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Second and last attempt


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Hi everyone. The name's Nightfall, I'm 21; I've started playing game since I was a kid; my first game was in 2002 or 2003. Gradually, they started to have more and more power in my life. They started to become a coping mechanism with the shit I was dealing with at the time : bullying, lack of confidence, self esteem... I spent somewhere near 10 000 hours in them. The biggest one was a MMORPG, and I wasted too many time on it... the only positive thing was that thanks to it I'm very good in English as long as you don't give a fuck about accent. But then for 10k hours I'd probably could have gotten more.

So why is it my second attempt and last attempt ? The first time, I was half-assing it. I had other issues to deal with. So I had relapses, and I didn't deal with the real consequences of it. And it being in my life for over 14 year it wasn't going to be easy. I made friend thanks to video-games. I live thanks to them. If I know so much about some stuff it's thanks to them. But then, I don't have any friend. There's that guy I talk with sometimes but I rarely ever see him. I didn't do enough to deal with the problem and I had huge binges. The truth is I was never a hardcore gamer, I played maybe 2-3 hours a day max (except in holidays, where it was maybe closer to 14 hours). I never missed school because of them, even though I failed classes because of them.

 

I might as well tell my whole story on that. If you can get easily triggered, skip to the next paragraph. I gradually moved from Transport Tycoon, Rayman 2 and Expandable onto RuneScape, which I estimated took me 5k hours. Then games like FEAR 2, Left 4 Dead (1 and 2, despite claiming I'd boycott the 2), some indie stuff like World of Goo, then COD Modern Warfare 2, MineCraft, Supreme Commander Forged Alliance...Bioshock 1 and 2, Prototype 1 and 2, man, so many hours wasted... Half-Life 2 and probably a tons of other games. Also the Sims 2 and most of the so-called addon. I wanted to be somewhat chronological but it doesn't matter.

 

Fast forward 3 years ago : I have a huge exam approaching which will decide if I pass or not and if I will be able to continue my studies. I used to have good grades, but that was when my parents made me do my homework. Then a year they stopped any kind of effort on that. I continued school without issues (getting less involved into it) for two years and started falling behind. Then there was that year I failed. Paradoxically it was also the year I did a lot of thing regarding self-improvement. I wanted to get a GF, I succeeded but I could never keep them. My life was a fucking mess.

Yet I didn't do anything about games. I managed to get a few friends, but it was short lived as I lost them all for various reason.

I want to change my life. I'm into computer science, but I want to cut myself from games, completely. To get out of it. I've wasted so much time, I could have lived so much things if it wasn't for those games...

 

So hopefully I'll stay here as much as needed. I'm going for the 90 days at first, and I'll see how well I do. Thanks Cam for this place by the way.

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Hi Nightfall, first of all I was drawn to this topic by your title 'second and last attempt'. It's great that you're trying to quit games now and I hope this attempt can make you quit it forever :) . But if there might be a relapse or you decide to start gaming again, I would think about the words 'last attempt'. One of my favorite quotes in life is "There is no possibility of failure, when you keep trying over and over". Offcourse I'm not the one to judge about which decisions you should make, but you need to give yourself some failures and more chances in life.

But it's good that you made the decision that you don't want this with your life anymore and that you did some reflections. I'm sure this community will be able to help you and if you have any questions, I will gladly help you :) ! 

Best of luck!!

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Thanks for the support.

There is always the possibility of relapse, so by "last attempt" I'm not saying that I'll half-ass it and go back to games if it doesn't go well. I believe I'm sick of them enough for it to be my final (successful) attempt.

Trust me, I've spent enough time on games to don't want to go back there anymore. Thanks for worrying about that, my decision will always be to stop games and I'll make sure of that.

 

Cam, I've read quite a few of your blog posts, and I'm wondering, how do you manage to focus on something and spend 16 hours a day to improve in it ? When you played you kept improving, and when you wanted to make more friends you mentioned spending hours to learn how... I want to learn new things (Arduino for example) but I'm more the polar opposite of you in that I don't really practice that much. What motivates you to spend so much time on things ? If I started spending 16h on hobbies I will quickly catchup and become very good at stuff.

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What I would recommend is to spend 30-60 minutes each day instead of trying to go from 0 to 12 hours/day. ANd if you can focus for 30-60 minutes, then take a break, then do it again, and you can do a few hours a day, but imo consistency (doing it each day) is much more important than 6 hours ONE day.

I also use a CALENDAR religiously to schedule my day and be INTENTIONAL with how i spend my time.

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When you talk about games saving you I can totally relate. But the beauty of being human is that we evolve. We can adapt. When something is no longer of a benefit to us we can just ditch it in pursuit of something better and more productive.

I had agoraphobia and depression and if it wasn't for World Of Warcraft and other games I wouldn't be typing this right now. I found lately games have been more of a hindrance than a benefit, disrupting my work life etc.

It looks like you've found that out as well, don't be afraid of ditching something you've loved to do, so you can better your life. (I gamed for close to 17 years before giving up) I'm grateful for games, because I've met some fantastic friends too.

You have plenty of friends here to help you with your detox. :) Don't be afraid to reach out!

Just remember one thing...If you don't give up, you will never lose!

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Okay, thanks for the advice Cam. I was somewhat expecting that jumping to an opposite wasn't a good idea.

 

Falky, yes, this was a long time ago, maybe it stopped me from suicide or drugs or whatever, but now I'm strong enough to deal with the though stuff. What you say about not giving meaning you can never lose it's completely true, it's in fact similar to something called the Growth Mindset (a term coined by Carol Dweck, she wrote a few book on that and it's very powerful).

I did relapse a few weeks ago, but instead of seeing it as a limitation of who I am, I want to see this as an opportunity to learn more about myself. Why did I relapse ? Why now ? Etc... as far as I can tell, it's because I haven't dealt with the problem seriously, that there are very important things in my life missing... things like hobbies for example. I need to make social situations an opportunity to cool down, when I'm not trying to improve in them. Games never existed 50 years ago, yet people still managed to rest, to have fun, etc. So I must try new things. Deal with the core of the problem. One being with delaying gratification, which seem to be common according to one of the videos. Already did a few research on that, but accumulating information is easier than using it.

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I think a good place to start is starting a habit wich benefits your goal. Then the fokus is more on you doing something then to force you to not do stuff. I

f you want to read a good book about willpower adn the scientific reasons why we often tiems fail to delay gratification i would recommend "the Willpower Instinct". Helped me alot and was a good read.

Sometimes it helps if you jsut starting easing into "good" habbits like sport or meditation. I highly recommend to make a mindfullness meditation as a standard routine. There is a nice app names "Headspace" wich has a free trialmonth and could help you figure out if it does something for you. In my experience it is hard to go through with it ( even if you jsut do 5-10min daily) but it helps you a lot to deal with the need of instant gratification. There are some studies out there linking meditation to lower general stress levels and higher amounts of willpower and some other beneficial effects.

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