Lampshade

Day 11 Managed to get up at a much better time this morning even though I couldn't get to sleep last night. Tried some sleep music on Spotify but it wasn't engaging enough to stop me from thinking, tried a meditation sleepcast on Headspace but that wasn't working either, then put on my audiobook of Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson and it did the trick, like it almost always does. I have no idea what I'm going to do for sleep when I finish this series because it's basically a lullaby to me at this point. That sounds awful, they're really good books, but they're also huge so you can listen to like a half hour of it and nothing much will really happen so it's not a big deal if you drift off. Shallan is my homegirl, and sometimes when I'm doing research I pretend I'm a scribe for Jasnah Kholin. She wouldn't stand for no nonsense gaming during work hours. Speaking of work hours, I set a blocker on my browser for reddit and facebook to try to help me stay focused today. It comes on in ten minutes, so going to try to keep this short. I'm using Leechblock because it's free and way easier to use than ColdTurkey. Seems pretty simple to override, but I'm hoping that the extra step at least makes me more mindful of what I'm doing. I feel like I'm less likely to avoid work by scrolling if I have to admit to it beforehand. Today should be a pretty good start to the week. It's my first week that I feel like I'm going back to attempting a normal life since the issues with dog and subsequent gaming binge a little over a month ago. I was in a really good place for making progress on my goals, stress levels, and just feeling like a decent version of myself prior to that and at that point I was still knocking off early and gaming for 2 hours or so everyday. I'm excited to see where I can get to this time. I picked up a planner and started structuring my days ahead of time again. Wrote down the important dates I got coming up. Organized my to-do list a little better. Just feeling more engaged and ready for real life than I have in a while. Ironically, (I hate the pressure to use that word correctly these days), I also spent 15 mins this morning salivating over the new Magic: The Gathering Online layout. That was another game I spent a lot of time playing at one point and I get hit with an ad showing that the layout no longer looks like it was made for Windows 95. It's not really a video game. At least That's what I said while hovering my mouse over the download button. But the online version fills that same role for me. I think the irl version would be better, at least then I'd be socializing, but it's a 45 min commute to town. Also I'm I'm still shy (at 30).

Happy to see this @pepega. What's your degree in?

If you miss the joist it should be pretty obvious, assuming the ceiling is drywall or sheetrock or whatever they call it where you're at and assuming you're putting it in by hand instead of a drill. Even still if it's what I'm picturing, like hooks or an eye hole, slowly putting your own weight on it should start to bow down the drywall if you missed. It'll also unscrew without much resistance. Then you've just got a hole to patch up, usually can just use a tube of something made for nail holes. There's studfinders you can buy, and they are spaced either 16 or 24 inches apart where I'm at. All that said, I was never any good at finding them or patching the holes leftover. Hope you're better lol. With the gaming, one thing to notice is that these cravings are coming at a time when you're probably feeling pretty vulnerable, assuming the relationship stuff is still on the back of your mind. How was Hillbilly Elegy? I'm about 3/4 through Educated by Tara Westover and Hillbilly Elegy seems to be one of the recommended next reads.

Dude I'm proud of you for holding on. Not just the games, but sticking with what you think is best for you. I know that doesn't mean anything when shit like that is going on. I just feel like I'm in your corner, especially as another guy who doesn't want kids. That sucks what you're going through. The bag might be a bit much to mount in a ceiling. Might be able to get away with a big screw with an eye hole on one end put straight through the center of the ceiling joist. It'd be better if you could somehow anchor it to a couple different joists. I guess things might be different in an apartment too, I've only ever done stuff like that in houses.

