Lampshade

Day 23 Still in work mode. Not that I'm pumping out the hours or anything but I just don't really have much else on my mind than finishing this paper. Still doing the same old boring habit routines in the morning. It takes longer than I want it to though. Right now it's: Get up, feed the dogs, make the bed, take the dogs out, eat, meditate, yoga, shower, shave. Doesn't look that bad actually when I write it out. Last couple of days I've been pushing the shower 'n shave to the afternoon by using the justification that the morning routine is too much. Now that I'm actually writing it out, though, I think that's wrong. Better to just get all those things done in the morning so they aren't on my mind, even if it means getting to work a little bit later. Once I'm working, especially if it's on the computer, it's so much easier to get distracted and procrastinate. I've also got a bunch of courses that I want to take. Two of them are for different programming languages (R and Python). I can do a little bit in each, basically just work with packages and stuff as I've needed them, but I've never learned a language from the ground up. I'm not sure if learning them simultaneously is the best idea. I'm also unsure which format I'm going to use to learn. I've been really enjoying consistent, bite-sized lessons on the phone version of Datacamp and getting to work in the living room instead of the office is a nice change of scenery (and makes me more available to S.O. if I do in it the evening). I've also been toying with the idea of just dedicating a day/week for Coursera courses and doing it in that more formal way. Sounds less fun, but more practical. @Commissar Undergrad chemistry is a death trap. Flames, explosions, and acid spills everywhere. The instructor told the lab once that the chloroform we were working with had a smell, so my partner stuck her nose in the flask and took a big whiff. I much prefer working with computers, where I get an error if I do something wrong instead of an explosion.

Day 22 So, I've got this paper that I'm 95% finished that I'm going to try to get submitted by Friday night. I've been procrastinating it because the bulk of it was written a year or so ago and I've got different opinions now about what makes a paper good than I did back then aaand... it's no good lol. But I need to get my publication numbers up so it's getting submitted and hopefully somebody takes it. I went through this morning and spent 3 hours mercilessly editing. I still have to update the digital copy, and plan on doing that this afternoon and tomorrow morning. It's better now, I think. Just sucks cutting down 3-months worth of work to a single line. Sometimes I just want to write in 'this was really hard, okay?!' It REALLY sucks when three-months of work is cut entirely. C'est la vie. I'm hoping getting it to a place where I can at least submit it to journals without cringing will give me a sense of accomplishment. I'm craving a win. Habit streaks are great but you don't get that sense of completion. Hopefully this does it. Having the self-imposed deadline is great, it's making me try harder than I have been. Back to it.

Ha, neat. That's a cool way to structure your progress. I'll be interested in seeing how it continues.

At least you got on to keep the habit streak going

@codepants@Commissar I've had both of your perspectives. I'm going to add another one: I've got a bunch of tattoos, I got them all between the ages of 16-18. I am absolutely not the same troubled kid I was at that age. I remember my justification when I was getting them, that I "wanted to remember who I was and the impact everything had on my life." Thing is, though, I'm not that person anymore, and having the tattoos just keeps that kid alive. And since the primary theme of my life at that time was a bad one, that's what the memories have been distilled down to. I get the idea of hanging on to remember lessons and so-forth, but I guess it feels hard to fully commit to a new life with constant reminders of the old one. At least with gaming though, those pictures of a bad ex can be stored away and not looked at. I'm similar to you Com. Trying to moderate my usage failed miserably, and the journey has been easier with fewer reminders. Without saving anything from that time though, I'm worried about losing whole chunks of my life. I identified as my characters during those few years (a sure sign of addiction). An interesting trend I noticed was the trend of happy-photos, to photos of stressful things (a crappy house we had to stay in, progress photos of dog wounds, etc.), and then inevitably screenshots of gaming. It was such an obvious trend of using gaming to escape hard times that it was funny, in a weird sort of way. Still haven't figured out what to do. I think I'm in a decent place right now so I think the healthiest thing for me is to rest here a bit instead of going too hard. Ah. Negotiation. My old addiction friend. F. Day 21 As a general update, I've noticed I'm less impulsive than I was. It's hard to say which good habit is responsible for that but I do know that I've never been able to maintain good habits as long as I have while still gaming. My meditation streak is 3x longer than it's ever been (started meditating 2.5 years ago), I've never successfully quit coffee before now (still relapsing but 3 days clean now, and 3 before the weekend), my yoga habit is solid as is my workout routine. I think it's a positive feedback loop and quitting gaming gave me the time, patience, and mental clarity to work on the other things.

