Due88's 90 day detox

[due88]

Sept 25, 2017 (1/90)

I quit gaming last night. Never mind that I just bought a $1200 gaming laptop a few weeks ago. I mean it's a great laptop and it will serve non-gaming needs for at least 5 years or so, so I guess it's not that big of a deal. Just seems a tad stupid to have spent the money on a GAMING laptop just to quit gaming a few weeks later. Ah well..

I spent 15 minutes or so uninstalling every game I had on my computer and all of the games on my phones. Phone games have never been a problem for me, but I could see them becoming one with PC gaming on its way out of my system. Was kind of fun and liberating to free up all of that space on my computer. So much more room for programming stuff!

I'm hoping this place will help me through this. Plus I'm excited to spend more time with my wife and I recently joined a Dungeons & Dragons group with some friends, so that should satisfy my love of fantasy and other nerd stuff  I figure since it's impossible for me to sit around my house all day playing DnD alone, it's not consider gaming in this contest

 

Edited September 26, 2017 by due88

[WorkInProgress]

Welcome to the Forum.

I see that you had a good start and made afresh start. Don't think about the price of the Laptop this is a clear case of a sunk cost fallacy .

Programming and D 6 D seems a good replacement for gaming because it can bring you further professional and socially instead just take away your time and concentration. I personally found it really important to journal here everyday for the detox and make the barrier to games as high as possible (I installed Linux as main OS and deleted my steam account). Now is the time to make plans for the times your excitement will fade and to develop strategies. If you haven't seen it there is  a youtube channel and a podcast with helpful content about gamequitting. If you have any questions feel free to ask in your journal and I or some other (hopefully) helpful fellow gamequitter will help you out.

I just can say it is a good decision I am almost gamefree (despite some relapse days) for two years now and it improved my relationshship with my wife a lot. So best luck

[due88]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm not actually worried about the laptop. I just thought it was kind of funny because if I'd had this realization a month ago I could've saved quite a lot of money and gotten a cheaper one that isn't good for gaming. But I'm not worried  

I probably should just install linux on this thing. Gaming was literally the only thing keeping me from being 100% linux across all computer (already rocking Kubuntu at work).

[imquitgaming]

+1 linux, nowadays anything you need you can get with a linux. And as you said, gaming laptop or not, you can still use it for plenty of productive things.

[SlackRamen]

I personally found it really important to journal here everyday for the detox and make the barrier to games as high as possible (I installed Linux as main OS and deleted my steam account). Now is the time to make plans for the times your excitement will fade and to develop strategies. If you haven't seen it there is  a youtube channel and a podcast with helpful content about gamequitting. If you have any questions feel free to ask in your journal and I or some other (hopefully) helpful fellow gamequitter will help you out.

I'm still in the early stages but finding these tips to be pivotal. 

I think DnD sounds like a great social activity @due88. You've made a great start! I'll be following along.

[due88]

Sept 26, 2017 (2/90)

I think for the time being I'm going to try to write in this each morning about the previous day's struggles/triumphs. 15-20 minutes of writing in the morning seems like a good way start the day. 

Yesterday was my first proper day without gaming. I work from home sometimes and in the past when I've had little to do I'd play something I can easily hop in/out of (like WoW or MC). But yesterday I just didn't. I forced myself to find something to do. It wasn't always work-related, but it was never gaming. Since I'm also trying to phase reddit and facebook out as well, I think that was the larger struggle for me. The Chrome plugin I'm using to block them counted like 15 attempts to visit each of those sites by the end of the day. CTRL+T, "reddit.com" or "facebook.com" is habitual at this point. I don't even think about it and in the past all it really led to was a loop of "wonder what's on reddit...nothing...wonder what's on facebook...nothing...wonder what's on facebook...etc.etc." Super unproductive. I've thought about whitelisting a few subreddits because there are quite a few super high-quality ones in line with my non-gaming hobbies (/r/artisanvideos, /r/gardening, /r/worldbuilding). I'm worried that will be a slippery slope. Maybe a good solution would be ot create a new account and subscribe only to a handful of solid, quality subreddits.