Day 11 ooo fancy forum upgrade. Yesterday was a nice day around town. We got some nicer artwork at the thrift store and I bought a new outfit. Also got a coffee but ended up dumping 3/4 of it out. I could feel myself slipping away. When I was a kid, maybe like 12-14, I had friends who smoked weed or drank. At that point I was still sober. I remember someone asking me why I don't do anything like with them. I replied that I didn't like the feeling of not being in control. I don't think I ever really felt safe enough to let go like that. Anyways, that little kid had smarts. The urge to game has been coming less and less but it's still there. Even just writing about it makes my chest tighten and breathing change. Other than that, I feel bored and depressed. I don't feel much emotionally when I think about the things I am supposedly looking forward to doing. I could probably use therapy but I have no idea how somebody without a well-paying job affords that. Even with benefits, only 4 sessions are covered. If this goes on for another couple weeks I may bite the bullet and go (further) into debt for it. I'm assuming it's just related to the dopamine problem of games. I do have depression and anxiety issues but the meds I've gotten before from my doctor for them all seem like they have addiction potential with harsh withdrawal symptoms. This experience with gaming aside, I've already quit a bunch of different substances that I've been varying levels of addicted to. I really don't want to add a new one in. But I do feel much more stable. More focus. Still sleeping way too much. Today I'd like to read and write a bunch. educated has turned out to be a fantastic book. One of those non-fiction books that feels more dramatic than fiction. I've also got a book to help with character development. I'm hoping that building fictional characters will satisfy some of the feeling that I used to get from building and trying out new characters in rpgs., but the weather is turning and at some point I should get outside and do some yardwork. The longer I put it off the colder it will be doing it.

Day 10 Run went well yesterday and I have a full day planned for today. Also Day 3 of no coffee (though I may have one later), 6 Days of meditation in a row. I also have a pretty good morning routine that gets all my daily hygiene and stretching taken care of, that's been really nice to have. All these daily routines make the days so boring though. Hoping everyone makes it through the weekend okay. I know I would just love to relax for a full day and indulge. Oh and I looked a bit into selling my steam account. Even if I could get 100-200 for it, that's a lot of money for me right now. I may even be able to insulate my shed so that I don't freeze working out in it this winter, or use it to try the stock market, or more books!. Anybody have experience selling a steam account? Imagine I just have to remove all personal and billing info.

@ceponatia I think you're spot on with what you've written. I've also seen similarities in others stories, so many that I've lost count. It was easier to pretend I had things under control before I started seeing parts of myself in other people who also struggle with this and other addictions. Thanks for the reply. I appreciate the perspective of who has been at this long-term.

Day 9 Recheck appointment for my dog went well. We've avoided the harsher medication that I was worried about. He's still got a bunch of other problems but that stuff is due to age and underlying problems. This evening and weekend would normally be a bunch of gaming. It's nice not having that there. Whenever I gamed for an entire weekend the time flew by and I often didn't feel like I had enough. How can 12+ hours not be enough? Looking at it from the scope of other hobbies, that's crazy. Instead I have a relay race scheduled with my partner for this afternoon. Tomorrow we're going to head into the thrift store and pick out some house stuff and a fun outfit, and I'm finally going to get my degrees framed. The rest of the time I plan on reading, writing, and doing some work in my shed. It feels like a much more fulfilling way of living. I saw somebody on r/stopgaming got rid of their steam account. I still have mine. Realizing that (and not acting on it) is a great reminder that I am still an addict. I've got so much respect for the long-term people across all addictions. It seems like it gets to a point where your brain doesn't remember the bad times anymore, and instead it just feels like you are pointlessly depriving yourself of something fun. For years/the rest of your life. Day 9 and I'm like 'it's probably fine!' But as soon as I think that I go straight to desires to binge. There's always the feeling that maybe someday I'll be able to moderate but I'm not sure when I'd ever be able to tell if it was okay.

