Arthur

Aww 🙂 You were kind as well, thank you! Best wishes! Great to hear that Ikar! Everything is well with me, I'm waking up early, meditating, going to the gym and studying diligently. University is doing well, everything is. Situation with women is that I still don't feel like focusing on them, so I didn't waste any energy on fruitless dates. I think this celibate phase is going to take a while, maybe even a few years. Meditation and spirituality are my anchor. I'm genuinely enjoying every day, I've never been happier and more content. My family is also doing pretty well, luck is on our side at the moment.

Nice! It's good to hear from you! I'm also doing nofap at the moment. 2 months ago I quit porn again and I'm doing really well. I think it's been around 20ish days since I mastrubated. I noticed that my craves surface only when I'm getting lazy and not using my energy. So I keep busy, I study, I meditate and I don't expose myself to almost any sexual stimulation at all. It's really nice.

Hey there gamequitters, I'm not active on this forum anymore, but it helped me very much in sticking to my decision to quit gaming. My life is moving forwads, my mental state is great and I'm generally really satisfied with my life. Life without gaming is great. After you reset to normal settings it's easier to focus, to appreciate little things, to stay in control, and you have more energy to give. I hope guys like @Ikar @TheNewMe2.0and @BooksandTrees are doing great. Sending best of wishes.

I'm so glad to see you posting here. I also had a hiatus from the forum. It's wonderful to hear the good news regarding your health. 🙂 It will grow! I'm also growing my hair slowly, hadn't had a haircut in... 4 months? 🙂 It's still pretty short tho, haha

@Lampshade yes. Exactly. I'm not surprised you relate. I feel a lot of us here have experienced this unhealthy loop. That being said. It's been over 7 months since I played any video game. I'm really proud of that. Right now I'm crawling out of the last unhealthy cycle. I've been proactive, I've reconnected (to a point) with my social circle(s), and got back to reading and writing. In the last few days my life frustrations resurfaced in full. I remembered all the subtle and not so subtle ways in which I suffered throughout my life. A lot of injustice and primarily - lack of understanding. I suffered so much out of being misunderstood and neglected. I'm glad those memories resurfaced. I feel like I've been surpressing them too much. I feel more human today because of it. I really hope all of you are well.

I have such a predictable pattern of behaviour when I start going downhill. If I had a girlfriend I would confide in her and ask her to intervene whenever she sees that I might be going in that direction. I will not ask my friends for help here because I am ashamed and I think I would ask too much. I cannot ask my family because they know about my patterns but they never intervened besides expressing worry, which never helped. All of them have their own things to worry about. It's a behavioral pattern I got into pretty early in life, maybe as young as 6-7 y.o. It's triggered by a simple transgression or disruption of routine. Things like: Getting sick for a week and temporarily disconnecting from my routine or recklessly (out of impulse, distraction or laziness) ignore something. Such as skipping class because I felt really tired that day have something happen to me that will divert my attention for more than 2 days When things like this happen, I'm in a pretty high risk of going into an unhealthy downward spiral in which I start procrastinating and diverting my attention. 3 days in, and I maybe start to ignore some social interaction. 5 days in and slowly I stop thinking about my long term goals and I start indulging into instant gratification. 10 days in and anxiety kicks in - I am ashamed I ignored someone for a week, and I tell to myself "I'll answer later today, I need to collect myself first", but instead I just get sucked in more distraction and I repeat this process for another day or two. At this point my obligations start suffering. I ignore another class, and I start to shut off completely. If you see me in person I'll probably deny having any problems, and I'll divert conversation to an impersonal topic. Usually, what kicks me out of this loop is getting so worried I completely fucked up my life or relationship that it actually makes me try to fix the situation. I got badly into this loop two times this year. Before I joined this forum, and for the past month. I got slightly into it after my summer exams and slightly into it before my fall exams. At least 5 times this year I stopped the loop around 5 days into it, usually by coming back to this forum and reminding myself of where I'm going. Edit: Considering my first crisis this year lasted for around 40 days, my summer slips for around 15 days a piece, my short spirals amount to 20ish days in total, and this rut lasted for around 30 days already it, seems I spent around 120 days, or 4 months in total struggling this year. Out of 6 months being on this forum, I had issues with this 2 months and a week in total. Those are some staggering numbers.

