Who am I

[Evan]

90 Days Of No Gaming

My Daily Journal

Day 1: (Copy paste of my Introduction)

I am 24, engaged to be married to a wonderful woman, and have decided to treat my gaming as a problem as that is what it has become. I have found success in other areas of my life until this point. I have done 6 years in the military, was lucky enough to get into my career without having to pay for a degree and have been working for a few years doing IT work and have been able to manage my time feeding my addiction while maintaining other important aspects of my life thus far, but have come to realize my growth as an individual can not continue dedicating 30-60 hours a week to playing games. Today I got rid of my steam account valued over $3400 USD. This has been one of the most difficult things I've ever done and though I feel a little sick to my stomach now, I'm looking forward to better things moving forward and am excited to see who I become as I remove this aspect of myself.

 

Day 2: This is horrible

Yesterday I made the decision to do the 90 days without gaming. I skipped the daily journal strictly because I didn't have time, had to finish work and make it to an event with my fiance. Which is also why my introduction was pretty short. The first 2 hours so far were probably the hardest. Thinking about getting rid of that steam account along with all the time I had sunk in to what has been my passion my entire life was a very eye opening experience. Playing games has been my go-to for as long as I can remember. My dad was a manager at Funcoland during my early years and I have very fond memories playing games with my family, getting the new system on Christmas or a new game and playing with my 3 brothers. All of my lasting friendships from high-school and onward have been based around playing games. Some of my best memories from high school were LAN parties playing Gears of War 3 or Halo 3/Reach. Having friends over, setting up 4 consoles in a line and binge-ing Call of Duty search and destroy for weeks on end. Grinding out battlegrounds and raids in WoW. All of my friends are avid gamers.

Not only was it a social event for me, I have since grown into the love of competition. From later on in high school until about 3 years ago I played countless hours of League of Legends. I had since moved on from that game, and I have participated in a couple smash tournaments, but most recently have sunk a few thousand hours into playing Rocket League and climbing the ladder. I have a handful of 3rd place finishes in local tournaments in the state, and loved it. I drew a lot of pointless pride from having made it to Champ 3 which is just under the highest rank on the ladder and after a break I had redeveloped a drive to finish my climb to the top with another tournament coming up. Loving the social aspect and the competitive environment, I'm not sure exactly what drew me to make this decision.

Over the weekend I had drill for the National Guard, and I came back Sunday morning. Waited for my fiance to be home that afternoon, we went on a date, had sushi and spent the evening watching Kiki's Delivery Service though I did have a small craving to play Synthetik. Monday rolled around and that was all I wanted to do so that's what I did. All weekend I had been craving that game so I spent about 10 hours playing Synthetik and maybe an hour or 2 of Insurgency, watched some TV on the couch after I was done with my fiance in the evening and went to bed. Then yesterday I just had this realization that that wasn't the person that I wanted to be. I had just been away from my fiance for a few days, and right after coming home, what I really wanted to do was waste 10 hours playing a game. I sat down and asked myself "What if I didn't play video games anymore?" and it was the most revolting, horrible idea I felt like I've ever had and I hated myself for it. I told the woman I loved countless times that she was the most important thing to me, but my actions didn't fall in line with that mindset. So at that point I finally accepted that it wasn't just a hobby of mine, it was an addiction and I have decided to treat it that way.

So yesterday, I felt fear. Fear because this is who I have been for my entire life. Fear because this has been where I've drawn self-confidence through competition, where I've socialized with 90% of the people important to me in my life, and where I've coped with every negative feeling. Every time I felt a negative emotion, I numbed myself with this wonderful habit. What would I do without it? Who would I even be without it? Do I really want to do this? So as I got rid of the steam account I had been so proud of and had given me so much in my life, I broke down. I cried harder than I think I've cried for anything, and my fiance held me. I was so embarrassed. I don't think I've ever cried in front of her before, and I couldn't imagine what she thought of me for breaking down the way I did over some video games. But she has been supportive. She told me she didn't mind at all that I felt the way I did, and was extremely grateful for what I was doing. And that kept me going. I haven't been too shook up over it for the better part of 24 hours. 2 of my 3 brothers have reached out to me to ask to play a game and I've turned them down. I explained what I was up to and they were both supportive as well. So, having the support feels nice. I wish I had friends doing this with me to vent to, but they all have no interest in doing so which is understandable. Most of them want to pursue careers in the eSports field. A couple of them are playing on college LoL teams to some success, others want to either work for an esports company, running events, doing IT work, etc. And some want to make games. So I don't blame them. I just want my life to go a different direction. But that's what we all are here for right? ? 

