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TwoSidedLife

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Quitting two things at once is never easy.  But when you're successful, I think the payoff will be twice as good.  I was definitely a little stressed/edgy when I quit smoking.  It's been a few years now and I don't crave it at all.  I feel much healthier and happier without it.  I hope that works for you as well.

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Day 8?

Today's Progress

  • I had a minor relapse and i'm not sure weather to count it. I opened a game, set up the settings, customisations and things. Then when I got in the game, I didn't even take a first move. I just quit because I want something meaningful to reflect real progress.
  • Impulsivity. I'm mad that my parent ignored me and left without me to go somewhere.
  • Need to rethink and take time away
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That's not a relapse ! If you set up a chess game and do not make a move, you didn't play it. You didn't relapse, you kept control. That's something, I would have surely relapse in your place. I'm being curious and it would be interesting for your detox : why did you open that game ?

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Day 0

RELAPSE

  • I kept gaming yesterday and today. I found that i'm more drawn to games with social interaction now.
  • Today i've made the choice to start day 1 tomorrow.
  • I only played 30 mins (A new record!) until I got mindnumbingly bored. I would much rather play an instrument, find new music ect. than keep on gaming.
  • Although my playtimes are much shorter now, I still want to quit gaming for 90 days. If I kept gaming, I would likely fall back into gaming for hours with no progress in life. I also don't want to rely on gaming to make me happy or be used as a 'reward'.
  • I notice with any addiction I get - if I go just a few hours without it, I'll get mad and restless.
  • Gaming is like a baby's pacifier.
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Day 1

Today's Progress

  • I've had a really good day. I managed to stay in class for the entire day, kept busy and learnt a lot of new things.
  • Changes I made: Having real breakfast and doing some exercise before school. Really boosted my mood!
  • I've got a lot of work to do over the next few weeks. I'm going to take my friday (off day) to get ahead and study more for school.
  • Looking forward to the weekend, time off to finally revise my goals, steps and habits in full again.

Thankyou all for the support!!

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Day 3

Today's Progress

  • Can't believe it's Day 3!
  • I've been drinking a lot ?
  • I've been feeling really nostalgic about someone I use to like a lot. I kind of blame myself and i'm still confused about the situation. Not sure how to resolve this feeling, been like this for 3 years I realise.
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14 hours ago, TwoSidedLife said:

Day 3

Today's Progress

  • Can't believe it's Day 3!
  • I've been drinking a lot ?
  • I've been feeling really nostalgic about someone I use to like a lot. I kind of blame myself and i'm still confused about the situation. Not sure how to resolve this feeling, been like this for 3 years I realise.

One of the things you're going to experience with quitting games is the fact that painful events in life will make recurring flashbacks until you learn to deal with them. I noticed I used to escape from my problems through gaming for 12 hours a day and watching porn. I've been seeing a therapist for 2 years now because of how depressed I was. 

This journey is going to have you realize you might have lots of bad habits. Gaming is a skewed behavior because it makes you crave dopamine and serotonin at unrealistic levels. When you quit you'll immediately go to other things like porn, drugs, drinking, social media, sugary foods, sex with only the intentions of orgasm vs healthy relationship sex, binge watching a tv show in a while day or two,  and more. If you notice you start doing this just be calm and don't freak out. Everyone does this and they start to criticize themselves for being a failure in many categories. Then they try to quit everything cold Turkey without developing a daily routine or understanding why they have addictive behaviors. 

My advice:

- see if your cravings are immediate needs for hunger, thirst, anger, loneliness, or tiredness. If you're experiencing longterm anger or loneliness then it's time to explore deeper, but learn to separate short term anger (getting cut off in a car while driving) vs long term anger (your parent abused you and said you'd never amount to anything in life for years).

