Jeremias

10/05/2016 Detox - Day 8 complete. I don't have a great deal to note down today, other than yet another high quality day. I awoke feeling much better than I was yesterday, increasing my confidence that I'll be better before the half-marathon on Sunday. I'm still taking it easy to ensure that my health improves as soon as possible. My 75-minute bus commutes to and from work have been occupied by reading The Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen - a recommendation from @Cam Adair. I am about halfway through, but I would already recommend this as one of the first texts you pick up if you're thinking about reading these kinds of self-development books. I have read about 8 books over the last 3 months, and The Slight Edge forms good groundwork for any development you're looking to do; it is extremely relevant for anyone who is detoxing or is considering doing so! It feels a little drawn out, but the message is spot on. Other general observations of mine: My focus at work over long periods of time has further increased, and my passion for it is greater (it may just be a good time at work at the moment, I'm not sure)I'm awake and alertI'm generous with my spare timeI haven't got much else to say without repeating myself... Thanks as always

Really good progress with the writing Dave. Act 1 done! Your discipline is admirable but... think twice before turning down some sweet lovin with the lady she needs you too

09/05/2016 Detox - Day 7 complete. What a weekend. I guess that I am lucky to have a lot of activities coinciding with my first weekend of my detox - I've been relatively occupied for the whole duration. I was initially keen on the idea of writing a diary entry each day, but I have been more busy than I expected It started with parkrun at 7am - I ran 5km in 21mins, which is a little bit worse than last week but I'm happy to do it with a friend. She was a good minute faster than me I went home and made pancakes from scratch before watching a movie with my brother. I spent a little bit of time on the forums before heading to the beach to lounge around by myself for a bit and reading, before hitting the city with my friends. I've always been an introverted, socially awkward kind of guy but it will be interesting to see any progress I make in that department. I guess it is difficult to measure confidence, but I will be challenging myself to pro-actively meet more new people while I am out as the detox progresses. Sunday was pretty chill; after celebrating Mother's Day I settled down for some youtube (documentaries on market disruption by Tony Seba, related to Electric Vehicles) and a nap, cleaning the house a bit, and practicing music with a friend. Today (Monday), I had a great time at work, making good progress on my project and improving my focus throughout the day, despite having a bit of a cold. My main takeaway over the last few days is that I behave much more courteously towards my friends and my family than I used to. As gaming is no longer on my mind 24/7: I bought my Mum her present several days before Mother's Day, which is uncharacteristic to anyone who knows meI don't show up late to everything as I no longer sit on reddit until the very last minute.There are fewer instances of people waiting on me to complete tasks; I complete errands more proactively as they are no longer shoved aside by the thought of gaming. In general I prioritise other people higher than I used to (this is difficult to say, but it is true. Gaming is a very self-centred activity)I'm now tapering off my running training in preparation for a half marathon on Sunday. I hope my sickness will subside before then. I am also performing a piece of music for my friend's composition assignment at university. I use the Game Quitters form as my reflex go-to whenever I'm bored and browsing mindlessly on the internet, which helps me a LOT. The diary entries I hear on this forum are inspiring, and keep me wanting to come back. Keep it up fam Until next time

Welcome Jimyree, Can I suggest that you fully detox yourself from games and gaming-related internet pages altogether? I'm only 7 days in, but I feel that the greatest benefits are found when you don't have gaming on your mind at all. There is no point replacing your gaming habits with a new habit of watching other people playing games, or reading about them on reddit etc. I've found the greatest benefit of the detox that my mind is a lot clearer, thus allowing me to take action more readily and find other activities to fill the void of time.

