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Day 0 - 9/27/2021

Hey all. Back to the forums and ready for another attempt at a detox.

I made my first attempt at a 3 month detox during the summer of 2019, where I went I believe, 47 days without playing video games or watching gaming content on twitch, youtube, or twitter. Since then, I've probably tried detoxing a dozen times, but I always gave up after 2-7 days. I'm remembering now how difficult it was to do that detox back in 2019 for 47 days, but how satisfying it was to take a month and a half off of all things gaming and related. I've said so many times that I'd get through a full 3 month detox since then, but barely ever got through a week.

That being said, I'm here and ready to try again, am fully committed, and strongly believe I can make it through this time. The big difference between this time and my last dozen attempts is two main things.

1) I'm actually currently in a very good place in my life. I had a slow start to my year, but I've been able to accomplish a number of goals in the last year including certain fitness goals, completely cutting out social media (non-gaming related), and I got my first big job in life after graduating from school. I'm also in a relatively happy place in my life opposed to the pretty deep depression I'd been in for the past year and a half. I think this gives me a huge edge.

2) I've actually been able to cut gaming out of my life for about a month and a half now. By this, I mean just playing video games. I've completely replaced it with watching gaming content on youtube for twitch, which is what always ends up happening and is really probably the bigger problem for me at this point than gaming itself. None the less, I've really been gaming free for a minute now with no huge urge to go back to it. I know when cutting out the bulk that is gaming content out of my life, its going to be difficult, but I think that slight edge will make somewhat of a difference for me.

I questioned in the last week when I decided I'd do this again why I'm even doing it if I'm in a good place in my life and I'm relatively happy. Well, first of all, I know there is a chance that I slip right back into that dark place that is gaming for me and I want to avoid that. I'm a part way out of it at the moment, and I think if there's ever an easier time for me to successfully get through a gaming detox, it is now. I'm in a good place in life, I've got some hobbies to keep me busy, I'm relatively happy, I've got some goals I want to accomplish other than just quit gaming, and I've been a month and a half without gaming itself already (minus watching yt/twitch like I said) and I don't have a huge need to play video games. I just feel like now is the time that I've ever had and may ever have to kick this habit. Second of all, I've finally had a year that I've been able to keep up and accomplish certain goals. I took a look at how far I've come with them and how good I feel about myself due to that 9 months in. It's been a rocky road, but I've made incremental progress throughout the year. Looking at that progress and seeing how there are only about 3 months left in 2021, I want to add this one extra huge goal to accomplish by the end of the year so I can look back at 2021 as being a pivotal year of my life.

I'm not sure how often I'll post, but I will as often as possible. I'm excited to do this again and really believe I've got it this time. I remember how supportive this community was during my first go around and how much that motivated me to keep pushing. I hope to recreate that motivation during this process again.

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Day 1 - 9/28/2021

Had a great day! Caught up with a buddy, hit the gym, cleaned up my room and the home, went grocery shopping, and got some work in. I felt that need to game post gym when I was too tired to do anything but lay down in bed. It reminded me how difficult these detoxes can be during any downtime you have. When I'm physically exhausted like that, I usually lay down in bed and watch some gaming content on youtube or twitch to wind down. I wasn't tired enough to actually take a nap, so I just layed down and did nothing for a half hour. Was thinking about gaming that whole time though.

It reminded me a question I asked in the forums maybe over a year ago. I personally feel like gaming or watching gaming content (I'll refer to either as just gaming from now on) is the only activity that really gets me relaxed, or takes my mind off of everything. Even if I do something else that requires no energy like watch TV or mess around on my phone, it doesn't take the edge off like gaming does.

If anybody is reading this post, my question is, do you have anything that takes the edge off the way gaming does, but isn't gaming itself? Is there any activity that you can default, or kick back to and take the edge off like gaming does, but isn't addicting or destructive? Is the whole point of this detox to remove any activity from your life that might be like that and not to replace gaming with another similar activity that can take the edge off? Is that even a good thing? I feel like I need to find an activity that can take the edge off that isn't gaming to get through this detox, but don't know what it is. Just wondering what you all think.

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Day 2 - 9/29/2021

I was going to lie or omit from today's log that I ended up watching around an hour of gaming videos on youtube today since I didn't want to and wont reset my day counter back to 0. I also didn't want to mention it since I just went on a rant 2 days ago saying that I think the detox this go around would be much easier since I have some advantages going into it this time, and relapsing after 2 days is pretty lame, but that's what happened. The past 7 or 8 attempts I'd made, this is where I gave up and stopped posting, but I'm gonna try to continue this time around. Today made me realize that though I have some advantages, this isn't going to be that much easier this time than I may have thought. Regardless, I'm still committed to trying. That's enough about that though.

Today went slower than I hoped. Got a workout in, did some studying, then watched some gaming videos after, and that's about it. There's some more time in the day so I'm going to try and get some more stuff done before the end of the day.

I was thinking of what I said in my last post, which was about finding that activity that I can kick back to and turn my brain off and relax the way gaming did for me. Haven't tried it yet, but I think something that might work for me is just lying down in bed while listening to new music. Music has always been a big part of my life and I used to love finding new music and collecting albums, but that obsession died quite some time ago. I think when the era of music streaming thorough Apple Music or Spotify came around, I stopped actively looking for new music to listen to. Just the convenience factor of being able to look up any artist and listen to any song instantly for free and being shown the top 5 most popular songs by that artist made it, at least for me, too easy and took away any need to listen through their albums to find the songs that I like rather than what others like. Anyways, I'm gonna try doing this at the end of the day to see what it does for me. I'll let you know if this helped me tomorrow.

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