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chiliflavor

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  1. Might a bit late but I'm very glad to know that you hit 1 year free! Happy new year my friend! Keep safe!!
  2. Hey Max, what's up? I've been relapsing on and off as well. I'm sick of it too, especially knowing that someday I would quit forever. That 'someday' was today like yours. I hope that we stay gaming free forever, batchmate! To a better life, cheers!
  3. Good day! My name is Chiliflavor and I'm here for the 2nd time, to "officially" quit playing video games forever. Here is my introduction while this one is my 90-day detoxification journal. In this journal, my goal is to go deeper into my thoughts, task executions, and reflections. I followed a certain format in my previous journal but for this one, I'd just write whatever I'm feeling. To make the story short, I've been playing video games since I was 6 years old—20 years ago. All in all, as far as I know, I've played more or less 30,000 hours. That's 3.42 years of playing. Haha! Damn... Well, that was fun. After all the ups and downs in life, I decided to quit last May 2020. I had been game-free for 3 and a half month then I thought why not try playing again and see if I can play "moderately." As we all know, that wouldn't work for a gaming addict. I relapsed, quit for a day or two, relapsed again, and quit for a day or two again. Since I've had extra money, I decided to buy Respawn. I still played after reading it because I thought I would do just like what Sir Cam did—last hoorah. However, I couldn't wait until Christmas to stop playing because I really want to start 2021 with a stable daily routine. I want to rebuild the mindset I had last May 2020 when I successfully quit gaming and smoking and focus on what really matters most—my life and my loved ones. ----- To my future self that is about to relapse, kindly read the following points and remember the feeling of relapsing. 1. Yes, you miss playing games. If you played a game, you'll definitely feel bad at the end of the day because you know deep down inside it won't do you any good. 2. You can't play in moderation. You've tried it countless times and you have failed. It's just impossible for you because you have no control; you're a gaming addict. 3. You don't want a messy room and office, don't you? How about the kitchen and car? Not to mention your unorganized PC files and a simple task like sweeping or mopping the floor. 4. You don't read and study about stock trading at all when you were gaming right? You wouldn't become a profitable trader if you played. You aren't like other traders who can control their need to play. 5. You haven't made any development for your business when you relapsed. Why would you risk your business for a game that won't help you feed yourself and future family? 6. You don't want to make your family and girlfriend disappointed again right? Remember the sadness in their face when you told them you were playing again. 7. You want a sense of achievement? You can get it through gaming—virtual achievement. It's up to you to choose between real or virtual achievement. 8. How does it feel waking up late in the afternoon? Playing games is the root of your major problem—sleeping pattern. Remember how tired your eyes were the last time you relapsed. Your eyes felt so tired just like when you were playing WoW. You didn't do any shit except waking up, smoking, playing and drinking too much coffee. 9. Your problems won't be solved after one game. Playing games just delay your actions to solve your problems. 10. You are better of not gaming at all, I know you know it for sure. You just have to accept that you had chose to close that chapter of your life. ----- Thanks GameQuiiters and Sir Cam for Respawn. I was hesitant at first in buying the book. Glad I bought it. Respawn filled in the gaps in my quitting process. The mistake I made was to give in into the cravings. Playing a simple game like insaniquarium deluxe could lead to a total relapse. Just like in that "one" stick I consumed, it led to a total relapse in my smoking habit. Looking forward to quit this smoking habit tomorrow as well. This time I would try it the hard hotter way. Until the next entry. PS. Thanks for reading! Hoping that you—ex-gamers—are doing well! PPS. Nice new layout of GameQuitters website!