Entry 21 Another mostly wasted day, but I'm here so that's something. Mentally I'm 70% as bad as I was in the first few months of 2020 (when I was playing WoW). Anxiety is pretty strong. It makes me want to divert attention to interesting things and run away from my recent shortcomings and obligations. Yesteday I didn't watch any gaming content, and I didn't watch porn. So that's a positive step forwards. But I postponed meditation until I decided I'm too tired to even do it and I also wasted most of my day on youtube. Washing dishes and helping with dinner was the only positive thing I've done. See you tomorrow

Hey guys. In the past month I slowly got back to my bad habits (haven't gamed myself, but I was on twitch and watched my brother play dota). I haven't meditated in a while, I stopped planning out my days, I started ignoring some obligations and people, got into a rut. I'm here today because I recognize I need to revert this, and I miss everything I had going on in my life while I was here. Even though I haven't played video games, this might as well count as a complete relapse in my book because I watched gaming almost daily for the past 2 weeks and I relapsed on porn. Nothing special triggered this. I'm fine, my family is fine, thank you @Ikar for reaching out. I just slowly let my self-destructive, irresponsible side get more and more ground, I bet most of you know how those things go. I need this forum and community to stay on track obviously. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with my daily entry.

@TheNewMe2.0 Yeah, I mentioned her too much I feel. But yeah, she is important to me, so it is what it is. Yeah, I hope I'll marry a good woman I love one day, whom ever she is. I am a child of a failed marriage so I deeply hope I can make smarter choices and try harder and have a happy family if I end up marrying. As for my job, I figured I probably should look elsewhere because almost no coffee shop or pub is looking for new employees bcuz of COVID. @Ikar Being there for a person, and seeing that she not only deeply loves me but also that her happiness depends on me made me cognizant of responsibility I have to make lives of people I love bearable and enjoyable. Also, she healed a wound I had. Basically, my parents seemed to never let go of any bad thing I would do and they would mention my failures even after it was both way in the past as well as after I apologized. She showed me that people who love really can let things go, and I really wished to find that one day. Also, breaking up with her was emotionally the most difficult thing I had to do in my life, so it involved some "manning up" and being direct, as well as it made me aware I need to really be careful with my life decisions, I never again want to break a girls heart like I broke her's. There are more way more things to mention, but I'll stop at that. Entry 20: Got out of bed: 07:30 (working on waking up earlier again) made coffee did some job searching on the internet, wrote down contacts wrote my entry (but forgot to submit it 5 hours lol) listened to music hanged a bit with my brother made spring rolls for the first time (with sweet and sour dip) it was a lot of work, but they turned up tasty. My family loved it. spent the rest of the day with Veronika, we had a cup of coffee in our favorite place, walked around the rainy city, and then she insisted we go to a restaurant, she had a good bonus and wanted to buy me dinner to celebrate I got home rather recently, initially wanted to go to the gym but I'm tired going to meditate, take a shower and go to sleep My afternoon with Veronika was interesting. I mostly listened to her (she talks a lot). Gladly she doesn't have any new problems, but she is still struggling badly with her past problems (she is seeing a psychotherapist now), I didn't even need to ask about anything. Without going into detail, today's talk made me remember I felt our relationship was stifled because she was projecting traumas from previous relationships onto me, she accused me and misinterpreted my intentions more than once. Today she spent an hour talking about her relationship that ended 7 years ago, guy (her longest relationship) was an inconsiderate douche in a really difficult situation. She often mentions old things that still vividly bother her, not only about him but about a wide variety of things, be it her brother, or me, or her old bff, et cetera. So, ironically enough, I was put into a situation to give comfort and advice for letting go while I struggle to let our own failed romance go, but I don't think I said anything hypocritical. Gods are laughing. Funny thing is. This morning I dreamed 2 dreams that we were a couple. Man. I don't know what to say. I didn't dream about her for a while. I'll tag @Icandothis just because for some reason I feel she will laugh at me, and seriously deserve to be laughed at. Have a good day guys. Daily gratitude: Grateful for all the good sleep I am getting lately. P.S. She didn't ask for advice or help directly - yet. But it seems likely I was correct in assuming that will happen in the next year.

