Hobedaga

Hey guys, since I expect to be making more videos I decided I'll just make one thread to put them all in. Here we go. Why Gaming is Ruining Your Life [12:18] My Personal Gaming Addiction Story [33:15] Post Gaming Vlog #1 [09:46] Lifting, Friends and Cleaning the Room Vlog #2

Welcome dude, I'm proud of you

Congratulations on this epiphany. I guarantee you your life is going to become better and you are going to gain the rest of it back. Instead of focusing on what you missed out on I suggest to think about what you would be missing out on right now if you still played right now. I don't give a single fuck about the time I wasted besides short occasional thoughts when I am introspecting and thinking about my past. I was a different person and in a sense with the knowledge (or lack thereof), lack of social support and problems I had it was impossible for me to do anything else. I believe the same goes for all of us.

I think I just realized I don't like this type of advice because it's very vague and everyone interprets it differently, so I would completely agree with some interpretations and utterly disagree with others. @Cam Adair Hmm. I probably shouldn't wait until I've fixed and developed myself enough to get into dating.

Keep doing this and you'll find a lot of success throughout the rest of your life. Always. Be. Learning. That's the plan Although I suppose if I get really into some skill I want to develop it might take away from my personal lessons because mostly I'll be learning about that skill but I can still probably learn things about myself as a side effect.

Day 12 Problems to work on: Dealing with strong emotions Dealing with strong emotions Day was going great. Get up, gym immediately, buy groceries, back, make food for myself and sister that was visiting, talk with her, clean fridge... boom. Intense anger. I strayed off what I was doing to help my sis deal with something without her even really asking to deal with it and there were a lot of complications and then... I was angrier than I remember me being in the past 3 years even in way worse situations. Took me by surprise because I thought my emotions generally were rather numb recently. Then this barely controllable anger came over me. It subsided eventually but not before I said some things I shouldn't have to my sister when I got back home. After that... guilt. Boom again. Very strong guilt. I didn't know how to deal with it. It was so unpleasant but I'm stubborn and I didn't want to look weak and apologize. Alas I still called to just to get that feeling off my back and apologized to my sister. It went away. Lessons learned I'm capable of having way stronger emotions than I anticipated, maybe it's just that gaming was numbing them and I also didn't feel many positive emotions for a long time so just mainly feeling negative ones made me think I didn't feel much at allI guess there's two ways with dealing with emotions and it's important to be able to deal with them in multiple ways because you can't let your emotions dictate your life. They're fickle and sometimes they might be senseless. So I dealt with the guilt of having said something unpleasant to another person by calling her on the phone and apologizing (even though I wasn't even sure if my anger was justified or not). The other way would be start doing other things and change your focus on them so you're not ruminating on the feeling. Sometimes you have to think if the feeling is justified though and whether you should act on it or let it slide away.Negative emotions can have an enormous impact to your productivity. I'm actually not quite sure how to deal with them if you can't fix them by doing something. Ie someone insulted you heavily and you took it to heart. If you did it might ruin your whole day's worth of productivity. So how do you deal with that emotion? Especially now that for me personally it seems that whenever I am feeling something it's amplified tenfold after quitting gaming. I've learned about stoicism a bit in the past and maybe being grateful and actually expecting bad things to happen (this is what stoics in greek times would do in the mornings, they would expect to be treated in the worst imaginable ways so they were more grateful and pleasantly surprised when it wasn't the case. They also did this thing called negative visualization where they would visualize losing things they care about and so when they would open their eyes they would feel more grateful towards them because it would feel like you're in a funeral and your loved one gets up (terrible analogy lol)).I haven't actually implemented the lessons I learned about stoicism/Buddhism though Video is coming along slowly. I think it might be a decent video. Thanks again for reading. How do you deal with strong emotions?

I think "be yourself" is terrible advice in regards to dating. To a lot of us especially before quitting it means being someone we wouldn't want to date ourselves at all. Is the whole point of the advice just don't pretend and act as if you have qualities you think are attractive when you don't actually have them? That's fair enough, if you're looking to have a girlfriend you can't pretend to be someone else because it's obviously unsustainable and won't make you very happy having to put up that facade but when you put that away what is left? I think "Become your best self so you don't even need to pretend that you have attractive qualities because you actually have those qualities" is way better advice.

