Marius

@devtai I can totally relate: When I don't play games my addiction just shifts to consuming multimedia content. That can be porn, YouTube, series, news, just anything that gets me excited. I love Andrew Kirby's take on the matter: maybe that helps you

Day 1 again.. I relapsed and fell back to old habits. I'm going to read through respawn again and just try to keep my destructive thoughts st bay. I signed up for some facultative lectures at my uni today but finding my commitment and strength again is worth more and also more urgent. So I hope that this journey will be my last and everlasting one. Third one is a charm 😉 Off to respawn now. If I feel like giving up/in or need some reflection time with likeminded people ill come back here apart from my - hopefully - daily report.

Why not block the distracting websites for a while? Ask yourself why you need them in that moment and meditate or write a gratitude list for example

Cant find rest, so I'm here again. Goint through a tough time at the moment. Tomorrow is the second and hard exam day and im really badly prepared so might become a bad grade or even worse. That's why I had the brilliant idea to move my text book, written notes and tablet where the PDFs are on into my bed for a couple of minutes. Bad idea. Now i feel restless and I'm on my laptop again writing this journal entry and it's even after 10pm - my preferred bed time. So failed. I hoped to find some inspirational comment here to make me feel like everything is in order but I guess I write too much if im off for a couple of days 😄 I feel pressured to follow through with routines that ultimately would lead me to game again, so beginning after the exams tomorrow I will set up days that will have to work out without technology. This is gonna be boring and that's exactly why I do it. I want to shape my mind again to love doing hard things that I usually would postpone until i wouldnt care about it anymore. This is a toxic attitude that just leads to a stress buildup that ultimately leads me to keep looking for my dopamine on screens rather than real life which is exactly the pathway to hell or to see differently - another failed rehab. That's why I need this change and probably I have to convince my parents that there is no space for me to get my mind in order in the house so I have to drive somewhere, where there is no electronics but only my hard tasks that I hate atm because they seem frustrating and not worth it. My mind is trained to favor quick, dirty pleasures instead of finding fulfillment in hard but long-term successfull tasks. I have the plan to create an addiction folder where I collect all thoughts I have written down to keep my destructive thoughts at bay. These days will be tough and I will learn a lesson about my character and if I'm really capable of living the life of my dreams or if I have no mental shield that can work through those times of cravings. I need my life to matter to me. It's all I have and ever will be. My time is now and I won't waste it. I will push through the negativity in my life and approach my dreams by working towards them and nobody will change my commitment to myself. It is my duty and honorable task to shape myself into that personal ideal that I so long have delayed and excruciated with my short-minded thoughts and actions.

You might consider a dopamine detox, too? You could watch Andrew Kirby's video series on the matter. 10 videos though. They become less important though if you follow the recommend playlist