I guess to put in words how I'm feeling right now though is....empty. Bored and empty.

[Lea]

Hello Evan, welcome to the forum!

5 hours ago, Evan said:

I guess to put in words how I'm feeling right now though is....empty. Bored and empty.

I have to relate with the above for a few days since I quit gaming. It's normal to feel bored, empty, anxious, and maybe mad for the first few weeks of no gaming.

[taichi]

That was a really good read. Thanks for sharing.

6 hours ago, Evan said:

Over the weekend I had drill for the National Guard, and I came back Sunday morning. Waited for my fiance to be home that afternoon, we went on a date, had sushi and spent the evening watching Kiki's Delivery Service though I did have a small craving to play Synthetik. Monday rolled around and that was all I wanted to do so that's what I did. All weekend I had been craving that game so I spent about 10 hours playing Synthetik and maybe an hour or 2 of Insurgency, watched some TV on the couch after I was done with my fiance in the evening and went to bed. Then yesterday I just had this realization that that wasn't the person that I wanted to be. I had just been away from my fiance for a few days, and right after coming home, what I really wanted to do was waste 10 hours playing a game.

I see you are a thoroughly diciplined person, but please don't beat yourself up for past behaviour.

Addiction is not your fault, it is nobody's fault. Apologize and then leave the guilt behind :)

[Evan]

Day 10: Unorganized and out of time

 

 

So I have obviously not been a good noodle on keeping up with the daily journal. I apologize for those who may have been interested following my last update. I don't have a very exciting excuse for it, I just haven't made time to sit down and write. Full disclosure, the only time I have taken so far to write is when I am working and taking a break and that is more than likely how it will be moving forward. I would like to put it out there that I am still fully committed to this 90 days of no-gaming, I'm just horrible at writing so my updates will not be scheduled.

But let's fill in where I left off. Since quitting I've spent like.....90% of my time bored out of my mind. So naturally I have done my best to keep myself busy doing the couple things I found that I enjoy. I'm having a hard time trying to recap exactly what I've been doing on those days I didn't write but I'll do my best. I took up coding for a few days and spent an absurd amount of my free time pursuing that. I taught myself enough to pitch an idea to a senior at work for our website and he told me I was free to redo the whole site we use so that was really exciting. That was what I did most of Wednesday and Thursday, and now the new and improved website is still a work in progress and I think I accidentally stumbled upon a hobby of Front-End Web Development so that's really exciting. Other than that, if I'm not working, I'm cooking or watching cooking videos or TV shows, which is weird to me. Prior to this, I didn't take any time to watch TV at all. The closest I got to really spending time watching TV was occasionally watching an anime with my fiance but anything longer than 30 minutes I just felt I didn't have time for (had to keep my Rocket League skills sharp.) And feeling like I don't have time for things is probably the biggest thing recently but I'll elaborate more on that later. So Wednesday, Thursday, and maybe the first half of Friday I was pretty much working, watching cooking videos, or coding. I get off work in the evenings so after work Friday I drove a few hours up north where I plan on moving in with a few friends and my brother. Before you judge me for getting married and then having 4 roommates at 24, it was my fiance's idea and the motive behind it is to have the cheapest rent possible to save for both our wedding and then a move to another state shortly afterwards where I would like to buy a home. So we crashed with my brother Friday night, went to a showing with all but one of the 1 roommates and loved the house, got our apps in for that place and then hung out there until Sunday. That was a little rough though.

