered a few habits that actually work. The only reason, I don't reap their whole benefits is because I am inconsistent. The two I want to highlight most are scheduling my day and posting on this forum. As for the challenge.... I will stray away from the typical 90 days goal for now and set myself a challenge for the rest of the year. No video games or video game related content on the Internet. Write in this journal every day. Schedule my day on Google Calendar first thing in the morning. Be realistic.

Day 0: Remember me writing, that I got a cold? I was unable to participate in many real life activities for a week. I missed a gig and multiple lectures. Even though, lectures are uploaded online after the fact, I didn't watch them. So I got behind again..... Slowly started watching YouTube again, at some point bought a video game and binged the shit out of it. I don't remember how long it lasted, it must have been 4-5 days. Since then, I have been dealing with the fallout of my slip. I get really anxious, seeing the mountain of work that I have to do to catch up. Anytime, I meet some of my friends and they ask me how things are going, I feel terribly ashamed. Right now, I am just dealing with a crap-ton of negative emotion and feel horrible about myself. The amount of stuff that you have to do to be a functioning person in society is just horrendous. Everyone else's lives look so effortless and I feel like I will never be normal. I am so f***ing angry with myself. I know that some of that is inaccurate but this is genuinely how I FEEL right now. Honestly, just need to vent.

Day 29: Today was fine. I woke up with a cold (luckily not Covid) and had to call in sick. I found time for some tasks in the periphery. For example we had to do a beta-test for a new software. Right now, I am fine. It didn't get worse and I hope I am back on my feet again by tomorrow. I have a few obligations this weekend.

Day 28: I am kind of proud of what I accomplished today. I actually planned out my day from 8:00am to 6:00pm and stuck to it, with the exception of a few minutes here and there. Let me try to do the whole thing again tomorrow. Also, I would like to share some insecurities of mine. First of all, I have struggled with addictive behaviors for all my life. Video games and the Internet are the biggest offenders but I also remember being properly addicted to trading card games in primary school. I do realize that mental illness is fundamentally understood by most people. At the same time, I feel like there is much more of a stigma associated with addictive disorders than there is for most other mental illness, barring to the blatantly misunderstood ones like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and borderline. I think this is due to the general misconception that addicted people have chosen to be addicted to their substance or behavior of choice. Due to this, I feel ashamed of not having my life together and I am always scared that the world finds out. I speak too much. I like talking. Then again, I always feel like I am taking over conversations because I am genuinely never out of ideas. My mind is like the freakin' Niagara Falls. People have reassured me that this is not an issue, and that I generally communicate interesting ideas. Still, I can't help feeling like a total dick once I notice that I am taking over the situation. The fact that I am shit at asking questions also doesn't help - or some people just don't like to talk. I respect that, but me being me, I don't understand it. On top of that, I am not the best at expressing my ideas verbally. When I am writing, I have no issues being lucid. Then I start talking, and I'm just incoherent, ungrammatical and constantly at a loss of words. You listen to one of my voice messages and there are more Uhms than f***ing words! I don't get why talking clearly is so hard for me. I am not stupid or anything. As a result, I am often self-conscious in social situations.

Day 27: I spend most of today procrastinating. Hence, I feel very guilty right now. At these moments, living a structured live seems like a distant fantasy. At least, I took part in my classes at university (most of which do not have mandatory attendance), so I have done the minimum. The last few days have shown me, how important structure actually is. I remember trying out scheduling for the first time a couple of months ago and quitting after 4-5 days. At the time, I thought: "Well, I am not able to follow these plans perfectly. That must mean it doesn't work." How ignorant I was. Obviously, an improvement (even if imperfect) is an improvement. The one thing that all these chaotic days when I got little done had in common, was me not scheduling. Also, on all of these days, I went to bed late the day before. While we're at it....😴

Hey Frank, good to see you back. I can relate very much to your experience. Props, for realizing so quickly that you were slipping back into old patterns. Took me about two years longer. Good luck!😉

Day 26: I didn't right in the last few days. In short, I travelled around a bunch. I was on a birthday party and had rehearsal. Everything was a little chaotic and at times I had a hard time motivation myself to do things. But I am fine. Tomorrow, I will get a few important things done in the morning and have some classes in the afternoon.

Day 23: Today was quite stressful again. A bunch of issues have occured on the project I am working on at our deparment and for a short while it looked like it would take double the time. Over the last few days, any long-term plans I made for this experiment (which I will write my thesis on next summer) were obliterated faster than I made them - but there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. After I got back from work, I didn't really do anything. I left most of my stuff in my car this morning and I didn't feel like walking through a storm. Right now, I don't necessarily feel positive about myself, my day or my progress. Kind of numb. But I know cognitively that a lot of things are going right. On a positive note, I am somewhat excited for tomorrow. I guess when you spend a bunch of time doing repetitive tasks in a laboratory environment, your mind suddenly likes lectures. It's a strange world but I appreciate it. Keep going, David

Day 22: I am content with today. In the morning, I attended an online lecture. Later, I read a textbook passage that kind of f***ed with my concentration - I hate the way psychology textbooks are written. However, I made some progress in the book I am currently reading on the side. When I got home, I sneaked in half an hour of drumming practice but on my kit this time. I am currently working on Elvin Jones' Solo on Monk's Dream that my teacher gave me. It's horribly challenging, even if you play it at half the tempo!😅 After that, I went to rehearsal. Was a good evening. Cheers, David