25.07.21 Ok, so you might be wondering why I can't manage to follow through with the journal. There are two reasons: 1) My addiction is more of the general-dopamine like one. That means that I know that all kind of electronis can trigger me being unproductive and loosing my focus on previously planned goals. For a couple of days I won't use electronics after 8pm anymore which gives me no option to wirte the journal at this point. Because of my sleep deprivation (I'll talk about it) I can't remember all the things from the previous day and also I'm just sluggish atm. So the only remaining option to sum up the day is before 8pm in the evening. This is a rough spot as it competes with post-workout exhaustion, learning spanish, eating or even workout. Should set up a timer. (more on that later) 2) for the past couple of days I was unable to post when I hit the reply button. It seems that an addon in Firefox was blocking it somehow. Still have to figure out which one as I like my addons 😄 Talking about 24.07. I got out of bed at around 6:45am and felt like shit as sleeping remains an issue. This might be a really tough one because if I cant manage to wake up as my alarm clock indicates and be full of energy for a couple of days then I won't be tired in the evening as well. Evenings are the main problem though: can't find rest, feel unfulfilled with my life. For the most of my recent life there was someone there at the time who I could talk to. I broke connections that were toxic too a couple of people, so I'm left with less now. cant really dive into social activites though as I still have three exams remaining tomorrow and the day after. So this I understand and can wrap my head around. There were multiple other factors at work yesterday I think. Being convinced that my big goals should be the main focus I spend most of my work time yesterday to set up and understand Anki better which is a flashcard app mainly used by medical students. This isnt easy work but I could find some interesing ideas. The main target here is to push back against my worsening memory and collect all the missing puzzle pieces I dropped the last few years. Medicine is - as all other sciences - a tree that is only as strong and healthy as the connections and definitions that make up the understanding of a specific subject. So I have to keep my fundamentals checked if I really wanna make progress and use medicine only as a stepping stone to research and financial success. As I lost my job I can't really bring myself to buy important things at the moment because I'm afraid to loose money. So I really have to bring work back into my schedule. Somehow. will focus on the exams first. I worked out every day this week, sometimes more, sometimes less and I think I will keep doing this for a couple of weeks as it builds routine and brings me closer to my target physique. Will adjust which sports to do on which day though. Strength training a couple of days in series won't prove successful in building muscle. Also nutrition has to become better again. Will need new recipies that don't take too much effort. Then count macros. Old fashioned has proven successful in autumn 2019 where I tried to remove electronics from my life for the first time. I'm really unfocused I have the feeling. This is mainly working with my old gaming laptop from 2012 where there are so many hours wasted on games/series/porn/reddit/YouTube/ in general just browsing the web for fun and playing games. I know that this was selfish but I felt like the best I could do at the time. My social skills have to become better I think and also I have to become more optimistic for life. I tend to catastrophize at times. would like to talk to someone then but sometimes no one is around or I become really sensitive and think that this person doesn't listen to me. Yeah don't know. I guess I have to become better at solving my mental issues inside myself. Today will be an exhausting learn day so wish me luck. Also spending time in front of my screen is really the ultimate way to fall back into old habits. That's because I bought my wrist watch so I don't need my phone to check for the time and wont be tempted. I switched my phone to greyscale mode, deleted all stimulating apps from the start screen and put some quotes there instead. This way I should be remembered of mindful use with this device. haven't done so with my laptop though. Youtube is only two clicks away and it feels like this should be my escape from reality. I really have to go into that dopamine detox. Then also YouTube is a valuable website where you can learn a lot of things. Maybe not the best way but one of the best accessible. Sometimes it seems like information really is only there. Like for examples with follow-through videos about programs and so on. So it is really really hard to distinguish between what is addiction/Dopamine indulgence and an escape from the real world into something to turn my head off and don't bother with my life and making progress on it when on YouTube. I would say that using YouTube really is my biggest challenge at the moment. I just had an idea to not show the recommended bar left and right but only the video in the middle. Then also switching off thumbnails in search. This might lead to a boring google search like looking results but that's exactly what I have to do. Then also how can you know if a 10minutes video is worth watching. In general this pushes a sedentary, passive lifestyle where you focus on watching videos. This is exactly what I'd like to escape from. 😄 havent figured out what to do about this. Also I don't think I ever had a healthy relationship with YouTube. Going hardcore and forcing myself to use other websites for information might be a stupid idea as there are definitely some parts where YouTube is king. The solution might be to dedicate a certain amount of time a week on watching YouTube. Apart from that i would be forbidden to spend time on it. This website really is such an easy way to go blank and loose focus on important parts. Also I kinda feel shit afterwards as I used so much time on watching videos with information that could be codensed in much smaller time. Also dopamine indulgence. The best way might be to really switch off YouTube all together. I think I won't use it anymore. Which will be really hard, given how much time I spend/wasted on it. Cam might disagree here as he is a Youtuber to some extent but we all have to find our path to success and YouTube is mine to failure. So I'm breaking up with it. Will spend the next two weeks living without the constant rush of dopamine and passive living. At some times I have the impression that I need a new group of friends that focus on self-improvement the same amount as I do so I can really become free, productive and powerful. I don't know why I fell so insecure around other people but boils down to sharing common rituals that I just don't like or find repulsive. It should be my mission then to cleanse myself of all bad thoughts and become the person I for so long dreamed of becoming. Free from guilt and pain and entrusted with a mission that I love fullfilling. I have a little theophobia which means that I believe in an evil god. satanism? 😄 If you reject that there is this wonderful, perfect existence that is the Christian god, then your belief in a powerful, allmighty yet stupid and sadistic spirit shouldnt be called satanism I think. Also I don't share the beliefs that spirit holds. So now you might ask. "That escalated quickly. Why would you believe in such a thing?" And my answer to that is that having talked with people intensely about their faith and I tried to convince them of atheism I couldnt manage to find a cohesive argument that contradicts the existence of a spirit as described above. Does the mere lack of an argument against its existence substantiate the belief in something? From a scientific point of view, yes it does I think. Everything else is closed mindedness. Then you might ask why would I believe in it if it only means pain to me? Pascal's wager. I know that this means that I deem the consquences of not believing in it worse as to believe in it. It all boils down to fear. I'm afraid of this thing. If anyone can give me a clear argument why all this thinking is pure bullshit, I'd be glad to hear. I'm pulling this thought with myself for a couple of years now and cant get rid of it. 😐 Nevertheless, being able to a least express stupid basic thoughts running through my brain is progress. Next up is learning emergency medicine, rehabilitation and case files from surgery. I have little motivation for them though. Living the life of a doctos seems boring to me. I believe after having aborted a physics studies that the most common path is the wrong path for me. Living an exceptional life requires doing exceptional things. So I better start doing them starting today.

