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Silverlining

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Day 43: 12/2/2018 Sunday

Actually my husband and I have been binge watching movies recently. 4 movies for the past week. 8 hrs. That's a lot.

Although I'm not super worried about it. I doubt if I can get "addicted" to movies. I mean, it actually takes some effort to finish watching a movie and then discuss about it. Especially for movies like Momento with somewhat complicated structures. And there aren't so many classic movies for us to watch anyway.

Also I had wanted to watch these movies together with my husband for a really long time. It seemed that I was never able to find the time because I was busy playing games. And it was difficult for me to sit still for 2 hours back then.

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Here are a few lines from my rolling 7-day activity chart. I did rolling 7-day to smooth out weekends. The Thanksgiving holiday really had a negative impact on me. (And on other people, too. I see a few game quitters here because of binge gaming during Thanksgiving). I'm glad that study time is not really affected that much. Exercise time decreased partly because I changed running to HIIT.

Untitled1.png.2b9eaeef1c9d537d77e2b2fc19e37c43.png

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I have realized that my sense of time has completely changed since I got sober. Back in my days with game addiction, when I got off work and had a whole evening, I always felt like I had infinite amount of time. So I would put off things, thinking that I would have time to work on them later. On the other hand, when I had a big project, I would get the feeling that I could never do it, probably learned helplessness due to constant procrastination.

And now, I know exactly how many productive hours I have every day. So I can't afford to procrastinate any more. On the other hand, when I have a big project or a bigger dream, I feel confident that if I have a plan to work on it consistently, I can make it happen.

=====

Most importantly, I have finally realized what this forum is really about. It's not just writing down these journal entries to motivate myself. What helps me most is reading the journals by other people and trying my best to give advice and supports or simply to express understandings to my fellow game quitters. We are social animals after all. The feelings that "I belong to this community" and "people here understand me", and "I can actually help someone" are very rewarding and I really appreciate it.

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1 hour ago, Silverlining said:

And now, I know exactly how many productive hours I have every day. So I can't afford to procrastinate any more. On the other hand, when I have a big project or a bigger dream, I feel confident that if I have a plan to work on it consistently, I can make it happen.

=====

So true! ??? So many years went by as if the time disappeared when gaming, with little results to speak of.

The sense of belonging to a community that is striving to grow and thinks critically and holistically is HUGE and very understated. Journaling here has been a major breakthrough in my life personally - it keeps me very consistent. I'd like to spread this idea more, somehow... Anyways, keep crushing it! 

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21 hours ago, Silverlining said:

 

 

Most importantly, I have finally realized what this forum is really about. It's not just writing down these journal entries to motivate myself. What helps me most is reading the journals by other people and trying my best to give advice and supports or simply to express understandings to my fellow game quitters. We are social animals after all. The feelings that "I belong to this community" and "people here understand me", and "I can actually help someone" are very rewarding and I really appreciate it.

Yes, you are totally right. This forum helps so much, especially how you can come here at the end of the day(or whenever you come) and you get your motivation to keep going on. Thats fantastic.

And I also totally admit, that if you start to focus on your tasks, you can do anything. The worst thing is not to start, because then you just think more and more how hard it is, although it is possible.

 

oh and I had to smile when u wrote u watched 8 hours in a week movies. That was my daily amount back ago when I didnt game. Movies were the same to me as games, escaping etc. biggest thing was that some movies, series motivated you so hard to do things, so you keep wanted to get this feeling, but u didnt really use this motivation for anything. 

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Day 49: 12/8/2018 Saturday

They say that in a near-death experience, people could have memory flashbacks through their whole life, and they would accept all their past decisions and understand who they really are.

I've never had a near-death experience. But I may have experienced similar memory flashbacks.

