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Regular Robert

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  1. Corentin, I honestly think you are slowly on your way to rock bottom. I don't mean that in any offensive way, but let us be honest for a moment here: If you are afraid that the ESPOMUN thinks you are unreliable, ... do you think she would be wrong? You overslept due to binging. You are in fact unreliable. Like I said multiple times before, I am not trying to diminish you or what you do, in fact, I believe you are a great guy with tons of potential, but in order to be able to work on your problems, you have to face them. To me, it looks like you are about to break down in the near future. Every addict has this point in his life. When nothing works anymore. You are trying to make it work. But everybody can see that you are not capable of making it work anymore. Just lay back and rethink for a moment. You prepared your tour to the US in the last possible moment, because you procrastinated. When you were back, you instantly procrastinated again. May be, because of the old high you had at the conference or may be, because you felt overloaded and overburdened. This caused you to - again - prepare your stuff for your class in the last possible moment, which resulted in you oversleeping and missing the class entirely. Your journal entries happen extremely sporadic. I am not saying that you are lazy, not at all. I believe, the opposite is the case: You are trying to somehow keeping it all together, which costs so much mental and physical energy, that your mind begs you to procrastinate. In my opinion, you need a break. A serious break. Let somebody else help you with your workload. Step back a little, lay back a little. You have an addiction problem and in order to adress it, you need energy, time and mental capacities. In other words: You need help. I know you think that you are extremely capable and it is true, you are. But not right now. Right now, you are a freaking mess. And in order to unfuck your own life, you gotta accept that right now, you are completely fucked up. Like @info-gatherer said, you treat procrastination as your main source of trouble. But it isn't. It is a mere symptom. It is the pain, but the actual splinter that causes the pain is deep down under your skin. You gotta find out WHY you procrastinate and WHY you binge game. But in order to do so, you need rest, peace, ease, silence, quietness. A place and a time to concentrate on what is going on inside. Than you will find answers. Depression, anxiety, trauma, there is so much that can make a human stray from his or her path. I am real sure that you will make it and find your way, but it will take time, it will hurt and it will be a lot of effort. And again: This is only my opinion. All can be wrong that I say and write, but may be, some of these words can help you in any way. May be, there is some kind of benefit you can get from them. Wish you the best, mate.
  2. Hey Brian, how are you on your journey? I just wanted to remind you that, no matter what happened in your life after you decided to stop playing video games, you can always open up this forum and share your thoughts, feelings or simply talk about recent experiences. If you are having trouble following through, consider creating a journal in this forum. It sure is a great help. And don't abandon hope if you hit (major) setbacks. Stuff like that happens and it does not matter that it happens, but how you are going to make it work. Best wishes, I hope you are well and focused.
  3. Welcome Dave! A funny thing up front: I can totally relate to the Sims situation. Every couple of months, me and my wife play a couple of hours just to "rebuild our house" and see how we could change the furniture and stuff. It is not really gaming to us, but more like an interactive interior design tool. And I never got addicted to it somehow. Anyway, you got some cool art-project going on and I guess this will be a great head start for you, since many people who stop playing games have to find a fulfilling hobby first. It seems, you got a great one already. Best of luck to you for your future plans. Be sure to ask if you need any support.
  4. Welcome Gavin. I love the part about vowing on this field, completely wasted and walking in darkness. I often believe that we already know and already knew for a long time what is good for us and what is not. But the daily distractions tend to disconnect us from ourselves and in states like being drunk, the voice inside has a lot more volume and other stuff fades into the background. I am glad you are here to keep on going this path. (Not hanging around fields at night with bottles of booze in your mind, but adding real value to your life) There are quite some people in here that were mainly on LoL, so do not feel forsaken. A good start would be to create some barriers between you and the distractions that are gameplay vids and such. Some people suggest to set your smartphone to colorblind/greyscale mode. On your PC, you can simply block YouTube for a while. Most modems/routers should have a feature to create a blacklist. Anyway, good luck on your journey!
  5. What kind of char do you play? I think you would make an awesome Shaman, obviously ( :) )! Havin' all the herbs to keep the group clean and and healthy.
