The Journal of Samson (365 days reboot)

[karabas]

On 5/14/2018 at 2:05 PM, 16030669g said:

my girlfriend just said she doesn't want to see me....It is a big punch to my ego and emotion ball. I think every (ex)game addictors will know the crave that how desperate I want to use gaming to paralyze myself now. But I can overcome this bullshit! I will become stronger and stay productive!! witness me brother and sister!!

Sorry to hear that man. Sounds like it was a turbulent relationship to begin with. Those are the tough moments to keep going, but it's also a great time to look back on and say "hey, I could do it then, I can do it now". So do it for the future you :)

[16030669g]

Day 5 completed (5/365)

Unbelievable!!! Day 5 already!! You can't believe how I made it through today!! I woke up from 5am (slept for only 4 hours) and started preparing for practicum. I went to practicum at hospital from 8:30am -12:30noon and then I rushed back home to complete my session plan and report until now 9:22pm!!  Throughout the day, I only had some really short relaxing time while commuting and eating fruits after dinner (I even skipped the lunch). I did not feel really stressful today, just a bit exhausted. My supervisor in the hospital is young (maybe the same age as me or older than me no more than 1-2years) and pretty. But she looks cool and serious. I hope she will let me pass ... I neither performed really good , nor  make any fatal mistake today, so I m still satisfied with that as long as i can keep improving.  lol , Stay strong!

tomorrow goal is to enhance my productivity even when I feel extremely tired!

 

self-reminder: the keys to stay away from any time-wasting/unhealthy addiction or habits

- keep busy

- focus on the sense of self actualization brought by being productive

- rely on any social support u can access

 

[karabas]

Good going, man! Almost at a week. And habit seems to be paying off since you did reasonably well at the practicum. Good job!

[16030669g]

7 day completed (7/365)

I broke my record!!! last time I relapsed at day 6!! god damn it, I finally made it through this time! it was hard, but i have to continue my "video game, movie, youtube, comic and pmo" abstinence streak!! support me brother and sister !

[16030669g]

I found that i begin to use this website and send motivational message to my friend to procrastinate..... I should be supposed to start working now, but i keep procrastinating by writing self reflection journal and read motivation al article or video to put off the painful work.. its bad.....therefore I have to promise myself. starting from tomorrow, I can no longer use this website or other motivational shit to disguise my lazy and procrastination. I will only be allowed to enter this website or send motivational message to my friends after 10:30pm for at most 20 minutes!! I need to be stronger, and i have to be more productive!

[karabas]

14 hours ago, 16030669g said:

I found that i begin to use this website and send motivational message to my friend to procrastinate..... I should be supposed to start working now, but i keep procrastinating by writing self reflection journal and read motivation al article or video to put off the painful work.. its bad.....therefore I have to promise myself. starting from tomorrow, I can no longer use this website or other motivational shit to disguise my lazy and procrastination. I will only be allowed to enter this website or send motivational message to my friends after 10:30pm for at most 20 minutes!! I need to be stronger, and i have to be more productive!

lol, that's the funny thing with us. we always try to find something to replace the old distraction.

If I don't game, I watch videos. If I don't watch videos, I browse Facebook. If I don't browse Facebook, I read the news. If I get off of technology altogether, I read books.

So it's kinda expected you'd find something to replace your previous distractions with :)

Overall it's good that you're aware of it and that you've decided to limit yourself. But wasting time here is a lot better than wasting it on your addiction. So if you have the willpower to limit your forum usage, go for it. But if you feel like you start slipping, better let yourself waste time here than with more harmful stuff. I'm not saying don't do it, just saying keep an eye out for how you're feeling and remember than 90% is better than 0%, even if it's not 100%.

I don't know if that makes sense :D

[karabas]

Hey man, it's been a few days now. You alright? If you relapsed, just come back here and say that you did :) It's better than keeping it to yourself!

[16030669g]

On 2018/5/21 at 0:59 PM, karabas said:

Hey man, it's been a few days now. You alright? If you relapsed, just come back here and say that you did :) It's better than keeping it to yourself!

thx man. thank you for asking. I really appreciate that.

yes I relapsed on last sunday, and yesterday. I found the problem is that I need a way out to relieve my stress. Currently I found that taking a walk in the park or exercise vigorously can help relieve my stress and restore my motivation temporarily, but I don't know how long the effect can last. I start to feel tired easily again. I spent a large amount of time on my schoolwork and preparing for the practicum on the past few days. Actually I only slept for 1 hour yesterday.  The workload of my school is too heavy that I could not breathe. And I just received some harsh comments from my supervisor, which just made me generate the feeling of giving up more intensively. The rate of failing the practicum is very high in my master program (each semester, there will be at least 2-3 [sometimes 4-5, the size of my class has already been reduced from 45 to less than 30 people now] students failing the practicum, and they have to wait 1 year in order to retake the subject). And i don't know how long i can keep holding on. 