06/05/2016 Detox - Day 4 complete. I'm very sleepy again this morning despite having around 9 hours of sleep, so I guess I'll need to consciously head to bed earlier each night until I find the right amount of sleep I need to recuperate from my sleep debt. My mind is much less irritable than it was on day 2, so I've found it easier to really knuckle down and get longer periods of work done. Fridays are rest days for my marathon training schedule, but I'll be waking up tomorrow at around 6:20am to do a 7am parkrun. If any of you runners out there haven't heard of parkrun, it is a weekly 5km run coordinated by communities all over the world that I would strongly recommend. It is for all fitness levels and is great for making new friends, waking up for the sunrise and getting fit - what everyone on this forum seems to be doing. See http://www.parkrun.com I called up an old friend who agreed to come and do it with me tomorrow. If I was still gaming, I could see myself staying up late tonight before under-sleeping and doing the run alone (if at all). As for the whole not gaming thing, I found today easy. In reflection it feels like gaming started as something to fill the gaps of spare time in my day and grew from there, until it started taking over massive quantities of my time. As I find other things to do with myself and other people to socialise with, the detoxification process becomes much easier. Thanks for reading.

Awesome work Nate, it's so cool to see your progress over time. Are you feeling a lot calmer and more prepared approaching exams now that you've stopped gaming?

05/05/2016 Detox - Day 3 complete. I woke up late for work after having more than 9 hours of sleep! I normally don't need an alarm to wake up after about 7 so maybe my body is recovering from a long period of sleep debt. I'll go to bed earlier tonight and see what happens. I had a good day at work today. I've been working on a project for a couple of weeks making seemingly little progress, but I learnt something new today which seemed to tie together all of my learnings from the past 2 weeks. When I reflected on this at the end of the day with a colleague, I was beating myself up about it a bit, and thinking about all the time I could have saved over the last 2 weeks if I had learnt this little detail earlier. However, my colleague (aged 50 or so, I'm only 21) comforted me in saying (much more eloquantly than this): How do most people learn? They fail. I can't remember exactly what he said but I thought it would be relevant here. It reminded me that you can be making a lot of incremental progress in working towards something, taking little steps, whilst never realising how far you've come. In my case today, I found this when I completed part of a task that I have been working on for a long time. For us on this forum, I'm sure that the signal to look back and see how far we've come will present itself in many forms. Instead of subreddits and games, it is this forum that my mind automatically opens when I am bored. I am glad that this reflex has completely overridden any urge for gaming I have (I don't even feel like it this evening), but I'll be working on improving my focus in the future. I ran 7.5kms tonight and got my Mum a Mother's Day present for this weekend. I'm going out with my friends on Saturday night, doing a lot of running and I think I'll invite a friend to go mountain biking near my place. Thanks for reading and for the invaluable support @SundayMiharu, @Dannigan, @Piotr, @Cam Adair, @Sashiku, @Alex Ericson and @Robin. It makes more of a difference than you may think.

We've got your back. I'm only a few days in and I feel like I'm crawling out from a cave into the daylight. There's so much I've missed out on over the last few years, but we've still got a whole life ahead of us. Good luck to you

It's amazing to look back and see what you've missed out. Now look back at those 58 days and see what you would have missed out on if you had continued gaming. It's pretty hard to forsee the massive changes that a detox could bring but I'm keen to hear from you.

Congrats Ross, you've made a really bold move in the name of health for yourself and your family. I'm excited to see the vast changes you will experience.

I'm looking forward to see how you get yourself back into the fat-loss routine. Keep it up son

04/05/2016 Detox - Day 2 complete. I have spent a day at work, ran 3.5km when I got home and spent the rest of the time doing housework and on the internet. Again nothing hugely exciting in the activities department, but the real challenge will come on the weekends where I normally play games for most of the day! I aim to replace the internet activity with something else whilst not overtraining myself for the half-marathon I'm doing on May 15, but I acknowledge that breaking habits take a very long time so I'm happy to ease my way into the challenge. I'm feeling much more alert if not a bit irritable, which is making it more difficult to get into the zone at work but is opening my eyes to social cues and opportunities to meet new people. I am certain I would have missed these or been apathetic about them before I began my detox. I suspect that these feelings are not only due to the 8 hours of sleep I got last night, but also an effect of the additional energy I would have otherwise drained by concentrating on playing games. My goals at the moment: Continue sustained productivity in my workSlowly curtail my internet useContinue posting on this forum and to my accountability partner each dayContinue marathon trainingI don't have a great deal else to say, I guess I'm feeling a bit bored in general? But it was still a pretty easy day. I'm not underestimating the challenges ahead. Thanks for the support

