Faroe Islander

18-2 and 19-2 Slipped up, got caught up in the moment with emotions, a phone nearby and too much time left over at home with harder restrictions on going out of the house (needed to work on online project with classmates + it was cold and late) Ended up relapsing, fucking up my sleep schedule a bit (1:30AM bedtime) and spending a considerable amount of time with videos games and PMO. Yesterday followed suit, after like 8PM and in the first 20m on my day I lost control and indulged in games, videos, pmo you name it. Now I'm trying to pick the pieces back up, managing to go like 7 days straight has been a great accomplishment, specially after my struggles with games these last 3 months or so. Now I'm beginning again focusing on a tighter schedule, more self control- self awareness through meditation and changing some activities. Hopefully it will go well, my goal is to resist as many cravings as I can, learn to deal with them and start building a life where I can't see myself going back to games videos or pmo. 1st goal -> resist 10 cravings or make it to 3 days

Struggling rn, kind of tired and the plans for tonight afternoon just went out the window because of a hit. I'm tired but it's too early, right now I'm going to go on a run and see if it helps, better than staying at home and not doing anything, I'll try restart work when I'm done 1-Notice the craving 2-Accept it 3-Take constructive actions (even if you have to overcome them by one hour at a time Night update: Feeling a bit down depressed and frustrated by how things are going rn, my actions in the past years and some problems with the way some of my relationships and career and brain work. Got through it just having a bad streak but it is in my head, a friend told me I tend to overthink things and that is just true. Since the alternative is just hoping my days will just be better I will start to see if I can put some plans into motion like formalizing a bit more my schedules and looking for ways to cope with anxiety mood swings creavings and overall sadness. Maybe a psycologist can help I'll try to get an appointment as soon as I can save up enough money

Good list of goals, realistic but not unambitious, be sure to tell us how it goes and your experience with the degree once you start classes

I'll be sure to keep that in mind, thanks paul

16-2 Clown fiesta continues. At this point it has lost its pessimism and pitifulness and become kind of funny in a weird way. Tomorrow will be better and if not it will at least be funnier, it at least served to confirm that focussing on changing your identity and having strong relationships goes a long way to helping you quit the internet.

15-2 Got this one, I'm proud of it because it more stressful than normal. I still have to keep an eye out just in case, this time the stress kicked in while I was away from my phone/other sources of internet. still it is good that I got through this day without relapsing.

14-12 Still in focussing on your identity telling yourself what you are and acting accordingly is really helpful I have some times where I don't fully realice it like falling asleep fir sine 2 min mid day instead of pushing past but it is a work in progress and it is better than whatever I was doing before this

13-12 quite a bit of work, I'm a bit tired but overall proud Started writting a bit in the nights, like a semi diary, it is fun and helps me think about what I did in the day Telling yourself what you are as in defining your identity and acting accordingly seems to be a really strong and interesting idea that can affect you radically, even in subconscious ways it is definitely something to look into

Hello back here after flirting with bad habits for a long time again, I'm not making any promises to keep going since that doesn't seem to work for me too well. Today since I no longer have breakdowns I have just spent a bit of time staring at the dark and just admitted to my 3 close friends (one of which I live with) that I still don't how to deal with my problems, with my short sightedness impulsiveness and difficulty to let go of things. This in itself is not much, I know for a fact that I still have to make lots of changes I just hope that being a bit more disciplined when it comes to habits and accountability with things such as this, the forum will help. For now here are my goals: 1- Wake up at a proper hour 6:30 2- Do 5m meditation 3-Put time between urges and action by acknowledging (writing them down) and then moving on congratulating myself for pushing past it and moving on) 4-Retake sport 5-Post everyday at night, no later than 11PM if possible My current goal is to make it to tomorrow without relapsing to the internet or pmo. Which includes video and looking intentionally at news/images/videos without cutting them up as soon as I notice myself slipping up

yesterday went half well, spent most of the day listening to music, in the garden or reading a bit overall a good day, today I cracked mentally in class, I didn't make a show I just left and the midday went halfwell mostly thinking, sleeping or getting a bit pessimistic, rn my best solution is trying to recover and not let the day pass me by fully. Scheduling hangouts with friends to work on uni projects has helped a lot though, maybe I would have stayed fully in my room otherwise

Back in Friday was a rest day I took well and I'm not ashamed of how it went, it was nice finally getting to rest a bit I spent most of the day outside in the garden, talking to family or just resting. Today didn't go so well, on Friday night I went to bed with a stream on, waked up midday, turned it off and then woke up all wrong which was just what I didn't need, it kind of overpowered me and affected Saturday mostly. The biggest problems are easier access to the phone (my main source of troubles) lack of habits during the weekend and past unconscious associations between my parents home and bad habits. At least I'm not collapsing now constantly though not having the same level of drive and obsession to quit I used to doesn't feel good either. For now I have regained my midweek habits so that's something, hopefully little by little it will get better, I am going to keep focusing on the day by day things, the little things, not counting the days since that did more harm than good. Today I will focus on not switching on the phone and doing other things instead like cooking, talking with friends, doing a bit of study and gardening if I can.