  6. I hope my favorite warrioress is still pumped to the brim with battle prowess! Go, guuurl! Show em!
  7. Awesome mindset. Can't wait to see your progress, mate! :)
  8. You are not forced to help anybody here. The forum exists so that people have a place to create a journal and to get support from fellow quitters when they need support. And "support" can have many forms and does not necessarily have to be a problem. Sometimes it is enough to just have somebody remind yourself of the good progress you are making. I can totally agree that some people do not want help, nor want to make progress. Some people like to simply vent frustration and do not want to change. Some people like to brag about their sufferings. But a person that does visit this forum on a daily basis to post into his or her journal is already making progress. And if you do not want to read other's journals, that is totally fine. You are here because YOU decided to be here. Also, I read parts of your journal and I am happy for you that you are obviously making progress, but I will be bold here now, because sometimes I feel boldness is necessary: It is great to be interested in stuff. Everybody should have interests and most people do have interests. But I feel that for you it is extremely necessary to shut down your input for a moment and listen to your own deepest thoughts. In your journal, nothing is really about you. Everything is merely a reaction of you to something you saw online somehow. This thread is called "why I...", yet it is nothing but a quote of Peterson. There is nothing that truly comes from you. You obviously feel the need to express something, so do it. But do it in your own words. Everybody can react to stuff somebody else wrote. And that is what is happening a lot in your journal and I believe that this is one of your issues. I don't know you, but to me you seem to be restless. You want to stop gaming, awesome, but don't put tons of crappy media in its place. Shut down the PC for a while, shut down all the media for a while and focus on what you can actually change, yourself. Find the reason why you are so restless. For example: Meditation did not help you, you said in another post. I could not truly sleep for years. The reason was simple, I could not let go because I hoarded a lot of negative old feelings inside of me that would not let me sleep at night. If meditation does not help you, you could also try to find out why it does not help. You will have a high now since you are applying a lot of the stuff Peterson wrote and since you can distract yourself with all the negativity that is happening in the world, but at some point, you will fall down again and than, you will most likely jump onto the next thing that catches your attention. I am not saying you are not making progress. But I truly believe that self-focus would help you a great deal. Sit down for a moment it complete silence, with no electric distraction running and look into your own soul. There was a reason why you were gaming to the point that you wanted to quit and I believe there is a reason why you are overloading yourself with other distractions now. Also, Peterson put 15 "maybes" into this text alone and not every YouTube personality should be an idol on how to live life. You are the master of your own life. If he thinks you are a loser, that does not make you a loser. You determine success by yourself, like he determines failure by himself. And even though he brags about how helping others is just for your own vanity, he wrote a self-help book for others to buy.
  9. I mean, why not? I guess with good training, you have a lot of choices, like becoming an animator, lead designer, graphic designer for websites or magazines or such. Also, there are many different kinds of games. Like educational games. Not every game has to be a disguised gamble that profits from addicts. May be, we need somebody who turns games into what they once were supposed to be. I'd say, try it if it is what you really want to do. In the end, what matters is that you like what you are doing with your life.
  10. I hope embracing your awesomeness works out well for you! Would love to hear how the job applications went.
  11. It took me a while, but I finally decided to continue working on my journal. In the past, I have not seen many reasons to continue since I was busy working on the stuff I picked up during the detox. But I feel, a post-detox journal might be interesting. I saw some people counting the days they are sober, but since I had quite some major and minor relapses, I never continued counting. Well, enough small talk. I will basically talk about things and topics that I experienced during my detox and after my detox, as well as hard times, challenges, moments of truths and wisdom to be learned. It will help me to reflect and may be, just may be, it will help others who are on their journey. Bobbie's 90+ day detox ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHEN ENTHUSIASM IS OUT OF CONTROL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During my detox I found a couple important things and skills that have been missing for quite a while. One of these things was ENTHUSIASM. I have always been a kid that wanted to try out new stuff, wanted to learn and to witness in order to understand. I always wanted to improve, to accumulate new wisdom and skills. In short, I was very enthusiastic. As an adult, that had not changed too much. But during and after my detox, my enthusiasm turned into a problem for me. You see, during the years that I played video games on a daily basis, I was numb. I guess, we all are numb when sitting in front of a screen, half-drooling, half-stuffing our faces with junk food. But that desire has always been inside of me. Whenever I watched a YouTube video about something remotely interesting, I wanted to learn about that. Photography, making music, building