@Bird By Bird@Commissar You're both so right. The down-days are all part of it. We have so many ways to escape them these days that it's sometimes hard to remember how to get through them without covering up the emotions. Thanks 🙂 Day 20 Alright. Got through yesterday relatively sober. Just the two cigarettes. Ended up feeling better around the early afternoon and at that point the consequences to giving into cravings became real. It was a shitty 4-6 hours ( and a pretty 'bleh' rest of the day tbh) BUT twenty-odd days ago if I had started a day off like that I definitely would have taken it off and given in to all my impulses. That would have meant a guilt-ridden gaming session where I tried to convince myself I was having fun, a stressed out afternoon trying to sober up for when my S.O. got home, skipping our evening workout, and an anxious evening from being wired all day leading to a hungover morning. Rinse and repeat. Instead I'm sitting content with my daily habits just about done in a quiet room with the quality of lighting that inspired my profile photo. I think it's going to be a pretty good day 🙂 I'd like a better way to deal with how I was feeling yesterday when it does come up again though. I haven't come up with much. For now I'm just hoping that as I go further into the great journey that is sobriety those emotional swings will swings will swing less far. As for the cause, I think a lot of it is just related to work. I technically haven't even started grad school yet so anything at all I get done during this time is just bonus work. The more I do the better the future will be and I don't mind the work, so it's not like I'm trying to go all high-intensity crazy forcing myself to do something. A part of me thinks it's to do with my parents (who were also super-anxious people, and young when they had me) and how I was working full-time retail for years as a teenager. Being micromanaged like that really messed me up, I think, when I look at how other people get through a day. Often I'll feel like if I'm not working super hard on the best possible thing every second of the work day, I'm slacking off. That's a lot of pressure, it overwhelms me, and I crack a bit. Edit: In a purge mood apparently. Threw out all my weed and deleted some games I had on an external. I have somebody that I trust who would probably buy my steam account. I managed to get to the listing of the games before choking. God there are a lot of good games on that list. I got hit with the 'maybe someday you'll be able to play, you're only on Day 20...' justification. Related, I found some old videos of some gaming moments I was proud of and it just felt gross. I feel like I should hold onto them though, for the same reason I hold onto photos? Maybe? I don't know.

Day 19 8:30 AM, did most of my morning routine, and I can already tell that today is going to be a 'just get through it' kind of day. Dark rainy weather and the start of a new work week. The perfect day to light up and game instead of putting in the effort to get into work-mode. I've been having more cravings this morning than I have in a long time. First it was for gaming, then it was for anything to get me out of my mind. Almost smoked weed (I have no idea why I've been hanging on to it for 18-months now). It was like I knew that if I could just get out of my head for a minute then I could get gaming and then get through the day in peace. Nothing is even going on to cause this. I had a great weekend. I was feeling anxious about Monday last night but I don't even really mind doing the stuff that I have to do. Well it would be nice to get through the day and have something to show for it rather than just wasting it on the couch or the internet. I think I'm going to manage, but man, it ain't going to be pretty. I'll get to any replies when I'm in a better state of mind. EDIT Ended up finding a half pack of cigarettes. Sometimes I feel like that same kid I was 15 years ago looking for shit like cough syrup and nutmeg to get out of my head. On a more positive note, I've done 15 days of Headspace in a row and unlocked a free 1-month trial to share with a friend. Does anybody want it?

