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Hey dvaball,  I am sorry to hear you have been going through so much trouble. My story is similar to yours. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years playing video games, and I am still struggling to let it go for good. I am 37 and have a 6-year-old son. However, I should say that I have made significant progress in my life just by trying to avoid video games. I have been trying for six years now since my kid was born, and during these six years, with all the relapses, I made significant progress in my career and health. DO NOT GIVE UP. Relapsing is just part of the process. We have spent most of our lives playing video games, so, understandably, these relapses happen. There are undoubtedly additions, habits, nostalgic feelings, etc. It is going to take a significant effort to fight this gaming addiction.  I agree that discipline is important (as you have mentioned in one of your posts), but people aren't born with discipline. We should start small and create new habits through repetition. Whenever we relapse, we should get back on our feet asap and try again. Ultimately, we are going to win.  We possess limited willpower every day. Stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, etc., negatively affect our willpower, so it is easier to fail when we are exhausted, hungry, tired, etc. Try to start your day with something small, like making your bed and building some momentum.   Another trick that has helped me is visualization. Try to visualize yourself in future. I visualize myself with a perfect body and do this every day to stay motivated. The visualization helps me to believe in myself; it helps me stay focused on my goals and motivated. Try to spend some time visualizing what your life could be and do it so much that you start to believe it in your unconscious mind.  We have hard time relating  to our future. We think that there would another guy, not me, 10 years from now. But through visualization, we can shrink the time between ourselves and our future. This enable us to stay motivated and focused on what matter for us.  Do this visualization excercise. It is fun and enjoyable.  By the way, I enjoy coding and mathematics just like you and I believe we may share quite a lot of other interests as well.    Hope it helps,               

Day 3:  A great day. worked pretty hard, did workout, cooked and I am about to start reading before bedtime.  I felt some urges to play while I was walking home from work. I have realized that I feel bored and exhaused from work and wanted to do something fun. But then I reflected on the fact that gaming is possibly not the long term solution and I'd better stay on track. This reflection helped me to stay away from games but I anticipate the urge of gaming comes back later in the week. I will be alone on this Saturday so I need to be careful and start the day by going to the gym and then sitting at a coffee shop for reading etc.

I see. It seems that you are happy in your relationship other than feeling the pressure to follow her hobbies. Being in a healthy relationship requries lots of compromise from both sides and continued efforts to improve things for the better. I hope you find the balance between the two. good luck 

Yes, you are correct! Appreciate the clarification you make.  What I must have intended to say is that some drugs are hard to recognize as such- and therefore it's harder to acknowledge that they can be addictive. And, some drugs are fundamentally harmful, no matter the "benefits"- like alcohol, which is poisonous at any amount. None of that means i'm against consumption- but making informed choices matters. and i see a lot of people not thinking about, for example, how much they're chasing promotions (which is rewarding) vs. doing things that have intrinsic value OR going to protests (which is fun!) vs doing actual political work.  I would say that's a correct guess- myself, i think of things i'm aligned towards, rather than in opposition on. but, i do focus a lot on non-conforming (which just means i'm conforming to something else, lol). what gives my life meaning is knowing that i leave the world in a (systemically, structurally- not just individually) better place than i found it.  wouldn't call it an addiction though- i categorize addiction as being unable to pace consumption at a desired rate. most of the time, it's the opposite problem- every day requires a long sequence of actions in order for me to do all the "non-conforming" things. speaking of which... -- Journal Time! want to keep myself accountable with the recent-most addiction (as in, i struggle to control how often i engage with the activity): news-reading, aka getting irrelevant but easily-digestable information into my brain at an inefficiently-high volume.   why this is a problem: since i do enjoy learning, reading a faulty headline often results in me doing "research" on the topic- i end up reading a bunch more articles on something that was barely, if at all, relevant to what i set out for the day with. commonplace news are just not something that's valuable to me at the moment. how i want to resolve this: set a goal- i will only be reading news 1hr/week. awesome- now, a system: i will be reading news on sunday evenings. for now, i can spend however much/little time as i want indulging in this activity, but only on that day. why this method: i already know news is unappealing- but cold turkey is impossible, as i don't have the right tools for such an approach. my hope is that 1 day a week will soon prove itself needless, and i will be able to limit my news-reading to 1hr/week or less. stepping stones: tomorrow, read news ONLY in the evening. on Friday and Saturday, read no news at all. Sunday will be my "news" day, and from there onwards I should be able to uphold my system.  cheers! more updates coming later, but all is well overall. just praying for more endurance and strength.  

Entry 11.9 Day 713: No Useless Videos Day 710: Sticking to Food schedule Day 313: Eating Only between 06:30 and 19:00 (Last bite before 19:00) Day 18: Being in bed before 23:15 3 Things I did well no matter how small -GQ in the evening -11 pomodoros -continued progress on request for refund and compensation with the train company that denied my boarding when moving to Spain   1 thing I could do  better - Interchange GQ to be done before daily plan (Do that tomorrow in the daily plan wich is currently written before GQ 😉 )