@Ikar Even though it would be false to say that previous relationships do not influence the way we perceive relationships, or what we (initially) seek in a person, I don't see any reason to emphasize this to a point of calling yourself a "conglomerate of influences". It is often the case that influences lose their grip on us after we get away from them for a while. I feel I matured in my relationships, but I don't personally feel like I changed in my core. @TheNewMe2.0 Thank you. I managed to forgive some difficult things in the past, so I should be able to get over this as well. It's often the case that we don't want to forgive, we cling to our disappointments, we "wear the grudge like a crown" to quote Tool. It's weird, I have difficulty letting go of an imagined future with her. It's just drilled into my mind that we are meant for each other. Even though I might not think about it for months, it's still there. I cringe at the possibility of me being that guy who is sad because his former love is getting married, lol. I can't let that happen, that's just pathetic. Entry 19: Didn't feel like writing my daily journals for the last couple of days. They were quite good, positive and productive. I was serious with meditation, I had my first online lecture (and couldn't stop staring at one of the girls, I was seriously considering instantly asking for her number, likely gonna do it next week), I had hardcore gym sessions, my whole body hurts, I cooked, I read for university, all well. Yesterday I, Got out of bed: 09:00 had coffee made breakfast washed dishes cleaned big containers (100 liters) for pickling cabbage (Slav life) watched anime bought myself a piggy bank went to Asian store to buy Oyster sauce and Fish sauce done laundry went to the gym meditated Sadly, my pipe dream of bartending at the nearby coffee shop failed, they are not looking for workers, but I am looking at pages offering jobs and it seems like I'll be able to find a suitable half-time job in a couple of days. Daily gratitude: Grateful for being in good health.

Hi Gabriel. You are in a right place. I highly recommend you start writing a journal here. Positive reinforcement from a crowd that shares your journey is so helpful. Good luck!

I haven't played one since I stopped gaming (except couple games of chess), but I think tabletops are fine. Unless you start wasting all your days at the tabletop clubs, I think you are fine. Problem with games (as I see it) is that they can be enjoyed without company, without interaction in person, in any time of day. But, if you end up thinking coplusively about tabletops, I would recommend you never play them.

Wouldn't recommend it at all. Long term goal of a former gaming addict should be to find new hobbies and ways of spending his leisure time. It's 21st century, you have so many options. Instinct to watch gaming is just your addiction speaking, trying to subvert rationality.

Entry 18: Got out of bed: 08:00 had my morning coffee, listened to music had a short meditation watched multiple tutorials on how to utilize Excel made american pancakes (had them with maple syrup for the first time, pretty tasty) went to my moms place to print some papers I need to send by mail (uni related) vacuumed my room and cleaned it a bit watched anime with my brother and younger sister went to the gym (it's good to be back doing heavy lifting. Steve went with me) googled the shops that have (sort of rare) ingredients I want to cook with, written down their location went to a coffee shop in the evening with Steven, chatted about random things for an hour or so had a long meditation Time wasted: None. I decided I'll take it easy. Next week my uni starts so I'll switch priorities from anime to study and earning some cash. Daily gratitude: Grateful that I haven't lost much physical strength in the past 2 months. Grateful for being able to maintain a positive attitude. @TheNewMe2.0 I'm not sure what it needs. Romantic feelings never seem to completely leave me once I form them towards a person. So I won't even try to "get over her". I just need to get over the grudge. I have hopes meditation will help me.