Thursday night, my husband and I were having this conversation, and somehow we started to talk about life back in college. That was the moment when I started to recall my troubled, depressed, struggling life in college. I realized that for the past few years, I had buried those memories so deep. I didn't even dare to look at my transcript from college for once after graduation, until today. I do think about college from time to time, but only the good times -- my subconsciousness had hidden those bad moments so well: the finals, the grades, the anxiety, stress, shame and guilt. How I spent days and nights binge watching TV shows and anime series before I got into gaming. How I stared at the books without reading a line on the days that I was dragged to the library by my friends. How I prioritized gaming over study, thesis and friendship. I felt inferior the whole time. On the other hand, I tried to look as confident as I could. I was socially active. I had a lot of friends. I was even kind of popular. I believe few of my friends from college knew how bad my grades were. And I was exhausted living this double life.

When I started to go through these fragments of memories, I felt pain and remorse. But later on, I felt relieved. I understood why I made all those bad choices. And that's OK. I'm not the same person any more.

So I decide that I want to study Real Analysis again, the first course that gave me a hard time. I want to find out if it is just too difficult for me to ever understand, or did I give up too early.

-----

In general, this week has been fine. Everything is normal. We didn't watch any movies. I exercised every day. Although an RPG that I had been looking forward to for a few years has released recently. I was tempted. Then we decided that after I hit 90 days, my husband would play it while I watch. It's supposed to be story rich so it would be like watching an anime series. I don't think I have a problem with solo RPGs. These is no social aspect like in an MMORPG. There are no daily quests. No "guild members" or "friends" expect me to get online every night. And there are no raids so that I can stop playing any time I want, without worrying about not being a "team player". And it's a one-time thing -- I have never played an RPG twice. And I have only played a handful of RPGs in my whole life. Although I'm not sure if it will be a trigger to relapse. But there are still 40 days so I don't want to worry about it now.

And today my husband and I spent at least 1 hour in the kitchen to cook dinner together. I was never into cooking. My husband cooks most of the time. Before living with him, I used to cook for myself, but I always kept it extremely simple. My past roommates were all amazed at my ability to simplify cooking process out of laziness. ? So this is new for me. I kind of enjoyed it. And my hubby probably enjoyed it more. I guess he always wants an assistant in the kitchen ?

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18 hours ago, Silverlining said:

In general, this week has been fine. Everything is normal. We didn't watch any movies. I exercised every day. Although an RPG that I had been looking forward to for a few years has released recently. I was tempted. Then we decided that after I hit 90 days, my husband would play it while I watch. It's supposed to be story rich so it would be like watching an anime series. I don't think I have a problem with solo RPGs. These is no social aspect like in an MMORPG. There are no daily quests. No "guild members" or "friends" expect me to get online every night. And there are no raids so that I can stop playing any time I want, without worrying about not being a "team player". And it's a one-time thing -- I have never played an RPG twice. And I have only played a handful of RPGs in my whole life. Although I'm not sure if it will be a trigger to relapse. But there are still 40 days so I don't want to worry about it now.

 

I would not recommend trying this. EVEN IF this doesn't trigger you to relapse, it's still a massive massive time-sink(assuming it's RDR2 or a similarly long RPG). I think this is just cravings from both of you calling. There are activities that will bring more long-term fullfillment and it's almost never worth spending time on a long game, in my opinion. 

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3 hours ago, JustTom said:

I would not recommend trying this. EVEN IF this doesn't trigger you to relapse, it's still a massive massive time-sink(assuming it's RDR2 or a similarly long RPG). I think this is just cravings from both of you calling. There are activities that will bring more long-term fullfillment and it's almost never worth spending time on a long game, in my opinion. 

Thank you.

Even if we play this RPG, it will take a couple of hours per week at most. Last time we did this was over a year ago. My husband played an RPG while I watched. After 5 months we still didn't finish half of that game and then we read about the rest of the story online.?

We don't prefer this way of spending time together than other ways. It's just that I'm kind of emotionally attached with this game studio and I feel that I'll pay for the game anyway. It's complicated.

Anyway, I'm not gonna think over this now. I'll focus on the important things in my life at the moment.

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On 12/8/2018 at 8:59 PM, Silverlining said:

Day 49: 12/8/2018 Saturday

They say that in a near-death experience, people could have memory flashbacks through their whole life, and they would accept all their past decisions and understand who they really are.

