Hello.. New to this

[Mcloo]

edit: My name is Edgar and im from Costa Rica

Im currently 27 years old and here is my brief story.. you can read only the second paragraph and get a general idea, first part just for background purposes

Little background first:

Been gaming since I can remember, ever since I turned 13yrs old and discovered online gaming I have played at least 3 hours per day except when traveling or when I needed to study. I have always considered I am in control of my gaming habits I have seen cousins falling into depression, getting out of college, jobs, due to their gaming habits, and that was not my case. I constantly did bad at school since every single homework, project I had to do was always pushed to the last day. Dont get me wrong, school was extremely easy for me, I just saw homework as completely unnecessary and my study habits were always limited to the day before tests. I always had friends here and there, gaming didn't take away social life from me which I deemed a lot more important than gaming. Always had relationships that lasted several years so all in all never really felt like my gaming habits really affected my life. Anyways when I got to college (decided to study medicine) I found that I had to limit my gaming time in order to study as it required tremendous amounts of my time. What ended up happening was I found myself more compelled to game rather than spending my somewhat inexistent time with my peers/family and depriving my body from sleep. A regular day during my time in college would be go to class or study from 6-7am till 9pm (with small breaks of course) and then play online games till 2-3am except for weekends when I went out with my classmates to party or have some drinks. I ended up taking massive cuantities of coffee/energy drinks and even took methylfenidate (drug used for ADD ppl) so that my body manage staying awake either for studying or gaming. You would think a med student would recognize all these harmful activities since they study medicine but that was certainly not my case. I found myself with nearly no relationship with my parents or friends, relationship with my gf at the time really deteriorated and ended up breaking up.. my health was also in a bad situation never having energy for anything and 0 motivation from anything except study or gaming.. For me the culprit of all this was my career choice.. and wow I was so wrong.. around my 3rd year of med school (typically 6yrs in my country) I decided to sell my computer for some reason i dont remember. My last years I was super happy with my situation, I made more friends, started exercising more, spent more time with my family did better in college, etc. Overall I was happier, more energetic, and had really good relationships with everyone. I didnt notice why at the time though.

Fast forward to 2016 (graduation)

I started working and studying to get into medical residency(specialty).. I started earning a lot of money with which the first 2 months I decided to buy a new gaming desktop with all the high-end parts (spent around 3000$).. guess what happened.. My time was spent either working at the ED department, gaming (up to 7-8hrs per day), or with my now current GF which doesnt know anything about my gaming habits.. rather than studying (I hid it so well from her and my parents which are always present in my everyday life). I have tried to get into the residency program for 2 years now and wasn't even close to getting in. I have felt stuck on my career and always justified it due to the "difficulty" of getting in and never really looking at my own faults. Nevertheless on december 2017 I decided to make a change as I started to learn to meditate and do introspection on myself.. I deleted everything that has to do with gaming, telling and asking my mother who lives with me to help me in the process, and found about this site. I have read a lot about gaming addiction, and I now consider myself an addict (to an extent). It's been 4 months now that I haven't played any game whatsoever, I have felt the urge, and have had mood swings though, but still managing to stay away from it. Decided to spend my time learning a new thing.. photography (which i have felt in love with).. I am now working part time on the ED department full time studying and whenever I have free time i learn about photography.. I still have the gaming desktop (havent managed to sell it) but havent reinstalled any game nor played. I am writing about my story today because today more than ever I have felt the urge to play games.. I am now sitting down on my desk with all my books opened after 5 hours of studying and all I want to do is turn on my computer, install whatever game I have on steam and play nonstop.. or even download hearthstone on my phone and play nonstop.. As i am writing this I am feeling more compelled to not give in to my urges and is the whole reason I wanted to share this..

If any of you bared with my story and is in a similar situation as i am I want to hear you out.. or maybe give me suggestions on how you handle your urges, or maybe just say hello.. this is my first time reaching to an online community and please pardon my english if I made any mistake..

 

Edited April 2, 2018 by Mcloo
no introduction

[Cam Adair]

Welcome Edgar! 

[TheCrystalLake]

Hi and welcome here! You have already 4 months and thats great! Dont go back to day 1. It really sounds like you should sell your gaming PC if you are too tempted to play. Or maybe you can give it to a friend until you dont have those bad urges to play anymore. I know this situation very well. When my gaming started to get bad i was in the last months of my law exams. Gaming helped me so much back then. I studied the whole day and after that i gamed for 1 hr. Then 2 hrs. And then more and more. It could maybe help you if you go for a walk in between your studies. Or..it sounds silly, take a nap :) If its later in the evening maybe start listen to music you havent heard for a longer time... or as Dannigan mentioned, start writing a journal here or in private. Put all your thoughts in it. Gaming is just a coping mechanism. I think you just want to release stress and feelings. Reaching out  was a good idea. You gonna receive a lot of support here :)

[dwalk77]

Welcome Edgar, thanks for sharing

Wow, that's awesome you've been free of it for 4 months..I think that's good self-awareness that you knew you were feeling pulled to it, but didn't give in.  Coming here and venting was a good choice.  One thought that gets me through some of the tough times is "this will pass".  Sometimes you just need to sleep on it, and the temptation will start dissipating the next day.  Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than that.  Also, in your situation, you have more to lose.  Starting at Day 0 puts an uphill battle in front of you, and I don't think you want to go through that work again