Big Push

[Jamescan]

Hey, my name is James and this is my story.

I was born in 93 and by the time I was 6 or 7 I was on the internet and soon later I played games. 

My video game addiction really didn't come to be until 2nd year University. I played games but my outlet was playing sports and being good at them, I was always the athletic type but I was wasn't the cool type, I was the loner who had a hard time socializing. 

I've always been a loner type, with very few friends. Starting around grade 11 I had extremely bad acne that I had to deal with by myself for the most part and the worse part was not the acne, it was the scars they inevitable left. 

First year went meh, I met some new friends but nothing lasting because I put up a barrier to the people I meet and socialize with that I never really develop meaningful relationships. 

The summer before second year I started playing a game called league of legends. When I tell you I was hooked, I was HOOKED. It became my drug. It became my escape. It became my life.

I just wanted to get better and learn more and rank up and be like the pros. I wanted to get that pentakill, I wanted to get that recognition I never really get in life.

When I came back to school, things were different. I couldn't stand my existence in this reality we called life. I just wanted to go home and play more games. I was diagnosed with depression and was prescribed some pills but my parents ultimately convinced me not to take the pills (a decision I regret).

I dropped a lot of courses that year and that trend would continue in 3 and 4th year. 

I ultimately decided to drop out because my parents were paying partially for my tuition and I was accruing too much debt and not finishing a lot of my courses due to my anxiety from even entering the class. 

When I left school, my gaming didn't stop, in fact it may have intensified. I found a couple jobs and slowly but surely my desire to play the game waned. I think it was due in large part to me actually being forced to communicate and socialize.

Last week, I just felt so great about how things were going in my life, I was reading everyday, I was working, I was trying to learn new skills to advance my career and then a major setback happened and I just felt almost hopeless. The next day I installed the game to alleviate some stress and I've been playing for 7 days straight about 10 games a day and sometimes even approaching 20 games when I'm not working. 

I know things are going to stress me out in life and I know I will have set backs, I just don't want gaming to be my coping mechanism and frankly I don't want to game much more for the rest of my life. There are SO many things more important than a video game and yet it pulls me like a magnet everytime.

In this Journal, I will try to everyday log my journey towards 90 days detox and the accomplishments I will have made or not make. Hopefully it will be the later. I just want to finally give this one big push. Wish me luck!

[dwalk77]

Thanks for sharing Jamescan, I can relate to a lot of what you said.  Bingeing is fun at first, but then it really sucks.  I was also an athlete in high school but had a real hard time socializing and felt incompetent in that aspect.  Glad you're here.  If you haven't thought about it already, I think some good first steps to consider are reading through some of the posts here, reading through Cam's Respawn (it's an easy read, but he makes some very important points), and getting rid of your accounts/systems.  You can do it man, one day at a time

[Jamescan]

Day 1 - I feel better already. 

 

Went into work (I work as a clerk) and did my first half of work and now I'm home for lunch and writing this journal.

Pretty basic day. The hardest part is resisting the urge to play league of legends, go on league related sites, go on youtube and any other form of addictive social media sites.

After writing this I plan on a doing a little reading of a book I bought on play books called The Selfish gene by richard dawkins. Then I head back to work.

New guy at work who works 3 jobs, offered me a job at one of his other jobs so I might work two jobs but I also want to work on html5 development. I just have to look to see if I can balance it.

Plans for tomorrow and the rest of 90 days

- Go to bed before 1

- Wake up before 9:01

- Do at least 4 hours of reading and practicing HTML5 development using the pomodora technique

-Go to the gym 

-Eat enough wholesome food for my body to grow

-Read at least one hour of Selfish Gene by dawkins

 

 

[Jamescan]

Day 2

 

Last night I did a push up challenge I often times do. The goal is to be the last record time to 50 push ups. I do 10 pushups and rest for 30 seconds and do the same again. This time I hit 50 pushups in 3 mins, whereas in the past my record was 5 mins. Now I'm upping the goal to 70 push ups. Last night I did 70 pushups in 6 mins and 10 seconds. The goal is to get that underr 5 mins.

Went to bed at 2 am, got called in for work at 10. So I slept 7 hours but felt tired by mid-day. If I don't get 8 hours I'm just not effective.

Really wanted to go to the gym but felt so tired. I managed to do some reading but that made me even more tired and went to take nap and ended up sleeping for 3 hours and I'm still tired as of this writing. Almost bed time. I made it through day 2!

[Jamescan]

Day 3 - Made a mistake and watched some twitch. I haven't played the game for a 4 days now. My Lol account is scheduled to be deleted on the 16th of february. My account is at level 29. One more level and I can play ranked. The most frustrating and addicting part of the game.

Day - 4 Developed a cold, head is heavy and mucus everywhere.

I'm holding up. I didn't lose my ability to seemlessly converse, I feared I would after coming after the game. Anyway. My brain has to get used to not being overly stimulated by things like video games.

[thehondasc00py]

Welcome. You're not missing anything by quitting LoL ranked or not, trust me  On the contrary

[Jamescan]

6 hours ago, thehondasc00py said:

Welcome. You're not missing anything by quitting LoL ranked or not, trust me  On the contrary

Thanks for the encouragement.

 

Day 5 & 6

Slightly stressed about a situation at work.

No gaming thus far. I unfortunately did watch youtube on my laptop and even though I only watch porn every 3-4 days, when the urge spikes it's almost impossible to deny it.

I feel very satisfied with who I am although most people my age would find it hard to get along with me at least initially. I don't party, smoke weed, drink, very rarely watch movies. In short I'm not huge into things young adults find entertaining. I like to follow up and political and economic news, I like to talk about history, the future and societal things. Small talk is very hard because I don't really find humor in the little things.

 

[Jamescan]

Day 7 & 8

 

The urges are incredibly high and I'm so close to just reinstalling the game.

 

Trying to rationalize how I can moderately play the game.

 

I know it's a trick, I've fallen for it so many times. It's just so hard....

 

I made it past one week without the game

Edited February 10, 2018 by Jamescan

[Jamescan]

Day 9 - 10

 

Very nearly relapsed.

 

I have the game downloaded and all I have to do is click play and I'm back to playing the game once again.

I knew it was going to be hard. But that foreknowledge does not ease a thing.

I'm going to delete the game. Happy I didn't decide to rationalize playing the game. 

Almost to 90 days!

 

[Cam Adair]

Hang in there.

What do you feel is your biggest challenge with the detox at the moment?

Is it cravings to play? Something else? Share and we will support you.

[thehondasc00py]

Seconded. Watch some cool movies or inspiring documentaries. Life is hard and we all have to push through pain and hardship sometimes. I can tell you that I used to play a lot of League but have not the slightest urge to return to that anymore, it does pass.

[Jamescan]

Not going to lie guys. I did relapse. 

It was a combination of things that caused me to relapse and I think the main culprit was that I was I just felt a longing to be desired. Not necessarily romantically, but as a human being.

I feel an emptiness in my life and sometimes I try to remedy that with gaming. When I make that big play or congratulated on a play, its such a great feeling. 

Also, I feel a need to compete. I've always played online games and I just want to beat people at games.

Yesterday I ranked up to gold division on league fairly easily and I just felt a loss in desire to play. I just know it's going to be hours of time trying to get to the next big rank that is platinum and I just didn't feel the desire to do that. 

I havent played in 24 hours and I'm starting the timer again. I'm aiming for 60 days. Then I'm going to hopefully finish the 90 days. 

It's REALLy HARD.