Daniel_AT

another 1,5 weeks passed and no gaming during the week and on the weekend. I feel now huge cravings while I keep myself busy as good as I can with the following approach: 1.) Craving comes - I want to play games! 2.) Question to myself: what is a productive alternative to do RIGHT NOW? 3.) Start doing the productive thing immediately without further overthinking. This "loop" already produced some unusual results: sorted out all my paperwork done some old tax filing which should pay off in returns. spend an hour arguing with my insurance agent this way saving $1000 a year on my car insurance started training each afternoon and doing yoga with my kids. closed 2 big deals at work much faster than expected. This resulted in "more work - same pay" so I guess no good deed goes unpunished.... changed my cell phone operator saving money listened to 2 very good audio books which I can recommend Greg McKeown - Essentialism & David Gogging - Can´t hurt me finally ordered a new office chair which is much better for my back, now I feel less exhausted working from home. done some doctor checkup confirming everything is fine - I could be more fit but I´m fine overall helping my wife doing more chores - she´s grumpy as usual - not doing it for her but for myself. going to bed 09pm or 10pm instead of 12pm or 1am as before. Feel bit less trashed in the morning. wish me luck for this & next week

2 weeks since the last post - I managed to quit gaming during the week while very limited over the weekend. It’s not perfect but it’s progress. Focus, Focus, Focus

Hope you all are doing well - I´m 3rd day "game-free" and counting. That´s a funny short clip about pro-Gamers like we all used to be - enjoy!

Tank you Zeno & TheNewMe2.0 - appreciate your comments. What I find is that keeping the mind occupied with other things helps a lot to take away focus from gaming. During last days, I literally forced myself to go out and play with my kids in the park rather than sitting at home and mindlessly playing. It was a good decision & we had fun. We went for ice cream and than chasing butterflies, playing soccer and badminton. I made it through the last week without gaming, while on Sunday, I did again one hour and than just turned off the machine as it felt so boring. I consider the boredom in front of a PC the most valuable "negative feeling" as it helps me to stay away from playing. If there is no more pleasure from gaming - no dopamine hit - what´s the point? I will keep myself busy with a strickt schedule - this week it´s to do my tax filing and some projects at work while using the hopefully good weather with the kids outside. Wish me luck fellow ex-gamers. All the years I thought I play for fun while the only thing I did was playing myself.

Back here in the forum after many months. I relapsed in December 2020. While it’s not as bad as before in terms of time wasted, I’m very angry & frustrated with myself. How much better would this time be used for sports, books & family time. However I realise how boring gaming is now... I cannot find the same joy as before. I’ll go for another try to unplugging, starting today so I don’t wait for another artificial date like the first of may or something. Lockdowns & home office is not making anything easier. There are no good alternatives besides books & podcasts. Maybe I should smash my pc and jump on it to kill all the anger & frustration I’m holding inside. I’m so angry with myself for relapsing. It really sucks to be an addict. How bad must it be for people with a drug or alcohol problem? Gaming is bad but it’s not ruining the body. I need to upkeep the discipline - discipline is freedom.

3 days in and I´m struggling. Especially since I´m getting bombarded with all the emails that CK3 is such a marvelous piece of art.... and rabat codes ect... what a nightmare. Last 2 days I used my free time to support my wife in doing chores and to play a lot with my kids and went early to bed. Still, it feels not as good & interesting as sitting in front of the machine and clicking pointlessly. Wish me luck to make it trough today.

@gargamel Thanks for your encouraging words - which I´d like to mirror back at your own struggle. It´s good to hear you have found a source of purpose that encourages you to get better and stronger. Never allow society to define what you should do. However, use your time to follow your dreams. If you want to become an author, start writing. One page per day and after a year - you have a book to publish.

@ceponatia Thanks for your words. Maybe you misinterpreted my statement a bit - "blame" in my context is what you summarize as "analyzing why something happened and try to understand and to avoid or learn from a situation so that future decisions won´t be repeated". Someone could say, I´m blaming myself or "hold myself accountable" or any other description that fits. Effectively, it was me who chose to waste the most precious resource we got which is time, for an activity that adds noting to the value in any kind of way. I don´t think that this addiction is "beyond willpower" as it´s not an external event forcing us into particular behavior. It´s really a matter of choice. Many of us just don´s see alternatives how to create purpose and what´s the best way to direct their energy into. This might be a side effect of missing proper role models in society. If you look at most of the people suffering from gaming addiction, it´s a mixture of boredom, lack of purpose and easy access with relatively low costs. It´s also convenient as you don´t need to go somewhere. It´s relatively well accepted in society - at least not heavily criticized like alcohol or drugs. So all these parameters are making it very easy to drop in - and as you don´t suffer immediately from health issues nobody will notice quickly enough when the step between "casual" and "toxic" is taken. Gaming addresses very nicely the sense of achievement, progress and authority- things not easily or quickly seen in real life. Due to nature how men are wired, it´s what we strive for in life. I we cannot get it or don´t know how to do it, we look for sources that give us this feeling.