I'm still amazed at how much more time is in a day compared to before. How's this part been since stopping? Any changes yet? It's been one of the things I'm struggling with I think this is one of the most rewarding parts to acknowledge, forgive, and improve with beating addiction. Being able to think better and have more time for your goals is great, but becoming a more honest person affects the people around you so much too. It's freeing to be able to answer a question openly without feeling like you need to quickly decide whether or not to tell the truth. Hard to do that when a person is ashamed of the amount of time they spend gaming or its consequences I feel like you're on a great path @Commissar, keep it up. And thanks for participating in other people's journals as well!

Sorry to hear about the crap weekend man. I'm looking forward to seeing how you use this for a positive change. We're all figuring this out together. Gimmie that wisdom. I've flaked out on a bunch of appointments, more so during my bad times. I don't think it's ever been the person I'm supposed to meet with. Usually just things like cost, lack of motivation, laziness, forgetfulness, decided to do something else, shyness, anxiety, embarrassment, etc. Do you have any info about the average no-show rate for new clients and if that differs between you, people with your level of experience at the job, and those with more?

Awesome job making it the two weeks! And sounds like a great productive weekend.

@TheNewMe2.0 Thanks 🙂 Day 18 I've gotten to a good place with productive habits. Loading them up in the morning is the way to do it for me or they're on my mind all day. Strangely, there's been a downside of building productive habits: I'm feeling a lot of anxiety if I can't do them. I had a couple early meetings last week, for example, that left me with less time than normal in the mornings. I don't want my whole day to be thrown off just because I didn't make do one part of my routine. Especially since it keeps growing larger and larger as I get excited about new things. I've cut a few out, but my list of things that I feel like I should add has been growing. I'm calling it self-help creep. Another weekend of no gaming. I'm amazed how much fuller the day feels when the lapses between doing things are spent relaxing, tidying, chatting with the wife, etc. instead of jumping into a game "for a bit".

Day 17 Weekend entries are going to be short I think, but I want to keep the habit. Went out to hang out with a friend at their place last night. Normally we just game all night. Told him my story, gave him my controller, and instead we had a wonderful time with his room mate just talking around the table and playing crib, then went out for late-night ice cream. It was much more memorable, I got to learn some things about someone I've known for 17 years, a new card game, and met a new awesome person. Much better way to spend the time. Today I'm finishing up some yardwork, doing a quick run in to town with the wifer, then hopefully going to read some and write a silly story about someone who can make time out of grocery store ingredients.

That happened to me too, and I cam to the same conclusion. Early days nearly anything is better than gaming so long as it doesn't become another long term habit that replaces it. Actually I empathize with a lot of what you wrote. Gaming seemed to cover things up so well. Only getting rid of them do you notice 'wow, I'm not the person I want to be'. The emotional numbness for me started to get a little better around ten days, and by that I mean I experienced happiness for a brief moment lol. Hopefully it's similar for you, looking forward to hearing your thoughts more on it. More positively, Nice idea about the animal shelter. And noticing the difference in the length of the days.

Me too man, I've said that exact thing so many times Day 16 I just had a meeting with my grad student supervisor and I've got to write a bit about how extremely grateful I am for him. He hired me in my first field work job during my undergrad and turned my attitude towards university from this cynical 'get a degree so that I can work in a different factory' to 'holy crap I get paid for this?' I pretty much get to decide my projects on my own and when I tell him about them he is enthusiastic, supportive, and excited. I'm going to be doing my field work in a spot that's a half hour hike through the woods from my house that I've been visiting for almost ten years now. It blows my mind. Before going back to university I used to make hand-drawn maps of the area and appreciate it for what it's was. Now I get to go back with a buttload of cool gear and a bunch of education and study it. I'm ecstatic. I hung up the Zoom call and did some chair spins/fist pumps. There are downsides of course. 40 hours/week is like the minimum, and probably not competitive enough if I want to keep my options open at the end of the degree. Even 40-hours I struggle with. 50-60 doesn't leave much time for anything else. I've done 60 with another job, and have gone all the way up to 80 at one point, but I barely remember those 3 years. It doesn't officially start until January though. I think I'm just going to have to spend the next couple months aggressively experimenting and cutting away excess stuff in my life so that I can focus my time on what's really important when it's time to hustle. My relationship and physical health are two things I know I don't want to compromise on, for example. I'm so glad I got gaming out of there. There just wasn't room in my head for any of these awesome plans for the future, or any time to flesh them out if there had been, when it was so much easier to immerse myself in a game instead of life.

