Hey everybody!

[MikeRuns]

Hey everyone,

I have been a gamer for a long, long, time, since I was 5 and am now 25. I have gamed many many many many many hours of my lifetime.

I grew up in a Suburban Neighborhood, had friends that I would hang out with outside and then after it got late I would end up going inside and playing some video games. I was always fascinated with technology and one Day my dad connected the computer to our TV to use as a monitor and I though that was such a cool thing. I never thought too much of playing games, I used to bond with my cousin over gaming. We would hang out at each others houses either playing some kind of video game together or playing a similar game in the same room. I remember whole summers would go buy and we would just wake up, game, and then go to sleep when we were younger. As a kid i never thought much of it and my parents didn't think it was a problem as long as I kept my grades up (which I did). Friends would come over and we would play games together, so for me at least when I was a kid it was just what I did with my friends when they would come over.

One year I moved away to a different state and lived very far from my friends that i went to school with, I believe that is when my gaming really changed. I would game all the time when I wasn't at school. I had a bowling league I would do on the weekends which i enjoyed, but besides that it was just gaming. The games i started at this time were Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 (Which I have a lot of fond memories about playing with my cousin and other friends to this day). Games with no real end in sight and so many different games to play (Warcraft 3 custom maps). I eventually moved back to where I used to be, but I think i became more interested in gaming.

When I moved back that year I also started playing Basketball which I am thankful for or else I might have ended up a much different route in my life. I had a lot of friends interested in Basketball which we would play all the time at recess and the summer between my 7th and 8th grade year, everyone single day we would go to the local park and play basketball and our team improved so much that following year. Still after I was done with sports I would come home and play games.

I started high school and started doing Cross Country and Track (also thankful for what as it has drastically changed my life for the better) ,and after practices I would either go home and play games or have friends come over and play games or go to someone's house and play games. I was never too interested in drinking and partying, so i always defaulted to games. My mother passed away my sophomore year of high school which was not easy on me, but I still kept it together. Towards the end of high school I started playing league of legends, and I think it was around this time that gaming started to change for me.

I Started college at a D3 school running Cross Country and Track. I didn't actually game too much the first semester of college, I was trying to go out to parties and meet people. I had a lot of social anxiety around girls and always felt weird meeting new people. I think once I had some bad experiences with rejection I started moving back to gaming as more of an escape from reality than something I used to truly enjoy with my friends and cousin. I started slacking off with running and never really improved in college and didn't compete much either (a sport I truly do love).

Come sophomore year I had some issues and ended up going on anti depressants, these issues (anxiety and depression), made me go full on onto gaming. I would game all the time when I had the chance, I didn't really know how to deal with my problems and that time and gaming was a great escape. I missed out on a lot of my good college years due to my problems with depression and gaming. I was able to work through my issues eventually and graduated and ended up at a fairly nice software engineering job.

For the past 2-3 years since I have graduated  something with gaming changed the most it has ever changed. I played some games that I got so much entertainment and enjoyment from that other games just weren't as fun anymore. Games like ARK, and PUBG i have poured a lot of time into. These games have so many reward systems and so many feelings of a rush that it really dulls your reward center or at least makes you need a lot more in order to get the same rush.

A few months ago I was starting to realize that gaming was no longer something I truly enjoyed like I used to, it was just an activity I did when I was bored, an activity that kept my bored because I wouldn't make plans so I would game and that cycle kept repeating itself.

I used to believe I would always be a gamer and that I would have to marry someone who was tolerant or who also enjoyed gaming because I wouldn't have too much else in common with them. I have seen some of Cam's videos before and thought I had everything under control and I attempted limiting myself to 1 hour a day of gaming. It was beneficial as that hour I gamed I enjoyed it more as I was limited as opposed to before where i would just binge or play after work until i slept. That didn't keep up and then i started playing games more again.

Recently I was playing the Black Ops 4 open beta with my cousin and I wanted to stop playing at 1 pm, and I kept playing until 5PM, and that is when I decided to call it quits. Gaming for me was no longer bringing me true joy or really giving me the connection with people I truly desired, and more importantly it was getting in the way of more important goals in my life. I could most likely write many pages about a lot of my life story and my history with gaming, which at some point I might try to do.

I am currently on day 8 of the 90 day detox and I am saying to myself I will never be playing video games again and 90 days is just a starting point. I am trying to live a more balanced and healthier life. I have actually had the happiness emotion this passed week. It feels as if some kind of chains I had on myself were lifted. I accepted that the games I was excited for I will never play, that those experience I won't have, but I will have different experiences and more fulfilling ones. I realized that gaming isn't going anywhere. If when I am older and in a different position I can always attempt to pick up playing games again, but I don't plan on it. This ended up being a gigantic wall of text so if you read it all I really appreciate it. If anyone has any questions or wants to chat feel free to message me. I am going to go crack open a journal

Edited September 26, 2018 by MikeRuns

[Cam Adair]

Hey, welcome to the forums and great job on 8 days so far - that's a big accomplishment even if it seems like only the beginning. 

[PFMA]

Great to listen to your story. Hope you're able to truly experience growth throughout your journey. I'm rooting for you!