[karabas]

Man, that sucks. Little sleep is a recipe for disaster. At least for me, it's clearly the #1 risk for relapse.

Try to study as much as you can outside of exam time. People slack off and then start cramming ahead of the exams... it's not healthy, especially for people like us who end up relapsing under those conditions.

Use spaced repetition as you learn to get that information in your head and retain it. That way studying for exams won't be this huge crunch time.

I know that's advice for the future and not for now, but that's basically what you have to do when you relapse. Learn from the experience, make plans for dealing with the problem, and keep going.

Summer's coming up, do you have a break? Or is school continuing on?

[karabas]

Do try to post even while relapsing. Check out @JustTom's journal - he had a recent relapse, but I really think his continued journaling through the relapse was key (even if it was sometimes a sentence or two).

You might need a few days to let it run its course, that's fine. Take your time and get on track slowly. Keep thinking of the problem and how you can prevent it from occurring again.

[16030669g]

the school continue on even in summer. and my performance suck in the hospital today...

[16030669g]

Day 0 (0/365)

begin all over again. Today my supervisor was very unsatisfied with my performance. She thought I was too nervous. But I will get better. I went out running and did over 60 sit up and push up at night. I felt better after exercise. To reduce my general anxiety level and improve my performance during practicum, starting from tomorrow, I will cut off all caffeine beverage, including tea, coffee, cola and things like that, I will also avoid sugar , because sugar is also related to anxiety. I will become a very very confident person. I will be proud of my self. I appreciate and approve the effort that I have made to day to help myself to become a better person. tomorrow I will become even better. Witness me! 

 

I will also try practice meditation regularly to improve my anxiety level , and feel more confident. 

[giblets]

Good to hear you're trying something new mate!

All I can say is when you give up caffeine/sugar, you'll probably have to try to get more sleep! I was so permanently wired from caffeine and sugar that when I started cutting it out of my diet I crashed pretty hard. You just need to prioritise with your schedule!

[karabas]

On 5/23/2018 at 3:43 PM, 16030669g said:

Day 0 (0/365)

begin all over again. Today my supervisor was very unsatisfied with my performance. She thought I was too nervous. But I will get better. I went out running and did over 60 sit up and push up at night. I felt better after exercise. To reduce my general anxiety level and improve my performance during practicum, starting from tomorrow, I will cut off all caffeine beverage, including tea, coffee, cola and things like that, I will also avoid sugar , because sugar is also related to anxiety. I will become a very very confident person. I will be proud of my self. I appreciate and approve the effort that I have made to day to help myself to become a better person. tomorrow I will become even better. Witness me! 

 

I will also try practice meditation regularly to improve my anxiety level , and feel more confident. 

Nice man! Although if you're staying up late to study, coffee might be tricky thing :)

If you're not off from school, then I say you need to figure out what the most essential stuff you need to learn is and focus on that first. Prioritize the knowledge, like A is must-know, B is should know, and C is going to get me the best grade. Start with A, then B, then C. I don't know if it's possible in your field, but if it is, do it.

I may be completely off-target here. But the reason I'm bringing stuff like this up is because part of helping you with gaming is managing your workload. If you're always overwhelmed, tired, and stressed out, there's small chance you're also going to be able to add "game-free" to that. You need to figure out how to handle and reduce your study load. I know some programs are just like that: very difficult.

But having gone through university and some tough programs, I know that in retrospect I could've made things a lot easier on myself if I just knew some better studying techniques. There's a lot of stuff out there you can find out. Some if it works. Spaced repetition is the #1 thing, but there are other techniques also. The key is to work smart, not hard. Or smart and less hard... whichever you can ;)

Also, don't be discouraged by failing a lot. You might see other people on these forums getting through the 90 day detox, or being able to go weeks before relapsing, etc. A lot of is practice. I've been trying to quit gaming for at least 10 years now. I've failed and tried many different things (last semester of uni, I left my laptop at my parents' and only used the school library for computer work). So you are seeing people succeed, but it may be after a decade of failing.

It's important to just keep assessing what happened when you relapsed, try out strategies to combat the source of the problem. Some strategies won't work. That means you'll relapse. That's fine. Try another one, and another one, and another one, until you finally find what works for you.

Once you find what works, maybe you'll be able to go 2 weeks without relapsing instead of 1. You'll hit another road block. Repeat the process: identify the problem, propose a solution, test the solution. Etc.

Eventually you'll know yourself really well and will be able to easier avoid triggers and the like.

It's a long process. It takes time.