I've never had a near-death experience. But I may have experienced similar memory flashbacks.

Thursday night, my husband and I were having this conversation, and somehow we started to talk about life back in college. That was the moment when I started to recall my troubled, depressed, struggling life in college. I realized that for the past few years, I had buried those memories so deep. I didn't even dare to look at my transcript from college for once after graduation, until today. I do think about college from time to time, but only the good times -- my subconsciousness had hidden those bad moments so well: the finals, the grades, the anxiety, stress, shame and guilt. How I spent days and nights binge watching TV shows and anime series before I got into gaming. How I stared at the books without reading a line on the days that I was dragged to the library by my friends. How I prioritized gaming over study, thesis and friendship. I felt inferior the whole time. On the other hand, I tried to look as confident as I could. I was socially active. I had a lot of friends. I was even kind of popular. I believe few of my friends from college knew how bad my grades were. And I was exhausted living this double life.

When I started to go through these fragments of memories, I felt pain and remorse. But later on, I felt relieved. I understood why I made all those bad choices. And that's OK. I'm not the same person any more.

So I decide that I want to study Real Analysis again, the first course that gave me a hard time. I want to find out if it is just too difficult for me to ever understand, or did I give up too early.

This is important in your healing process.  I'm sorry you have to experience these emotions.  A lot of the community members here suffered through some sort of abuse, troubled past, or stressful events, which lead us into these addictive habits such as gaming, anime, TV bingeing, porn, YouTube marathons, and reddit surfing.  It's just an easy place to escape to and it suits our emotional needs so well, but only temporarily.  Hopefully your progress will lead you to long term happiness and growth.  It just so happens that we always need to keep reminding ourselves of why we're on this mission to heal in the first place and keeping our goals in front of us.  Implementing our goals is the hardest thing.  Good luck.

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19 minutes ago, Matt S said:

This is important in your healing process.  I'm sorry you have to experience these emotions.  A lot of the community members here suffered through some sort of abuse, troubled past, or stressful events, which lead us into these addictive habits such as gaming, anime, TV bingeing, porn, YouTube marathons, and reddit surfing.  It's just an easy place to escape to and it suits our emotional needs so well, but only temporarily.  Hopefully your progress will lead you to long term happiness and growth.  It just so happens that we always need to keep reminding ourselves of why we're on this mission to heal in the first place and keeping our goals in front of us.  Implementing our goals is the hardest thing.  Good luck.

Thank you?

I have realized that I finally have the courage to face my problems in the past. Courage that I have gained here in this community, through my healing experience. And I'm grateful for all of this.

I have also realized that it's not only helpful but also necessary to examine my past. I need to learn from the mistakes that I made, and the mistakes that my parents made when I grew up. I'll be a parent some day and I want to be a good one. I wouldn't want my kids to repeat the pattern of my life in the past years. So I'll start practicing with parenting my inner child.

And good luck to you, too.

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2 hours ago, Matt S said:
2 hours ago, Matt S said:

have memory flashbacks 

 

I can feel with you I'm 22 now and today a classmate turned 18 

I was kinda sad looking at myself and I didn't change any of my behavior since I'm 18.

That's what i dont like about games.

I asked about how her party went and I shared how excited I could have been if I turn now 18.

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Day #54: 12/13/2018 Thursday

A few things.

1) I stopped tracking time spent on my daily activities. I start to feel that it might not be healthy for me any more. When I started this healing process, I transferred my obsession with games into this obsession with spending more time on studying, hobbies and gym. It totally worked. But on the other hand, I felt that I was more willing to spend time on the activities that I keep track of rather than those that were not in my database, e.g. chores. Also, now that I genuinely enjoy the things that I do, I don't think I still need the statistics to keep myself motivated. It's been fine for the past 3 days.

2) I stopped using my Pomodoro app most of the time. I still use the Pomodoro technique, but mostly using a 30-min hourglass. One reason is that the app is on the phone, and inevitably I need to check my phone to use it every time, which may lead to distraction. The other reason is that I don't want to be too strict with the time limit on each session. When I watch a lecture video, I prefer to stop at the end of the video, instead of having a 5-min leftover. And especially when I am coding, sometime I just can't stop when the alarm rings. 