F yeah. Yeah man once I discovered and committed to acupuncture and massage I was going every week. Combined with physio it's shocking to realize that you can just feel better lol. I had given up on my knee as just a sign that I was getting older at like 27 and it turned out I just needed to take care of it for a couple months. Hopefully yours is covered by insurance too. Oh and grats on the punching bag! Such a cool thing to have.

I've been there too, really messes with a person. Keeping that mask up is exhausting and at the end of the day there's not much mental energy left over for yourself. Glad you're out of it, what a terrible industry. I hope to see you again @pepega , because I agree with all the things said by @BooksandTrees. I see a lot of myself from when I was younger in the things you write so I'm cheering for you lol.

Day 15 Still failing at quitting coffee, almost entirely due to boredom in the early part of the day. I need to figure out a way to include relapses in my 'I quit x by...' thing. My wife has also been trying to quit and she agreed to take the decaf we have out of the house next week, so I think that will be my turning point. It just messes with my anxiety too much. I can notice a difference in myself even later in the day depending on whether I had a coffee or not. Maybe I'm caffeine sensitive, or just overthinking it, I don't know. All I know is that the more bored version of myself is a higher level of average comfort than the version of myself that gives in to cravings and then feels anxious. I've noticed that self-improvement can quickly become a very deep rabbit hole. There are so many things I want to work on. I was using a brain training app for a bit but it felt too game-y. I've got Duolingo going 15 min/day to try to get some of my French skills back. I'm also now trying to become a better speaker. And a better writer. And continue meditating, exercising, stretching. It can feel overwhelming, and hard to chose which is best to spend the time on. I think that maybe working on getting rid of the idea that I'll ever complete any one thing might be helpful. Instead just try to think of it as an ongoing lifelong process. Yeah, that sounds like something someone who has their shit together would say. /nod Today should be pretty good. It's the first day where the temperature is above 5C (all the way up to a high of 10!), so my main goal is to finish a project I've got half done outside. Chance of snow soon. Probably only got a week or two left and I've still got a couple things to do that I need a clear and relatively dry ground for. Here's to cold, frozen hands!