Day 8 Hit a milestone yesterday, first time I felt genuinely happy since quitting. I had just gotten back from a run. It was brief but the first natural smile I have had in a long time. I was surprised, and then surprised I was surprised lol. I guess you don't really know how low your baseline mood has gotten until you are surprised at a feeling of joy. God I want a coffee. Today is the recheck appointment for my dog. His illness, and my inability to effectively care for it, was the main reason I quit gaming 8 days ago. He's gotten better but still hasn't fully recovered from the fungal infection. The next step is a harsher medication. Not ideal for an old dog with other problems. Those other problems are still there, too, underneath the more immediate one. There's a movie I watched a while ago that I don't remember much of. Something about a tree monster and a boy whose mother was dying (dieing? how do I write that). The point of the movie was for the boy to admit a secret about the situation. He said something like 'I just want it to be over.' I loved that moment. It's such a beautifully human thing to express. To be able feel two contradicting emotions, like love and selfishness, at once. No wonder we're so often a mess lol. Oh, and I watched a Hunger Games movie last night with my partner. There was a line relevant to this forum. 'It takes ten times as long to build yourself back up as it does to tear yourself down.'

Day 7 1 week mark. Woop woop. Yesterday was the first day I did a near-normal work day. Once I got into the rhythm of it, it was fine (rhythm is a monstrosity of a word spelled out). My focus is improving I think, but not by much. Motivation is still pretty low, and I am sleeping a lot. My brain seems to have given up a little on trying to get me to impulsively game. Having everythign uninstalled has been great for that. I hate how popular Among Us is right now and how often I see a button telling me to download it. I hate how social it supposedly is, and how that is one of the main things I am missing right now. Yesterday I decided I was going to quit coffee as well. A foolish, 'too-much-coffee' inspired decision. As it stand right now, though, I have already gotten rid of all coffee in the house and it is about a 30km walk through the woods to the nearest store. Hmm, so there is a chance of getting another cup after all. I wanted to write about a couple times I had encountered addiction during times when I was relatively healthy. One, when I was about 20, was a neighbor to a place I had just moved into. He had inherited his mom's house and was a welder by trade. However, he didn't take a single job the year I lived there. He did drink a lot though. He knocked on my door once at like 4am, drunk, looking for a drive somewhere. I remember being shocked at him not understanding how inappropriate that was. I also remember him bragging about how there was never any dirty dishes in his sink and thinking 'dude, that's all you have to do in a day'. He was trying to get another place, and I heard the seller telling him in a tone normally used for children, that he would have a better chance if he got a job. Another was when I was working as a cab driver during my undergrad. I delivered some alcohol to another cab driver's apartment on his day off. The place was dark in the middle of the day and smelled like vomit and uncleaned litter boxes. I was bringing him a big bottle, and he had already put down some. The man was friendly, as if he was having a fantastic time. I see myself in both of those cases. Gaming addiction presents itself differently, but there are similar trends. A main one seems to be the denial that anything is wrong. I've written a lot lately about how I went on a 3-week binge immediately before quitting. Even before that, though, for years I would take a day or two off from doing anything every week and instead just watch porn, smoke weed, play video games. How could I possibly think I would present as a normal functioning human after days like that? A part of me knew I couldn't, so I would try to hide myself. Video games were always there for that as well. And after a while they felt like the only thing I could do.

I quit multiplayer games about 6 months ago when they caused something bad to happen in my life and things were better. My single-player game usage slowly rose and a month ago I went on a 3-week binge, something bad happened again because of that, and I quit completely 6 days ago. If games are in my life at all they are too tempting of an escape for me when life gets difficult. It's been a rough quit, but I'm very slowly catching up on the things that I neglected during that latest binge. It's amazing how much work it takes to just get back to normal.

This has been key for me too. I remember seeing someone post a screenshot in the discord of them deleting their steam. It was hard to tell them how it was the right move without doing it myself. It'd be hypocritical. I get the feeling of rationalizing too. The productive-ness from video games isn't real, though. At least in real life there's the potential to be actually productive. It's still early days so I think that as long as you aren't playing, you are in a way being productive. There's a book I like, based on a lecture series, called The Willpower Instinct. Here is a podcast episode about the author talking about it. In the book, she talks about seperiating willpower into "I-will-power" (as in 'I will do this everyday') and "I-won't-power" ('I won't do that'), and how they are two separate skills. As long as you are resisting video games, you are strengthening your "I-won't-power". I also think that you need some time to get back to a normal baseline. It's hard to be productive when your energy and focus has been sucked into games. I's going to take some time to begin to recover that and have it available for other things.

