I initially stopped playing games on May 2025 after I noticed that my body, mood and relationship changed after starting to get addicted to Path of Exile 2

I relapsed on 6th of September and played Last Epoch 1-2 hours throughout a few days (played for 8-10 hours ish by my calculations , a few hours went by while I just stayed iddle and read the in-game tutorials)

I had a big fight with my girlfriend after she caught me playing and she got upset that I could not respect my promise (we kept having discussions and I kept trying to play games so I hid the fact that I played while I made her swear and promise that she will always stop me, I still think I shouldn't have made her promise me that she will try to stop me if I play :))) )

Almost two weeks of not playing games

I'm looking into having new hobbies ( trying to start to learn Python Programming and to make animations on Blender so that I can replace gaming with making graphics)

Booked an entire holidaay/vaccation for me and my girlfiend in a mountain & historical region so that we can both enjoy some free time, relaxation, beautiful nature & architecture and to recharge our bateries

I haven't found a good, easy to follow and well written guide for Blender so I haven't started yet

But I have installed Blender and I'm looking for tutorials to get me started.

Just for the fact that I booked an entire holiday with my girlfriend, it gave me a boost that helped me to work so well today that I closed all of my tickets at my work place in just 2 hours today.

My break will finish in 10 minutes so i'll go and have a cigarette quickly and get back in the office and resume my work.

I have to go for 3 days in the office, which is not that great as I waste a lot of time with the public transportation, but, but

Maybe this is the best thing happening to me now, maybe this will make it easier for me to overcome this feeling of "loss" just because I gave up on gamming

Maybe, seeing others more knowledgable than me will give me a feeling of "I don't want to fall behind" and therefore I'll study more

Good luck to everyone out there 💪

Excellent work Adrian. Glad to hear the vacation and graphics design are helping. I’m always scared of vacations, I like the idea of them. But I get anxious, I like routines and hard exercise.

But I’m going to Puerto Rico in November to try to have some fun….i made sure it’s next to a gym haha. Good luck making those graphics

That's great @TheNewMe2.0 , good initiative with booking a trip to Puerto Rico, especially next to a gym 💪

I have never been there, but I saw lots of youtube videos and I keep reading comments and hearing stories that it's a "must go-to" place

I hope I'll get the chance to go as well in the next 2 years or so

Enjoy your time off man and good luck

💪

Entry no 2

A few days have passed since my original post, I've been stuck with work and going in the office so I did not even had time to think of gaming which is great.

I went out for a beer with a few colleagues and socializing these days has helped me tremendously with the need to play games :D 

My girlfriend and I have scheduled a short trip outside the city this weekend, nothign too special, just a quick two hour drive back&forth to escape the city noise 

Progress is being made, I have not calculate the exact days that have passed since I stopped palying games, but I think I'm turning two weeks and 3 days , regardless, the need to play games has significantly dropped, I barely thought about it these past few days 

@Adrian Waiting for your next entry

Good you're keeping busy, Adrian. I think that, globally, helps everyone overcome any addiction. It's the boredom that is the biggest trigger for relapsing. If your mind and/or body are kept busy, it's much tougher to relapse. Great motivation and great progress. Hope you're still fighting the good fight 👍

Cheers @Yan , I hoep you're doing well , I'm looking at your replies to other people's posts and I am very happy that you're helping people out and encouraging them.
THanks brother, you are a legend :)

@Pulse Thanks for your words, I agree with what you said :)

I hope you're well and everything is going fine, if not, that's ok, you just need to keep going and (using your own words) fight the good fight :)

Entry 3:

The last week was good, after work I sstarted to work on a 3rd wooden puzzle which took like 4 hours and I'm still barely 25% done with it, which is great, it helps to take my mind off of games.

tI studied for like an hour and a half for something new in IT for which I plan to get certified by september next year so I'm trying to prepare in advance.I also restarted reading books again, I just staretd reading a book called "Ancient Egypt - On Five Debben a Day" by Donald P. Ryan.