- if it's long term then go deeper. Are your friends in real life not good people? Is your family life not what you require? Have there been traumatic and stressful things you have been hiding from? These might not come to the top of your mind right away. I'm still discovering them over 3 years into my journey from repressed abuse and bullying. I note them in my journal but I don't recommend you read all 11 pages of mine lol

- start coming up with a daily routine to eliminate the need to satisfy the immediate cravings that I mentioned in bullet point 1. Keep the same sleep schedule and learn how many hours you need by doing 7 for a week up to 9 for a week. Keep this on weekends as well. Maybe eat 5 or 6 smaller meals during the day to make the day more rewarding for food and healthier digestion along with eating healthier food in general if you're not already. 

- come up with a few short term and long term goals that you'd like to try such as graduation from university, learning an instrument, drawing, photography, working out, etc. These goals will change and you'll beat yourself up for not being good right away and if you just hate them after a while. I tried so many hobbies before realizing which ones I wanted. Also, hobbies are not jobs. Video games and addictive habits like I mentioned before control your mind. You want to do them all of the time. Even if you want to read a book or go to class or sleep, you need to play video games and it ruins what you want to do. Be patient. If you want to read one day, sing the next, do nothing and watch a movie the next, cook the next, that's fine. Hobbies are interests meant to enjoy. You don't even need to do them all day. Gaming makes you think you need to do them all the time. Patience with yourself and accepting boredom is important because you're not actually bored. You're craving stimulus. Activities that you learn to enjoy get your mind out of the past and occupy your time so you won't be bored and get that dopamine rush to load a game.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it helps. 

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@BooksandTrees Thankyou so much for the reality check!

It's really time for me to start sticking to the things I set out to do and need to do. I've got goals, habits ect. I've had a psych for 5 years and know what and where my problems are. For some reason i'm just continuing to ignore it all and not actually doing anything to change. I've got all the answers I need right in front of me, but i'm not taking and learning from it like I should be.

This truly gives me reasons chase certain goals. Like learning a language so I can talk to my family more (Large majority have English as their second language).

 

Best of luck to you!

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15 minutes ago, TwoSidedLife said:

@BooksandTrees Thankyou so much for the reality check!

It's really time for me to start sticking to the things I set out to do and need to do. I've got goals, habits ect. I've had a psych for 5 years and know what and where my problems are. For some reason i'm just continuing to ignore it all and not actually doing anything to change. I've got all the answers I need right in front of me, but i'm not taking and learning from it like I should be.

This truly gives me reasons chase certain goals. Like learning a language so I can talk to my family more (Large majority have English as their second language).

 

Best of luck to you!

You got this! Glad you've done the research so far. Many people haven't. I'll follow you along the way!

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Day 4

Last Night's Dream #4: I was a manager of a business. I was able to 'assign' workers using a hud to specific activities. I was in the first person view of myself. I had to keep the buildings in working order, make them productive ect. The buildings were lettered from A-F. I had a list of employees I could control and it also showed who had 'died' on the job. I recall sending attractive workers to work near me (I usually did this in tycoon games, where i'd only hire attractive ppl as a theme). While I was sitting at my desk and the workers were coming towards my space, I realised I was gaming and I was breaking my streak. Instead of stopping the game I continued, saying 'oh well, i'll just reset the streak'. I 'contiuned to binge'. I sent a worker out to 'explore new resources'. They found an entirely new world beneath us with resources we could mine and make money off. I recall going down there and seeing it as a dusty desert.

A main reason i've been logging dreams is for when I think I broke my streak. It's a very real feeling but often in the dream i'll say 'oh well, it's broken, may aswell keep going'. The only dream i've had where I resisted and stopped gaming, I woke up yelling no (lmao!).

Today's Progress

  • Been drinking again. But this time I got a lot done during the day! Recently i've been assigning days to to-do-list tasks (My system works okay right now, probably need to space them out more).
  • Whilst i'm drunk, I almost relapsed. I wanted to play some (torrented, sorry!) games on my computer. I realise I didn't want to play them cause they're so boring and repetitive!! My sibling is holding my steam account right now and it's helped a lot. I went on to try find some flash games. They too looked unappealing. They also didn't run on my computer (Good thing idk how to get flash to work) and I gave up on it.
  • Instead i'll just sleep, or watch some videos to further my understanding on goals, habits ect.