DAY 11 PROBLEMS TO WORK ON: Quitting after difficulties ariseMindless browsing crept back up on meOpening reddit without even thinking about itFocusing on the given task Quitting after difficulties arise So, I've found other activities, not just doing laundry, that taught me that I shy away from difficulties when they arise instead of embracing that discomfort to find out a solution and continue with the task/goal. I was starting to make a video about gaming addiction but I realized I need to do a little research proving that gaming addiction's pretty serious because that's what I want to focus in that video but as soon as I realized I had to do that I went to do something else, something more relaxing. That feeling of "this is hard/I'm not sure what to do" in the moment is not pleasant but I realize if I just started working on the problem asap after getting that feeling it would've subsided instead of sitting on it a bit and pondering whether I should continue or go do something else for the time being. Mindless browsing crept back up on me So I realize that I spent many hours browsing without any real intent besides a vague want to improve myself which I probably only used as a rationalization. Wow, it's so good to put this into words because I only now realized that I used self-improvement as a rationalization to browse a lot. It is a fight with yourself isn't it. So basically I watched many documentaries about addiction and some other things, browsed gamequitters, bit of youtube etc. Thing is you might think this is not such a big deal but honestly internet addiction was probably an even more serious problem for me than gaming addiction. My brain is probably loaded with more memes than I'm comfortable admitting. And I realize that all of that information that I consumed was not only unreliable and uninformative but not really all that funny too. I suppose it filled my needs for a sense of community and novelty. So although I'm procrastinating on it this is definitely something I need to fix. Opening reddit without even thinking about it The habit is still there. I don't really want to not use a computer at all but being on it even doing things that are important and valuable to me the old entrenched habits of opening website that I have no use for are still there. Focusing on the given task So if I'm doing something on the computer or outside of it I have a strong tendency to do something halfway and then go do something else before I'm finished so I suppose I have a problem focusing which is understandable coming off all this constant stream of stimulation of games, memes and porn. I think my sporadic and unorganized to do list that I don't have at hand is part of the problem. But even when I correct my to do list I'll still have the problem of focus that is correlated with the quitting after difficulties arise problem. I'm not really sure how to deal with it. Conclusions Write a to do list with an order of how to do things and have it in my vision/close at handGet the extensions to block/limit internet usage (I'm procrastinating on this one and honestly this is pretty hard to me)Be conscious of when I get difficulties arise and do something about it asap FEELINGS: Can't really say. When I was gaming non-stop I actually thought that there's something wrong with my feelings. That they're on very low volume and nothing matters and I don't care about anything. I felt the most when making a song I just finished. The song itself isn't anything amazing but just creating and pouring your heart out was when I was able to feel the most. I wouldn't say that I felt too much today. I FINISHED THE SONG~ It took me way more than anticipated due to procastination and lack of focus but here it is. It's definitely not very good and I don't need you guys to tell me that it's amazing to encourage me to do something. Don't mean to sound like an asshole but I understand it's not very good and I'm fine with it, I'm putting it out there anyway. Well the words at least I like so here is the translation since the song is in Lithuanian. You can take a wild guess what it is about https://soundcloud.com/atilla-9/malonumo-vergas Lit up by LED lights I won't go to sleep for a long time On my face speckled colors are dancing Colors of war, demons and lost hopes Around me the world is slowly collapsing I don't care I don't live in it I've tried opening those gates many times But when you don't know where to go you always come back home I'm leaving I hope I'll never return It's pushing me back But I'm slowly moving away A quiet voice whispering "Stop! Greatness awaits" It's slowly dying just like me I was alone stuck in a battle field When a friend extended a helping hand I shouted NO! Apathy, pain and fear hovered in the air They were suffocating me But suddenly everything will change And that fog will disseminate I'm leavingI hope I'll never returnIt's pushing backBut I'm slowly moving away

Welcome dude. Hop on to the discord chat if you want some live discussion or talking on mic. Good for when you feel like socializing when you're not gaming and not ready/unable to meet people irl.

@Cam Adair I agree. Even after being done with gaming for good I think I might keep up with the journaling idea just to have my life lessons written down and handy if I ever want to read on some of them and improve something based on the lessons I learned. Today's day 8 no gaming and no mindless browsing. This one is the toughest of all so far. I got really depressed about something I honestly pretty much can't talk to anyone about. Put me in a real bad mental state. I can't say what it is exactly I can only say it made me feel out of control and I can take back that control but I would need to beat guilt and doubt. I understand why I used gaming even more now. There are so many intrigues, plots, major and very difficult decisions that it's just... Things that make me feel trapped. One other thing I learned though at the very least. It's too easy for me to obey authority and doubt my own decisions when that authority challenges them even if I'm completely sure I'm right. I am very grateful for the people who read some of what I wrote and responded by the way. I have a question for you. Would you take a gift with strings attached from a person that didn't care about you in the past enough because he was working on the gift all the time but wants you very much to take it and even though he says you don't have to take it talks about you taking it all the time. Said gift would be a godsend, an absolute dream for other people who would otherwise have to work years upon years to get such a gift themselves, yet you are unsure if that gift is right for you. Excuse the confusing way I'm going about this question but I have to be deliberately vague.