3) I have increased appetite. Probably a result of working out consistently. It's not really good news because I'm trying to lose weight. The way to deal with it is to exercise more. If I want to have a big dinner, I need to run longer to earn some calorie budget. As long as the net daily calorie intake is under control, I eat as much as I want. It's good because for the new me, exercising more is much less painful than eating less. It's kind of ironic that I used to prefer starving myself in order to lose weight.

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10 hours ago, Silverlining said:

2) I stopped using my Pomodoro app most of the time. I still use the Pomodoro technique, but mostly using a 30-min hourglass. One reason is that the app is on the phone, and inevitably I need to check my phone to use it every time, which may lead to distraction. The other reason is that I don't want to be too strict with the time limit on each session. When I watch a lecture video, I prefer to stop at the end of the video, instead of having a 5-min leftover. And especially when I am coding, sometime I just can't stop when the alarm rings.

You can use an online desktop app like Pomodoro-tracker.com for computer work. When I usually also don't take the breaks and just keep it ticking. You can also just press skip. 

Besides that, sounds like you're doing great, good job! 

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On 12/13/2018 at 7:37 PM, Silverlining said:

Day #54: 12/13/2018 Thursday

A few things.

1) I stopped tracking time spent on my daily activities. I start to feel that it might not be healthy for me any more. When I started this healing process, I transferred my obsession with games into this obsession with spending more time on studying, hobbies and gym. It totally worked. But on the other hand, I felt that I was more willing to spend time on the activities that I keep track of rather than those that were not in my database, e.g. chores. Also, now that I genuinely enjoy the things that I do, I don't think I still need the statistics to keep myself motivated. It's been fine for the past 3 days.

2) I stopped using my Pomodoro app most of the time. I still use the Pomodoro technique, but mostly using a 30-min hourglass. One reason is that the app is on the phone, and inevitably I need to check my phone to use it every time, which may lead to distraction. The other reason is that I don't want to be too strict with the time limit on each session. When I watch a lecture video, I prefer to stop at the end of the video, instead of having a 5-min leftover. And especially when I am coding, sometime I just can't stop when the alarm rings. 

3) I have increased appetite. Probably a result of working out consistently. It's not really good news because I'm trying to lose weight. The way to deal with it is to exercise more. If I want to have a big dinner, I need to run longer to earn some calorie budget. As long as the net daily calorie intake is under control, I eat as much as I want. It's good because for the new me, exercising more is much less painful than eating less. It's kind of ironic that I used to prefer starving myself in order to lose weight.

1. I feel your reasoning with this thought. I go crazy tracking my hours doing hobbies or socializing. If I don't reach a specific hourly amount then I'm a failure and then give up entirely. It's stressful and makes me also feel like I'm trying to fill my day up to have it pass by easier instead of allowing myself to build a natural enjoyment for my hobby and live life instead of push life by. 

3. Craving food is good. You can lose sight without working out as well. I'm not saying this to suggest not working out, but I lost 60 pounds just by having a healthy diet and eating smaller meals 5 times per day instead of 3 large ones. Going to the gym helps me on top of the new diet and together they're beneficial to every aspect of life. My point in explaining this is I don't want you to ever hold yourself calorically hostage and ruin your day or health. 

Keep up the good work. 

Matt

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8 hours ago, Matt S said:

3. Craving food is good. You can lose sight without working out as well. I'm not saying this to suggest not working out, but I lost 60 pounds just by having a healthy diet and eating smaller meals 5 times per day instead of 3 large ones. Going to the gym helps me on top of the new diet and together they're beneficial to every aspect of life. My point in explaining this is I don't want you to ever hold yourself calorically hostage and ruin your day or health. 

Keep up the good work. 

Matt

People can be very different in terms of losing weight. With a 1300 net daily calorie (I eat about 1700 and exercise to take down 400), I've only lost 4 lbs for the past 30 days.?