Same thing happened to me my first attempt. Didn't even last 24 hours before going on a heavy binge. I didn't end up in the hospital thankfully though lol. Getting rid of everything has absolutely been crucial to making it through the early days. Grats on that. And also on the social media purge.

Your run number are insane, grats on that. Endurance running actually seems to be one of the few sports that you can maintain with age. So many of the ultra-marathon people are like 35+. I was following Courtney Daulwater for a bit a couple months ago and she was attempting something like 700k in 7 days. She made it 500k in 5 days before having to stop and ended up in the hospital. That was 2 months ago. Then I got notified yesterday about this crazy race that's going where they have an hour to run a ~7k lap over and over and the last person standing wins. She's in it. They've been running since Saturday lol. She's 36. I get what you're saying about the other things you should be doing than training though. I've felt the same when I was going hard. It's not even just workout time anymore, it's also stretching and physio. All that adds up. I was definitely starting to feel like I was using exercise as a way to procrastinate or hide from life. It was easy to justify because it's healthy. Sometimes when I reach that point, I'll switch my routine so that I'm just doing enough to maintain my current level in the morning, and then extra stuff I don't do until I've done my other work. Do you rank the things that you feel like you should be doing instead of running as a higher priority than exercise? About sleep, I've been listening to fiction audiobooks for about half an hour in bed before bedtime. Sometimes helps. That and the meditation apps have packs to help with sleep. I still wake up like times a night though, and end up sleeping in way too late

Day 6 Tidied up my office some yesterday and last night. Put my mechanical keyboard up for sale, but I'm kinda hoping it doesn't sell. Even though I'm committed to no more gaming it's still so much nicer to type on. I'm using a cheap regular keyboard now to write this and it's like running in mud. I've gotten spoiled. I wanted to sell off my gaming laptop as well and buy something without a gpu in it but I'd end up losing like $500+ trying to get something with equivalent specs but without a gpu. I can't downgrade my specs because the stuff I do for work is pretty resource heavy. I can't put together a desktop to replace it cause I need to be mobile, again for work. Oh well, it was a nice thought. I found my controller in a drawer and it brought back memories of easy days just sitting on the couch playing games all day. Made me really want to. It'd feel so good to just stop trying. I must've fluffed the sheet like 30 times this morning when making the bed because my head was thinking about gaming. It's almost funny, if it wasn't so stressful, how much control an inanimate object can have. When I found the controller I realized that I should just give it away. Why hold onto it, if I had decided to never use it? It's like a part of my brain just started screaming in resistance and I had to put the controller back in the drawer and stop considering getting rid of it in order to quiet my head. I have a friend that I have some other stuff to drop off to probably this weekend. I feel like I have to whisper this so that my brain doesn't hear, or some such nonsense, but I'm going to give it away then. Just can't think about it too much. In DOS2 there's a character that repeats that line over and over in a meme-worth way. "I'm alright, as long as I don't think about it too much". That's me right now. Still haven't started working yet, but I've been relatively productive. I's amazing how quickly you can fall behind on just everyday chores and such. Three weeks of doing nothing seems to take the same amount of time to catch back up. Cleaning, tidying, laundry. Yeah. One thing I've noticed is that I need to be careful about my screen time. I've been spending more time than I want to just browsing youtube, reddit, etc. It was okay at first because I was thinking that anything other than games is a step in the right direction but now it's just starting to become a problem of its own.