cars, chemistry, biology, dog training, painting, flying helicopters, gardening, writing, film making, smithing, airbrushing stuff, modding games, coding software, creating my own game, invent a new thing nobody has but everybody wants, train, train more, train to become a beast, ride a train, build my own model trains with a 3D printer, take part in an online course, travel, travel even more, travel and get lost for a couple of years only to come back full frontal Indiana Jones style, rob a bank, sew my own clothes ... well, THE LIST IS INFINITE, quite obviously. And during my detox, I tried a lot of things. I trained, worked out, went running. I picked up cooking. I began to create some kind of podcast, created a website for myself. I picked up writing again. I bought a new camera to take pictures and learn about photography. I took long walks with the dog and so on and so forth. But I when the slightest feeling of satisfaction hit me, I tended to feed myself new input, such as YouTube videos, Wikipedia articles, how tos and tutorials and input from other sources. Due to years of fake progress, major fake progress, I trained myself to always level up. To always keep on improving. ALWAYS GET A NEW KICK. Never to stand still, never to rest. Just like a junky, the kick wears off. Especially in browser games, RPGs and of course MMOS, you level. You gotta level to take part in the good content, you level to challenge other players, you level because ... well, you level for the sake of leveling, since aside from that, there is often nothing to experience. You gain experience, the end. When I went through my detox, I accumulated a huge stack of stuff I wanted to do, which resulted not in satisfaction, but in sheer OVERLOAD. Don't get me wrong, it all felt good. Improving, learning new stuff, it all felt so awesome. But ultimately, I learned nothing really and was unable to improve. Because, if you learn to do literally everything a slight bit, you will come across like a jack-of-all-trades. But that is only superficial, since underneath that surfacing knowledge is nothing. Instant rock bottom. Especially in online games, I always sensed this urge to keep up. You needed to be able to respond to every situation. You needed to master the game to be a master. Not only in games, but also in real life, most commonly in the media, I feel there is a huge pressure on young people. Or let's say, on (post-)millenials. Facebook shows the great parts of people's lives and they all look so damn happy. Every YouTuber seems to be a huge success. "SUCCESS" is probably the word nowadays. Everybody has to be successful. Everybody has to be something. Something that you can show. It often feels to me like the old days, when I was a tiny lad, listening to my parents who talked to other adults on the marketplace about what Mr. and Mrs. this' or that's son does now and whatnot. People are often talking and always comparing. Nowadays, I think this behavior has been accelerated by faster and more public ways of talking and gossiping. Anyhow, with such a pressure, no real sense for gratification and the kicks that resulted from enthusiasm, overload was unavoidable. During and after my detox, I learned a couple of important things. When it comes to enthusiasm, the most important knowledge I gained was: I HAVE TO DECIDE. I have to decide what I want to do with my potential time and work in mind. What can I do? What will help me progress in my and only my life? What is useful to me? I always have to remind myself that even though I feel totally pumped about this or that now, it might only be a passing feeling. Every time this feeling comes up, I have to evaluate whether I truly think this new thing is beneficial to me. Otherwise, I end up putting up lists, buying new stuff and all of it will only collect dust and feel like a burden. Looking around my living environment helps to evaluate whether something is useful to me or not. I have what I need and thus, I can literally see what kind of stuff I need in my life. Still, I learned that, the less I have and accumulate, THE MORE NIMBLE I MOVE. This goes for physical, but also for mental and emotional stuff. I grew a lot calmer, more serene in the past couple of months. The reason is that I do not follow every tiny kick anymore. Enthusiasm is great, it generates energy, but the main question I shall ask is: Will I have enough energy TO CARRY ON after the enthusiasm is gone? For a couple of things in my life, the answer is clearly ... "Yeah!". For those things, I now have more energy, more concentration and more time to actually make progress. I mean, the detox itself if proof for everybody who goes through it. After dropping gaming, the amount of time, mood and energy I had for other things simply exploded. I think, a great part of growing up, becoming an adult is to decide what one wants to do with his or her life. Once the decision is out in the open, it all boils down to a good level of self-management. Another nice side effect is: I am able to admit that I HAVE NO F!#*ING CLUE. I mean it. I often felt a pressure to ALWAYS BE SUITABLE or adequate no matter what the situation is. Some of you might know that feeling. "Do not admit you are unable. People will think you are a failure." Competitive gaming boosted the pressure even more. But, this feeling is almost entirely gone. I don't always know the answer. I don't always know how to do something, nor do I always have an opinion. Some stuff is simply beyond my knowledge. But I almost always certain where to go to in order to find a person I could ask for advice or knowledge. And I, for myself, am able to do the stuff I do with full concentration. Enthusiasm is great to get the engine running, but your fuel is limited and you will never reach the end of ALL THE PATHS, but with the right mindset you will be able to reach far BEYOND THE END OF YOUR PATH.
