Introduction

[Spoon]

Hi, my name is Thomas (everyone: "Hi Thomas") and I'm starting my journey to a gaming free life. I started playing games around the time I was 5 or 6, first on a Gameboy, then a Gamecube, and eventually I found my way to Steam, World of Warcraft, and the wonderful world of computer gaming. At first I was able to balance keeping my real life going and just using gaming as something fun to do with my friends when I had free time, but as the years went on, I found myself playing more and more games, paying less attention to my real life, and ignoring my homework, going to bed later and getting less sleep, falling asleep in class, etc. (I'm sure most of you can sympathize with that). Even though I was able to barely scrape by in high school and managed to graduate, I did it with a below-average GPA and the bare-minimum needed to get my diploma. When I went off to college, at first I had a renewed determination and purpose of life, and things went very well for the first few quarters Side note: my college is computer science based, and uses the Quarter system (1 quarter is 10 weeks, with 2 "sprints" that are 5 weeks each), and because the community was full of computer science and tech-savvy people, gaming was naturally a part of our culture. As time went on, I found myself getting more and more bored, and wanted something to fill my free time, and of course the first thing to pop into my mind was video games. This ultimately led me into a downward spiral where, at first, I was just postponing assignments until the last minute to get them done, then I would keep playing and said "Oh, I'll just turn it in late." which eventually led to "Oh well it's already late, and I don't want to get further behind so I just won't do it and instead I'll focus on the next assignment." But I never did focus on the next assignments. I would always keep playing games. It even got to the point a couple times where I would play games for hours on end without noticing and when I started playing at 6pm and I think I've only been playing for 45 minutes, suddenly it's 1:30am and the night has just disappeared, which led me to going to bed late, waking up late, staying up even more late until soon enough I was waking up at 3pm and going to bed at 7am, all the while getting nothing productive done. (the most recent time was literally last week). This self-destructive pattern got me kicked out of college once, and although I managed to get back in, as I said I'm falling back into the same habits. I want to change, but I can't trust myself alone to push through, so I signed up here so I have a community to back me up. 

To help keep me accountable, here are my account details so y'all can bother me whenever I'm playing video games:
 

Spoiler

Discord: Spoon#9000
Battle.net: Spoon#11476
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/tenurian

Nobody has to add me on any of these, but by putting them up here for everyone to see I'm making it so I can't lie to y'all, and more importantly to myself.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Hitaru

[Hitaru]

Hi Thomas! 

Welcome to the community. I used to have many friends in Computer Science so I understand your struggle, you are literally surrounded by video games there. It will probably be tougher for you to set a barrier between games, but focus on your goals and you'll make it. We have your back man. 

[Btw, I'm putting your accounts under spoiler, hope you don't mind. Some folks being really sensitive about triggers and that.]

[Spoon]

1 hour ago, Hitaru said:

[Btw, I'm putting your accounts under spoiler, hope you don't mind. Some folks being really sensitive about triggers and that.]

Ah, no problem. Wasn't aware if it would be an issue (also didn't know about spoilers till now).

 

[Cam Adair]

Hey Thomas!

 

[dwalk77]

Welcome Thomas!