What do you think is the source of your stress and why do you feel so much of it? What usually leads you to feeling so much stress?

I suggest you visit a professional about this. I'm not joking or having a go at you in any way, there's a lot of nuance and detail we cannot understand from a single post and there may be many different reasons for why you experience so much stress/fear. A psychologist could be of great help. Personally I don't have such issues but I guess my suggestion would be to have something in your life that replaces gaming as a source of relaxation but I'm not sure if that's addressing some sort of core problem that I might now know about.

I was getting numb to it and although I didn't fully realize that I'm less and less likely to achieve greatness in something and lead an interesting life of purpose it was actually happening and that thought popped in my head from time to time. There was a lot of stuff leading to it. The public shame when people ask about what are you doing and you're neither working nor studying, people treating you like shit because they don't have a modicum of respect to you (understandably so tbh), the twilight zone feeling of not knowing what is reality and what is a game after a particularly long lasting binge, small chunks of suicidal thoughts because you just don't feel or care about anything, the faster heart rate when going to sleep because you literally didn't move from a chair and eat fast food all day etc. After all that for some reason I felt excited about deleting my games. Also the thought process of "c'mon, you've been playing for a long ass time, can't you just be bored for like a month? Can't you even do that? You've had a ton of "fun" anyway. There was no single rock bottom moment for me.

Today's feelings. Don't feel as tired today. I learned, or rather remember, one important thing about myself. I used to have this thing where whenever I was playing some small browser flash game or something like that just to kill the time, or any other game really, when the game would get difficult enough I would get frustrated, turn it off and turn on another. This tendency wasn't just a game thing, it's something that I have in real life too. So I was putting laundry from a huge pile to the washing machine and I realized I have nowhere to put the clean clothes yet because I was still cleaning my place for clothes in my room and I couldn't start another run on the washing machine because it was filled. So this small thing was enough to get me frustrated and move away, but as I moved I understood that this thing happened before. Whenever I'd run into difficulties or adversity in games instead of bracing myself for a challenge I would change the game, or cheat or do anything else to move beyond being uncomfortable and feeling like I don't know what I'm doing. The exact same thing was happening with the laundry. A small problem was enough to make me want to leave the whole task unfinished. Thing is the solution was extremely easy, I put a towel on the floor and put the clean clothes on it and continued working to finish that pile. Some of the mundane activities are not giving me the amount of pleasure they did a couple days back. But now I'll realize I'll have to develop higher self-discipline if I want to be productive and reach my goals. In other words I'll have to do some things whether I like to or not because I need to do them if I want to achieve my goals. I mean I spent countless hours grinding for some gear in wow or reading up on the most intricite and rarely useful dota mechanic. I didn't do it because I enjoyed that aspect of the game. I did it because I anticipated a reward. My reward will be a nice closet full of clean clothes. And this is a network kind of change. I tried to fix my hygiene on a surface level when my roommates would give me shit (very understandably so) for smelling awful and I would shower and think there, it's done. Problem is soon enough I'd put on clothes that haven't been washed in a long time, sit, sleep and play in a room that is drenched with sweat etc. Now I'm setting myself up for success with these kinds of things. Slowly but surely after I'm done with creating my basic routines, fixing all the forgotten things around me I'll be ready to take on bigger, more meaningful and exciting challenges. Overall on the feeling side of things I'm not sure I've found great joy so far. By far I enjoy myself the most making a song on the acoustic guitar even though my voice probably isn't all that great. But other than that my overall feeling of content is probably higher but I'm definitely not on a roller coaster at the moment. Rather level. I also enjoy socializing on discord so much. I've talked to my father, trainer in the gym, said hi to some guys in the gym and talked to my friend who I helped get his stuff in the car to move to the city I hope to move to soon enough. Just telling so you don't think I'm just getting addicted to chatrooms and am not socializing in reality in any way. Face to face conversations all the way. It's weird when I'm about finished with these posts the perfectionist in me says they need weeks of more work and I don't have much to say but I just post it anyway. especially since I STILL HAVEN"T CLEANED MY GOD DAMNED ROOM I've done some work on it every day though. I actually find it a lot easier to go to the gym and do heavy squats and come back on a bike then I do cleaning my room. I'm not sure what that is all about. So, that's it for today.