Also, I know that while in uni it's hard to get your head out of the sand (so to speak), but if failure is a serious concern, think of a plan B, just in case. If you come up with a plan B you're happy with, then failure becomes less scary and the stress gets reduced, and this might actually help you succeed. And if you really end up failing, how bad would some time off be? You could really work on this gaming addiction, study ahead, and get ready to come back full-steam ahead. I'm not saying plan to fail. But I've found that in my life, it's always been helpful to have a hierarchy of plans (if not A, then B, if not B then C, etc), because it just protects me from worrying. Thinking through the worst-case scenario could actually help you make the best-case scenario happen :)

[16030669g]

4 hours ago, karabas said:

Nice man! Although if you're staying up late to study, coffee might be tricky thing :)

If you're not off from school, then I say you need to figure out what the most essential stuff you need to learn is and focus on that first. Prioritize the knowledge, like A is must-know, B is should know, and C is going to get me the best grade. Start with A, then B, then C. I don't know if it's possible in your field, but if it is, do it.

I may be completely off-target here. But the reason I'm bringing stuff like this up is because part of helping you with gaming is managing your workload. If you're always overwhelmed, tired, and stressed out, there's small chance you're also going to be able to add "game-free" to that. You need to figure out how to handle and reduce your study load. I know some programs are just like that: very difficult.

But having gone through university and some tough programs, I know that in retrospect I could've made things a lot easier on myself if I just knew some better studying techniques. There's a lot of stuff out there you can find out. Some if it works. Spaced repetition is the #1 thing, but there are other techniques also. The key is to work smart, not hard. Or smart and less hard... whichever you can ;)

Also, don't be discouraged by failing a lot. You might see other people on these forums getting through the 90 day detox, or being able to go weeks before relapsing, etc. A lot of is practice. I've been trying to quit gaming for at least 10 years now. I've failed and tried many different things (last semester of uni, I left my laptop at my parents' and only used the school library for computer work). So you are seeing people succeed, but it may be after a decade of failing.

It's important to just keep assessing what happened when you relapsed, try out strategies to combat the source of the problem. Some strategies won't work. That means you'll relapse. That's fine. Try another one, and another one, and another one, until you finally find what works for you.

Once you find what works, maybe you'll be able to go 2 weeks without relapsing instead of 1. You'll hit another road block. Repeat the process: identify the problem, propose a solution, test the solution. Etc.

Eventually you'll know yourself really well and will be able to easier avoid triggers and the like.

It's a long process. It takes time.

Also, I know that while in uni it's hard to get your head out of the sand (so to speak), but if failure is a serious concern, think of a plan B, just in case. If you come up with a plan B you're happy with, then failure becomes less scary and the stress gets reduced, and this might actually help you succeed. And if you really end up failing, how bad would some time off be? You could really work on this gaming addiction, study ahead, and get ready to come back full-steam ahead. I'm not saying plan to fail. But I've found that in my life, it's always been helpful to have a hierarchy of plans (if not A, then B, if not B then C, etc), because it just protects me from worrying. Thinking through the worst-case scenario could actually help you make the best-case scenario happen :)

Day 0 (0/30)

start all over again. Thanks man for your kind words, and your insightful suggestion, as well as the unconditional support.

I have a very reasonable reason to relapse this time. and even I relapsed, i didm't feel guilty. i just played game for one to hours after non-stop working for almost over 24 hours ( i only slept for 1 hour again in 2 days). The highly stressful situation is so horrible that i could hardly imagine before . when it was already 12 at night, but i still had not started prepare the materials for materials for the upcoming days, because there are tons of report that I needed to write.

maybe you are right, karabas. but it seems to me now, everything is first priority, every week i had to write at least 6 client's report and 6 treatment plan for the upcoming session. It already took my marjory of time, in addition to that. I still needed to spend a lot of time to prepare for the treatment materials. All of them are necessary in order to pass the course. I really don't know how I can further manage my time given the high workload and tight schedule.

The only way I found recently is that a 30 minutes vigorous exercise period can help me restore my motivation. Sometimes, even i know the deadline is coming, but I was just just burn out and cannot continue or get started. This 30 minutes vigorous exercise did help me to keep going for 2-3 hours, and then I had to exercise again or go out to take a walk. This is the effective way for me now. Lets see this time if i can work more effectively and stay strong over 30 days. bless me brothers.

[16030669g]

day 1 completed (0/30)

had an urge to relapse. I directly left my home and took a walk on the streets near my home. and then the urge disappeared. 

[karabas]

Nice! I actually struggle with doing stuff like that when I have strong urges. I just sit there and let it overwhelm me.

Glad you were able to work it out. How's it going so far?

[16030669g]

Day 0 (0/100)

 

i am so sorry buddy. I relapsed so many times the last few days.

Start all over once again. This time i will make it. I will use the 5-second rule of Mel robbin to help beat my procrastination.

Stay strong!

 

 

[karabas]

No worries man. I know it's been a rough time, but it's hard to detox under stress. Just try to adjust your strategy and keep going. I love that you're trying new things each time!

[16030669g]

35 minutes ago, karabas said:

No worries man. I know it's been a rough time, but it's hard to detox under stress. Just try to adjust your strategy and keep going. I love that you're trying new things each time!

i just opened a new post, please follow my new journal if you are interested. Thank s for your support all along, my buddy!