This is my story. I´m not sure why I write it here - maybe because I never summarized that clearly my own stupidity. I hope it will help me and maybe others to end this painful addiction. Gaming is as life destroying as any other forms of dependency like drugs, alcohol, sex or medicament abuse. Feel free to learn from my failures, call me an idiot or just wish me well for the future. Somehow I made it and somehow still those addiction hurts me. Level 0: I started playing video games back in the late 80´s when there were still gaming halls around. I loved the machines and I spend all my pocket money on those, pointlessly putting in coin after coin into a new tryout. I cannot remember when it all started, was it when I was in one of the gaming halls with some friends? Not sure anymore. However, before I turned 8, I committed my "one and only" crime because of my addiction. Level 1: My brother, much older than me was working waiting tables by this time - he was mid twenty. He and his wife were newly married and a kid was on the way. He was working very hard while putting the tips into a "savings jar". As we all lived together, I knew where the money was. Over weeks I took small amounts out of this jar, and I spend it all in the gaming hall. He realized something was fishy and instead of blaming me, he suspected his wife was responsible for the cash missing. The situation was getting toxic around the house but for weeks, nobody even thought about me being the offender. I cannot remember how they realized, I guess someone gave them a tip I´m spending much time in the game hall. It was one of the most embarrassing moments being confronted with the shame & guilt being a thief inside the family. My mother was deeply embarrassed and repaid the money to my brother. My brothers wife hated me since than. After this incident, 2 years followed where I had little, no access to game halls as we moved out of the city into a small town / village. Level 2: A few years later, in middle school, I got my first C64. I have wasted countless weeks to play "Elite" - retrospectively, a complete stupid program. For weeks I was not able to properly dock at a space stations while still tried over and over and over again. What followed? My school grades degenerated from being an A-student down to repeating a school year. I cannot remember my father, as he separated with my mother when I was little, than he died. Being a child / teenager of a single mother, I realized soon how little control she had over me. She could not teach me any values or skills a young boy would need. She struggled with life herself being a mess on her own all the time. The situation was uneasy, financially as well as overall, so I escaped the harsh reality by beaming myself into a virtual fantasy. Part of the problem was as well the fact that being poor, shy and not really good in sports / looks, I was anyway on the bottom or any social hierarchy - so leading a "pirate crew" in "Pirates" or an empire in "Civilization" seemed like a good alternative. Level 3: An Intel386 PC which I bought from a friend. The drama repeated with Civilization, Colonization, Master of Orion, Pirates and may more games I cannot even remember. Instead of playing sports or chasing after anything of value, I decided to spend summers playing mindlessly. I dropped out of school and after huge fights with my mom, I moved out and got a waiting tables job. I was working like mad, 16 hours per day but only 2 months into my "grown up" life, I spend a whole months salary on a great new PC.... nights followed where I just played ""Wing Commander Privateer" and was not really fit anymore to work the next morning. I was not able to focus and my thoughts just rotated around getting as soon as possible back in front of the screen. I had a car cash because of driving tired from gaming and drunk. I hit a wall with 60mph being lucky enough that the airbag and the belts saved me. This situation led to a small "epiphany" at least making me quit my dull waiting tables job and starting a training for a profession. It was the same time I got together with my first girlfriend - something I screwed up badly too. Instead of spending time with her, I focused on "Civilization 2 - Test of Time". She was patient and loving but as I continued wasting my evenings, she realized I´m a hopeless case and we split. Level 4: After finishing my apprenticeship and moving towns I switched as well the industry going into financial services. Got a decent call center job while same time applying to go to a local college. First it went all well, until the new "Medieval Total War" came out. While studying career parallel, I was not able to prepare properly for tests as I was constantly chasing pixeled soldiers on my computer screen, trying to "run down with my light cavalry the routed enemy troops to kill or for money". Looking back, what kind of idiocy. I failed 3rd attempt for a finance management exam and they kicked me out of college. I signed into another one and repeated by stupidity, than a 3rd one which I later finally finished and graduated with an MSc. Level 5: Coming from the bottom of social standing / hierarchy, I managed to move in the corporate ranks over the last 20 years. Starting a call center agent, finishing my studies and participating in internal development programs, I turned team leader, later divisional head and finally as CEO of a company. Many would say that´s nothing special, still I´m the best in my family / from my background and proud of it. All those years, gaming was around all the time. In 2008, Empire Total War came