But back to not gaming! My wife and I caught up on Bob's Burgers and after that I got really bored. That post-TV, pre-bed time is usually where I did most of my evening gaming, so I guess that was my first major challenge. I decided to watch a YouTube series on playing DnD. As I said in my first post, I recently joined a DnD group. Well the only one in the group that knows how to play is the DM, so the rest of us are doing everything we can to get a grasp on the rules of the game. I figured a video series was a good approach. While watching one of the videos I got the idea to make my character with some lego minifigs I have. You see, I've got more lego than any adult of my age should ever own. I began collecting as a kid and as soon as I could afford to buy my own sets I began buying the bigger, more complicated sets that looked challenging. As a result, I've got quite the collection of lego people. So I mashed together pieces and built my Dwarven ranger

Sent the pic to my DnD group and now the plan is for me to bring in some pieces for us all to make our characters rather than spend money on figurines. Going to be a blast this weekend  

but I guess the take away from that was that I threw myself into something other than gaming and it provided me with the inspiration to do something else that wasn't gaming and now I've got plans for yet another non-gaming thing later this week. 

[Andre2807]

and after that I got really bored. That post-TV, pre-bed time is usually where I did most of my evening gaming, so I guess that was my first major challenge.

This.

I can totally relate to this. I have a morning routine (set in stone = 66 days habit stuff), but my evenings are... a blur.

With no plan, and my wife that hits the bed early, night time from 20:00 - 21:30ish is my worst time of the day.

My willpower is completely drained by that time, so I struggle to do anything productive then...

[due88]

Do you come up with nonsense excuses not to do things too? At one point I thought about going upstairs and cleaning my office a bit, but my excuse was "oh yeah don't want to wake my wife up, she's right below the office". But this is a woman who sleeps through 3 alarms every morning and I take zero precautions to avoid waking up when I come to bed late or wake up early. She can sleep through some light cleaning going on in the room above haha.

[thehondasc00py]

The Chrome plugin I'm using to block them counted like 15 attempts to visit each of those sites by the end of the day. CTRL+T, "reddit.com" or "facebook.com" is habitual at this point. I don't even think about it and in the past all it really led to was a loop of "wonder what's on reddit...nothing...wonder what's on facebook...nothing...wonder what's on facebook...etc.etc." Super unproductive. I've thought about whitelisting a few subreddits because there are quite a few super high-quality ones in line with my non-gaming hobbies (/r/artisanvideos, /r/gardening, /r/worldbuilding). I'm worried that will be a slippery slope. Maybe a good solution would be ot create a new account and subscribe only to a handful of solid, quality subreddits.

Hello and welcome to the journey due88

For internet, you could check out this funny little extension. It's called Forest, and it plants a seed that slowly grows into a tree as long as you do not try to browse your blacklisted websites while it's open. If you manage to grow the tree, you can move onto another and build your own little forest and show it off to others. Bit of an extra, fun little kick.

I've done the new account thing with Reddit, Youtube, and also Facebook. Deleted my FB account, made a new one with only a few close friends, and liked a bunch of article sites on science, motivation, music and spirituality. It serves me quite well. I seldom feel the need to even open it but when I do it actually gives me value!

And looks like we're in the same boat regarding WoW. Let's keep eachother strong when the next expansion releases

PS. If the laptop is only a couple weeks old, you could still sell it probs for 1k, buy a cheap one for like 300 and make 700 return, no?

Edited September 26, 2017 by thehondasc00py

[giblets]

That sounds like a cool extension @thehondasc00py, I might check it out, thanks!

[due88]

Oh man gods of willpower give me strength when the next expansion comes out. November (Blizzcon) is going to be a challenging month as well.

Definitely going to give that extension a shot, looks like fun. 

 

 

[due88]

September 27 (3/90)

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I spent the latter half of my work day stuck in the most boring meeting I've ever been in. Came home, ate dinner, and watched TV all evening with my wife. After she went to bed, I threw myself into a book. I've been slowly making my way through American Gods by Neil Gaiman for the past few months. It's such a slow book at times, but it's so captivating at others. Last night I managed to plow through a good 1/8th of the book in a sitting. May not sound like much, but this is a massive book. Like I'm 'only' on page 400-something and there's quite a ways left to go. Plus I'm really bad at staying focused long enough to read like that. So I'm pretty proud of myself. Can't wait to finish the book so I can jump into the TV series.

[due88]

My day numbering doesn't make any sense if I'm talking about the previous day...

 

September 28 (4/90)

Yesterday could've been a disaster. My wife was going away for a concert so I'd have the house to myself. That's usually some prime gaming time, but I managed to turn it into a really long reading session. Managed to finally finish American Gods, which was amazing. Not much else to say about yesterday, I suppose. Today I guess I'll figure out what my next book will be. Or maybe I'll jump into the American Gods TV series. Nice having a multiple choice evening ahead of me rather than "just gaming"