@TheNewMe2.0 Yes. It feels as if a curse was broken hah. Also, things are complicated with Veronika, mixture of so many emotions... but I thought about it and I see similarities between my problems with her and my former problems with my dad. We have an underlying grudge, suppressed anger towards each other. I need to get over those feelings. Details aside, she completely ghosted me 2 years ago while we had a fresh romantic relationship going on. (yes, without explanation at that time)* 3 months after, she explained herself and again expressed feelings towards me and a want to date me, but said she needs to "sort herself out first". At that point I didn't have anymore patience with her so I said I'm done with it. So I'm left with a grudge and unresolved emotions. * I ghosted people a couple of times in the past, so I guess I deserved it. Entry 17: (without order) had a good sleep watched anime for a couple of hours (watching Hunter x Hunter. It's good) read materials for my university meditated had a cardio workout hanged out with my mom (didn't see each other for over a month, we are both introverted so this happens a lot) did laundry and dishes P.S. a month ago I went from washing my hair every day to washing it 2 times a week, and I love the change, it doesn't grease so fast anymore. I learned "overwashing" is a thing, and it's harmful to your hair and scalp, so i wanted to share that with you. Daily gratitude: Grateful for my grandma, she brings joy to my life in small pockets every day.

Don't expect a sudden transformation. You cannot get over bad habits over night. It takes months. But I seriously advise you stop watching gaming content, because you'll start gaming again soon without question if you don't do so. Better stare at the wall.

@TheNewMe2.0 I'm excited about things that are ahead of me in the next 3 months. I was concerned with passing long-overdue exams, and making long-overdue life adjustments, so now I'll finally be able to work on some "new goals". So it's a private hype. On a world scale there doesn't seem much to be hyped about. But nevertheless I try to look at the positives. Entry 16: appropriately unstructured This 2 days blend into one, because yesterday in the evening I went to a house party (squad of my female friends) and 4 of us (a friend and her BF, Veronika and I) stayed until 5 in the morning. I had minimum sleep and spent the next day on celebrating my father's birthday. We had a BBQ, and I made 2 sauces, one of them was really good and everybody loved it, so that's great. 2 really interesting, social days. A bit much for a guy who got used to his solitude, but I loved it. Veronika seemed anxious, negative, insecure and a bit on the edge (not towards me, but in general. Me and her had a friendly banter going on). I'm not sure what's happening with her life, but it's obvious it's not on a particularly positive trajectory. I have a strong inkling that she will approach me next year and ask for help and advice. And I am already afraid of my feelings for her (both positive and negative, but especially my romantic feelings) and my "savior" attitude. I'll have to resist the temptation to counsel her. Don't even ask why, our relationship is ridiculously muddled and "stained". I'm really tired, gonna take a shower, meditate and go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a simple and productive day. See ya, and best of luck guys. Daily gratitude: Grateful for getting an e-mail from administration saying that I completed the process and got accepted to a double major program. Once again grateful for every person that helped me along the way.

I wasn't as actively reading your journal throughout the months, but you seem to be generally in a better place then you were 4-5 months ago. You seem happier. That's good.

@BooksandTrees You are right. I put socializing on the minimum, so I must be careful not to over-isolate myself. Spending time with my brother shouldn't be considered a waste of time. Entry 15: Got out of bed: 07:30 made coffee spent an hour on Youtube and Reddit had breakfast cleaned around the house spent a lot of time washing the curtains (it was irritating putting them off and especially back on once they dried) listened to LotR audiobook for half an hour listened to music for an hour (just discovered a masterpiece , 11/10 atmospheric black metal, I know I'll be listening to this for the next few months) had a shower made dinner, ate too much washed the dishes listened to a portion of that album again while sippin on some more coffee meditated, it was effortless today worked on translating for 2 hours here I am, I'll probably be awake for 2 more hours max Edit: Did a strength workout and went to sleep short after Time wasted: around 2h and 30min. I was productive today, but I could've found at least 2 more hours for translating. Yeah, so... I'll have to put a few more hours a day to finish the translation by October 4th. I guess I should've made a shorter deadline and just be done with it, hahaha. Generally I'm feeling really good. It's October 1st guys, 3 more months until the end of 2020. I'm hyped. Daily gratitude: Just grateful in general. Also, grateful I'm becoming more responsible in small ways, such as immediately writing stuff down so I don't forget them later.

@Ikar Nice! Wish you luck with "Girl M". It's totally fine that you didn't kiss today, but make sure to kiss her next time you see each other.

Glad if I could help you with this at least a bit. Good luck. Be free to ask me more questions about this if you like.