  4. I miss that 12 hours of sleep! Glad you're doing great, Erik. It's been a while since I've visited GQ forums; and reading your entries, as always, really brings positive energy. Many thanks for that. Take care always. Congrats on 9 months! Good luck on your new job and let's keep enjoying this lifetime. 😂
  5. Holy shit, very nice rocket!! Now, I believe you can design anything. 🤣 Congrats on your 90 days!! 😁
  6. A little bit late to post but... 90 days without games done! 😁 Thanks to GameQuitters community, Sir Cam and to its members! Without this community, I would still be the old me. I would like to mention each and everyone who reacted, commented, and interacted with my journal but it's already 5:15 AM here. 😅 You know who you are! 😄 Thanks a lot for keeping me on track. Without your insights and stories, I wouldn't be able to finish my detoxification. The thought of gaming still visits me everyday, even after the 90-day detoxification. I guess it would always be this way—haunting me. Haha! After contemplating (which is kind of the real reason) whether should I try to play again or stay clean, I conclude that I want to stay this way. I want to continue being productive everyday, at least. Another reason that also saved me from relapsing was because I've sold my account. If you, a visitor of this forums that in some way ended up reading this, and really wanted to quit, I highly suggest that you sell or delete your account. If you are really serious about quitting games. 😁 For most of us, last Tuesday was a regular day; for me, I gained a level—a real life level up. I was able to stay game-free for 3 months which I never thought I can do. Finally, I finished a thing that I started. Gaming is not bad, my addiction to it is what makes it bad. In the end, this achievement is does not matter to other people—sad to say even to your loved ones. For me, this is the start of a better version of myself and I don't want to mess this up by giving in to my feelings of missing to play games. I guess I can control it for a day or two but I assume that it would eventually eat me whole again. I relapsed in smoking cigarettes and drinking caffeine which I've manage to stop when I was on my early days of detoxification. I reasoned out—to myself—that I can't lose those things since I've already lost my gaming hobby. This kind of thought is a trap. I'm quitting these vices too. Hope I can stay nicotine and caffeine-free starting this weekend. My gaming hobby was replaced with watching random stuff on YouTube as well. I have to deal with these "problems" right away—probably starting Monday because I need a concrete strategy to attack the enemies. 😂 Right now, visualizing myself playing games again somewhat makes me sad. It's like I can now see myself in front of a computer playing games and doesn't care about what's happening around. Not only it doesn't look good, but it doesn't feel right too. What feels right to me now is to focus on what really matters—what is it that I really want to do in life. As "we say," Life Unlocked! Gaming was a part of my life and I'm truly happy to experience it. I learned a lot of things by gaming. I've enjoyed playing games so much. I hurt a lot of people too because of it. I hated my self for quite some time because of it. But most importantly, it unlocked me to aspire and do greater things in life. Stay safe always and continue to have a non-negative outlook in life. 😊 Have a nice day! ---------------------------------- Signing off,
  7. Congratulations @Strykyr22!! Thanks for the insight!
  8. Remaining Days: 2 days (Aug 7-9, 2020 : Friday - Sunday) Since my journal is about to end, I decided to go over through my entries since the first day of detoxification. I wanted to summarize what had happen to my life since I quit playing games. Recently, since it's Day 88 for me, I've been thinking about "testing out" if I can play casually. This is like the "highlights" of Learn it the hot way. If you guys and gals read my entries in the Quick Fact About Me section, you would definitely have an idea of who am I. It may be you're just browsing the forums, bored, somewhat interested and following my journey, or whatever possible reason you end up reading facts about me. I want you to know that I'm truly grateful about it. I hope that at least in this little way, I was able to entertain you. ---------------------------------- THINGS I'VE DONE INSTEAD OF PLAYING: I was able to start trading stocks and forex for real. Quitting playing video games gave me lots of time to actually experience trading, scan charts to make trading plans, to reflect with my trading psychology and now to start creating my trading system. This is the only game I wanted to play—the financial market. Now, I realized that this kind of activity is much more complex than any other games that I had played. That's what makes it exciting for me. I hope that I will turn out to be a profitable trader in the near future. When I was a gamer, I treated trading as a past time only, somewhat like gambling hobby. I also had more time to really improve my main business—the events place. While we're still in quarantine which means still no events could happen, I took this time to develop our business—made an official contract, venue presentation slides for potential clients, made a feedback form, calculated our new rate which I think will be our final price adjustment, revised our brochure to a more professional