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Day 42 Spent most of last night worrying about debts so I woke up exhausted. I just want to crawl up into a ball and cry. Still not getting gaming cravings. At least not as bad as I used to.

Day 40 Day was uneventful again. Spent most if it with my grandfather trying to iron out family issues. Did not program. Day 41 Realtor gave me huge bill for "repairs" that had to be done to the house after I left. I can't pay it. Bill was for a tree that fell on the fence that he claimed the realtor company would cover.

Hang in there. Emotions come and go, ups and downs, you can get through it. It was bad but the fact that video games where the last thing on my mind kinda makes me happy. Day 39 Day was pretty uneventful. Still need to tell my mother that I'm in debt and I may have to ask her to help me with it. I'm doing a lot more programming and I kinda feel like I'm better than I was in college.

Day 38 I gave the realtor my keys today officially tying myself to mom. I felt hugely depressed but again I had no desire to play video games.

Day 37 I ended up staying up pretty late on day 36 till 2:00 AM. The last time I did this would have been before I started to quit gaming, since I would take 12 to 18 hours a day to game. I see why it's fall into the trap of gaming now. I woke up this morning with no energy or desire to do anything. Normally when I wake up feeling like that I just game the day away. Until 2 am. Repeatedly. I've been programming so regally that I actually feel bad about not doing it enough or not doing it at all. I think this is a good thing.

One of the ideas I really believe in is that the way you do one thing, is the way you do everything. So reflect on this. Where else in your life when you experience fear do you delay? Where else when you delay do you walk away? The power in the cold showers isn't the effect of the cold showers. It's in you conquering your fear! Day 34 I'm downgrading to cool showers for now. The fear of the cold shower is making me delay taking them. One of the ideas I really believe in is that the way you do one thing, is the way you do everything. So reflect on this. Where else in your life when you experience fear do you delay? Where else when you delay do you walk away? The power in the cold showers isn't the effect of the cold showers. It's in you conquering your fear! I would do cold showers but they just make me feel awful. Day 35 and 36 I'm going to take a break on the cold showers until things start to come together for me. I moved back in with mom. Been having some major waves of depression but I noticed somthing interesting. Normally this would give me a huge craving for games but this time I'm not even thinking about them. I'm kind of supersized.

Day 34 I'm downgrading to cool showers for now. The fear of the cold shower is making me delay taking them. Making final arrangements to move back in with mother yesterday and I got majorly depressed. I even woke up depressed this morning. I almost considered giving up again on programming. Lucky I was going though the game quitters channel and happened to click on the video about rewards.I just realized I've been really good about doing the programming and I've been off of the video games but I don't give myself credit for it.

Day 33 Taking cold showers is going to be a lot harder than I thought. I used the start hot go cold plan yesterday. I tried going full blast cold but it was too much for me.

Day 32 I tried the cold shower this morning. I swear the brain I have now is not the one I had yesterday. It makes a ridiculous difference. I'm able to focus on the programming a lot more.

Day 31 I'm still stunned at how a small change can make such a huge difference. Unplugged keyboard and mouse from laptop in my bedroom and I once again cut hours off of my start up time. Meditated and got a good amount of programming done. I had a mild desire to play video games during my depressed period a few days ago but the urges where still very weak. Far to weak for me to relapse. I did not even think about gaming today. It still surprises me just how much my relationship with gaming has changed.

Showering first thing in the morning is my first good habit of the day. It depends, because if you want to boost your viking level, you have to do your showers with cold water. I did it for 2 months, and the results were incredible. Try it out, if you're brave enough, and tell me the results! Greetings, Mad Pharmacist I've been told a lot of great things about cold showers. My current house does not have central heating so the idea of waking up in a cold bed, walking into a cold hallway and taking a cold shower is a bit too much for me at the moment. I will try this when I move back in.

Day 31 Got a little programming done. I should have taken a shower at the start of the day because I spent a huge amount of it in bed.

Day 30 cont. Just realized I've gone 15 days without gaming.

Day 30 Depression is really setting in with my debt rising. Day 30 cont. Meditation saved the day again. Going back to programming.

Day 29 Showering first thing in the morning is my first good habit of the day. This. There's something about devoting yourself to a routine that kind of gives you a boost of energy. I noticed that it's getting harder and harder to get myself to code. I think it's because it's all I do during the day other than internet surfing. I did manage to do some coding on day 28 though.

Day 27 Got a good amount of programming done. Not to much else happened. Day 28 Got very late start. I need to start taking a shower every morning. It helps me get out of bed.

Day 26 Got extremely sick again after breakfast and I spent the day in bed.

Day 25 After giving myself a few pep talks I'm back to programming again. Set a move out date as well. Been having cravings to play games but they are completely different since the "sometimes games are not fun" realization. They are extremely weak and fade quickly. A thought occurred to me as I meditated this morning. Worrying about the future is a lot like worrying about how to make each and every blade of grass on your lawn stand perfectly straight: Your doing the wrong thing. You should be worried about making sure the grass is cut to reasonably. You will never get each blade perfectly straight and even if you did it accomplishes nothing. In terms of worrying about the future, you should not worrying about whats going to happen to you. You should plan on what you are going to do. Events will always happen that will "bend the grass" but viewing life, the future, ect. in terms of what can go wrong is just a recipe for depression.

