Getting Better At Managing Cravings!

[Franco Sosa]

Hello! How are you doing? Making progress aroung here!

In the past, when I was trying to overcome my addiction, I would usually go down during a couple MONTHS, or a week if I was lucky. The first days, I'd think

"It's ok, I can get back up!",

but my actions didn't follow my thoughts, so I'd sort of giving up while deceiving myself. Recovering was a really though thing for me back then.

Recently, I had been getting many cravings, since I was stressed. The stress came not so much because of the events of the moment, but more from the fact that I was studying pretty much all the time, but neglecting to have a time to relax or doing other things that I enjoy. I remember thinking in that moment

"I'll finish all my tasks first, then I'll relax".

Because of this, I relapsed a few days ago. My cravings made me start missing a phone game I used to play a lot. It's called "Brawl Stars" (I stopped playing it cause I realised it was REAL addictive).

So, as my phone is already too old to be able to run that game properly, I installed it in my PC, through an Android emulator, and played it right away, when I was supposed to go to sleep. I thought I'd be the beginning of a bad relapse, playing all night and the day after... But instead, I just played 2 HOURS. After that I uninstalled the game, the emulator and went back to normal as if nothing happened in the first place.

And yesterday, I kind of relapsed again (but with other entertainment sources). I woke up early, but started the day watching a webcomic. The previous day I wasn't able to watch the new chapter of a series I like, so I wanted to watch it and then keep with my routine as usual, but I got hooked. It was like 6pm when I stopped for a moment and thought:

"Oh man, I think I'll lose the day at this rate. I wanted to do so many things today, yet it went so wrong".

But then I remembered:

"The most difficult thing (for me at least) is STARTING. Just go and start doing the thing, don't think about it!",

and so I did. I wasn't able to do everything I wanted to do that day, but still felt great, cause I recovered my day.

 

I consider this 2 events really great accomplishments in my view. Prove to myself that I'm different from the guy I was before, I'm more capable to control my cravings.

[IlikeCookies]

Yes, I think that self-deception and playing due to stress is a huge part of why it is so hard to stop. You really need to say to yourself when you are in a craving—or even relapsed—stop 🛑. Why am I playing this game? What good does this do me? Why am I wasting my time? 
I think that you are dealing very well with this. Sometimes, I relapse and I say to myself ok this day is done for nothing I can do about it just wait until tomorrow . But this is a bad mindset that will just turn into a vicious cycle. So often, just forgive yourself, and strive to do better in the future. 
 

Hope you achieve your goal 🙂 ! 
 

P.S. I think that I kind of just wasted an hour scrolling through forums in gamequitters. 🤯