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52 minutes ago, Silverlining said:

People can be very different in terms of losing weight. With a 1300 net daily calorie (I eat about 1700 and exercise to take down 400), I've only lost 4 lbs for the past 30 days.?

I was reading something that said it takes 51 days to breakdown the polysaturated fat bonds in your body.  It made sense since I made most of my progress after 3-6 months and onward.

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Day #58: 12/17/2018 Monday

?I have possibly some good news to share. Nothing is final yet but I'm just too excited! I might be involved with a new project at work, which is more challenging. And I will get a big raise if it happens.

I have been practicing coding, learning and re-learning models and algos since I got sober, and it turns out these are all gonna be useful in the new project. 

Of course if it never happens, I am still proud of the skill set that I have been building up. And I'm grateful for being able to enjoy learning like a normal person. I would be lucky if it all works out. But my self-love is not dependent on luck. ?And I'm proud of that.

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14 hours ago, Matt S said:

Great job!  I'm glad you are in an environment where you can let these new skills blossom.  

Thank you! Tbh this job hasn't been a pleasure to me. For the past few years it has been the one of the main causes of my depression. Yet here is this opportunity just when I'm planning to quit. I'm not saying it's worth the suffering. I still should have quit this job years ago, but I'm glad that I have a chance to turn things around.

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1 hour ago, Silverlining said:

Thank you! Tbh this job hasn't been a pleasure to me. For the past few years it has been the one of the main causes of my depression. Yet here is this opportunity just when I'm planning to quit. I'm not saying it's worth the suffering. I still should have quit this job years ago, but I'm glad that I have a chance to turn things around.

I completely understand and am in the same boat with that depression. If this opportunity doesn't turn into the right path for you then it's more motivation to chase after something that inspires you to live life more. I'll be doing the same. 

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1 hour ago, Matt S said:

I completely understand and am in the same boat with that depression. If this opportunity doesn't turn into the right path for you then it's more motivation to chase after something that inspires you to live life more. I'll be doing the same. 

Exactly! That's the spirit!

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On 12/18/2018 at 10:26 AM, Silverlining said:

Thank you! Tbh this job hasn't been a pleasure to me. For the past few years it has been the one of the main causes of my depression. Yet here is this opportunity just when I'm planning to quit. I'm not saying it's worth the suffering. I still should have quit this job years ago, but I'm glad that I have a chance to turn things around.

I hear you about the job causing depression.  Congrats on your opportunity!  Worst case scenario, you have something different to do while you earn some cash and pad your resume.  That's how I see my current job.

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Day #69: 12/28/2018 Friday

I don't like holidays. I mean, I like all those festive decorations and songs and lighting. But I don't like the parties and big dinners. I like having fun and spending time with people that I like, of course, but at this moment my life style is too fragile for all these fun. My schedules are messed up. I work out every other day at best instead of every day. I feel less motivated to study and I'm procrastinating. I lost control of my daily caloric intake. I haven't gain much weight thanks to all those exercises for the past 2 months but if I can't get myself together very soon, I may also lose control of my weight.

And somehow I found myself awakening early in the mornings and couldn't not fall asleep again. There are a lot of things going on in my mind. I'm feeling stressed for sure. 

I hope all these are temporary. This is not the ideal status for me to welcome the new year.

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5 hours ago, Silverlining said:

Day #69: 

Nice.

But seriously, I know you've worked so hard over these couple months to develop a routine, stick to it, and lead a better life. The issue is that isn't always going to be the case. There will be weeks where your schedule implodes due to unforeseen conditions. This is where you stay calm and collected. Trust yourself and allow yourself some time to destress. You've done a lot to heal and now a lot to do holiday stuff. Your mind and body are craving some physical release and mental stimulation, but your whole body and soul needs some rest right now. Maybe you can make time to meditate and do yoga on these days you're not motivated to go to the gym. It's private, slower paced, but good for you in many ways. 

Take a deep breath and don't panic during this blip in the radar. You're doing great and just need to roll with this for right now until the week gets stable again. 

Matt

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