@TheNewMe2.0@MartinofProbably a good idea. Gonna take the advice. Day 5 This has been an interesting experience so far. My head keeps flipping between thinking that I'm not addicted and just being dramatic, and obviously addicted. One thing I've noticed, though, is seeing things in other people's stories and thinking 'well that's not healthy', immediately followed by 'I do that too'. I think teeth grinding was the latest one. Sometimes when I'm thinking about games and how free'ing it would be to just give up on this whole commitment, and my goals, my jaw clenches right up and my neck tightens (Exhibit A). It's also pretty sobering to be thinking "I'm good!" when it is literally day 5 and just a few days ago I was having near mental breakdowns. I did notice a trend. Saturday was the day where I was craving an escape, and I think Friday was the day that I got put on a new work project. Maybe procrastination is linked to my addiction to games? Gaming is definitely an effective way to procrastinate, and playing first thing in the morning was my favorite (and most shameful) time to play. I don't do that anymore, but it's created a new problem that I now need to solve: I've got no reason to wake up in the morning and end up sleeping more than I want to. The work I do is great in the freedom it gives me ( no set schedule or anyone checking in), but that freedom requires a lot of self-discipline. I was never good at self-discipline over a long term. Picked up a few books yesterday. One was Stephen King writing about writing and another was a book about building better characters. Despite it stroking my WoW fires, I did enjoy writing the other day. It's a way to get away from real life for a bit, but not something I can spend 8 hours every day doing (unless....). Kidding, but I am going to assume that it will be a healthier distraction. I don't feel the same need for it like I do games. There was also a self-help book (Think like a Monk). Normally I listen to audiobooks for self-help because I can usually get them free and do other things at the same time, but it's more difficult to remember, reflect, and reexamine them that way. The last book I got was Education. The story seems interesting to me, someone from an uneducated rural area finding success through education. Hoping it makes me more excited again for my own education. I've also got a Joe Abercombie book on the go but it's really just something to pick up once in a while. The whole book seems like it's just a big battle, which is fine but doesn't hold my interest the same way it once would have. Edit Forgot to mention something important. My wife has been excited about this new painting technique ('Dirty Pour') for a while now, and last night I joined her to try it out. It was nice, and looking back on the pictures makes me smile. If I had been gaming regularly I most like would have said "I think I'm just going to play video games tonight." At best I would have been distracted, rushed, and definitely would not have helped with clean-up. I still don't feel like a full version of myself but I've stopped trying to pretend I am. Which is good, I think. Mine looks like a space squid cause I f'd it up in the beginning lol. It was more just a way to spend time with her than anything else. It was less exciting than gaming, but a more lasting kind of fun. I'm glad we did it. Here they are.

Day 4 Was going through the process of changing the sheets on the bed this morning and had that feeling I typically get when I am daydreaming about gaming, except I wasn't. My head was just empty, but I was also ..whatever the opposite of present is. That's fine for now though. I'm glad I got through yesterday. Ended up writing some fiction from the perspective of my WoW characters and that seemed to help get some of that feeling back that I've been craving so much. II used to write a lot of fantasy as a kid (i.e. steal other's). University kinda killed that, and my ability to read fiction. Not sure if it's a good idea to start back up writing in this style again. On the one hand, it is a creative outlet that can get me some of that feeling I craved from before. On the other hand, it keeps the feeling and memories present in my life. Thoughts? Today my wife is home, so relapse chance is low. I'm thinking I'm going to head into town just to get out of the house for a bit. Being out in the country with not much to do sounds romantic, but even an introvert like me gets cabin fever lol. I'd like to get better at being around people. @giblets You're right. There's much better ways to spend that energy. It's one of my main reasons for quitting @Martinof Thanks for the suggestions. I love me some Einaudi. Contemporary piano as a whole is one of my go-to chill evening playlists. Just checked out that Youtube channel, looks awesome

I'm hopeful that someday soon I can find that for myself again. Right now it all feels like poor caricatures of the feeling I described above, and it's always so short. I don't have a tv atm and feel like I can't afford one. Maybe I should just go for it anyways. I work on my laptop and monitor all day, so I get sick of staring at it. What are you listening to for music? I listened to an album of metal last night and it did give me a bit of the feeling we're talking about, but it also was linked to my adventures in WoW, and probably was what triggered the need to write this all out.