Thanks for following along @codepants, it has meant a lot. I agree 100%

2-Week Review and Summary

The number one factor of my success so far has been to commit all out. I had never deleted my games because it takes like a full day to redownload them on my shitty satellite internet and I always wanted to moderate my use instead of quitting all out Deleting them was crucial though.. Not having them easily accessible got me through those moments of cravings where I literally (@codepants) had no control over my actions. I never told anybody my intention to quit because I didn’t want them to see me fail. Not only do I not intend to fail, I have realized that hiding that vulnerability from people I care about, and who care about me, creates a gap between us. It is better to share in both the success and the failures even if they are embarrassing. If you’re spending the rest of your life with someone you can’t hide all your embarrassing moments. I’ve also never joined a community like this before. It has been more helpful than I would have anticipated. It makes my actions feel more consequential. There’s also power in seeing similarities between the stories; being able to predict where someone else ends up because you’ve felt/done the same, and to see where you will end up if you follow some else’s trend. Finally, the community has helped me acknowledge my addiction. When you see yourself reflected in other people who are also struggling it really shines a light on the common denominator. Below is a summary of what I’ve noticed from reviewing the last two weeks of my journal. Days 1-3 These were the hardest emotionally. I was all over the place and trying to trick myself into thinking I was better than I was by constantly going through things I was proud of. This has been something I’ve noticed has declined a lot since I’ve quit. In games I was always the hero. I tried to carry that identity into my real life and it was forced. I’ve come to better accept a more comfortable and realistic attitude towards who I am. That doesn’t mean limiting who I could be, just acknowledging that I’m not there yet and that the process takes time There was also a lot of craving for the state of flow that gaming gives you so well. I still miss that. It’s one of the points of life to me. I haven’t been able to get it anywhere else yet. Days 4-7 My cravings seemed to be on the beginning of a decline in here. I was still triggered if I saw something that reminded me of games, but I wasn’t constantly on the cusp of loading something up and using my willpower all day like I was before. A lot of heavy depression in here. I couldn’t feel anything. Key part of this stage seemed to be replacing the gaming habit with something else. I bounced around a lot and noticed that I was spending too much time on reddit and such. That was something dangerous that I wanted to keep an eye on. Ended up using Leechblock on the laptop and taking the apps off of my phone. Eventually, a good book was the replacement that stuck. I did a few sessions of reaching my max of reading, and a couple where I went beyond that max. We all know that feeling of when you are gaming and you hit a point where it is becoming less fun in that session but we still keep going to chase that high. I was reaching that point with reading, but it is so much easier to just walk away from it for a bit. The difference between an addictive and less-addictive activity eh? Days 7-14 The changes were coming more slowly at this point. I take that as a good sign that I am beginning to stabilize. I felt happy for the first time at Day 8. My writing became less emotional. I think that’s probably because I became less emotional. I’m thinking, again, that that’s a good thing. A ‘you have to tear it down before you can rebuild it’ type of situation. I feel less impulsive and distracted, but still depressed. I am happier with how I spend my time. I’ve gotten back to work (albeit at a very slow pace). I am more able and willing to spend time with my wife that’s not optimized for my 100% enjoyment. I do things that she wants and try to practice just being present and engaged. I feel like a stable and healthy relationship is built more on the everyday interactions of just normal life than it is on the spectacular high moments. I didn’t have the time or patience when I was gaming for the slower pace that those everyday interactions required. I told her about my joining this community and commitment to quit gaming. I felt embarrassed. I don’t think she understood how much it was affecting me/us. She offered support but I told her she’s been dealing with this a long time and that she’s been great. Thinking back to how the relationship was during my binge times, and seeing gaming-addict-spouses posting on r/stopgaming, I honestly can’t believe she stuck around. I’m amazingly grateful for that. Conclusion I am still not ‘cured’, and never will be. Gaming predatorily targets aspects of my personality that are core to who I am. Knowing that, I know that I cannot game. I feel like my relapse risk is low atm. I think that my next big things to watch out for will be when big games come out and become popular in culture and among my friends. There will be heavy temptation to just try it out. And then the temptation to git gud. There’s always another big game, though, and the evidence so far has shown me that if gaming is in my life at all it will take full hold of me the moment something big and stressful happens in real life that I feel the need to escape. Those are the times I need to be present the most.

Welcome and congratulations on making the commitment. Procrastination and escapism seem like common reasons to end up here. Definitely something you'll want to keep an eye on as you go forward. Things like how you feel towards gaming when you are in stressful parts of your life and how the structure of your working days change as you move away from games. Good to start working on it. Great thing about university is that each semester is a fresh-ish start 😉 Imagine how it'll be next one if you can get your habits under control during this.