  12. Regarding the reminders: I used single pieces of paper, you know those in the size of post-its. Every evening, I would write down the stuff I want to get done the next day. I always start with the easiest, most mundane things. This paper would be placed on my computer keyboard, so that the moment I want to boot up my PC, I would have to pick it up and thus look at it. I still do it this way, although I do not need it on my keyboard anymore and some structural things have changed. Important to know is, I guess: Always begin as small as possible. In my case, #1 on the list always was "Do the dishes". Over the course of time, this changed into "Clean the kitchen" and later, simply into "Kitchen", which meant that I would do the dishes, clean the oven, open the windows, prepare the stuff I need to cook later on and so on. Very basic stuff. #2 on my list was always "Make your bed". Interesting to me was that I always hated cleaning up. My mother always compensated her horrible marriage by cleaning up the whole house, plus forcing me to clean up my room like all of the time. My room looked like nobody lives there. Like a demo room in your local IKEA. So, I naturally hated cleaning up as it was a reminder of my horrible, sterile childhood. But after weeks of repeating the processes, it became natural to me and I developed my own rituals. When I do the dishes, I listen to an audio book or simply a nice radio station. In the beginning, I often sang and danced to the music. The mundane "to-dos", that I hated, turned into all natural, entertaining and somewhat cathartic routines. And in the end, #1 and #2 were combined, since I do both of them right after I get out of bed. This leads to the next point: Time is the enemy and your ally. No matter how annoying an event or action is, you gotta do it again and again and again. There will be a point when becomes to horribly annoying that you would rather burn down the bedroom than cleaning it up, but once you managed to pass this point, stuff becomes lighter and lighter until you do not even feel it anymore. When I was gaming, cleaning up took a long time, since I often procrastinated it and since I did not want to do it. But repetition over a certain course of time makes it easier by changing your attitude towards the event or action. Find a balance. Like, enthusiasm is awesome and creates energy, but the energy will fade at some point. Whenever I got a good day, I always thought "tomorrow I will improve even more". The result was 10 to-dos on my list, many of them not being basic stuff, but actions that require tons of willpower. Like, teaching my mom how to use her email software using TeamViewer and a telephone, since she lives on the other end of this country. After 3 hours, my head was about to explode and I was done for the day. The result was half of the list left undone and a feeling of "I am still a loser". Balance is the key. Start with easy tasks, do them every day until they become so easy that you could do them in your sleep and than add slightly harder stuff. If you need something real tough to be done, keep your potential amount of energy in mind. You can split it and do it on two days or do it on one day, but do not add too much other stuff. You are learning and learning works best from easy to difficult. Another aspect if your consumption of YouTube related stuff. My advice would be, switch to another platform if you can. Like, if you listen to music on YouTube, switch to spotify or something else. Just use YouTube for the stuff you really want to consume. Like you said, history stuff. If you are using Chrome, there are plug ins that will make the usage of YouTube easier. I dealt with similar problems and I fixed them with a bunch of tiny tweaks: A plug in that lets you change how YouTube works. I see no comments, no recommendations, no annotations. When I want to watch something, I have to type it into the search bar and I watch exactly what I want to watch. That helps. YouTube shortcut, bookmark or favorite. In my browser, I - of course - use bookmarks to quickly go where I want to go. In the beginning, I had the YouTube front page as a bookmark, which was horrible. It is like steam. When you boot it up, it shows the shop until you change this feature. That means, you are immediately fed content that might "interest" you. Most of the stuff does not really interest you, but still catches your eye, since you are in auto-pilot and simply want to consume stuff that is kind of right down your alley. In other words, YouTube is not different from video games. It is designed to take as much time from you as possible. It is even worse than Television, where you would watch one channel and than switch if it does not interest you. While watching stuff on YouTube, it shows you all the other cool stuff you could watch next or meanwhile. Or everything at the same time. YouTube, by design, rips your concentration span into pieces. So, back to the bookmark. Set a different bookmark. I set my own channel, so that when I open YouTube, I can see the stuff I already created and get triggered to work on that stuff. It only shows my own stuff, so no crazy recommendations or something. Aside from that, you could also like ... look for a Zen video and bookmark this. From there it will be easier to navigate through this electric circus fully focused. Last but not least, this is not for everyone, but I had to cancel my Netflix subscription. Not because it harmed me, since I do not like most of the stuff they have, but it harmed my relationship with my girlfriend. It is cool to lay back and be entertained from time to time, but the time I spent on Netflix watching stuff I do not really want to watch, I do NOT do: Talking to others. Interact with my environment. Learn anything about me or my environment. Feed my brain. Connect to my peers. And so on. In short, I found for me, that Netflix turns me, just like video games, into a non-social person. All I do is watch. Often completely isolated in my mind. Just enjoying the stimuli. Especially the less talking was very harmful for my relationship. So, I know, a huge wall of text. Probably too much text. But may be, some of these points can help you. Just remember, its your progress and your situation. Something that works for me does not necessarily work for you and all I write can be utter and complete bullcrap. You will find out for yourself what works for you and whenever something works, improve it. Your journal entries become more regular, your self-awareness seems to rise and you are making progress regarding your daily structure.That is awesome. Keep on going and witness the great progress you make, Corentin. You got this under control!
  13. I hope you are feeling alright and that the situation improved in this new year. Stay strong!
  14. "A strong woman with battle prowess" sounds so awesome. So damn awesome.