Like I had said before, my friends and family all play games. And out of that small group that was there, I was the better smash player. Weekends prior I had gone to see them, we would get drunk, take turns playing smash but I had to play on the single joycon as a handicap but still won. So fast forward to this last weekend, the rough part was them getting drunk and teasing me trying to get me to play. I don't think the cravings were super bad, but it did feel a little weird just watching my friends and brother play and have fun. I stayed strong though, got through it, and Sunday after getting back home I decided to pick up an agenda. I still haven't fully read the Respawn PDF that I paid for but I do remember reading a segment saying that getting an agenda and keeping track of what you're doing with your time helps. So I am now the proud owner of this thiccy agenda that says "The Parent Planner 2019" on it even though I have no kids because that's the type of humor I'm into. Mind you I have yet to write anything in it, I just own it and it sits next to me on my desk all day. Sunday was also important though, because I came to the realization that I want more money. I'm already going to sacrifice my sanity living in a house with 4 people to save money but I guess that wasn't good enough. My competitive drive in gaming has carried into my real life. I had the grand idea to work more than just my 40 hours a week. I mulled it over and after brainstorming what job would pay me to work for 4-6 hours in the mornings (there was not a chance in hell I was giving up my weekends) I thought to myself, "Self...what if you just worked your current job that you do from home....4 more hours every day and cash in on that 20 hours of overtime." And to my surprise, Self thought that was a pretty slick idea. So I've been working from 8am-9pm with an hour for lunch and a 30 minute paid dinner. I'm currently on Day 4 of doing that, and boy howdy. Is this a change of pace. Though it has given me some insight on how I function. I have noticed that I am considerably more motivated to be proactive about my work in the mornings until about 3-4pm. Along with regular job, I picked up the web development thing, and have now had some extra management duties dumped onto me. I thought I didn't have time for things last week? This week. This week has taken that up a few notches. But I'm enjoying it. Feeling accomplished I think was a pretty important driving factor behind me playing games the way I played them so it's helping me justify being in my office for 12 hours a day.

As far as my mindset goes, it doesn't matter how much I distract myself, I get cravings to play still. Rocket League is particularly bad since that was what I played the most. Every time I see a tweet from Squishy or a YouTube video of it I get a little sad. And if I stop doing things for long enough and let the boredom set in, it hits me pretty hard. I just stare blankly like the sad boi I am. You can only be optimistic for so long before the doubt and regret start to creep in on you for a bit. My fiance though told me I seem happier the past few days or so and that was pretty motivating. I would say the biggest part of why I'm doing this is for myself, and to be the best person I can be. But I would be lying if I said that making that woman happy wasn't also a big part of why I make the decisions I do. I definitely underestimated how serious this was going to be, and how difficult it would be. But, today at least, I'm feeling confident that I can power through it.

[fawn_xoxo]

On 1/17/2019 at 2:07 AM, Evan said:

So yesterday, I felt fear. Fear because this is who I have been for my entire life. 

Welcome to the forums! I also felt and still on some days feel lost about this process, because my past actions told my brain gaming is the biggest part of my identity BUT it gets better the more things you do that aren't games. Stay strong and with the process, it will slowly feel less strange.

Crying is normal, and a great natural way to get rid of bad stuff inside you both literally (stress hormones etc) and figuratively speaking. As a woman myself with a long term relationship my honest opinion is that no woman who loves her man will ever mind seeing his emotions come out, when you love someone you are made happy by whatever helps them and relieves them.

On that note I'd like to suggest to you that you DO use your planner and put in time slots for work, chores and your time with your fiancee too! Maybe try to set up some dates, or simply define exactly how important she is to you, because as you said people perceive that through the time you spend with them.

My personal experience in the past: Every time I tried to quit games without replacing the time with other activities, I went back to gaming. It didn't help that everything else seemed boring in comparison. I didn't know that was a side effect of the addiction. That boredom can really be the worst temptation, which is why I personally plan out my days to avoid any big stretches of free time. My idea is if I've been addicted for a decade, I'd better be vigilant for another decade too.

Stay strong and disciplined, well done so far!