CrankedFrank

It has been a little bit harder to keep gaming out of my head the last couple of days. I'm still on the right track, but as I've passed the 14-days mark I've been a bit tempted to get back into gaming. I'm taking it as a reminder that I have to continue towards the 90 days, and this temptation was honestly not unexpected. Still okay so far. Not much more to add at this point. Day 15/90

Thanks for the encouragements guys 🙂 @Wildermyth, I was sometimes feeling guilty, but mainly when I chose to game instead of doing something else. I think what happened was that I fell back into gaming about a year back when I was finished in a time-limited job and had to wait a month before starting at a new one. And now that I had started gaming again I was trying to use it as a hobby. To me the problem isn't that it's a meaningless thing to do. I don't really believe in that, and I don't think it is in itself important to always do meaningful stuff. To me it's totally okay to spend some hours just unwinding with something useless. The problem to me is that gaming makes everything else boring at some point. Or maybe not boring, but less stimulating. And then I end up only doing the minimally required stuff socially and at work to game instead. And that is what's bothering me. I am generally in a good place in life. Jobs good. I'm living with the love of my life. Having a kid next year. Got a good network of friends. I think that in itself helps a lot, not just when quitting or taking a break from gaming, but also in controlling it if that's what's up. I don't know at this point if I'll quit forever, but I do know that I have to spend some time doing other things at this point. Day 10/90

It's going pretty well actually. My mind is still defaulting to games, but I don't feel the urge to game at this point. I've been spending a lot of time doing other things, and I've told my SO about my 90 day project. It makes it easier to not do it, when I'm also sort of accountable to her. Still, I hope the next couple of weeks will be easy on me. Will check back soon. Day 6/90

So I've been gaming for about a year since last time quit. That's a pretty serious relapse I suppose. The funny thing is, it hasn't been that bad up until now I think. I don't want to neglect the problem, but I think I had a period where it was sort of okay. Then happened was I guess essentially always ends up happening. For me at least. Other things start being uninteresting, I begin thinking about gaming all the time, I'm just passing the time until I can get back to gaming again. I skip work days (I'm basically managing my own time) to stay home and game. I get to a point where I'm just doing the bare minimun of all other things so that I can still manage the consequences, but my motivation for almost anything besides gaming is gone. That is why I've again decided to quit. I need to not think about gaming all the time, and I need to be interested in doing other things. So here I am again, counting the days up until 90. Day 2/90

Hey! I'm not quite sure what to tell you, as I'm somewhat new here myself (at least content-wise), but I just wanted to say welcome, and thanks for sharing. And congratulations on taking the first steps in a new direction of life, and on getting through the first day. I'm pretty sure you're doing the right thing. Keep it up, and see you around 🙂

Hey y'all. I'm a first-timer here I guess. I basically played video games all my life. Got a PS1 when i was like 10, and then it went on from there. Kind of got into music and started playing the guitar around the beginning of high-school. Sort of quit playing video games back then, but not intentionally, it just sort of happened. Occasionally went on "benders" and played intensely for like a week, but then stopped again since it felt uncool at the time I guess. Began playing again towards the end of high-school and became friends with some of the school gamers (it was a small high-school, so everybody kind of knew who everybody was). Still best friends with one of them to this day. Lost a girlfriend at the time, I think partly due to me taking up gaming again (she didn't like that). That was pretty hard, but I was eventually able to process it as "because we were young and immature". I live in a country where you basically go from high-school to the university, and after a while I got into med school. Yay me right? Med school sucked. It was hard as bricks, and I felt like I was always studying, but still got pretty bad grades. Failed a couple of exams, got my shit partly together, passed on second try, yada yada. Lived in a something like a dorm, and got a lot of friends and did a lot of social stuff. Still occasionally went on gaming benders, but newer for more than a week and I only had a laptop, so my means were limited. I wasn't thriving at this point in life, but gaming was at this part of my life not a very big part of it. It was at this part of my life i really began gaming again. I had just broken my elbow in a bicycle accident (nothing too serious, just couldn't really lift anything for some weeks), and i knew some of my friends were gaming a lot, so i basically just joined in. Played an mmorpg that ended up consuming a lot of my time. Kind of tried to keep it a secret as I felt sort of ashamed of how much time I spent playing. Moved out of the dorm and began living alone. This is where it really took off. I was still playing a lot with my friends, at least periodically, but I also spent a lot of time on single-player stuff. I should mention i basically got a hard-core gaming PC from a friend, who worked in IT for a big corp (they had a lot of hardware and didn't know it was missing). I was about half-way through med school, skipping classes to get up early in the morning and play all day. Didn't see a lot of people at the time, wasn't replying to messages and didn't call back. Lied a lot about what I was spending my time on to my family and friends. Didn't have a girlfriend at the time. Failed some more exams. I think this was the lowest point for me as a gaming addict, but I still hadn't really realized how bad it was. I sort of knew though, somewhere deep inside, that it had to stop at some point, but I wasn't ready I guess. At a certain point last spring I finally realized how deep in I was, and I managed to quit. Finished med school (yay me again!), and am now working full time as a doctor. Got a girlfriend. Things were better, and I liked not gaming. I felt more free in some sense, since I didn't have to lie about what I spent my time on all the time. And I didn't have to feel ashamed of the lying. I am not sure exactly how it happened, but somewhere around half a year ago I started gaming again. Only a little at first. I think I had become nostalgic about it, and thought about it for a while, and eventually convinced myself that it was okay as a hobby, and a great way to unwind. Also the covid pandemic had landed, and everything was locked down where I live, so there wasn't much else to do, right? Besides, I had already quit once so if it became problematic I could just quit again, right? Told my girlfriend that I was going to start gaming a little again, just to see how it felt. She was fine with it. When I talked to her about it she thought it was kind of funny (and kind of cute) that I, a grown man and medical professional, was going to sit down at my PC and get totally immersed in some video game. I don't think she saw the problem in it. Flash forward half a year. Just moved in with my girlfriend a month ago. My gaming has intensified a lot, and I'm back at a point where everything else seems dull and boring. I don't want to go to work since i can't play there, and when I'm at work I'm counting the hours until I can get home to my PC. Just called in sick earlier this week, so that I could stay home (alone) and play. The past couple of weeks I've begun doing the "I'll just do it tomorrow and work faster"-routine. They lying has also returned, dragging along the anxiety. I guess it hit me again yesterday morning. This is not the life I want to live. Video games have soaked up so much of my time, ruined a lot of things, and made me feel like crap almost all my life. I'm so grateful that I found this place, and I'm writing this crying a little bit. I've been 'clean' for about 30 hours now, and looking forward to the 90 day mark. Sorry for the wall of text, but I actually feel better after writing it, so thank you if you read it. Tl;dr: Have been gaming all my life. Quit a year ago. Relapsed half a year ago. It's become bad again now. I feel awful, and I am here to quit. Thanks to all of you for being here.