out, which triggered me to install STEAM. Two years later, Star Trek Online. Europa Universalis IV and some others, but effectively I wasted years on Paradox Games, Civilization and Total War Franchise. Level 6: my wife who I met 13 years ago, tolerated and still tolerates my addiction as I´m a "functional addict". I go to work and bring enough money to pay the bills. I don´t drink, don´t do drugs or have any other issues she would need to deal with. I cannot remember a single time she challenged me on the hours I spend in front of my PC. She learned to go to bed without me while I sit there until midnight clicking around like an idiot. Five years ago we got two most lovely baby girls. All those years, instead of spending as much time as I could with them, they see me pointlessly playing Stellaris, EUIV, Imperator Rome and Mount and Blade. They try to interact with my by asking if they can sit on my lap and if I could explain if "it´s my star-ship, horse or weapon". I always try to persuade them to leave me alone. I turn on the TV or give them my cell phone or the Ipad so they focus on this. What I do is pathetic beyond belief. Level 7: on new years eve 2020 I stumbled across game quitters content on YouTube while researching for cheat codes on "Master of Orion". I was impressed with the content and it motivated me as I realized I´m not the only guy wasting a big portion of my life on nothing. I logged off completely from gaming and stayed "sober" for 3 months. Unplugging was easier than I imagined, only a few days I was thinking about getting back to the addiction. While surfing the internet I have also seen a very good meme that triggered me a lot. Too bad I have not saved it to share, it looked something like this: "a fat guy sitting in his underwear in a basement that is filled with garbage. A plant that has died is on the table and cans of coke & pizza boxes are lying around. This guy has flies circulating him as it seems he has not showered in days and the curtains are closed so no sunlight can enter the room. He is in front of a TV screen and holds a game controller. On the screen there is a flashing sign "Level 100" and he yells out "Level 100!!!! So who´s the king now!!!". This internet meme triggered me as badly as those different YouTube videos from Cam about his way to get out of the addiction. Somehow, I have seen myself in this picture and I felt deeply ashamed. I´m not fat (while I could be more fit) nor living in a garbage yard or with dying plants, somehow this picture went straight to the bone. Than, mid March 2020 the Corona-Crisis started. Being stuck with home office and with new "Mount & Blade Bannerlord" release, I relapsed on 1st of April. Five months passed and again countless weeks wasted. Now since 14 days, overwhelmed with shame and guilt, I´m bouncing back and forth between uninstalling everything and than in panic reinstalling all games again. As I write this, I´m tired as hell because of going to bed very late - played Colonization for last 4 days straight only being frustrated with the results and restarting a new game. If only I could explain to myself why I do this? What´s the point in chasing a steam achievement or painting a virtual map in the color of my faction? It´s completely worthless and ads no value on anything. I looked up my steam library and counted about 20.000 hours played only on on this platform all games combined. Adding on top what I played before since I was a kid and on mobile, maybe overall 30.000 to 40.000 hours!?! This is roughly 4,5 years taking into account full 24 hours or 5000 days in 8 hours "shifts" which is a total of 14 years. Depending on the figures, if you´d take an average $20 per hours (which is very low) and calculate it, I wasted $800.000 no interest included. That could have been a nice starting package for my kids. Adding on top the fact that I´m now mid forty and not very fit - I wasted a big portion of my life on nothing. I don´t blame anyone but myself - nobody was pointing a gun to my head and forcing me. I simply should have known better. However, I think that gaming addiction needs same attention as other forms of addictive behavior, particularly among boys & men. Gaming addresses our deep desire for purpose, competition and accomplishment which we don´t get anymore in society. Men & boys are now the most oppressed social group in the west. Our natural drive to compete and be competent is constantly labeled as "toxic" or "oppressive" or "violent" while fatherless homes provide no role models anymore. Put on top the fact that approaching a girl these days can be potentially dangerous and the fact that many of us have seen their fathers destroyed by divorce and that there is no respect anymore for hard working men providing for their families, what is left for a man to strive for? Too many of us just check out of life and move into virtual fantasy as they don´t want to play the "real life" game that is badly rigged. I am one of those "check out of reality" people and I want to stop being one. NVidia game streaming now turns a shitty PC into a gaming powerhouse while tomorrow, Crusader Kings 3 launches. I have not bought a copy and I plan not to do so. Wish me luck as I aim to add another 4 months this year without playing - this would mean 7 out of 12 months "clean". Thanks Cam for creating a community for all the people out there that try to overcome their addiction. Level 8 - Endgame: Now until FOREVER: get fit, enjoy life & family, computer is just a tool for work - help others to quit this shit! Stop playing yourself & start gaming your life.