Adrian

Entry 4: So far so good, no relapse on my part since that small relapse from 6th of September. Afew months without gaming feels good so far :D The last couple of weeks have been good, I started making more and more at my new work place, even though I was scared of driving to my workplace I did it twice anyway. Got I bit frustrated as I spent two hours stuck in traffic bumper to bumper but it is what it is,,.. that's how the traffic is in big Metropolitan cities :))) I still feel a bit of anxiety when driving but Iit's getting better and better everytime. I kept working out in the evening at home after coming back from work, spent quality time with my partner and played chess a few times (she is still beating me a lot, I can't defeat her at chess, she's really good :)) ), I kept forcing myself to study more for my technical certifications. I'm still struggling with learning because most of the days I'm really tired but it is what it is, I'm forcing myself to become the best version of myself. Progress ain't easy, I just need to stay consistent all the time, even if I read/practice something for 30 minutes a day, that's still a bit of progress in my book so it's good , at least I feel good. Recently I started watching sports from USA as I got a bit tired of the European football ( I am a East European so football has been my "thing" since early childhood , but I never had the chance to play professional or amateur football, jsut football in the school's courtyard ) and I found my favorites already: NBA: Oklahoma City Thunder NFL: Detroit Lions MLB: Miami Marlins Because I found new sports to watch, I do have a "wish" from time to time to play a bit of NFL or NBA2K games but I won't. I need to keep myself on track. Life has been great the last couple of months, especially since I gave up on gaming. I still get gaming cravings from time to time, but I guess these will never go away. I hope that by September 2026 I'll get my certification and get myself in a better place that I am now. But I feel better now than I felt on september 2025 so this is great, I try to respect the lessons from the RESPAWN book. P.S: I always preffer to add entries for longer periods of time than writting daily.

If you find a method that helps you to remember what you read/study/practice better and faster please let me know, I'm searching for a method as well :) So far I'm doing exactly what you do, I study, I take notes, I study/read again what I just read and practice things on my home lab (I use vmware workstation pro 17 for personal use for my homelab) But I still struggle to remmeber most of the things that I read. If you find a method that sticks, let me know, I would appreciate that 😁

It's hard after a full day's of work to get back home and study/learn/practice a new skill, it's just tiresome, at least for me it is. I work as a Linux Inftrastructure Engineer therefore I work on support not development/programming, and I have days that are tiresome, too many tickets, too many meeting and so on. But, if I force myself to study at home for 40 minutes after a full busy work day, then it will be easier for me to study for two hours straight on another day or during the weekends. I feel you man, I know it's tough, sometimes I don't have the drive either...but, pushing it when we don't feel the need to, it will make it easier later on. There was that quote, I don't know where the hell I heard it first , or read it first, either it was on a Joe Rogan's podcast, or some article on the web, regardless, the quote goest something liek this (if I remember it well) "It's always better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardner in a war." "Sweat more in times of peace so you can bleed less in times of war" It's hard to live by these two statements...yet...we must push ourselves in order to have a nice cozy life after that. I progressed so much in the past 10 years that I finally got to a spot where I can finally say that life it's getting easier now, yet, i need to make sure that I don't procastinate, otherwise I risk to be irrelevant to the job market and lose my job, as much as I strruggle to remember things, i need to practice over and over again, so that I don't get pushed aside by someone else and lose my job. Regardless, the bottom line is that i know it's hard and it's hard for me, but in time it gets easier and I am sure that in another 10 years I'll thank myself for pushing it now even though I don't necessarly have the drive. Anyway, good luck to you brother and stay strong, you got this, only you can "break" or "make" yourself. Stay strong , it's fine to have days when we feel down, it's part of human nature

Congratulations @Pulse on your 90 days off of games. I initially quit playing games in May 2025, then three weeks ago I played a few hours so I broke my streak of not playing games. But only for those a few hours of gameplay I started to have bigger cravings, moments where I thought only aboug games, I could not concentrate because my mind wondered off and so on.So, I started doing some googling, then I found Cam Adair's Youtube channel and I watched a few of his videos This led me to his book which I jsut finished reading last week or so and I took notes from the book on my notebook which I revisited these days when I started to have cravings again and this has helped me a lot. I also started reading books again, currently I'm reading one about ancient egypt and other days , after work, I study for a different certification that I want to go for (I work in IT so I need to keep myself relevant to the employers ). I don't remember the day when I first started to quit games (for a 2nd time), but based on my calcualtions, I'm three weeks off of games and I'm feeling good.Sure, i still get some cravings to play games, but nothing like in the first two days. I'm feeling good and I'll keep going with this on and on :) Stay strong brother and good luck moving forward

