I am a 28 year-old male that has been thoroughly invested in gaming and porn since before I was a teenager. Pretty much have been addicted to both for most of my life and video games have 100% been used as a crux to numb the dullness of life and past toxic relationships. Instead of committing to my significant other, or realizing that I needed out of that relationship, I would spend all my time getting high, playing video games, and watching porn instead of working on myself.
I'm currently in a healthy, happy relationship with a partner of 3 years. We're getting married and I'm trying to not let some of my addictive tendencies to ruin our relationship. There have already been several times where I've relapsed on all fronts and every time that happens, I feel it negatively impacts our relationship because of how much it negatively impacts me.
I think my biggest trigger is boredom, which leads to intrusive thoughts about watching porn or watching YouTube videos of people playing games and having fun, which lead to me wanting to play games. There are many things in life that are inherently boring at first that I want to do - like earn certifications for my career, or learn new skills (like singing/playing guitar), or working out, - and I need to figure out how to allow my brain to be bored while I get past the initial difficulty hump of trying anything new for the first time and sucking for a while.
I feel like my addictive tendencies have also lead way to being addicted to a wide range of things that give instant gratification: doom scrolling, video games, shopping (sometimes), and sex to name a few. I feel these things are all related and I need to approach all these things under the same umbrella because they seem to all be triggered by the same thing.
Goals
Abstain from any intentional viewing of porn
Limit chronic masturbation to 1/week max, not masturbating to porn or induced thoughts of porn to get off but instead relying on my own fantasies and thoughts. I feel like this will lead to less masturbation overall because I am not artificially inducing an erection through external stimulus like porn. Also try to engage my partner first before masturbating at all.
Abstain from PC gaming
Limit console gaming for end of the day decompression (past 8PM) / no longer than 1 hour per day. (I do not find myself triggered or binging console games ever because of the learning curve for me, as I never grew up playing them, so it's often much more challenging.)
Abstain from prolonged doom scrolling distractions including Reddit and YouTube (no more than 30 minutes a day.)
Steps
Here are the steps I've taken so far to help me accomplish my goals:
Put my gaming PC in storage
Set up Adult/Porn DNS block on all my laptops and phone
Set up Productivity app on my phone to limit Reddit/YouTube/other distractions to 30 minutes/day max before locking with a long password.
Blocked all social media (Facebook, TikTok, etc.) on all devices.
Signed up for weekly NoFap community drop-ins
Created journal (here) to log progress to keep myself accountable and put my feelings into something tangible
Allow myself to be bored, acknowledge cravings, but do not succumb to them
Invest more in my hobbies/skills I want to learn including: rock climbing, music production, guitar, singing, exercise, career advancement, and making new friends.