Addiction to bitlife

[Gafsi]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum. I'm 20 years old medical biochemistery student from Zagreb, Croatia. I play video games since early childhood. At first these were some games for little children, at around age 7 I turned to flash games. Already then, as 1st grader, I had tendencies to play too much games. When behaviour at school became problematic I got a punishment. Some time I was completely banned from playing and aftet that allowed to play only 45 minutes a day after schoolwork was done. My parents controlled me with these rules for years, with maximum one hour allowed daily, with occasional exception of two one hour sessions a day during holidays. At age 13 I got Minecraft and usually spent that hour playing Minecraft and no other game. Minecraft was my number one for years. It was fun, but also somehow good for brain, both surviving in survival and creating projects in creative requiere some cognitive skills. My gaming got a bit out of control during covid, then I was 16. Alongside with minecraft I also started playing roblox. But, I regained control over my gaming as soon as school started again after lockdown. I had great marks at school and did university entrace exams greatly. BUT, then I discovered an evil game on google play which is called BITLIFE (and its evil assistants doglife and catlife). First months it was no more than occasional session of fun. But, the summer between end of high school and start of the university it turned into addiction. I also had a stressful event then (mother diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent surgery and radiation and now she's fine). I started playing bitlife for hours, life after life. The first things I bought when I finally got my own bank account were bitlife bitizenship, god mode and special careers. Now I realize i've just wasted around 40 € only to harm myself. During the summer I thought bitlife to be a good fun and time killer. I worked hard in it and earned all ribbons. 

But, when university started I realized it is not fun, insted, it's addiction. I just couldn't stop playing it and go study. Things got worse when I had a deviated septum surgery, spending most of my 5 recovery days playing bitlife. After this I decided to quit and succeded. I spent a year without playing bitlife at all. I only sometimes caught myself thinking about it, but resisted the urge to install it. 

Sadly, i relapsed three weeks ago. The trigger was seeing my friend playing it and I couldn't resist the urge to start playing it again. It's not fun anymore, it makes me furious when I don't get the achievement/ribbon I inteneded to, but I still have constsnt urges to play it. I even play it in my bed.