Copy it freely. I wont get offended at all. 🙂

Entry 14: Got out of bed: 08:00 made coffee, washed the dishes watched anime for 2 hours ate breakfast, had a shower organized my hard-drive (deleted things such as study materials, books in pdf, made a couple of useful folders, cleaned up my desktop) went on an hour long bike-ride returned 4 borrowed books to library watched my brother play Magic: the Gathering for 2 hours (didn't trigger me to crave gaming) replied to a couple of e-mails related to my university listened to a chapter of LotR audiobook helped with preparing dinner learned about different american-style BBQ sauces spent an hour in the supermarket buying certain spices and ingredients I want to play with spent some more time at home making test-sized sauces, getting accustomed to things like halapeno hot sauce and the like spent over an hour replying to @Phoenixking about forgiveness. It's a topic that hits close to home and I hope I helped chatted with my little sister about school and school trips. here I am, I'm going to meditate now and go to sleep Wasted time: 6 hours. I could've easily translated an important chunk of my chapter instead of watching my brother game. Daily gratitude: Grateful for having so many opportunities to better myself. @Haymitch Planning is essential for my success. Weeks i don't plan for are usually serioulsy inferior to ones I plan out.

I can only speak for myself, but this is also a common trend with a lot of people on this forum: Yes, I consider ANY gaming a relapse. This is because, in my case, I failed multiple times to be a moderate gamer. I quit once before, started gaming again after 3 years and it slowly got out of hand. Most of us here see gaming as former alcoholics see booze, it's a forbidden territory for us, because it was stronger than us.

It's difficult to answer. I guess a certain aspect of the process is tided to circumstances of the particular case, but I'll try to offer as much general guidance as I can. After having this experience, I can safely say that forgiveness is a choice, yet we need to do it genuinely. Just saying that we forgave won't do it on it's own. To begin with, one has to understand what is forgiveness. Personally, I had difficulty with this. Forgiving DOESN'T mean: keeping a person close to you allowing for bad behavior to continue giving "another chance", hoping that the person will change expecting that the other person will forgive you in return. (don't expect reciprocity. If you expect something, it's not forgiveness, it's a deal or a compromise.) Forgiveness, in it's essence, is: letting go (letting past be the past. Seriously deciding not to revisit that part of your history anymore) giving up on revenge (however justified it would seem to be) a triumph of your love over your hate (compassion is important) One has to decide not to actively revisit the past he is leaving behind. It's ok if it pops into your mind but in that case you should just redirect attention and that's it. One has to decide not to seek any type of reparation or revenge. No more putting salt on an open wound, no more harsh words either directly said to him or thought in your mind. Anger and fury are emotions that want to destroy the object that stirs them, so by giving up on revenge, you must give up on stirring anger and fury. By loving, I don't mean that you need to be all lovey-dovey or something, you just need to find a place in your heart that will be able to love another person just enough to compassionately forgive them. Now, how can one be in a proper mindset to forgive? you need to be honest to yourself about your own faults (and be honest that you want forgiveness for your own misdeeds) try thinking of the circumstances that maybe facilitated a persons bad action (if there are some) be compassionate towards the other persons situation (for example, almost all bad people emotionally suffer or were victims in childhood. My father was a bad father, but it helped me to forgive him when I realized he also had a bad father so he didn't have a good example to learn from and he was also bitter because of it, etc.) you have to let go of your entitlement and ego, and be grateful. Yes, maybe you weren't given the best life possible, and yes, maybe somebody really did steal something important from you, but on the other hand you were obviously given a better life than others. Compassionately imagine what would an orphan who is right now being used as a sex slave give to be in your situation. (I assume you didn't go through this experience). Try focusing on what you do have, on everything you love and cherish in the world, on what gives you pleasure and joy As soon as you feel ready, you should go see your father in person and say something simple like "I forgive you for x,y and z. I truly forgive you. I came here just to say that.", also, apologize IF you feel that you have wronged a person. Be totally fine with the possibility you will get mocked, rejected or insulted, forgive him in advance for this as well. Come in peace, say those words, and be on your own way out. Forgiveness is primarily about yourself, it's about freeing yourself. If the other person wants to stay in his anger or hate, that's their own problem. After a while, you will notice your subconscious isn't bothering you anymore, or at least not nearly as much as before. Hope this helps. And I wish you best of luck.