Day 23 cont. Had a an extremely hard time going to sleep due to worries about the future. Day 24 The day I hoped would never come is here. I'm out of money. I have a whirlwind of emotions about this. Initially I felt strangely empowered. I had to truly put my all into quitting video games or else. There's no do overs now. Then I tried to search for jobs online and as I mentioned in the early days this triggers me hard. I feel a little better now that I've had a few hours to stop worrying about things.

Any ideas what rewards you can give yourself now? Here's a video I have on rewards. I don't know honestly. Video games where so intergral to my life that they where the reward and objective of my life. I'm trying to think of rewards that don't involve high calorie foods. Day 22 and 23 Power company found major issue with lines on Day 22 and I had no power all day. Realized that I have a lot of time I have trouble filling without computer. I noticed that since I did not do too much productive work on 22nd day it was very difficult to start again on day 23 and to be honest I did not get anything significant done.

Day 21 Still reading the power of habit and I had a few revelations recently. 1. I find it much easier to avoid watching youtube in the morning. I actually had the laptop next to my bed and I watched a youtube video but I knew that watching "one more video" would only end with me watching hours of videos and stopped myself. 2. The reason I find creating new habits so difficult is that I never reward myself and the end reward for the habit is something I've never had. I can't seem to devote myself to a diet since I've been out of shape all my life and I can't even imagine being in shape. The same applies to learning Japanese. 3. I've come to question whether or not I was having fun playing video games at all. I can think of the last game I played before my 3rd attempt, this is actually my 4th attempt, at quitting games. The game was about a group that crash lands on a planet and has to find a way off while fending off the elements, ect. The game was a lot of fun in the beginning due to all of the tense action, but after a while... everything becomes mundane. You pretty much nullify all threats but the game continues on towards it's end goal at a snail's pace. I remember spending hours trying to mod the game to be more interesting but it still had huge tracts of time where nothing really happened. I knew that I was not enjoying myself but, I could not will myself to stop playing. What was the reward of playing the game? I can only guess that the trance I would enter was the reward. I didn't have to worry about being unemployed, bills ect. What do I get from gaming? The crash landing game was not fun for long. I did not get anything tangible. I hated multiplayer games so I had no community to interact with. I should have played for a few hours and lost interest. But I know that I have to have played that game for a minimum of 200 hours. (The developer actually added a few features that makes every achievement you get come to you much slower so I could easily have spent twice as much time on it.). I can think of another game that literally forced you to play the whole game over again if you made one mistake! But only after you sunk a 50 to 100 hours into it. (I hear that they plan on releasing DLC soon.) It's just habit. I used to get up in the morning at 8 am, start playing and when I looked up it was 8 pm. I did this for years at a time. Now that I think about it again the time I spent playing individual games varied greatly. I can think of one game I could only play for about 30 minutes before it got boring. Another I could play for 2 - 3 hours. But as I that crash landing game? Hell if I really wanted to play it badly enough I could play it almost 20 hours straight. And I'm almost certain I have at least once and I can think of two others that I know I've played for 20 hour binges. Though now that I'm talking a close look at my habits that seems extremely unappealing right now.

Day 19 `Woke up today feeling petty bad. Tired a little dizzy and with a mild migraine. Grandfather asked me to come stay with him for a few hours. I did but he went to sleep and I ended up watching a gaming stream and I wanted to start gaming again so badly that I downloaded a game. It took all of my will power did not play. After I got home my symptoms intensified to the point where I could not do anything other than lay in bed for the rest of the day. Day 20 Still feel a little bad but not nearly as bad as I felt yesterday. I haven't been that sick in months. Deleted game as I still had strong urges to play it. Noticed that permanently deleting games seems to help with urges greatly. Luckily the games I like are not browser games. Still maintaining detox. Started reading the power of habit and realized I may need to permanently give up games since I almost go into a trance like state while gaming.

Day 18 cont. Went to local PFLAG meeting. Haven't been going for the past few months, a few times because of video games. I felt a lot better about things in general. I know I need to go to more social events, but I'm still struggling with some left over social anxiety. Leader of local PFLAG group asked for people to speak to local high schools and political groups about our life experiences but I felt too insecure to sign up.

Did not play video games yesterday. So I'm restarting the 90 day detox in earnest.. Day 18 Physically moved laptop out of my bedroom before bed. Knocked nearly four hours off of my morning "unproductive time". Meditated as soon as I took my morning shower and went back to programming.

Day I'm going to move back in with my mom so I've abandoned guitar for the time being. Day 17 I'm remembering what it was like during that year I was unemployed. I was constantly feeling an almost physical pressure due to the guilt I felt for mooching off my mother. I've felt like that over the past few days. It drains my energy, causes me VERY scary chest pains, and just sends me into pretty intense depression spirals. Just finished meditating and I had a realization. The reason I gave up on things is all due to stress. I've spent years at a time stressed to the point where I would get physically ill in certain situations. The best counter to this is a sort of self-pep talk (It's pretty much just that. A bit of self encouragement. ). And the I give myself the best self-pep talks while meditating.