  15. Welcome Brian! I always find it astonishing how people get here. I mean it. Many people suddenly have this moment of truth, without any preparation, when they ask google how to quit playing video games. It is like, we all knew it deep down inside of us. We all knew that video games were a vice that we fed to escape certain circumstances. I can relate to your story. My childhood friend was my PC and I even played like the same games like you. I think for certain generations, being an outsider made 'em become gamers somehow. Anyway, I like your new view on your life. I like that you can feel the loss, know that you actually would like to be a caring dad and make more of your life than you have done before. I am quite confident, that with your maturity and confidence, you will turn this ship around and set sails for new horizons and harbors. Best of luck to you. Keep your endurance, strength and concentration up and head over to the journal area to create a journal thread just for yourself. And whenever you need aid, have a question or simply want to share thoughts, fears, ideas or whatever, the people in this forum are quite friendly.
  16. Corentin, I would suggest to change your approach. If it is not working the way you currently try, another way might be of more use. I will - real cheeky - just point my finger at some things I noticed: You might want to stop being a good boy. Like I mentioned before, I feel you are trying to fulfill expectations. In fact, I feels like this journals is kind of a burden to you. The first two posts are summaries of time spans of about a week each. Especially the beginning of the detox is really tough. The changes in ones mood and emotions hits like a train. It will be useful to reflect on a daily basis and to vent some of the stuff that happened. Try to journal on a daily basis in the beginning. It is hard to remember day 2 when you are already on day 6. Try to Visit your journal on a daily basis! I might be wrong, but what you do right now is ... well, you are investing the very least, the mininum of effort. It feels like you actually felt using the journal is just another chore, but to not pass on it completely, you posted at least a little bit of text. Don't get me wrong, if you don't use it, nobody will be mad or sad or whatever. Also, I am not here to judge. Just trying to show my point of view.. You are doing this for you. You promised yourself to try to change and now you are just investing the minimum in effort to do so. This is how you treat yourself. If this detox has any value to you, you need to treat it like it has value to you. If you see a person of value when you look in the mirror; or if you want to see a person you value in the mirror, you gotta start treating yourself like a valuable person. Otherwise, don't invest any effort at all. There is no minimum to fulfill here. You don't get kicked out if you do not use the journal. Stop being a good boy, stop doing things because it is expected of you. If you want to stop procrastinating, stop procrastinating where it matters most. And that is ... ... in the little things. You are just starting out. Keep your commitments, your goals and such as small and controllable as possible. Start small, grow larger over time. Small goals can be fulfilled. Fulfilled goals lead to good feelings like, feeling confident, feeling valuable, feeling sovereign, feeling capable of taking care of your own stuff. Set tiny goals. Work on them. Upgrade your goals. Work on them. Witness the growth. Admit that you have a problem. Gaming was never a problem for me either. But when I joined this little exclusive club here, gaming had become a major problem for me. You chose the website that is called game quitters. Gaming seems to be an issue for you. It hurts and - which might be very important for you - it is a confession that, no matter how sovereign you are supposed to be, you are unable to control the most basic stuff in your life. You ... have ... a ... problem. You aren't a problem, but you have one. Once you confessed this to yourself, the truth is out and the truth is the only thing you can work with. You wrote it yourself: You feel like you are lying to yourself. Investigate. Are you lying to yourself? And if so, what are you trying to cover from yourself? You are not a weak-willed, spoiled brat. That might be the easy solution a part of you wants you to believe, because it is very comfortable. If you are a spoiled brat that can't change, why should you even try? It is your weaker self trying to rationalize more procrastination. "Why try changing if I simply cannot change? It is a waste of time. Might as well hang around the PC ..." Ask for help. And ask specific questions. If you face an issue during your detox, ask. People are willing to help. But do not ask a general question, like "how do I get more willpower"? Explain the situation and ask a precise question. "How do I get to bed before midnight? I tried ... and ... but it did not work. Do you have any ideas?". Like that. So, Corentin, try and see if any of this text is useful to you. Remember, I am not you. Only you can really find out what is going on inside of you. But I feel you need a little ... soft pushing somehow. Just a gentle little push forward. Now, close your browser and do the most remote real life work you can do. Make your bed, do the dishes, prepare a simple meal, enjoy the meal, make a tea and enjoy your tea, anything like that. Remote stuff, easy to fulfill. And go from there. It will help.