I finished the RESPAWN book and I took nodes on my notebook which I revisit whnever I start to feel bored or whenever I feel like I'm starting to have a craving.

Today I have to clean the entire house while my girlfriend is away which is great, I get to put on the headphones and start tidying up the place so she can have a surprise when she gets home and she'll see the apartment cleaned up

I work out every evening in the house, just home workout with two dumpbells , an abs wheel and elastic bands. I am currently searching for an abs bench but I want to find something second hand.

I put my old gaming PC up for sale, hopefully someone will want to buy it.

In the evening during the week, after work, I get pretty tired and I don't have the drive to study, but I pushed myself and sometimes it gets easier with the time, sometimes I feel like I can't concentrate and I have to read again the last chapter, that's fine, it's normal.

I try to engage in as many activities with my girlfriend as possible, these days it rained so we stayed in-doors and played chess, she got really good at chess, she keeps beating me :)))

We bought a new board game and we're waiting for it to be shipped as it comes from outside of EU.

So far so good, I haven't played but I still feel like playing from time to time.

I have to hold on to what I've achieved so far.

I might also try to quit smoking, I still have a few packs around the house, but I might try to see if I can succedd in quiting smoking, hopefully in two,three months from now I'll be less drawnd to smoking.

I smoke regular cigarettes , never did druges, I just smoked some pot a few years ago, I tried it twice, it didn't stick with me so I am lucky in that regard.

I am also happy that I was able to avoid gambling and I was never addicted to this.

I did play twice at a slot machine, I won once and lot the 2nd time, so I understood since then that that's a dangerous cycle so I stayed away.

Just because I managed to stay await from these bad habbits is helping me now to stay concentrated on my goals of not playing and improving myself both personally and proffessionally.

I don't write here on a daily basis because I preffer to hold myself accountable every-day, and then just add an entry here that covers a few more days or an entire week.

So far I'm pretty satisfied with my decisions after I started reading RESPAWN.

And I will everybody who get's to see this a wonderful day and week ahead of you. You got this, you can quit games and any bad habbits.

We can all become a better version of ourselves .
Stay strong brothers.

Edited October 4Oct 4 by Adrian

Entry 4:

So far so good, no relapse on my part since that small relapse from 6th of September.
Afew months without gaming feels good so far :D


The last couple of weeks have been good, I started making more and more at my new work place, even though I was scared of driving to my workplace I did it twice anyway.
Got I bit frustrated as I spent two hours stuck in traffic bumper to bumper but it is what it is,,.. that's how the traffic is in big Metropolitan cities :)))
I still feel a bit of anxiety when driving but Iit's getting better and better everytime.

I kept working out in the evening at home after coming back from work, spent quality time with my partner and played chess a few times (she is still beating me a lot, I can't defeat her at chess, she's really good :)) ), I kept forcing myself to study more for my technical certifications.
I'm still struggling with learning because most of the days I'm really tired but it is what it is, I'm forcing myself to become the best version of myself.

Progress ain't easy, I just need to stay consistent all the time, even if I read/practice something for 30 minutes a day, that's still a bit of progress in my book so it's good , at least I feel good.

Recently I started watching sports from USA as I got a bit tired of the European football ( I am a East European so football has been my "thing" since early childhood , but I never had the chance to play professional or amateur football, jsut football in the school's courtyard ) and I found my favorites already:
NBA: Oklahoma City Thunder

NFL: Detroit Lions

MLB: Miami Marlins

Because I found new sports to watch, I do have a "wish" from time to time to play a bit of NFL or NBA2K games but I won't. I need to keep myself on track.

Life has been great the last couple of months, especially since I gave up on gaming.

I still get gaming cravings from time to time, but I guess these will never go away.
I hope that by September 2026 I'll get my certification and get myself in a better place that I am now.
But I feel better now than I felt on september 2025 so this is great, I try to respect the lessons from the RESPAWN book.


P.S: I always preffer to add entries for longer periods of time than writting daily.