"Detox" achievement unlocked? Share your story!

[Hitaru]

Have you gone through the 90 Day Detox and think you have some interesting lessons to share? Then how about writing a case study?

A case study is longer and more detailed than a celebration post. It's a summary of your journey, as detailed as you want, in the format of a blog article (they are posted in the Case Study section of the main website linked above). You can write about what feels important to you, but ideally a case study should cover:

 

- When did you first played video games? What brought you to them?* 

(What did you like about gaming the most: Challenge, Escape, Growth and Socialization. Or perhaps something else?)

- How was your situation before video games? How did games influenced this situation?

(Were you having trouble at school and games were useful to procrastinate, did you use them as a social activity with friends, etc.)

- When did you first noticed you were playing too much?

(Where would you draw that line between games being a fun pastime and games being essential to your normal functioning.)

- What negative effects and consequences manifested into your life while/because of playing games?

(Physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, professionally...)

- When was the turning point and what was the trigger that led you to decide going through the Detox?

(Was it related to finding out about Game Quitters, or content created by Game Quitters?)

- What were the positive and negative sensations that you experienced DURING the Detox? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? What changes have you implemented to your lifestyle?

(Or did you just abstain from games and did nothing else as some sort of experiment. Whatever your experience was, really.)

- What were the positive and negative sensations that you experienced AFTER the Detox? How does your life look like now? Was the Detox a positive experience, or would you advise against it? 

(You can trash talk about us if we truly ruined your life (?))

- Overall, has your life improved during and after the Detox, stayed the same or worsen?

(How has the Detox influenced in your current life?)

 

Your story will help people that are also considering taking the Detox, raise awareness about video game addiction being a real thing (seriously, we still are at this stage...!) and help the research of people such as Dr. Daniel King, who made a study with us a while ago about the effects of temporal abstinence of video games in the brain and the addiction process. It may look as "things that just happened in your life", but your experience is actually really valuable. We're looking forward to learn about you!

 

Have you just learned about Game Quitters and don't know what the Detox is, but have you been without games for 90 days or more? Check this video and feel free to write as well! 

 

You can submit your story here. If you have questions you can contact me (@Hitaru) by PM or mail (in my profile info)

[Regular Robert]

• Can we add additional questions that we see being relevant?
• Is the written word preferred or can we reply in video, audio, whatever?
• Are there topics that should not be talked about? E.g.: Sex life, alcoholism, drugs, depressions or such?
• Also, once the question was answered, I will edit this post to the actual reply to not waste any forum space and of course, not bother Hitaru in his personal messages and private space.

[Cam Adair]

16 hours ago, Regular Robert said:

• Can we add additional questions that we see being relevant?

Yes.

16 hours ago, Regular Robert said:

• Is the written word preferred or can we reply in video, audio, whatever?

Whichever. Just make sure video is less than 20 minutes.

16 hours ago, Regular Robert said:

• Are there topics that should not be talked about? E.g.: Sex life, alcoholism, drugs, depressions or such?

I'm fine with any topics being discussed as long as it's relevant to gaming addiction/your recovery, and if you want to go down a rabbit hole of for example, how psychedelics helped your recovery, please include scientific studies and references.

[Hitaru]

@Regular Robert Videos and audios can be added to the YouTube channel and podcast respectively, so by all means yes! Raw, honest life experiences are also encouraged, as long as they are in compliance with Rule #1.

[Hitaru]

I found this template @Cam Adair made some time about, I'll share it here for future reference:

 

To make it easy for people to share their stories, is here the template I have created. I see this as something we will continue to improve over time:

Share Your Story

Examples of other stories we've shared so far are here - don't sweat the formatting, I'll take care of all of that.

You can remain as anonymous as you would like:

• Please share the name you would like me to use: 
• What is your age:
• What country are you from: 

Questions to think about:

• Here are a few questions to help you get started:
• When you started gaming? What games?
• What did you like about gaming?
• When did you notice it becoming a problem?
• What consequences did you start to experience?
• When did you decide to quit?
• Did you seek help or support? Start the detox? Relapse?
• What benefit(s) have you gotten from quitting?
• Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Guidelines:

• Minimum 600 words
• If you can, use the questions as prompts and structure, but feel free to write your story in free-flow form. 
• Submit your draft to cam@gamequitters.com with the subject line [Community Contribution]
• Bonus: You may also record a video of your story and submit it also. Example.

Really appreciate you being willing to share your story. I'm hoping that we can get as many of these as possible, because the more stories people see of others, the more likely they are to take action themselves and commit to changing their own life.

Send me the draft and we can go from there. If you need any support from me on this, let me know. I'm happy to help you through it.

- Cam