That's an idea that's come up a bunch in my meditation practice, thanks for that! It's so true too, I often find when I'm feeling off that it helps to just start cutting out the extra stuff in life. Get back down to the bare self. Oh and I'm excited to check out that video. Facebook is just blocked for me during the day so I'll look tonight. Day 14 My morning got thrown off by a morning meeting. It wasn't even that early but it made it so that I didn't have enough time to do my full morning routine. Now I feel very thrown off. The price of sleeping in. Same as a lot of other bad habits, it's fine until it isn't. As much as I complain about how boring morning routines are, turns out they also just absolutely make my day better. Patrick Bet David on youtube (yeah he can be a lot but he gets me pumped up sometimes) once talked about the day as a mountain and that what you accomplish in a day depends on how high you can get in the morning. Also the idea that you want to climb high early so that the rest of your day is at a better, more enjoyable pace. I like that. Right now my days feel crammed. On a more positive note, two weeks clean! I'm going to do a full reflection in the accomplishments area and go through my old topics to get a feel for how I've progressed. I'll edit and put the link in here when I'm done. Gonna have a cup of decaf while I do it cause I feel like poop. I still count decaf as coffee, so I'm not happy about that, but yeah I'm going to anyways for no reason I can justify. I also just finished my first ever 10 day meditation streak. I've now got 29 hours logged on the Headspace app alone, which blows my mind a bit. I bought in after halfway through the 'Managing Anxiety' pack a year or two ago after it improved my life in such an obvious way that even I couldn't miss it. I was in a big group meeting which always triggers my anxiety. This time I noticed it rising and flashed a visualization technique and it completely changed the path of the rest of my day. I was calmer than I normally would have been, therefore able to deal better with a stressful situation that came up in the meeting, therefore avoided something negative that would've eaten away at me for a long time. Meditation works folks, and I can't recommend Headspace enough for people new to it. The $75 or whatever a year costs is absolutely worth a more comfortable mental state. Now to cancel that all out with a cup of coffee. Zoom!

Day 13 (double counted 11) Yesterday was good. Spent the early part of the day organizing my notes for a paper I had been working on prior to the Great October Gaming Binge. It feels good getting back to it, annoying how far behind I am than if I hadn't stopped, and a bit disheartening at how much slower I am at working through the information. It'll take time to get back into the rhythm. What a monstrosity of a word, rhythm, It has no right being that long without a real vowel. Anyways, the afternoon I listened to and helped evaluate the Honours students projects. It was great. I like seeing the students who have discovered something they enjoy. This cohort had such an extra challenge with the covid restrictions. Imagine trying to plan an experiment where you have to check in on something, or do some manipulation, at certain time intervals (while often taking 3-4 other classes) and expecting at any point the university could just shut down. The students going through school now are definitely going to have a unique skillset. Slept in today. The rest of my days are actually pretty decent these days, it's just the damn mornings. Starting every day off with a fail is so frustrating. I have no idea why my body feels like it needs 10 hours of sleep. I think I've narrowed down the main triggers for my bad/addictive habits: Boredom, Procrastination, and Escapism. Next step is to figure out how to deal with those feelings better than I have been in the past. Cool line in the book I'm reading that I relate to quite a bit, and I think others here might as well. The author is struggling with her conflicting desires for a traditional and non-traditional life and she goes to someone for advice. For reference, she turns out to be amazingly talented academically. But the person she goes to for advice was not the popular professor. It was a "quiet, soft-spoken man [...] with a serious expression" The man thought about her problem and dropped this gem: " First find what you are capable of, then decide who you are" That's such a great line, delivered at the right time to help someone with a lot of potential to pursue it. I loved it because I feel like a lot of the people we are exposed to who are obviously headed for success are those with big, public personalities and strong social media presences. The professor that gave the author that advice does not seem to be that type of person but he still mattered. I am so much more comfortable with the idea of me having a genuine impact as a quiet, soft-spoken person in the right spot at the right time than any impact I might have if I continue trying to awkwardly force my personality to be something I'm not. It seems dishonest.

Overactive negative brain stuff is the worst. Hopefully your meditation helps with that! Expect it to take forever though lol. Gives hope at least that someday thing will be easier.

All good @pepega I think I understand that. There's a lot of negative attitude towards people who are all talkers and don't actually do anything. I've also heard that you can almost feel like you've accomplished progress towards a goal by saying it out loud, even though nothing has actually been done. Sometimes it's fun if you can find the right person to share your goals and dreams with though, like when they are supportive and excited for you.