Day 21: My morning was absolutely horrible. Woke up late, got lost in trains of thought, masturbation and then I watched about an hour of YouTube. I just jumped from video to video attempting to find some peace, since I have been agitated for the last two days. At some point, I noticed that videos were not going to do that. There was too much guilt. After about an hour of fighting with myself, I packed up my stuff and went out side. I ate lunch and sat down in the library to read a difficult scientific paper that is the basis for the project I am working on. Afterwards, I went home to finish my system for daily planning. Ever since I left school, my days had no schedule at all, which took a toll on my ability to get things done. The fact that Cam advertised scheduling as a way to deal with a lack of direction in your day, convinced me to try it myself. I also cooked again and practiced some drums (sadly still on the pad). On a side note, I noticed that being disciplined is incredibly exhausting when you are basically starting from scratch. I have to be patient and trust the process. In hope, David

Day 20: Today, I woke up and went to the window of my dorm room. To the left, I caught an involuntary glimpse at someone playing a video game at 7:00 in the morning. The fact that I used to do the same thing a few weeks ago makes me somber. Most of my day was pretty productive. In the morning I blocked time periods for important tasks. I remember trying this in the past and being frustrated but now I realize that it doesn't matter if I don't execute my plan fully. One tasks took much longer than I thought it would and towards the evening I was left with little energy. That's fine. Tomorrow, I will do the same and try my best again. In hope, David

Thanks for the AMA and for building this incredible community, Cam. I realize the value of replacement activities like hobbies in the process of quitting video games. However, when I experience cravings, boredom or frustration with myself, I feel genuinely incapable of concentrating on any of them. Do you have personal experiences or tipps on dealing with these emotionally taxing phases? Have a nice day

Welcome HarmonyHaag! It's great to have you here.😄 From what I've seen here, it is possible for all types of games to be incredibly addicting. Admittedly there are certain genres of Online Games that tend to be problematic, namely the competitive ones like League and the MMOs like WoW. But the individual reasons why people become addicted to video games are just that: Individual. Some found a sense of community, some found a sense of accomplishment, some found a way to escape from adversity in their real lives. For some it's all of those or none of those. And our motivations to quit are manifold as well. When played my first video game (Minecraft) I was captivated by it like nothing else. During my teens, long periods of my life solely resolved around the next time I was able to play my favourite games: Minecraft, Ark, Cities Skylines, Hitman, and a few story games. I was never integrated into a gaming community, I never got a sense of accomplishment from the games I played, hell I never even finished anything I started - to my brain video games were simply the epitome of pleasure. I was never able to distance myself from them, even when they stopped being fun during the last 2 years. That was when I realized how compulsive my consumption had become. I now see that I was fortunate to excel in school and my hobbies regardless. When I look at the time I wasted in the last 8 years, I have a lot of regrets. Today, I have a lot of opportunities that I simply refuse to waste. I don't want to feel the same regret when I am 30. As a final thought: If you notice that video games affect your life negatively and you want to get better by quitting, you belong here. Some people here are relatively normal people that notice their gaming getting in the way of their lives, others have or had their life fall apart or have multiple psychiatric diagnoses. We are all in the same boat and here to help each other achieve what might be the hardest for many of us. And if you are in serious distress, make sure to get professional help. Looking forward to updates on your progress! Cheers, David

Day 19: The second half of today was not easy for me emotionally. When cleaning our kitchen, I screwed up resulting in some damage to the sink that might be permanent. Don't get me wrong, the damage is only cosmetic and the sink is functional. Still, I am just ashamed that this happened just because inexperienced me chose the wrong cleaning tool - f***ing ONCE. In the back of my head, my father is scolding me as an idiot right now. Back home, he would always do so when something like this happened because I didn't know any better: "How could you be so stupid. It's so obvious and so logical!" Since all of this happened at noon, I just felt horrible and wasn't able to concentrate much. However, the day started off relatively well. I took a long walk and thought about the life I would like to live. Out of that insight, I created a page-long document. This root-document, as Cal Newport calls it, contains your core values, which are enacted in the big areas of your life. Through this process, you make value-guided decisions about what you do and how you do it. What I like about this idea, is that productivity and good habits will be build around your vision of your best life - not the other way around. I have four areas of my life that I actively want prioritise and that is for specific reasons. That means that certain tasks within that area are more important because they are connected to that reason. Sciene: I have a broad yet specific neuroscientific question in mind. I want to come closer to an answer to that question. Musician: I want to progressively deepen my relationship with my instrument and the music I play. Health: I want to build a mind and body that allow me to deal with the difficulties of life. Community: I want to enrich the lives of the people around me. If you look at my most important values (mastery, focus, fortitude, patience and honesty) you might see how they are connected to the goals above. The reason for this document is to have a home base that I come back to when I plan my actions. It can guide what I actively make space for during the day, what I try to minimize or automate, and what I don't do. Looking at this document, I realize that video games inevitably fall off the list. In short: The person I want to be does not play video games. Tomorrow the new semester starts. I will go to bed now. Cheers, David

Congratulations! Making it 90 days without video games is a tremendous achievement! Since I rejoined a few weeks ago, I really enjoyed reading your daily updates. Plus, the conclusions you took from your group meetings surely helped so many of us. I wish you the best of success for every single step to come on your path. It will not be easy! Make sure to keep us posted about your progess.