jnp

Day 2: One step farther than last time, when I quit! 😄 I wanted to do a morning post today. When I was still gaming, I would be more alert in the evenings and obviously that would cause me to procrastinate with sleep. Last night, though, I managed to pull over the blanket before midnight already, which is a big step forward on this journey. And things get even better from there: I actually felt a little relaxed and, even better, rested after waking up. I am pretty sure that my brain chemistry has been so messed up that this has caused me to have increased insomnia, anxiety and (over time) built-up stress. The only downside last night was that I was dreaming really vividly and all my dreams were about gaming. That was not something that I wanted to experience but at least they were just dreams. They just set up some pretty bad cravings this morning. The aforementioned facts are again just a few more reasons that I REALLY needed to stop gaming and I was in need of help. Even at this very moment I am thinking about gaming in some form every 30 seconds or so and the cravings today are pretty intense, but deep down I still know that relapsing would be the worst thing that I could possibly do to myself and I am really glad that during these hard days I can manage to think like that. Last time it wasn't like this. Back then (like 2 years ago) I would immediately come up with reasons why gaming is "good" for me and for my psychic well being and that we only live once so I could just play video games if I feel that it's what I want to do... Even though the last sentence kind of has a point, I understand now that it would be the easy way out of the situation. I have so much more to accomplish and to pursue and gaming has been keeping me an arm's lenght away from it all for a good while now. Damn, I am so glad that I did all this now and that my mindset has changed to be like this. Last time when I quit gaming with a mindset like this was back in 2018 and I managed to pull off at least 6 months without games. If I did it back then, I can easily do it now too. Today's to-do list is something like: play guitar and compose some cool riffs, play piano, go out for jogging OR to the gym, uni work; read a chapter (or more) of business lectures, probably go to the harbor to watch fireworks or something with spouse. Hopefully the day's gonna be awesome 🙂 Cravings (1= no cravings, 5= a lot of cravings): 4/5 Mood (1= feeling like crap, 5= feeling awesome): 3/5 Productiveness (1= procrastination, 5= very productive):3/5

As a fellow former WoW player I can totally relate. I hope your journey has started well. Really happy for you for taking action and pursuing the trust of yout loved one(s). I can remember sometimes placing my family and important gatherings etc. behind wow raids or gaming nights with friends, in priority. The guilt and regret after that can be enormous... Stick to this path and you shall find success in life for sure! "Slay the dragon, claim the treasure" said some wise guy a long time ago ;)

Day 1: Yay, journal time again baby! So around 15:00pm today marked the first 24 hours completely free of gaming since 2019 and COVID epidemic. Conveniently yesterday was the first of September which made me think that this is the perfect time to start this new journey and the 90-day detox. I hadn't been doing any school stuff (I'm studying computer science in the university) so today I decided to go to the university and get started with this year's work. Well, it's a lot of work, I can tell you that 😄 But now it feels that I suddendly have all the time in the world to figure it out. Haha! So as I opened all the materials and stuff and got started, I just noticed how freaking bad I am at concentrating at the moment. Like jeez.. My focus lasts for around 1 minute and I need a break after that. But you know what? It's still better than not doing anything in the past 3 years. And I know that this kind of concentration issues can arise from being exposed to video games multiple thousand hours in the last 3 years, and when you suddendly stop doing that. So it's all natural and (at least hopefully) will subside in the days or weeks to come. I know that these first 7-14 days are gonna be rough as hell. I have a list of activities though that I am going to be doing basically all the time - not leaving a lot of time for boredom & the void that gaming has left in my life. For someone curious about the activities, I'll be listing them here... I'm a musician so I'll be playing guitar and bass a lot. I'll start going to the gym again. I'll start jogging slowly (around 3-5km at a time). I will be cycling to the uni. If I am really bored, I will play online chess (I would never consider this gaming! It's actually super demanding for your brain and is nothing like online games even though you play it online). I used to be a part of the local childrens' circus so I could start juggling again 😄 I'll be composing and writing more songs for my band and probably will watch some movies with my spouse. I also think that I could give a shot to learning how to draw stuff or to learn some more cooking (I am a lousy cook) but those are some things that probably will catch my interest after the hardest part of the detox, when I have more motivation for "more boring things". At least that is how I feel about most of these activities. But the most important thing is that I am now on the right path and I got started with all of this. I already feel a lot better about myself now that I have already done so many productive things today (in comparison to yesterday; I was feeling sick, tired and I loathed myself, not to mention all the guilty feelings after a bad gaming session again.) Each day I will be doing a little list/survey of cravings, mood, productiveness and maybe later other things that come to mind... I'll be giving them points from 1 to 5, where 5 is the worst situation and 1 is the best. Hopefully there will not be many ranting days here but I am pretty sure that when the cravings kick in, things will got pretty real with that too 😄 Cravings: 2/5 Mood: 4/5 Productiveness: 3/5

Hello GQ I'm a Finnish dude soon to be 29 years old. I have been a member on this forum occasionally since 2016'ish and it's time to start the detox journey once again. All I have to say is that since the beginning of COVID-19, everything started to go sideways for me when it comes to gaming. From 2019 until yesterday I had been gaming or doing gaming related activities every single day. I played mostly three games during this time: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, World of Warcraft and League of Legends. I had totalled over 7000 hours in League, a couple of thousand in WoW and 1200 hours in CSGO. The CSGO hours only I managed to pull off only during the time between January and July, which means I pretty much played more than 65 hours a week usually. Sometimes I would play for more than 15 hours a day. Obviously this caused all kinds of harm regarding my brain chemistry and emotional life in general. Gaming became a chore that I HAD TO DO, not something that I would enjoy, or anything that would recover me from the stress of the day/week - but instead something that would cause all the stress that I have been having. So this all caused me to neglect my family, friends and studies - not to mention my working life and personal health. This moment marks the first 24 hours that I have been gaming free since 2019. I will set up a personal diary here where I will go through my feelings during the 90 day detox and I will also use it to vent and discover new things that I find during the moments of agony in withdrawal (which will probably be worst ever this time). Compulsive gaming caused me to eventually drop out of university, where I was doing a degree in computer science. Today I started those studies again and in addition to getting my health, family and social life back, I want to accomplish graduating from the university and to get my life on back on tracks. My situation feels strangely similar to GQ founder Cam's situation (back when he had founded this community), which made me try this forum again. Shoutout to you Mr. Adair, you are a real hero to some of us. Lastly I want to say that my long term goal is not to stop gaming for eternity. My goal is to get my life on track and to have a balanced life where I will be building the career of my dreams, looking after my family&myself and having a routine with everything. I don't know and I don't even care if it's gonna take a month, a year, five years or even decades, but I will not allow myself to lay a finger on video games before all of this stuff is settled. The first 24 hours gaming free already made me 100% more productive than before so let's see what all of this brings to me with time. My biggest challenges with this are most definitely the facts that literally all my friends are hc gamers and my SO is a gamer as well. Luckily she is really supportive and is willing to bend some of her own rules with gaming as well (for her gaming is not a problem, LUCKILY!) Best wishes to all of you and go check my daily journal if you are interested in my situation in any way 🙂 -Jnp