  17. Quit playing. Level up real life. | Infinite hours of playtime. | ALT + F4 to start | Quitting games - F2P | You are/ I am not an avatar. | Unplug to unleash | 271560 hours logged | ESC to RL | No ESC | Not quite awesome but all I could come up with. What would the message be the shirt should transport? Should it deliver a cool phrase, be an ad for GQ or show some sort of unity among those who quit? Depending on how much effort you want to put into the shirts, you could also add a "skilltree", just like in RPGs, but the skills it shows are like "compassion +1", "purpose", "determination" and such. You could have multiple versions of it, showing a "real life warrior" which is focused on strength and sports and such. Or a "real life mage", which focuses on studying and learning and so on. You get the idea.
  18. Welcome and happy b'uuuurthday, Edward!
  19. And @J(e)RK has a point here. It will be beneficial for you to not distant yourself from this progress It is not a challenge. Nobody does it to prove a point, nor are there any other challengers. There is no win, no lose. It is a detox for people who faced that they have a gaming problem. If you call it a challenge, you distance yourself from "having a problem". But the first step to changing a condition is to accept that this condition is real. Thus, I can only suggest to you to view this as a detox. It might also have an influence on your relapse probability. 1. You are not rambling. I was the same when I started doing what I like to do: writing. I diminished my own work in order to not having to take it serious. If somebody reads your journal and views your words as rambling, his problem. Or her problem. Screw em. This is your journal and you do this for you. Your thoughts are important to you, or should be. 2. You do not write too much. You write the amount you feel is necessary. You are not writing this stuff to entertain people, nor educate people. This journal will not have to face judges. It is a diary. Your diary. Your thoughts and feelings is what it consists of. You reflect on it. That other people can read it is secondary. You do you. Other people can suggest and comment, but all they are is a community that faces the same "change of lifestyle". 3. Do not make TL;DR. This is not reddit, nor the steam reviews, nor anything else. You don't have an audience here. Try to be completely blind for the fact that other people can read your stuff. You are not here to serve an audience. This is about you. Nobody will expect anything. I know that you are very smart, I read your introduction. But you are not here because you are smart. You are not here to be tested. You came here to change a condition you don't want to have in your life anymore. Treat it like that. Do not try to fulfill anybodies expectations. You will fail time and time again. I guess expectations is one of the topics you should reflect on in this journal. I can only assume that with outstanding intelligence they serve outstanding expectations. Again, I am not trying to bash or criticize you. I am just trying to let you see your approach with my eyes. Do not serve anybody here. This is about you. If you procrastinate, I will not be disappointed in you. Nobody here will be. You will not be treated like a traitor, nor will you be banished. Quitting games is a process. Not an exam. Don't plan too much. The first couple of days might be horrible, at least in my experience. I felt like going crazy. There will hardly be any chance to analyze what is happening. Go with it in the beginning. Don't focus too much on any scientific result. In fact, free yourself from the idea of making this a self study. It will be a self study, but only if you do not treat it like that. You gotta be honest with yourself and in order to be honest to yourself, you have to be close to yourself. A self study puts you on the other side of the mirrored glass, watching a subject and studying it. Free yourself. Let go. No expectations, nothing to fulfill. Just stick to not gaming, changing your daily structure and live what is there to live. A little suggestion from my side: Be bored for a while. I mean it. It will most likely drive you crazy, but what happens when you are bored is that you have to face yourself. You will have to face your own feelings, past, present, ways of thinking and so on. Be bored for a while and see what it does to you. Having something to do all the time is extremely distracting from "the self". See what happens when you are bored beyond belief. I would bet my left hand that there will be a point where you will have some moments of truth. Also, try not to be a gifted child for a moment. Try not to label yourself unless you find a label that you truly want to fulfill. Again, no expectations. No helping others in your journal. This place is YOURS. Only yours. You are writing stuff down to reflect on yourself. You will not be able to help anybody if you plan on reflecting on yourself with the purpose of helping others. All of this is secondary. If your journal happens to help somebody, awesome. If not, still awesome, because you wrote it and it will help you on your path. You are not here as the scientist that will fix gaming addiction or procrastination. You are here because you do not like your current condition. If you want to comment on others journals, awesome. But do yourself a favor and be an egoist for a while. Force yourself to face yourself. What you are currently doing is, like I said, creating a distance between you, who are here because of a troubling condition and you, who is here to change this condition. Both are the same person. You are not here to study. This is not your job, nor school. This here is more of a temple where you go to silently meditate and share your story with others who live through the same stuff. No doctors, no test persons. And again, not trying to come off too strong here, but one of your issues should be the expectations people have about you. To me, it feels like you grew up fulfilling expectations and if not, you feel like a failure and distance yourself from yourself. You don't always have to be smart. You don't always have to be awesome, especially not in everything. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we have to learn. Even gifted children can fail. Accept yourself the way you are now and love this person. From there, walk down the alley of change, but as one person. Not as one who has a problem and as once who is watching and fixing the other. Hope that wall of text can be helpful to you in any way. Good luck on this journey. And don't forget, there are a lot of people here that have your back when you need it.
