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My Story

Stoic

By Stoic
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Stoic Newbie

Stoic

Posted
Posted

Hey everyone, I’d like to share my story of how I ended up here writing this post.

I’ve been playing video games since my young days starting out with the NES in the 90s. My childhood was all about video games and I loved it. Playing video games was just pure enjoyable fun without having much of a negative impact on my life up until my late teens.

2005-2008

During 2005-2008, when I was 17-20, I became involved in e-sports and competitive gaming. I poured so much time into Halo, Counter-Strike, and TF2 it was unreal. My life seemed to be sleeping in, inconveniently having to attend class, and then staying up all night playing these games. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Something I’m sure you are all familiar with.

In 2008  I began to notice video games were a distraction, preventing me from ‘living my life’. I sold my gaming PC and told myself I was done…unless a new Diablo or Counter-Strike happened to come out. We all know which two games came out in 2012 (hint: Diablo III and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive). Despite the right intentions I had instantly set myself up for failure.

2009-2012

Well, I caved in well before those games even came out. I may have had no PC, but in 2009 I had an Xbox 360 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to sink many hours into. About a year after that I built a new gaming rig and got back into PC gaming as well. Not all was dire though. The time I was playing games slowly diminished because I had an active social and academic life. Then 2012 came and along with it DOTA 2.

I played the shit out of DOTA 2. For me, it was the perfect game. The blend of a high skill ceiling and an extremely competitive foundation had me hooked. I ate, breathed, and slept DOTA 2. I had no other game. I didn’t NEED any other game.

2013-2017

After a year of daily DOTA 2, I really started to realize that gaming wasn’t adding any true value to my life. I opened up google and searched "gaming addiction" and "how to quit gaming". Guess what I stumbled upon around February 2013? This nice blog post by Cam Adair.

The article resonated with me so well. I was convinced. I needed to quit…but I was going to do it tomorrow because I wanted to play DOTA 2 a few more times. Tomorrow never came; at least not in the sense of quitting DOTA 2. I just couldn’t give it up.

Fast forward four years later to the beginning 2017 and I’m still playing DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. WHAT?! While I wasn’t addicted (or so I tell myself) and have accomplished things over the past four years, I found myself unwilling to stop playing video games.

Then one night I had an enlightening, eye-opening moment. My mind was restless and I couldn’t sleep. I could only think about all the time I had wasted playing video games , and how much better my life could be if I would have completely quit gaming the first time I tried nine years ago. I reached for my tablet and googled "gaming addiction" and "how to quit gaming". Sound familiar? This time I found http://gamequitters.com/.

Oh this looks promising I thought to myself. Respawn huh? “I’m Cam. You might know who I am, you might not”. “Holy shit!”, I silently exclaimed in my head. I can’t even explain the feeling I had in my mind, stomach, and heart. I just knew I had stop playing video games.

So here I am.

Reno F Newbie

Reno F

Posted
Posted

My mind was restless and I couldn’t sleep. I could only think about all the time I had wasted playing video games

I've been there.

Welcome, Stoic!

Stoic Newbie

Stoic

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Hey all thanks for the welcome.

Like many of you I'm very excited to be diverting my path in life to a more meaningful one.

I can see myself in you're story ! I just registrer this morning and I look forward to see what is going to happen. 

Sorry for my poor english , im french canadian btw.. 

 

Go Habs, Go? :P

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