23.07.21 Today I woke up at around 6.15am which counts as success given that the goal was 6am. So far so good. I didn't really know what to do with the time I was gifted waking up so early as working out as planned was a drag as I worked out every day this week 😄 So I just sat in the room and did nothing. The plan was to go to library at 9am but I didn't like to so I stayed in the house where I cleaned and tidied my room. Afterwards I informed myself about the current state of linux distros as I'd like to train myself programming again and linux seems like the natural way to go. Following the decision to use Manjaro/KDE I looked up recipies for workout shakes and decided to borrow spanish and arabic learning books from the local library. Time was running out as I wanted to register and borrow the books before 5pm when my workout group would start. was late to class but it wasnt that much of a problem. heavy workout where I could only partially participate which might on one side be caused by just not being fit at the moment but also the week long training journey. Now im back in my room after shopping for groceries and I warmed up a curry, answered my dad on a chat message and mixed a post-workout shake. I'm not happy with my current situation as I often feel sluggish and unhappy and learning really feels terrible. It seems like there are so many other things in life that seem more pleasant. I really should limit my screen time over all devices more and will go into dopamine detox next week after the exams. I'm a bit stuck at the moment. I'd like to feel rested in the morning, full of energy to learn and make the most of the day but often times I have my energy exhausted really quick and those activities seem uninteresting and tedious. I don't know how I can make myself become motivated again by those things. Furthermore it feels like I really don't like to meet with friends atm as I'm not proud of myself and worry what they might think. Also I'm pondering on who really is a friend. 😄 I installed and again deinstalled Tinder and Bumble as I realized that I'm 1) not that sexy atm 😄 2) mentally too insecure and unstable to engage in anything worthwile. So there will be no sex/masturbation/porn/cams/sexting/dating apps for 30 days starting today. I guess that's what effective NoFap looks like in my case. I will keep working-out and with 4 more weeks and focus on myself and my physique/psyche things should take a turn for the better.

can relate, couldnt sleep, too. I switched from staying up late until 4am playing games to an alarm clock that has a 6:00am written on it for a couple of days now and I couldnt manage to wake on time one day. 6:15am was the closest. I just cant find sleep. dunno. Witch your kids you shouldn't worry too much: When they become older those problems should disappear. Keep that in mind. It's only a temporary problem and one that should solve itself without much intervention. Just make sure that you work towards the same nighttime/morning routine with them that you are on. Make them part of your routine and so you can spend time with them and slowly move towards a better sleep quality for both of you.