  20. I for myself try to not watch YouTube stuff, nor series. The latter is something I do sometimes, but with purpose. I usually ask myself if I truly want to watch that show or if I am looking for distraction. If it is just the craving for distraction, I deny myself mindlessly watching a show. I would truly suggest that you try to use the system Hitaru presented, at least as an experiment. Because "fun, easy to reach" is difficult to apply. For example, you mentioned cooking, reading and chess. Cooking is something very active, that does not occupy much brain power. I usually cook and listen to an audio book or music and actually "dance through the kitchen". That is, indeed fun. But entirely different fun than chess. Chess is engaging, occupies a lot of brain power and demands a high level of concentration. Depending on how you feel and what you desire to feel, cooking can work or not, like chess can work or net. If you are looking for something to "push yourself" a little, chess is inferior compared to like ... workout, swimming, running. If you want to be calm and relaxed, cooking might be inferior compared to meditation or reading. Reading can strain your eyes and might not be fun if you want easy-to-digest content. You know what I am trying to say? There are many activities and all of them are great fun, but not always. It depends on your mood, desires, physical status and purpose. Try to set up a list, test stuff, and organize it. You can be quite specific about it if you want to. Also, I suggest that you add a couple of "self-reliance" activities. Like you said, cooking for example. Learning to cook your own food will boost your confidence. It makes you independent and improves "basic survival skills". In other words: you learn to take care of yourself and you will feel responsible for yourself. The same goes for fitness activities like workout, running and such. You take care of your own health and fitness. You feel responsible for your own shape. Cleaning, doing the laundry, dishes and so on is important and useful as well. Also, it can be a lot of fun. Going out for walks. You don't even need a goal to reach. Often, it can be great just to be outside and feel outside. Or think outside. Inhale the fresh air, watch your surroundings, get a feeling for the world around you. Last but not least, take a look at that: https://gamequitters.com/hobby-ideas/ (click me)
  21. Glad to read your replay. And don't worry about not being able to organize your thoughts. Its very much the way you described it. Gaming rewards you with instant gratification, while in real life, gratification takes time to kick in. And now that you mention it: Reading was impossible for me at first and still isn't easy for me. Me eyes physically drifted away while I was reading. So I'd say, start with something that is easier and keeps you busy. Sports helped me, since you always keep moving. But stuff like cooking or even making paracord bracelets helped me, because my fingers were busy. I am sorry that I falsely accused your friends of having bad intentions, but it is kinda great that I was wrong about it. I am glad that your friends mean no harm to you and may be, they can somehow support you. Learning a new language is a thing many quitters seem to pick up. I did it myself. What I can say from my experience is that learning a new language is very rewarding. It feels good to witness that you "know new words". I guess, it comes very close to instant gratification. Another thing I can recommend is: Cleaning and tidying up. It feels good to do the dishes, wash your stuff and tidy up your environment. It also has a very nice effect on your thoughts. Organized outside helps being organized inside. If you already take care of those responsibilities, forget what I said. Your second post looks a lot more organized, by the way. If you need any support, advice or help, use all the resources this forum offers. I wish you strength and endurance and be sure to start journaling at some point in the future.
  22. How many days into the detox were you? It will be quite hard in the beginning, but after about 2 weeks, you should already feel massive changes in your mind and behavior. Also, did you keep track of your progress and emotions in a diary or journal? If not and if you are still interested in going through the detox, just head into the journal area and create yourself a thread to keep track. It is very helpful since you gain a lot of insight into your own feelings and thoughts and, which is extremely beneficial, you get support from other members in the community in form of advice, feedback or simply due to shared experiences. Aside from that, there are some important things to remember: 1. You don't owe anybody. If you are going to quit games but find yourself gaming again, you do not owe anybody anything. No explanations, no admitting you failed, no confession or whatever. You are doing this for you, not to impress anybody or prove anything. You are doing this because you feel that your way of gaming is harmful to you or does block progress. Or, you have any other reason, but it still counts: You are doing it for you. 2. If your friends "remind you" that you said you won't game but "hehe! got'cha", you will most likely need some distance. This is not supportive behavior, it is not useful, nor helpful. It is not even criticism. It only serves one purpose: Showing you that you failed and that you should stop trying to quit. Sometimes it even origins in even lower feelings, to simply show you that you are not better than them, even though you never said that you feel superior due to quitting doing what they love to do. People can become very defensive if somebody "tries to take their little precious away". By quitting games, many people will feel triggered because you are trying to apply change while they just junk on. I am not saying that everybody who plays video games is a junky, but when I boot up my steam or discord at any time of the day, there is a 75% chance that I see my old gaming friends playing games. 