Just trying to create positive beliefs with that title. I'm nearing the end of day 6 now and today the first words that come to mind about my experiences are tired and disappointed. Tired because I did enough activities to get tired and am 20kg overweight. And disappointed in myself because it doesn't take me much to get tired. It's especially disappointing now that I have this huge list of activities I want to do and am excited actually about doing them. And they're all achievable, yet I'm still excited. However I never do as many as I hoped for through the day. Through talks on the discord chat I have come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to pace myself. For the past couple of days I've had good sleep, healthy food and exercise. I'm not totally committed to losing the weight yet as I want to take such changes one step at a time. So for now, it's gaming and if I eat too many burgers one day I won't beat myself over it. In general I'm pretty happy about myself not playing games for this period and more so not browsing reddit and other sites mindlessly. Although I sometimes notice how easily I can slip and find myself on a site I know I shouldn't be on (not gaming related, just pointless/funny information) without even realizing how I got there. Anyway about the doing things part. Here's a list of things I have to do: Create and follow a morning routineClean my roomClean the kitchenBuy,store,cook and clean after the food that I have written in my diet plan made by a trainerFinish a song that I am making on an acoustic guitar about gaming addiction (this one's one of the most fun things I do besides socializing)Do the laundry Reinstall windows on my desktop and my laptopCreate a youtube video about gaming addictionGo to the gym 4+ times a week (been doing this a while before just with a friend so shouldn't be too difficult)Some bigger/future things on this list are: Rent out a place in another cityFind a job thereSign up to an mma clubLearn the basics about car maintenance and repairLearn basic first aidLearn russian (have some basics from childhood)So far this week I have: Tidied up my car and sent it to be repairedFixed my bike Drove around with the mountain bike with my father a couple timesWent to the gym a couple timesWrote about 75% of a song on an acoustic guitarRead Cam's book RespawnTalked a whole lot on the discord chat One note is I actually noticed feeling less like a victim of my surroundings in a sense. Before everything seemed static and I couldn't do anything about it. Now I am exercising control over my environment I don't feel like I have to look for someone to tell me what to do. I'm not communicating this very clearly due to tiredness and brain fog so I'll just hope you get the idea. I also need to learn to finish things, too excited about too many activities, need to learn to be more productive. Also slightly off topic: realized that malicious people with various personality disorder who might've hurt me or people I care about in the past isn't something I should be constantly worried about because if I'm not depressed and live my life/follow my goals as well as have healthy boundaries those people won't be a problem without me having to constantly beon the lookout. So that's it for my first journal entry. Idk if I'm doing this right but here goes.

Thank you very much

Hello guys, I'm 23 and from eastern Europe. I have without a shadow of a doubt spent more than 10.000 hours of my life playing various video games. From sega and playstation when I was a child to hardcore pc gaming during my teens and part of my young adulthood. Gaming was my escape because my family situation was rough and I was constantly bullied in middle school and didn't know what to do to stop it. My grades fell as I stopped caring about anything non-gaming related and hobbies and interests that I found interesting faded away. I'd still have a nagging voice in my head saying I can become great, we can improve ourselves. It would say this year after year and never once did I consider gaming to be the problem. It had become not a part of my life but my life fully. Because of it I dropped out of university, having delusions that I was going to become a pro-dota player while being 3k mmr. I became fat, I've thought about suicide countless times, my social skills were decomposing, I even cared more about playing some more games than about spending more time with my mother who was dying of cancer. I actually rushed to go home at every occasion that we visited our mother. Even the very last time, only I didn't know it would be the last. Safe to say I have some regrets. But I've forgiven myself for them because now I understand that I was addicted and I cannot change the past so it's not worth it to ruminate over it. As I approach my sixth day without gaming or mindless browsing I can actually already enjoy simple everyday activities and conversations so much more. I'd need to write a separate article on the benefits and life changes I think this is going to bring to me at this point. It's all because of this community or at the very least people who I talked to on the discord chat and definitely cam's videos and his book. I tried quitting many times before but I would always either spend the all of the extra time I got from not gaming browsing reddit and reading dank memes or I would relapse. Quitting my addiction for the very first time actually if you lump browsing with it happened when I found discord and actually talked to people. It was very liberating talking to people who have been through the same things you have and are facing the same obstacles yet going through them. When you talk to someone who word for word describes many of your experiences and says he's in his second month of no-gaming you feel you can do it too. This and also the realization that gaming can be an addiction as strong as any made me wake up. I'm on my fifth day currently of no gaming + no mindless browsing and so far I can see some really amazing changes but I get tiredness/brain fog/browsing cravings (not so much gaming luckily, I think I wasn't actually enjoying it for too long) yet I'm very excited about doing all sorts of simple activities some of which are pretty fun and others I would have considered mind numbingly boring in the future. So hello people, it is very nice to meet you. Thank you for teaching me that you're not in this fight alone and there can be people with you. A couple of things on a list of things I want to do are make one youtube video about video game addiction and another of a song I almost finished that is related heavily with gaming addiction so I hope I can post those later somewhere here on this forum. No promises though, I've abandoned so many things that I am working with a huge list of things to do