@WorkInProgress not sure. I like my parents and brother. I have few friends that I really enjoy being around atm. With those I like their persistence with their goals, their positive outlook on life, discipline, respect for themselves and healthy nighttime routine. Those are not easy things for me to adopt but I should try, you're right

So today I only used my laptop for a total of around 45min and spent most of my time working on Respawn. I should probably be learning instead but it seems impossible atm. I watched Twitch again which most surely was the reason I dove into playing again so I won't do that again. I'm at step 5/8 with the workbook and will try to sleep Noe even though I feel really awake as I spent most of the last few hours on my phone. Tomorrow I will set up the missing steps and then follow them relentlessly. I don't understand how I can make the switchoff with my phone but there got to be a solution. I can't let this just be another helpless attempt to get this addiction under control. It has to work this time.

I contacted the Riot support again to delete my account. I had a shift at work today that I didn't check on my phone and thought that it were tomorrow so I didn't go there but played around 20 League games instead. This is a disaster. Also next week are exams and I haven't learned yet. It's the quiet before the storm. I don't think I have the willpower to skip my leisure media acitivity to do work either real or learning for uni. This means that I will sleep today at 11pm and try my best tomorrow morning to find something that I might do as a routine. The gradual progress is what counts. I won't make any promises. I just need to find a myself I would be proud of that I can work towards. This isnt as easy as it sounds. I can't imagine a version of myself that I'd like to be in the future. The current road seems to go nowhere. I have to become more realistic and honest with myself to see through my self-deceptions and find my future self. I should rush with that process as every second I become older and life dissipates.

Thank you for your reply. This seems like a really good recovery story for you. Keep up the good work. I wasnt successful today to replace my bad habits, so I gamed and watched series. Also was too late in bed yesterday. I can't really find any motivation to learn even though I should. This is really bugging me. I don't feel strong enough to abstain and change. Tomorrow is another day and another try to change this life. Bye and cya tomorrow

Well my life has turned to the worse. I managed to have a productive March but in April my friend with benefits told me that she no longer wanted to engage with me until she figured out what she really wanted and I couldn't find the same motivation anymore for uni that I had in the winter semester. This is probably due to everything turning to learning disease after disease and not that much understanding anymore which I really liked. So I binged on Criminal Minds, skipped an important appliation and module and am now one week away from my final exams and havent learned yet. This is gonna be a disaster. Last week I installed Leage of Legends again and am currently already level 28 with a new account. Dunno. Currently I don't really care about anything else. I don't have any friends I enjoy spending time with atm. Haven't exercised in two weeks. sleep cycle non existant. spending most of my time with playing League and watching YouTube, Twitch or series. The worst is that describing that it should feel like rock bottom but I don't feel like it. Honestly I feel good. Nevertheless I know that I will hate myself in the future for the decisions I take atm from day to day. Breaking ties with some colleagues was actually a step in the right direction I suppose. My apartment is clean. Managed to cook today. So far so good. The real challenge will be to replace all those long-term damaging activities with supporting ones while maintaining a strong mind that stays clear against the arrogance and pretentious nature of my uni. Respawn has once driven my really close to success; better than any individual counseling did. So I guess it's my best bet. i don't have any real goals in life anymore that feel worth pursuing and are attainable. This might be a symptom of the secondary depression following this downhill path. My mind seems to be really dumb and blurry. I will try to stick to journaling again here. Tomorrow will be the first day to try to become sober again. Nevertheless I won't uninstall games or block sites. This has proven for me to be unsuccessfull in the past and I don't think I will stick to it but rather try (so far everytime successful) to circumvent the blocking apps. Rather I will plan a perfect day and gradually move towards it with love for myself no matter how much I fail those days. I will need new activities to fill the void. After three days I can hopefully start learing for uni again. It's now 12.30am and I have planned to watch one episode of Bones before I try to sleep. This will take around 30minutes. This way I might be in bed by 01.30am. Trying to sleep at that time would be a record compared to all days before. Adding 7.5h I should wake up at 9am which would be perfect for me to attend the 9.30am seminar. Before that I will try to buy some groceries real quick as I don't have anything proper left in the apartment. So this is gonna be the challenge tomorrow. will report tomorrow evening how it went and which activities I picked up from the gamequitters' website. Bye for now