I would like to join this if it's not too late! I don't use reddit, but I will be actively using the forums. I commit to not playing video games, watching video-game related youtube videos or reading any video-gaming related news sourcesI will be doing a detox for 90 days, starting 03/05/2016I want to use my time to become a beast in other areas of my life that will be recognised by my friends, family and colleagues. These include creating more value for my company and training for a marathon in OctoberI am doing this not only to put into practice the things I have learnt in my self-development readings over the last few months, but also to complete a very difficult challenge. I am certain that this will be one of the most difficult challenges I've attempted in my life.Thanks for reading, and good luck.

I started my 90-day detox yesterday, and I have uninstalled all of my games and am continuing to use my laptop as normal. I have deleted my youtube watching history, deleted my browser viewing history unsubscribed from gaming-related subreddits and forums. I know that I will only truly succeed at this challenge if I can choose not to game even if I have the option to do so. My next challenge is to find something competitive and engaging to fill the huge void of time I have recently reclaimed. I'm keen to see how you progress, I'll keep updating my journal daily.

03/05/2016 Thus ends day 1 of my detox plan. It is 10:30pm of my first detox night, and I have endured my way through the dangerous evening period. Honestly, I've just been doing nothing on facebook to fill the time. But hey, it's a start. I'm very tired so I can fill in the details later, but I'm posting to say that it's a really fresh start to what is probably the most difficult and significant transition I will make in my life. It is exciting but I am feeling, what is the word... irritated? Nervous? It is hard to describe. I use this forum to record the important successes, failures, lessons and difficulties I experience along the way. Stay posted

I now compare computer gaming to the gambling you see in a casino. I've always wondered how pensioners who play on slot machines literally all day long can have fun doing so. However, slot machines are designed to highlight and lengthen the big wins you have whilst quickly rushing through the many small losses you incur. In aggregate, you will always experience loss in the long run. We must remember all the loss of friends, money and most significantly, time, that we trade-off for the excitement that we may gain through playing computer games. As we sit at the computer all day/night long, we'll never know what opportunities we have missed out on in the real world whilst that was happening. Soldier on

Hello everyone. My name is Jeremias and I am 21 years old from Sydney, Australia. I want to quit games in order to make way for other hobbies with more tangible benefits. Whilst I have really enjoyed competitive gaming for a very long time, I am frustrated by toxic players and the inability to share my passion with friends and relatives in person. Whilst my siblings play sports and are applauded by my parents and family friends, my gaming goes unnoticed. It is essentially sapping my free time away for my own selfish, short-term enjoyment and there is nothing to show for it. Additionally, staying up late repeatedly is reducing my performance and enjoyment at my full-time job. I was prompted to look into stopping gaming this morning as I arrived to work with tired eyes about 30 minutes late, which is unacceptable. I occasionally get these dark streaks under my eyes and it doesn't look good... I like the idea of a detox, but I am hesitant to commit too hastily. In addition to my day job, I'm training for a half-marathon in 2 weeks and a full marathon in October. With the addition time I have used gaming, I would like to work and improve at a skill that I can share with others socially. I think my biggest hurdle will be finding activities which can ignite my competitive spirit like gaming does. I currently play for a total of about 25 hours per week. On top of a job I work for effectively 45 hours per week, it is easy to see that I do little else at the moment. It's an inspiration reading all the stories on the journal forum, people helping each other through the massive challenge that is giving up an addiction. Keep it up fam