Pauley

- Have a conversation with someone or call someone - Take a walk - Go get some supplies at nearest shop - Get a coffee - Read the news

When I was 19 I had similar struggles. It maybe wasn't that bad, but it was going in that direction. The best teacher in life for me is reality, when I got out and see that nobody cares for me in the world, had to get my own money, my own appartment, my own education and all that. The first years were the toughest for me, since I was addicted and received so many new responsibilities.

Hey man, we seem to have a very similar background. I was playing similar games and had the same struggles. Not having a wife or gf at the moment though. Let's get the control back!

Hey all, I'm in my 30s and in my final semester of university writing my masters thesis. For months I'm procrastinating a lot, so I want to give this forum a try. I've been gaming for a very long time and now I want to quit. Not sure if I need to quit completely but I want to give it a try for 365 days. I've been playing all kinds of games over the years. Here are the online ones that I played most: "Competitive" Warcraft 3 and Dota 1 Dota 2 Starcraft 2 Diablo 2 Counter Strike 1.6 in a team Online Poker Chess (especially mindless blitz [3-5 min/game] or bullet [0.5-1 min/game] The offline games Command and Conquer Generals Stronghold Diablo 2 Age of Empires 2 Unreal Tournament Minecraft There are probably many more of which I don't think right now, but these should be the ones I definetly played the most. I liked gaming since I was a little kid. I remember that in school I spent all my money to go to a gaming cafe where my parents wouldn't bother me. Also when I got my first computer in my own room I would stay up all night and play all sorts of games. It wasn't like I never went to school, but I sure had many "missing days". Sometimes I would even sleep for 1-2 hours in the toilet (during the first couple of hours of school) and then later say that I "missed the first" classes. Also I remember a couple of times saying to my parents that I would go to school, but I took our basement key and slept there for a couple hours on an old dusty bed we had there. I was quite a clever kid, but because of gaming my grades were merely average and it was always a big problem between me and my parents. I would say that the "real problems" started once I moved out to university to a dorm. When I was completly responsible for my own life I've seen that I was failing it. After a couple of weeks the pressure and load of the courses started to overwhelm me. My goto drug was always to start gaming. There I would game for weeks and weeks, start missing my classes and after a while simply don't go anymore. I tried to get back to university schedule, but as you know, once you start missing stuff the work piles up and gets more discouraging. I decided to quit uni at that time. This lifestyle was possible since I took a loan. After that I got into another university and similar things occured. I didn't quit this time. I finished slowly, since the schedule wasn't forcing you to do all your courses in time. Now that I'm in my final semester and facing my biggest challenge the thesis I notice that I procrastinate so much. I could honestly say, that I did close to nothing in the last 4-5 months. I did progress in the new university better than before. But still I had very dark phases in which I would game for months and months, speaking to nobody. The only thing I would do on a good day is to go to the store for half an hour. The rest was gaming, YouTube, bad addictive food and pornography. The worst I remember was that I couldn't even leave my room to go to our dorm's shared toilet. I would urinate in plastic bottles I had in my room. It was a mixture of not wanting to potentially to talk to anyone, some anxiety (because I of course looked like sh*t) and simply not leaving the games. At night I would disspose of all those nasty bottles. Since I got aware of my gaming problems I started to add counter measures to my routine. I mostly stopped competitive playing my favorite strategy games (besides chess). But I play this bottomless pit of modded Diablo 2 offline. Also play Age of Empires 2 offline with hundrets of single player scenarios (and achievements) and chess online. The way I play these days is often with YouTube or some video in the background (on my second screen). Often when I have these "phases", that go on and off after some weeks, I often combine it with unhealthy fast food (usually delivered) and pornography. I was able to quit pornography with the help of the NoFap community, but still this watching something in the background and playing games is a big problems in "my bad weeks". I honestly can do this for the whole day. Just yesterday I woke up at 8AM and played and/or watched YouTube Videos until 1AM the next day (17 hours). So I realize that it is a big problem and I want to see how strong I really am. I want to quit all gaming and YouTube for a full year. YouTube is almost like gaming to me, since I watch about 70-80% of gaming content (often it is learning about strategies or seeing esports), so it's important that it goes with the gaming. I hope this forum will help me to regain control of my life.