A new life begins... again.

[jnp]

Hello GQ

I'm a Finnish dude soon to be 29 years old. I have been a member on this forum occasionally since 2016'ish and it's time to start the detox journey once again.

All I have to say is that since the beginning of COVID-19, everything started to go sideways for me when it comes to gaming. From 2019 until yesterday I had been gaming or doing gaming related activities every single day. I played mostly three games during this time: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, World of Warcraft and League of Legends. I had totalled over 7000 hours in League, a couple of thousand in WoW and 1200 hours in CSGO. The CSGO hours only I managed to pull off only during the time between January and July, which means I pretty much played more than 65 hours a week usually. Sometimes I would play for more than 15 hours a day. Obviously this caused all kinds of harm regarding my brain chemistry and emotional life in general. Gaming became a chore that I HAD TO DO, not something that I would enjoy, or anything that would recover me from the stress of the day/week - but instead something that would cause all the stress that I have been having.

So this all caused me to neglect my family, friends and studies - not to mention my working life and personal health. This moment marks the first 24 hours that I have been gaming free since 2019. I will set up a personal diary here where I will go through my feelings during the 90 day detox and I will also use it to vent and discover new things that I find during the moments of agony in withdrawal (which will probably be worst ever this time).

Compulsive gaming caused me to eventually drop out of university, where I was doing a degree in computer science. Today I started those studies again and in addition to getting my health, family and social life back, I want to accomplish graduating from the university and to get my life on back on tracks. My situation feels strangely similar to GQ founder Cam's situation (back when he had founded this community), which made me try this forum again. Shoutout to you Mr. Adair, you are a real hero to some of us. 

Lastly I want to say that my long term goal is not to stop gaming for eternity. My goal is to get my life on track and to have a balanced life where I will be building the career of my dreams, looking after my family&myself and having a routine with everything. I don't know and I don't even care if it's gonna take a month, a year, five years or even decades, but I will not allow myself to lay a finger on video games before all of this stuff is settled. 

The first 24 hours gaming free already made me 100% more productive than before so let's see what all of this brings to me with time. My biggest challenges with this are most definitely the facts that literally all my friends are hc gamers and my SO is a gamer as well. Luckily she is really supportive and is willing to bend some of her own rules with gaming as well (for her gaming is not a problem, LUCKILY!)

Best wishes to all of you and go check my daily journal if you are interested in my situation in any way 🙂

-Jnp