one, made instructions so that guests can easily use our facilities, and to identify our weaknesses so that we can serve better. Moreover, I had much more time to go through my mini-sideline businesses, that is, I was able to eliminate impractical ideas and was able to start constructing plans for the feasible ones. When I was a gamer, I mostly wait for unexpected situations to happen before I start improving the business. I was able to start my book in Mathematics. For now, I'm just creating modules—the sections of the book—and making beginner-friendly solutions to different problems. This is actually a lifetime project of mine. Haha! My inspiration in doing this is to be able to provide a resource for students, who are noob in mathematics, that will soon take college entrance examinations. When I was a gamer, I only do mathematics stuff whenever I'm on a losing streak. Now, I see mathematics, my only beloved subject, to be the greatest way to make my legacy in this world. By creating this journal, I was able to practice writing in English. If I finished reading my stock books, I'll start with the book for creative writing. Now, I can testify that writing is really therapeutic. Also by quitting games, it gave me more time to learn video editing using Filmora9 for vlogging, to make advertisement posters using Canva, to play drums again, and to read books. In the future, I plan to study adobe photoshop as well and how to make music remixes. I do not intend to be a master of all these stuff. All I wanted is to know the basics of these activities so that I don't need to hire or ask somebody to do what I want to have. I believe that by doing things myself will save me thousands of money and it would greatly improve my creativity. Just right now, I realized that these are my new hobbies—my stress reliever. Deep down, it's fulfilling to learn new stuff from time to time. When I was a gamer, all of these activities were just sitting in my "to study / to do" list for years. My three-month detoxification revolved around these four areas. This is actually the "routine framework" that I discovered from writing this journal. BENEFITS I HAD FROM NOT PLAYING: I'm not in a hurry anymore to finish my meals, to end conversations with family, girlfriend, relatives and friends, to sacrifice sleep, and to finish my job to have more time playing. I didn't feel grumpy and irritable like before. I was able to enjoy spending time with those people and things. I had the courage to face my problems and frustrations rather than redirecting my hatred to defeating the enemy. When I was a gamer, I was like saying this to myself all the time, "Fuck you all, I'm out of this. I will just deal with you next time. I want to play." I was able to clean (mostly: events place, wash dishes, car, PC, office/bedroom), to organize my stuff (like emails, SMS, PC files, plans and ideas), to cook more often and to workout. Quitting video games made me more responsible. When I was a gamer, my stuff and routine was in total chaos because I choose to play than to be responsible. My mindset improved. I notice that I constantly push myself to do my tasks even at my laziest times. Now, I feel bad if I hadn't finished my tasks. I realized that it's very important to plan my task for every tomorrow because it realigns you to your goals. Now, I'm more focused on how to be financially independent. When I was a gamer, well, it didn't matter if I had not done anything productive as long as I've enjoyed my day. I realized that sometimes, there are always bad days and I can't avoid it. I realized that sometimes, I just have to accept and move on. I realized that I can enjoy life without playing video games. STRUGGLES I ENCOUNTERED WHILE I'M STAYING AWAY FROM PLAYING: I originally listed quite a lot of things but it's already dinner time. Haha! Anyway, it's just the common struggles which I know everybody experience once in a while. But I want to stress out three things in my list: focus, consistency and the "idea" of playing games as a reward. Until now, I haven't fully accepted the thought of "I can't play in moderation." My mind keeps telling me, "Yes, you can." Haha! Maybe, just maybe, in the future—after years of experience—when I learned how to be consistently focused on my tasks and responsibilities and to be able to fully comprehend the "idea" of gaming as a leisure activity on, then I would play again. But as of now, I know can't do that. Above all, I'm still a video game addict who will be released from the rehabilitation center two days from now. ---------------------------------- Picture Picture: This was my "creative shot" during my graduation photo shoot. Very creative, right? LMAO! Looks like just a regular day for me back then. 😂 I vowed to myself that I would post this online when I quit smoking—for good. So tomorrow is my last day of the game detox—which makes me excited to the thought of "I can play again"— accompanied by nicotine withdrawal, for the nth time. Good luck with that, I'm expecting the worst mood. I plan to start my journey on quitting smoking as I end with Learn it the hot way. I failed quitting those two things simultaneously before. As they say, "One at a time." ---------------------------------- Good evening! 😄 Til tomorrow, Chiliflavor
  9. Welcome to the forums, @gameswillnotkillme! Glad you finally quit LoL. I'm struggling with playing DotA as well. Hoping that you'd finish the 90-day detoxification. Good luck!