Made it through Thrusday and Friday, today I spent just on resting doing a bit of gardening and overall talking with family, finally some time to rest, today I'm back on the grind this semester is supposed to be the worst one in the 4 year course so at least that's something that keeps me going

First of all, happy birthday. And second of all, it is true that your twenties are the time where you usually get to experience the most new things and it is one of the moments of life when you are healthy or you still haven't felt consequences from bad life habits. But it is also the moment where you will feel lost the most, it is a time of experimentation, of messing up, of reflection, it is a time where you are probably not going to feel good mentally and not know where to go. And that is normal and fine, you don't have the experience yet and you are in the process of becoming more independent and getting to know yourself, not having a preset schedule and list of chores (like you did in school). I know it is complex and it sounds daunting, I myself often struggle with similar instances of frustration, dissatisfaction at my life or lack of progress in quitting. My best advice? don't be afraid to try and don't be scared or ashamed of failing, at the rate at which medicine is going you still have like 100 more years to get it right, so since you, me and practically no human being has been born with no potential in to adapt and overcome the only that could stop us from getting something is not trying. Or as a 100 year old put it, it is never to late to have a happy childhood, but the second one is up to you and no one else. It is good to know that you are back Paul and that you have managed to take it well, happy birthday again and here is to a eventful twenties, you can do it, you have already proven yourself capable and willing to get yourself through this, now the only thing left to get down to dare again to try, fail and in the end succeed.

@Paul A. Thanks a lot Paul, The relapse part is understandable, I'm glad to know that you are still going strong and haven't let it affect your attitude. Yes let us be a help to each other in this journey.

Got through today, taking it one day at a time rn I'm quitte stressed because of university (9 exams 6 projects each one taking 5-40h to finish really took their toll, I have found it hard to concentrate or maintain the spree, with me just being too "gone" in the weekends which wasn't nice. I managed to experience new and cool things in the brief breaks and with my colleges which was good but I hope that new times will give me the space I need to get back on my feet. That's pretty much it I'm going to focus on taking it one day at a time and rebuilding my old strong habits

restarting going slow. My main goal is to regain my old good habits, nothing more nothings less. Music is allowed though not recomended and small clips I can pass but other stuff is too dangerous to be let through. Not much else, just getting back up after a long time of let down and debochery

Pretty bad morning overall 2-3h int and only 1h work outside class tomorrow I'll try to drop int below 2h and increase study time over 2h. Today I'm going outside to run to recuperate sport habits and also keep up with my buddy who asked if he could help by being an accountability partner

Day -3 My problems with youtube have gotten quite serious. Now it is affecting my sleep a lot and I don't even know when I'm sleep or if I have little energy anymore. I just start binging vids for hours even when it's way past my bedtime

Did goals 1,2,4,7 to an extent Today I reduced video consumption quite a bit but I still have to be careful as I still try to justify using it and having it interrupt my study work and sleep schedules Tomorrow day -3 Goals -Cement habits -Go to sleep early 10PM-11PM -Make list of tasks -Find a better solution for phone use (locking it up was useful up to a certain degree I have to find somewhere to leave it at until I'm able to return it to the primary spot back at my relative's house Feelings: Morning . good did work, payed attention in class, a bit sleepy as a consequence of yesterday Midday good, managed to concentrate and finish main group tasks/projects Night crashed a bit, cooked and had 1h of music / podcast which I should try to refrain from, not feeling too guilty or demoralized but it is still something I have to worry about

Thursday and friday went relatively well Sunday and saturday crushed Looking forward to monday though I think I should start a preparation format where I give myself x days and then tell myself to quit, it just hasn't been feeling like I tried hard these past month or so and I want to get back into it but I always slip up or get demotivated midway through. So day -4 Objective: 1-get routines back (specially morning and night ones) 2-do exercise 3-go to the library midday 4-finish project 5-pick back up the feeling-actions-plan form for posts 6-make a plan 7-tell friends about intentions and day

Congrats man, truly an amazing accomplishment, and good luck on the last 30 day stretch.

@Kim F To add to wildermyths point. It is true that there are a lot of people in a somewhat similar situation, If you don't find a group you could always browse through the forums a bit, check diaries, forum questions or even ask them directly about how they dealt with the situation. Off the top of my head I can only think about GrainSiloEnthusiast, which has been on a somewhat similar position, maybe her ,her diary or game-anon as wildermyth said can be a good places to start . Sorry for not being able to give you much more info and I hope you do find some solutions and support.

Hi cam, thanks for giving us this opportunity, I don't know if this fall within the confines of "game quitters" but its been causing me lots of trouble. Personally I struggle most with games in the form of social media (youtube, twitch, shorts, clips...) usually it goes something like this, things start small with something which I haven't defined as "banned" like a meme my friends send me or a music track but one track/clip leads to another and soon enough I'm back to my old habits, sometimes being able to keep it small for a couple days but eventually having it all go down. My main question is where do I set the limits so that I get to keep myself away from potential paths onto the internet rabbit hole while also not hampering other parts of my life so much that it ends up being worse in the long term. And once I decide on the limits, how do I respect them (+deal with potential slip ups) EG 1: music, + fun and good for socializing and sometime also relaxing / having a good time potential. - Doorway into music -> vid binge EG 2: podcasts/vids , fun and sometimes enlightening - Doorway into streams/podcasts -> vid binge EG 3: memes friends send, fun good start to conversation / other activities - Doorway into memes/shorts -> vid binge

Day 1 done not too much sleep, a bit tired, trying to recover from yesterday, didn't do much, studied a bit, traveled back home and finished the practices, didn't perform but at least I'm still in it

relapsed hard on the 4th day. apparently there are a lot more things I have to change before I reach my end goal, right now I'm thinking of the influence of the people around me, maybe I'm just finding excuses or maybe I'm just too tired but I feel like the attitude of some of my close friends towards quitting is just counterproductive as they have already given up and happily indulge over and over, maybe I should just give it time and a bit of space they have helped me through, even when I was quitting but now that I'm so involved with them I don't know if they are dragging me down with them