Have you watched any of Cam's videos? Try Respawn? try 90-days detox with cold turkey

Med student here as well. Have you tried Anki? What's your learning method? Why do you study medicine? dream job? what makes it your dream job? If you don't have one, look for one. From my own experience: Don't shy away from looking up basic stuff you are unsure about. Learning advanced things becomes much easier that way. Always look up unclear definitions. Medicine studies is mostly about repitition I would say, so try flash cards etc. Do you know ALI ABDAAL? Former UK Cambridge med student on youtube, heavily focusing on productivity.

Unfortunately I must confess that I failed with my 90-days detox. Despite my League of Legends' account being gone, I started playing Minecraft with friends and found myself playing longer than the others until late at night, yesterday until 6am in the morning. Never thought that Minecraft could do this to me but yeah it's the same poison I suppose. Before that I slowly descended into darkness by ignoring my goals I set in early December, my uni work has suffered from this and I overslept an exam as a result from this. I failed my reading and exercise goals, my health is suffering as I'm not sleeping and eating enough. So I'll try again beginning from today. I will work on respawn today and tomorrow will be the first day of the 90-days.

DAY 35 - 11.01.21 I planned yesterday to wake up today at 6am but was awake until 4am, so I slept in and couldnt stay true to my goal. The reason was that I was thinking too much about my past school when I went to bed and wasn't fully worked out I suppose. So I skipped classes today and got out of bed at around 1.30pm when I managed to update my CV and write a couple of applications. Maybe this will lead me to a steady job what could really help me to find routine and self worth in my life. It's late again when I'm writing this, so this might be the last action I take on this day before i go to bed. Sadly I did not workout today but only spent time on my laptop - being productive with my application and other paperwork though. I'm not motivated enough for working out I suppose because I have low T levels I suppose. Will have to fix nutrition first probably. Also didn't eat enough today, will have to get better on this tomorrow. Should buy a vacuum cleaner tomorrow as mine is half-broken and I'm pushing this task away from day to day. Same with selling old clothes. Will do that when I'm in bed today.

DAY 34 - 10.01.2021 I planned to not sleep today so I could be sleep-needy in the evening but didnt manage to stay awake during the day so probably took a nap at around 8-9 am until 3 pm when I realized that it had already gotten late and I didnt had any motivation anymore to accomplish my set goals for the day as I already "lost the morning". Starting the 90day-detox seemed like fun and I had a strong motivation to actually turn my life around but after my christmas holidays and my start into the new year all positive change seems to almost have gone. I still havent relapsed into playing League of Legends but I sense that I'm on a good path to start again. I guess good news is that my account has successfully been deleted by Riot Games so there would be the hurdle to start at Level 1 again. Detox is no fun at all. It feels like I'm draining myself of all things that made my life fun and let me feel happy. I know that this means that I havent really manage to replace old time-wasting activities with new growth-activities but I can't find myself to do even easy tasks like registering my health insurance as I think of it as too demanding. As I have a new beamer screen for watching movies in big I feel myself just lying on my couch and letting the pictures run over me. There is no motivation to do anything else. The original idea for the screen was to only use it together with friends but I can't find any at the moment who like to share unwatched movies with me so I rely on my own time. This leads me to extend the time I use in front of the screen into the late hours of night so my sleep cycle is fcked up like when I used to play League. All positive change I felt when entering this challenge has disappeared and what I'm left with is this fatalistic, disdainful view of life where I see myself as nothing more than exploiting the people around me. This is similar to when I was heavily depressed some years ago and looks like a similar path. There is a simple graph to show how to get my TODOs done. Sleeping is the start and seems impossible for me to accomplish. I know that when I will now get to bed to wake up tomorrow at 6am for my planned waking up time, most hours in bed will be spent with back pain, breathing fear and constant thought cycles without end that make me hate my life and bar me from sleeping. I'll stretching and drinking some water before sleeping now and then try to break the cycles although I tried so often already and failed everytime. Sometimes it feels like I hate myself and cant change my thoughts therefore as I'm punishing myself for being such a bad person. I hate most things I have done and will do so I don't feel like living at some days and the others keep me alive with the thought that exploiting my life is the only thing that is worth doing as it is already cursed. These might be beliefs that are untrue and I'm only keeping them to punish myself for actions of the past that I cant change anymore. Maybe a sense of neeeded perfection concerning my person holds me back to get back into life. I have to forgive myself with a new self that knows better and acts better and thinks better. I don't know if I'm strong enough for that as I feel that I have already internalised so many bad habits and relying on dopamine relesase systems that are easy to fall back into and hard to refrain from. Nevertheless this is the challenge I have set for myself and I will not back down until I die. Yesterday i watched porn, so this resolution failed and also played Cock Hero on pornhub so I guess I played as well. This is a half-failure for the detox but I won't count it as a total relapse as watching streams and playing games was not part of it. Tomorrow at 6am I will win the morning and subsequently the day and won't keep my head happy with pleasure, high dopamine, numb actions but engage life and find enjoyment in being excellent in what I can do with my remaining neurons. This diary will continue daily from now on. It helps myself to set goals in the morning and write about what I have accomplished in the evening.