Congratulations on all of your progress and streak of days of not playing @Yan You're unstoppable based on your entries

Cheers @Yan , I hoep you're doing well , I'm looking at your replies to other people's posts and I am very happy that you're helping people out and encouraging them. THanks brother, you are a legend :) @Pulse Thanks for your words, I agree with what you said :) I hope you're well and everything is going fine, if not, that's ok, you just need to keep going and (using your own words) fight the good fight :) Entry 3: The last week was good, after work I sstarted to work on a 3rd wooden puzzle which took like 4 hours and I'm still barely 25% done with it, which is great, it helps to take my mind off of games. tI studied for like an hour and a half for something new in IT for which I plan to get certified by september next year so I'm trying to prepare in advance.I also restarted reading books again, I just staretd reading a book called "Ancient Egypt - On Five Debben a Day" by Donald P. Ryan. I finished the RESPAWN book and I took nodes on my notebook which I revisit whnever I start to feel bored or whenever I feel like I'm starting to have a craving. Today I have to clean the entire house while my girlfriend is away which is great, I get to put on the headphones and start tidying up the place so she can have a surprise when she gets home and she'll see the apartment cleaned up I work out every evening in the house, just home workout with two dumpbells , an abs wheel and elastic bands. I am currently searching for an abs bench but I want to find something second hand. I put my old gaming PC up for sale, hopefully someone will want to buy it. In the evening during the week, after work, I get pretty tired and I don't have the drive to study, but I pushed myself and sometimes it gets easier with the time, sometimes I feel like I can't concentrate and I have to read again the last chapter, that's fine, it's normal. I try to engage in as many activities with my girlfriend as possible, these days it rained so we stayed in-doors and played chess, she got really good at chess, she keeps beating me :))) We bought a new board game and we're waiting for it to be shipped as it comes from outside of EU. So far so good, I haven't played but I still feel like playing from time to time. I have to hold on to what I've achieved so far. I might also try to quit smoking, I still have a few packs around the house, but I might try to see if I can succedd in quiting smoking, hopefully in two,three months from now I'll be less drawnd to smoking. I smoke regular cigarettes , never did druges, I just smoked some pot a few years ago, I tried it twice, it didn't stick with me so I am lucky in that regard. I am also happy that I was able to avoid gambling and I was never addicted to this. I did play twice at a slot machine, I won once and lot the 2nd time, so I understood since then that that's a dangerous cycle so I stayed away. Just because I managed to stay await from these bad habbits is helping me now to stay concentrated on my goals of not playing and improving myself both personally and proffessionally. I don't write here on a daily basis because I preffer to hold myself accountable every-day, and then just add an entry here that covers a few more days or an entire week. So far I'm pretty satisfied with my decisions after I started reading RESPAWN. And I will everybody who get's to see this a wonderful day and week ahead of you. You got this, you can quit games and any bad habbits. We can all become a better version of ourselves . Stay strong brothers.

What helped me was to go out on a trip for a week with my girlfriend , but aside from that I've started to "play" with 3d puzzles made out of wood, this helped me switch focus and do something that stimulates my brain. Aside from this I've also started to learn how to do small projects in Blender, like shape a cube in different shapes, my goal is to try to make a full fores full of animals which I could expand into something to occupy my mind when I have a feeling of wanting to play video games. Try socializing with new people or with current friends, trips to another city, try painting,music, graphics design, programming, climbing/hiking etc Before I went on holiday what really helped me in the first 3 days was to play chess with my girlfriend, we bought a chess board and we played for 3 hours straight in one day and this has helped take my mind off of games.