Day 3 supplement It’s a rainy day, I’m home alone and I miss WoW, so I’m going to write about it. My favorite days were those where the internet was working well and it was dark outside. Late at night was great too. Throw on headphones and some music. Log in. Say “!” to my friends. Beat on a training dummy for a bit to get warmed up. Queue for a battleground. It pops and join a match. The first few were always the best. I used to play basketball competitively as a kid and there were moments in a game where your body and mind just took over and everything came naturally, smoothly, confidently. You do amazing things, completely unplanned. WoW could turn those moments into minutes. The match would start and there would be an opening charge. You could get a feel for your team by how they ran in those opening moments. Then you would see the enemy team and could again get a feel for them. The two meet and the best matches were those where they were fairly evenly matched. A full on battle-line with flanks and everything. It was beautiful. I played shadow priest a lot so I’d spend a few seconds getting DoTs up. Then you figure out the weak spots in the enemy group and push, while backing up your own. A button was pressed every .7 sec., or whatever the global cooldown was for that character, at a steady rhythm. I’d love when you would be 1v1 somebody who didn’t have that rhythm down, or would pick the wrong spell, and you knew it would be an easy fight. I can still remember my opening for bg: 2, tab, 2, tab, 2, 4, 3, 4, 3, 3 (if healer in range) shift + e, (find kill target) q, q, 4, q, 3, q , 4. Then came improvisation and cc, so different spells. Doing an awkward combo on a keyboard in a set small window of time, like “e, 4, q, r, Shift + 3, r” is like a dance. It’s the same feeling I used to get from being locked in with basketball, but don’t anymore because of a lack of people to play with, age, where I live, and my own social awkwardness. Arena had another flavour of that same feeling. My favorite moments were playing 2v2 with my best friend. Him going down, me finishing off the other guy and being low health but then outplaying my opponent even with a shit tonne of lag with your best friend watching. God that feeling of euphoria man. It’s hard to give that up for anything. So yeah, I’m struggling. These thoughts and feelings are in my mind all of the time. When I’m alone, when I’m interacting with others. Doesn’t matter. No, I don’t want to learn a new language. No, I don’t want to scratch shaky lines on a page and try to feel some sense of accomplishment. I already work out like 1-2 hours a day, meditate 2 x 10 min., regular yoga, eat well, sleep well, have a career I enjoy when my mental state is good, marriage, garden, walk, read, write. None of it makes it stop. All I want is to feel that feeling. I’m not relapsing. But I am constantly screaming into the silence of my own head with a pleasant (if distracted) look on my face.

I've had friends who have tried to quit who find the early days the easiest (def not me lol). They get all optimistic and are energetic to start their new life, but that wears off quickly and they are left with the reality of boredom/difficulty finding joy in new hobbies. Is that your experience too? If not, what generally causes your relapse? Good luck, hope you make it through the weekend and it's enjoyable

Day 3 I've really put quite a bit of time into the communities around quitting gaming (they've been a great distraction for the moments and it's hard to want to after engaging with others trying to quit). It's been surprising to me how helpful it's been because I am normally such an introverted person. I don't have any social circle at all. Just my wife and one friend, who is a bad influence. The idea that I have joined support groups for addiction does not fit at all with who I thought I was. The reality, though, is that it's absolutely been helpful for me to have a sympathetic audience and to be exposed to more of the problem. Addiction is such a wide-ranging spectrum. There are people who are struggling with the 1-3 hours/day they are gaming, others like me who have had gaming put them on a destructive trajectory, and others who have never managed to get on a positive one. I still struggle with the thought that I am addicted, especially when reading stories of people who are in worse situations than myself. Despite my addiction, I have a good life. Most of the time I am unable to enjoy it (which just feeds the shame), but at least the background to my struggles are private, relatively stable, and I have accomplished things I am proud of. I think another part of my resistance comes from learning how long the path towards recovery actually is. My brain tells me '90+ days to feel better? what if games aren't even the problem? That's such wasted effort' Anyways, yesterday I didn't get the office cleaned because it was a nice day and I worked some more on putting together that shelter for my plow. I also read outside in the sun a bit. I remember various points throughout my life of feeling like that was my favorite thing in the world to do. These days it kinda just feels like I am going through the motions. Like setting something down in a situation and being like 'Okay, you are now ...happy!', and then being surprised when nothing happens. I'd like to start writting fantasy again, like I did when I was a kid. I'm a bit afraid to though because that idea of creating is the same feeling I get when creating a character in an rpg. Same argument for starting dnd as a hobby. Oh, and a grant that I had been waiting on came through, so I have a week or two of paid research work to do. Again, no supervision or external pressure at all besides the end deliverable (which won't even be looked at for months), so hopefully I can focus. I'm very grateful for starting this quitting journey when I did because the thought of trying to research while feeling the way I feel now is not a fun prospect. I still feel like my head is not in it, but hopefully it'll be a little better by Monday. Thanks for existing and giving me a place to share this story. Putting it out there makes the commitment so much more real.