There are also those timers that you can attach to your socket and set up times when the power should be down.

UPDATE: I use "Off the grid" and "Focus me" on my smartphone "Lock my phone" on my Samsung Tablet "Cold Turkey" for my Windows "Timekpr-nExT" for my Linux in case someone wondered. Works perfectly.

@hemonkey Does your TV have parental controls? If yes, use them. Before watching TV set a time limit on your phone with an alarm. Also meditate before watching for like 10min so you have yourself better under control. Identify which needs watching TV satisfies in your case. In general: Engagement > Entertainment -> maybe only watch when with friends, find alternatives to occupy the time after dinner with. Write them down in your calendar. You are probably looking for something relaxing after the day: Use Cam's hobby tool https://gamequitters.com/hobby-tool/ to find a "relaxing" activity.

Easier said than done: I was in an offline program to combat my game/internet/computer addiction last year and during this time I had my phone, laptop and tablet locked up in my counselor's room. The problem is that I'm a medical student and also a social human being. It is impossible for me to succeed in this detox and to overcome my addiction if I won't be able to use my computer/smartphone/tablet at all. They are essential for my life as a student and I don't wanna go back to last year where I had to enter the library to learn everything especially since everything is in lockdown at the moment. Also I still wanna keep my freedom of having the lecture notes as PDFs on my electronics to learn from. Also Anki Flashcards help me to memorize our workload. So it's not possible for me to stay away from my electronics completely. Maybe for a certain time when the semester is finished but even then: When the semester starts again I will have my devices back and everything could go back to the start. I don't want that. For me the only solution is to find a way of using my computer helpfully as well as my tablet and phone. This involves using WhatsApp / Telegram as I don't have problems to stay away from chatting for hours. Rather I would find myself watching YouTube videos and browsing reddit. There are blockers like Cold Turkey that bar you from deleting them. I need something like that. I settled with "Focus Me" for now and will see how the next days unfold.

Hello there! I'd like to know if you have any suggestions regarding blocking specific apps / websites on android. I installed Cold Turkey on my Windows yesterday and it works like a charm but I already realize that I crave for those sites I have blocked on my laptop and will automatically shift my usage to my tablet and smartphone if I can't interfere here as well. Therefore I'd like to know which applications you recommend as I'm a bit overwhelmed by all options Play Store provides me. Did you have any experience with certain blockers? I'm really looking for a blocker that doesn't allow my to cheat and definitely something more hardcore than Forest. Thanks for the advice

@Silent3d Can I ask if you had any success with the general computer/internet addiction in the meantime?