We all have out inned child that comes out from time to time , my dream as a child was to become like Batman :)) Stay strong man, you got this 💪💪

Entry no 2 A few days have passed since my original post, I've been stuck with work and going in the office so I did not even had time to think of gaming which is great. I went out for a beer with a few colleagues and socializing these days has helped me tremendously with the need to play games :D My girlfriend and I have scheduled a short trip outside the city this weekend, nothign too special, just a quick two hour drive back&forth to escape the city noise Progress is being made, I have not calculate the exact days that have passed since I stopped palying games, but I think I'm turning two weeks and 3 days , regardless, the need to play games has significantly dropped, I barely thought about it these past few days

Thank's V for your insight :) I'm half-way through the book , I could not finish yet as I got stuck with work and I olny read a few pages in the night before going to bed. But I wathched the videos on Youtube and these halped a lot :) I haven't had the need to play as much as I used to two weeks ago, and that's great, it means that it gets out of my system :D Congratulations on your progress Good luck and all the best moving forward :) !

Thank you for your kind words @TheNewMe2.0 , I appreciate that, and it helps me as well :) I few years ago I did wrestling and I went to competitions, I never managed to win/take the 1st place, but the closest I have even been was a 2nd place for a christmas tournament. For the national finals I got on the 8th place, that was pretty good for me :) I gave up in the end because I was not focusing on school so much ,so I had to take a decision, wrestling or school, and I went the route of studying which in return got me a career in IT. I went to the gym after I gave up on wrestling but I always had a month,two months or so where I didn't do anything so basically I kinda of cut down my own progress in the gym. It's taugh indeed and being a disciplined individual isn't easy, it takes a lot of will power to respect your plans and to respect yourself. Now I don't go to the gym anymore as I adopted a more classical , old-school approach of just doing push-ups, pull-uls, squats at home and I take advantage of some dumpbells and elastic bends. Now I'm just focusing on staying lean, hence the reason why I don't go into the gym anymore. Bu that's not the point., my point is that I understand how difficult it is to keep a tight schedule, especially when you're not in the mood, it's tough, but only discipline gets us there. And it's fine if you skip a day or two, even a week, but the main point is that you started something good for yourself and it's good for your body,mind and spirit, it motivates you, you feel good after you finish a workout :D I applaude your initiative of looking out a gym close to your areas where you plan to visit Puerto Rico, that's an amazing idea and an amazing step forward on your behalf Good luck and stay strong brother, you got this ! 💪💪💪

That's great @TheNewMe2.0 , good initiative with booking a trip to Puerto Rico, especially next to a gym 💪 I have never been there, but I saw lots of youtube videos and I keep reading comments and hearing stories that it's a "must go-to" place I hope I'll get the chance to go as well in the next 2 years or so Enjoy your time off man and good luck 💪

Well put @FunnyDreamer , well put Thank you for your comment :D Good luck to you and all the best 💪

I initially stopped playing games on May 2025 after I noticed that my body, mood and relationship changed after starting to get addicted to Path of Exile 2 I relapsed on 6th of September and played Last Epoch 1-2 hours throughout a few days (played for 8-10 hours ish by my calculations , a few hours went by while I just stayed iddle and read the in-game tutorials) I had a big fight with my girlfriend after she caught me playing and she got upset that I could not respect my promise (we kept having discussions and I kept trying to play games so I hid the fact that I played while I made her swear and promise that she will always stop me, I still think I shouldn't have made her promise me that she will try to stop me if I play :))) ) Almost two weeks of not playing games I'm looking into having new hobbies ( trying to start to learn Python Programming and to make animations on Blender so that I can replace gaming with making graphics) Booked an entire holidaay/vaccation for me and my girlfiend in a mountain & historical region so that we can both enjoy some free time, relaxation, beautiful nature & architecture and to recharge our bateries I haven't found a good, easy to follow and well written guide for Blender so I haven't started yet But I have installed Blender and I'm looking for tutorials to get me started. Just for the fact that I booked an entire holiday with my girlfriend, it gave me a boost that helped me to work so well today that I closed all of my tickets at my work place in just 2 hours today. My break will finish in 10 minutes so i'll go and have a cigarette quickly and get back in the office and resume my work. I have to go for 3 days in the office, which is not that great as I waste a lot of time with the public transportation, but, but Maybe this is the best thing happening to me now, maybe this will make it easier for me to overcome this feeling of "loss" just because I gave up on gamming Maybe, seeing others more knowledgable than me will give me a feeling of "I don't want to fall behind" and therefore I'll study more Good luck to everyone out there 💪

Congratulations @Yan You're an inspiration to me and I'm sure you're an inspiration to others as well. Nice way tracking everything down Good luck and all the best moving forward