TheKingNoob

Day Five - Morning Woke up early again, didn't go for a walk though. Also got distracted after showering, instead of making breakfast and getting to work I browsed my phone for around an hour before getting it together. Settling into work for now. Biggest change is my sleep schedule, often I'd game into late hours but because nowadays I sleep whenever I'm sleepy (so around 9-10pm) I wake up around 5-6 without an alarm. Also I'm dreaming regularly. I usually don't dream, but I've dreamt for like a few days straight now. Anyone else getting similar experiences? Probably got something to do with better sleep but idk.

Day Four - Evening Another pretty tiring day. Still clean, though nearing the end of the day my mind wandered nearest to relapsing since I quit for days ago. Had to restrain myself seriously for the first time. But I did it! Going to cool down with some manga and Netflix. Conked but another well spent day.

Day Four - Morning Woke up pretty early today so decided to go for an morning jog - first time in a while. Spring is nearing and making morning temperatures more bearable. Especially in winter months I could stay inside unless completely necessary, which didn't help with my addiction odds. Writing these morning journals - even if they're pretty short - is helping me stay on track on what I should be doing, constant reminder of my progress. Which is a nice feeling. On to work - still got plenty to catch up on but I'm confident in doing so before the exam.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it out! I'm also using YourHour on my phone to track my phone usage and to (especially) limit youtube/reddit time. Eventhough there are workarounds the app lock and warning is often enough to bring me back on track.

Day Three - Evening Exhausting day - in a good way. Got a lot of work done and some chores as well. Nearly seven hours studying - my highest daily in a while. Going to finish off the day watching some shows, maybe on Netflix or some anime, something to read to fall asleep - depends on my mood. No heavy urges, but when I browse youtube I naturally get drawn towards gaming content. I should avoid that minefield since it also invariably leads my brain back to gaming. Pretty good day! Keeping it up.

Day Three - Morning Third day off and feeling a lot better. Got nothing planned to do today so I just need to keep my head down. These days are always the most dangerous. Nothing planned, just sitting in front of my desk and PC and convincing myself to do something productive. Good night sleep, no distractions, just get to work. Once I get studying it becomes easier to keep studying. As with a lot of things, starting it is much harder than keeping it going. Feels like I always need to have a good morning to at least get decent amount of work done. I think that's where I fucked up in the past, often I'd shower and get to gaming right afterwards, only to drain my motivation to do anything productive, which in turn leads to more gaming. It's a vicious cycle. Anyways, on to work.

Day Two - Evening Went to a friend's house to study together for upcoming exams, I actually chatted about my addiction a bit and me avoiding games, they recommended learning an instrument as well. I can get behind that. I'll see what I can come up with. To get around my monkey brain instinctively craving mobile games I've downloaded some apps to learn Chinese Mandarin. I figured that learning that can occupy my wandering mind until I can refocus it somewhere else. I can already speak three languages fluently, so although Chinese is really fucking hard to get into it'll at least replace (at least partially) that craving for challenges - remembering characters, stroke orders, and intonations are quite a lot to handle. If anything, it's better than mindlessly clicking idle games.

Day Two - Morning Woke up earlier than usual today. Not much to say. Will be coming over to a friends house to study. Urges are still around especially around mobile games, but I've managed to fend them off. I might need something big to replace my phone gaming. Maybe picking up a new language or something? We'll see.

Day One - Evening Day going well enough. Arranged to study together at a friends place tomorrow to keep my productive streak going. As it's Saturday evening (normally regular gaming hours for me) I need a replacement to keep my urges at bay. I already sort of relapsed earlier, downloading an idle game on my phone before deleting it after 15 minutes. I figured the best 'duct tape' replacement for now is reading until I figure something more. Picking back up The Shining and The Dragonbone Chair, horror and fantasy respectively. Seeing some of my friends playing on discord got some of the urges back, so I'm steering away as much as possible. Might also study if I've got not much else to do. I guess that's sort of the point lol. Might just be my most productive Saturday in a while. Day One - finished

Funnily enough I use to play the saxophone in high school, brought it with me when I moved out for uni, but then everything happened and can't find a band/mates to play with. Though I do want to start playing a new instrument to keep myself busy. Thanks for the reply, looking forward to my progress as well!

Day One - Morning It's the morning of an exam. In about two hours I'll be leaving for the university, sit down in a tent for two hours and try to convince my professor that I can calculate dynamics and solve differential equations. Even though I had nearly a month to prepare for it since classes finish, I've only spent the last three days on it. And the culprit isn't hard to guess. It started innocently after classes ended and I thought "I deserve some break, just a day of relaxing and gaming." I redownloaded osu! (which if people here are unfamiliar with is a - very addicting - rhythm game) and played the game for six hours straight. Afterwards I play some dota with some mates for some more hours into the night. The next day(Sunday) I resolved myself in the shower to start reviewing and studying. After breakfast I booted up my PC and saw the shortcut for osu! and thought to myself...... some more hours wouldn't hurt, I'm progressing as well, aren't I (I'm pretty high ranked for the game, which makes it even harder to quit) The saga continues for two straight weeks. After I quit osu!, I relapsed on mobile gacha games. And played them for a straight week without taking care of myself. Yeah. As I mentioned, addiction is an avalanche. Once it starts, it gets rolling and gets increasingly difficult to stop. It hurts how many times this has recurred to me, how many times I've fucked myself over because of it. Yet I keep on doing it. And I keep on failing. I just want things to change. This online community of fellow people on roads to recovery will hopefully be my saving grace. As I mentioned in my introduction post, I am aiming for 67 days clean. If I can go longer it's great, but that's my baseline. I'll be writing two entries a day, 8am/pm CET, morning is to set out my plans and evening is to review and reflect. Not expecting to write walls of text like this one, but I want to at least make it a routine in my life. That's about it for now. I've deleted steam and all of my mobile games. In my free time, I'm hoping to replace gaming with reading books (something I use to love but gaming ruined), listening to podcasts, some physical activity. First step to reversing my avalanche starts now.

To my fellow addicts out there, My gaming addiction is like an avalanche, I just need a trigger in the morning, either something on the PC or my phone and I could be gaming the entire day. I've tried to 'quit' gaming many times before, the longest of which lasted only two weeks. Especially these past few months it's gotten worse for me and my productivity has plummeted. I still have four exams this semester and am ill prepared to write them. I've always told myself that I can 'control' it when just playing with friends, or 'I can be productive later' bullshit. And I play a lot of shit as well. Biggest of which are dota2 and osu! (both inherently addictive), but also stuff like grand strategy games, shooters, MMOs, yada yada. I look back at those hours spent and only a fraction of them was I truly enjoying myself (mostly when playing with buddies) and the rest of it is just my monkey brain on autopilot. My goal is 67 days clean. Every day I'll write an entry in the morning and the evening (8 am/pm CET). Morning is my plan for the day, evening is the result. I don't expect myself to write bundles each time, but I want to update it regularly, even if it's just a sentence. Wish me luck.