Relationships are tough. I don't think that being honest and open necessarily fixes things but at least brings people closer together. At least now you won't have to feel guilty and drained from trying to hide your unhappiness. My neck is also messed up, probably from too much time on the computer. Years of physio. Hopefully yours isn't as bad.

Good luck! I'll be interested to hear how you feel as you get through the weekend.

Day 2 Right now I feel like the chances of me relapsing are low, but my mental state is a mess. I can't hold a conversation for more than a few minutes. I can't follow one for more than 5 or ten. My brain feels like it's constantly searching for something, like it's trying to remember something it forgot. All day and night. I keep expecting it to go away and just relax, but it doesn't. It's like there's a mental hangnail or something that I can't stop picking at. I slept for like 11 hours last night because I felt like I had nothing to look forward to in the day, no reason to get out of bed. And still that feeling is there. Yes, I've gotten back into meditating. Previous experience has shown me it takes a few weeks to notice a difference though. No, I can't afford therapy, and local free options have a 6-month wait time. In the meantime I am this miserable portion of a human. One of the things that makes this difficult, and one of the reasons why I'm grateful for this community, is that I don't have much in the real world that I can share this with. I've gotten very good over the years of hiding what I'm going through in terms of addiction. Even when I was binging I would spend an hour or two first thing in the mornings taking care of the things that would make it seem like I had my shit taken care of: walk the dogs, tidy up, workout, shower, shave ...then sit on the couch and game until an hour or so before my wife gets home. Then I'd do the same thing, have supper ready for her, etc. If I was feeling particularly bad, or had smoked weed during the day, I would find some excuse to hide. Either exercise some more or go for a walk. I think viewed from the outside I looked productive and healthy, but inside my head is in turmoil. I moved my laptop back into my office; it had been on the couch for the past few weeks. Hopefully that will make it more likely that I'll get back to work. I have so many projects and ideas that I was excited about at one point in time, now I'm just afraid of the effort that they require. Going to try to tidy up the office and get organized again today. Yesterday I worked on getting a tent up to store the bike I use for plowing the driveway (Pic1). If I can get it up before the snow comes it frees up my shed for a workout area. Starting to get cold and wet working outside though. Normally this would take me an afternoon, Now in an afternoon I only got the roof put together. But that's more than I've done in the last month I've been saying I would do it. Also mowed the lawn for probably the last time this year (Pic 2). The changing of the seasons definitely has an impact on my mood as well.

Thanks for the welcome and the reply Codepants. I feel like I've hit all the basics for hobbies. Like I do all the things they tell me should help. I'm sure they do, but the reality is that I'm still struggling. I guess the benefit is that when I do finally get over this I'll be a better person than if my hobbies were worse? As it is now, I'm fit and physically healthy, but my mental state is a mess. Thanks for the suggestion on the hobby. Canadian nature is great. I think we have something like 12+ provinces and territories? I've been to the highest point of 4 so far. Traveling is just such a hard thing to do as a broke student. We haven't really gone anywhere in the past 4 years or so as the dogs health has started to go down. They've been in the country for a while now and aren't the kind of dogs you can just drop off at a daycare type place. When they do pass we've made it a commitment to get back to traveling.