  10. Remaining Days: 5 days (Aug 1-6, 2020 : Saturday - Thursday) Quick Fact About Me: If estimate the total time I dedicated in playing video games, using the average number of hours I played each day since I was 5 yrs. old, I'd say it's more or less 30,000 hours—around 3 years. Did I have fun playing? Definitely, yes. Do I regret the time spent? No, I had fun. Do I wish I lessened my playing time before? Yes, I wished that I had more control over my gaming addiction. Did I use video games as an escape for my problems and responsibilities? I'd say, 50-50. I don't usually play when I'm not feeling good—play to enjoy. Do I intend to go back in playing after my 90-day detoxification? Now that's a hard question. 😅 Feels Today: So one out of four of my wisdom teeth had been extracted last Sunday. I thought I'd be unable to do the usual things that I do like daydreaming because of the pain that I will feel after the extraction. But it turns out, I'm okay. I'm happy that my dentist was so good. I know that my gums isn't totally healed; maybe it would take more than a week. As of now, I'm just cautiously chewing things and avoiding lifting heavy objects. I feel like I want to play again after this detox. I try not to think about it at all but as my rehab is almost finished, my eagerness to play is stronger than before. I want to play because I miss it so much but at the same time I'm scared that it would eat me alive again. The good thing is, as of this moment, I don't want to play like before. I wish I knew how to control my playing time. I wasn't being productive these past few weeks. It's not that I'm not motivated; more likely, I'm unfocused and have a lot in mind. Meanwhile, our country's capital city and other nearby provinces were again put in the modified enhanced community quarantine state. I feel sorry for the Philippines. I hope that this pandemic end soon. I miss writing for real here to be honest—reflecting every day, listing and trying my best to achieve daily goals, responding to others' journals, and randomly blurting out my feelings and thoughts. I feel sad that my journey here is about to end but I'm really happy that I'm confident that I'll be able to finish the 90-day detox. Thanks to everyone's support and especially for the people who interacted with me along the way. I'm happy that I was able to save some money. I'm thankful to my parents who guided me who to save and still guiding me how not to spend unwisely. Looking for ways to earn is really stressful. When I was playing WoW's auction house, it was also extremely stressful. But I was able to reach gold cap because of perseverance. I'll do my best to do the same in real life. Money also contributed a lot in my decision to quit gaming. It drives me to be productive. I'm contented with what I have now. Although, I wish I had more to enjoy luxuries. Hehe. Maybe some time in the future. Concentrating in luxuries won't really help me this time. How I wish I was financially enlightened when I was still earning more than what I needed. Right now, I spend only to spoil my lady, invest in materials that would benefit my career and personal growth, and to treat my family. Above all, now that I'm entering adulthood, I'm looking forward to buy material things that would definitely benefit me. I want to be like my father—spending very wisely. My smoking, well, is still a problem. I'll deal with it some time soon. I need to have a stronger mindset for that vice. I still don't lose hope of me quitting. I wasn't prepared for triggers before. I know that I will be able to quit. I just don't know how to do it perfectly. I trust myself that I will figure it out. I'm very lucky to have sold my Blizzard account—the one that really pulls me back to gaming. I miss playing WoW's PVP, killing monsters in Diablo, and enjoying my (weak) golden deck in HearthStone. I also miss the intense feeling of conquering the enemy's base in DotA 2. I miss playing mobile games before I sleep or when I'm in pooping. I miss playing and laughing with my real life and online friends. I miss my gamer life. However, I don't want to miss the chance of having a brighter future in exchange of doing those things again. Everybody who knew that I'm going through a gaming rehab tells me that I should never go back to playing video games again. But, at the back of my mind—the hardest part of all—is that I'm convincing myself that "I can play moderately now that I'm able to go through 90 days without gaming." Whew, what a struggle. By thinking of going back to games, I always remember that I already have sold my account and because of that thought, I don't feel like playing