3. Do not hide. Like I said before, you don't owe anybody. But there is even more to this: You do you. If you feel like gaming, you game. If you feel like staring at the wall for hours, you do that. As long as you decided to do that, it is fine. You decide, you do, you reflect on what you did and you decide again. If you want to quit gaming, try it. It you fail, try again. If you truly want to quit and decide to quit, just do it. Follow through. Even if you fail, that does not make you a failure. It makes you a human who went his own path as far as he or she could. And next time, you will fail better and get further. 4. Find hobbies. Find something to do. In the beginning, you do not even have to pin down what you are passionate about. You will find out eventually. Just try new stuff. Try cooking, running, working out, painting, swimming, writing, making music, listening to music, watch movies, go buy your own groceries, clean your room, apartment or house. Tell people that you like, that you like em. Watch the clouds, I don't know. Just do new stuff that you haven't done before. If you find something you like doing, go on doing it, improve and see where it leads to. It does not have to be your magnum opus, nor your true passion, nor anything else. In the beginning, liking doing it is great. Edit: Very important in the beginning is to get away from the computer. Best would be out the house. Focus on other things than the screen, otherwise you will strengthen the urges to boot up games. 5. Don't lie. Not because "oh, how can you lie to other people" and such, no. But because by telling lies about what you do, you hide your actions, intentions and your own progress. You create shame and obey to shame. You make yourself a liar, which will result in a lower self-esteem and confidence. Tell the truth about what you do and if possible, be proud. At least, stand your ground. You will benefit from it. And don't care to much about what other people think of you. There is a good chance that a large amount of all people you meet will think you are garbage. Especially online. As long as you are not garbage in your very own eyes, everything is fine. 6. Don't take this stuff too seriously. Instead, try to be relaxed about it. Your life, your experiments, your change, your decisions. You are not failing an exam, nor is this community some kind of cult that will burn you at the stake. Just relax and it will be easier to go through your process.
  23. Dear Psilo, I can relate to the fears, or better said, emotions you are struggling with. Falling behind in games, not being able to play this one certain game that must truly be a masterpiece and so on. The experience I had was, that during the detox and especially after the detox, these emotions change drastically. After the detox, I ran some tests and tried to play games that I loved before. Some were two decades old but I remembered the love I had for them, but I could not play them without being instantly bored. I bought a couple of fresh AAA games that seemed to be a super hit and got instantly bored. Games bored me to death partly, because I could not play them without my conciousness knowing why I play them. At some point in my life, gaming became an unpaid job. I did not have time for much else. I often felt stressed and struggled and I worked hard to improve my skills and knowledge so that I can keep up with the other guys and girls, stuck in this matrix where there ingame choices do not matter at all since their real life wastes away behind them. And of course, after years of being this, after immense amounts of investments with nothing left that is made from real material, nothing you can hold in your hands afterwards, it feels scary to give all that away. But, I strongly support your own idea of how to do it. Luck your stuff up, delete what you can delete, may be get some kind of app-blocker to block steam and such and go to the detox fully committed. I can only tell you that during the detox and after the detox, you will feel different. And in that stage of mindset and emotions, some questions that now seem to be big will become extremely easy to answer. Head over to the journaling area, set up a comfy journal place for yourself and go through the 90 days! It will make a huge difference.
  24. Totally off-topic: Even though I am away way too often to follow all the journals, I remember the day when you joined and I witnessed the progress you made. All in all, I can only say that what you accomplished is astounding. You are one of the few examples of how quitting video games can improve ones life. I can only hope that, even after you managed to achieve most of your short term goals, you will stay and help others raise faith when they are in dire need. Your very own progress is unrivaled and awesome to a level that I cannot find words to describe it. You are one of the few great examples this forum has to offer. Mhyrion, keep on doing what you do and you can achieve basically everything. I love to read about your story, even if it is not on a regular basis. Just keep on goin', gurl!
  25. Also: Julia Galef: The Sunk Costs Fallacy <Link It does not pin-point relate to game quitters, but it might give you an insight about the "sunk cost fallacy". Even though you invested a lot into a certain branch of your own life story, it does not mean you have to continue. In other, more iconized words: If you cooked a soup and you do not like it, you don't have to eat it. You can always cook a different meal. At some point, I am very sure, Cam will post videos about how he actually changed from investing time into gaming and suddenly decided to devote this time and money into his entrepreneurship. You don't have to continue anything, even if you have been committed to it. You can always rearrange your energy, time and money to focus on a different kind of lifestyle, career, free time occupation. It is always up to you. YOU and only YOU, got this under control. Don't let the invested money and energy determine what you do. It is your very own free will, your own choice, your own determination that will make a difference.
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