again. Hahaha! I don't want to start all over again..... So if ever, I'd be only playing DotA, but then again, we'll see. After all, I want to get back, for real this time, to my previous-month-self, that is, the focused chiliflavor. I need to fight this laziness of mine. I need to always keep in mind that this contented life of mine was a result of the small good decisions that I made over time. I love the feeling of just randomly typing out my feelings. Writing really helps me a lot these past few months. Daily Quest: Today, I've finally sent my resume to Investagrams—the only social platform I know that encourages Filipinos to invest and trade stocks. I applied as a content marketer. Jeez, as if I knew the fundamentals of marketing. Haha! Anyway, I hope that I'll be able to work in their company. Besides the need to earn money during this pandemic and the fact that our events place business is down because of the community quarantine, I really wanted to work their because I wanted to have an impact to the society. As cheesy as it sounds but I want to be of great help educate my fellow citizens the importance of financial freedom. Moreover, if they hired me, I would be able to learn from their methods how to gain profit from trading stocks. My main goal is to be a profitable trader. I strongly feel that by working in their company, it would give me an opportunity to finally gain some profit in trading. For a year now, I never had a positive month in trading—always losing money. I hope that they would consider my application even though I'm really scared that I'd be working, if ever, as a content marketer! For Christ's sake, I'm a mathematics graduate... 😅😂 My daily tasks and goals are written in my google sheet. So far, it's good. Now, I can see that some days weren't really productive. I'd continue listing my tasks there, now that my journey here is about to end in 5 days. So thanks to this Daily Quest, I was able to recognize the need to have a "journal for tasks." Quest Log: Not applicable since I haven't written anything since last week Incomplete Quest: make images for the vlog (area of square), update google drive, guidelines for new normal in our event's place, bring the speakers to the technician, finish the venue canva presentation, finalize the flier and print several copies Trait/Habit to Fix: Mañana Habit —a negative trait of most Filipinos; according to Google, it's simply procrastination, finding ways to delay a work to be done I should just do things right away. This habit is reinforced by laziness, distractions, improper time management, and wanting to feel instant gratification. Picture Picture: This is a view of our home—the events place—during a debut. If ever you guys, my fellow GameQuitters comrades, needed a place to stay for a couple of days here in the Philippines, some time in the future when you had a vacation after this pandemic ends, you may stay here at our home. Of course, there would be a discounted fee for GQ members! LMAO! 😂 Let me share you our venue, click here to check it out. How Can I Be Better? By constantly reflecting with my actions and thoughts, moreover, by learning from it ---------------------------------- Good night! 😄 Til tomorrow, Chiliflavor
  11. Welcome to the forums, @GloriouslyAddicted! Glad you decided to finally quit for good. Don't forget to remember this day when things get tough. 😄
  12. Remaining Days: 11 days (July 27-31, 2020 : Monday - Friday) Quick Fact About Me: When it comes to my sex life, I'm very private about it. Kiss and tell isn't my thing. I used to joke a lot of greens when I was "younger." You know, young boys laugh about these kind of stuff. 😅 But as I grew older, I notice that I haven't joked about these kind of things. Not talking about my sex life is my way of respecting my partner (and my previous partners). 😁 For me, this should be only talked about by the parties concerned—I give and accept tips though. 😂 Feels Today: I wasn't able to write here because I was so lazy. 😅 It's most likely that I'm practicing to not depend on this journal in order for me to do a task. Since my 90-day game detoxification is almost finished, I'm thinking of ways how can I continue being productive without me writing in here. I do not plan to continue writing after completing my detoxification; but, I will surely continue reading contents here from time to time. After all, my objective in joining this community is to stay away from gaming with the help of journaling. Moreover, if ever I really wanted to update my status or write whenever I crave too much, I would probably make a new journal, something like a post-detox. But, we'll see. Lately, I've been overwhelmed and pressured with my tasks, feelings, cravings, and relapse in smoking. Hence, I haven't been thinking clearly—my mind seems cloudy. What's nice with writing daily in the journal is that I have written tasks to do for the day. Since I plan on not writing here after completing my 90 days, I will make a google sheet instead. In that way, I think it would guide me like how this journal guided me through my healing. Me and my girlfriend talked about goals, improvements and short coming—mainly about me. 😅 She's disappointed because I became relaxed and wasn't able to continue my good progress. I need to pull myself together and really get back on track. Today, I feel motivated. I like to plan a lot but my problem is the execution part. I need to fix that. Basically, my entry for today is not thoroughly thought of—I just want to make an entry for the sake of something productive done for the day. Writing feels good. 😄 Daily Quest: Last Monday, we had a Christian wedding here. The couple are very nice to me. They provided food for their guests who stayed overnight and they gave me some too. They left a nice review on our Facebook page which will greatly help our future clients. To be honest, I've been very busy with eToro's forex trading. I haven't looked at charts like this before. As of now, my portfolio is negative. 😅 My first month should have ended with a green portfolio, but I refrained to close my position since it wasn't on the plan. Fear and greed is my greatest enemy here—cutting my losses when it's just a temporary fluctuation of price or getting out too early instead of being patient and waiting for my target price to be hit. Now, I've quite understand, little by little, what many articles are telling—the psychology of trading is what makes trading hard because you're battling with yourself. I'm practicing to trust my trading plan. If my plan didn't workout, which means I've lost more than winning, I need to improve my trading system. Deep down inside, I think I've become a better trader. Hoping that this journey would help me achieve financial freedom. Other than that, I've stopped doing the things I used to do—things that I've been doing in my second month of detoxification. Since I will have a dental surgery on Sunday, and we don't have incoming events next month except on the 20th of August—a wedding preparation, I have two days to plan my activities for August. My dentist said it would took a week or two for the wound to heal while a month for a full recovery. Luckily, my daily tasks doesn't need heavy lifting or physical pressure. I'll resume my workout routine—this time for real—after my soon to have wound healed. Today, I'll make a google sheet for my daily tasks. In the sheet, I'll list my goals for each day. So starting tomorrow, 10 days remaining, I'll focus my writing about my views in playing video games. I'll also do whatever I can today and tomorrow. I will try to make a template for my final days of detoxification—seems quite to do a lot of thinking today. 😂 Quest Log: Not applicable since I haven't written anything since last week Incomplete Quest: make images for the vlog (area of square), update google drive, guidelines for new normal in our event's place, bring the speakers to the technician, finish the venue canva presentation, finalize the flier and print several copies PS. Since then I haven't really done any of these things. I would transfer these things to my google sheet for tasks. Trait/Habit to Fix: Inconsistency - Having this trait results in relapsing in my lazy self whenever I feel bored or exhausted. I will always tell my self that I need to be better for me to be constantly reminded. Picture Picture: None for today—couldn't find an interesting photo. I'll try to get several photos from my laptop. 😅 How Can I Be Better? by staying committed, staying strong and always getting up whenever I've lost ---------------------------------- Good afternoon! 😄 Til tomorrow, Chiliflavor
  13. I just got back from writing as well—took a week off because I also don't feel like writing and was feeling lost. 😅 Like what you said, it felt like it was a chore. Good luck on your roommate. 😁 Time flies fast. It seems like yesterday we started journaling, now we're almost done. Thanks for the idea, I think it's a great. I'll read mine as well sometime this week to remind me of the "mission-vision" of my journal. Good luck!
  14. Glad you're doing great and everything's fine! 😁
  15. The Danver's are so hot! Now that you mentioned, I'm putting it on my to watch (again) haha!! Congrats on 8 months! 😁
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