I've always had a passion for learning new things and filling the gaps in my knowledge. I need to get back to that right now!! :)

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On 2/19/2019 at 5:28 PM, TwoSidedLife said:

Gaming is like a baby's pacifier.

This is true.

8 minutes ago, TwoSidedLife said:

I've always had a passion for learning new things and filling the gaps in my knowledge. I need to get back to that right now!! ?

That is a positive outlook! Be bold and don't be afraid to be making mistakes and learn new things while it is not too late.

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Day 5

Today's Progress

  • Been productive today, done more things I set out to do
  • I've been feeling really bored. As if there's nothing that can possibly bring me happiness, fun ect. I know this'll pass and it gets much better when this goes.
  • School's going to be a big challenge again. I'm considering weather i'm really up for it, weather I should drop out or not. At this point, I know I have to give a LOT of effort. Probably more than i've ever had to do. It's very tough learning how to collaborate and talk with others.
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I share out your feelings ! Once a quit gaming for some time, I feel some heaviness in my whole life. It passes yes, and sometimes it comes back. It will probably come back at first every week-end when you have spare time, I also have cravings mostly on Sundays. As you said, it gets much better when it goes.

You seem to me someone very introverted and sensitive, and that's not bad at all ! I'm super introverted too, and sensitive also. You need to make one or two good friends at school to help you. Once you can rely on someone and talk to when you feel bad, it will help you greatly. Maybe there's someone who has the same trials to work with others, you could backup each other. 

Keep hope ! Life on Earth is not always happy, but in Heaven happiness never stops ! It's worth any sacrifice or trial. I'm praying for you.

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24 minutes ago, TwoSidedLife said:

Day 6

Today's Progress

  • Stopped drinking finally. This is getting easier I suppose
  • Had a talk with the teachers and decided i'm not in the right course. Hoping to change courses tomorrow or at least explore my options more.
  • Need more outlets for stress, better start planning that

One day at a time. Good job having the conversation with your professor. I enjoy the gym and watching hockey for stress.

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Day 7

Last Night's Dream #5: I was at somekind of school gathering. A lot of my old friends were there. A teacher calls out asking for my friend. I look around, find them and bring them along to them. The teacher starts this weird thing, where they gather the standing ppl to create a shape (a giant shape made of people). It was a giant U arching at the top. It was basically done. I asked where do I go? And the teacher says I don't belong and won't be apart of it. They quoted something from my past. They wouldn't let me join because of my past. It was as if they believed people don't change and never can change. We were on a tall cliff. I put my arm around the teacher and say, look at that board. The screen we looked at was a gaming leaderboard, across a canyon (ravine?). Although not IRL accurate, it had my gaming username from 6 years ago along w my mentors username above mine (A multiplayer game I use to play before quitting fully end of 2014). I was a hypocrite and started bragging to the teacher about it. They said it just wasn't good enough. In another part of the dream afterwards, I was shown 'my best moments' in gaming (It wasnt the exact same but had elements of it). I was amazed at what I did. At the same time I was pointing out my own flaws, strategising and thinking of ways I could improve the minor stuff.

(Teachers and school is a very common dream theme for me. In the years I played this MP game, I started a lot of trouble at school and dealt with a lot of teachers).

Today's Progress

  • Today was very quiet. I've worked out a plan to continue studying. Not in a rigid class setting and more individual work.
  • I realise my dream had deep aspects of perfectionism involved.
  • Since i'm off for the rest of the week, I want to make the most of it by getting back on track and learning more personally useful things
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Day 8

Last Night's Dream #6: I was sitting in my living room laying down and playing a game on my tablet. My family was around me doing usual stuff (Chores mostly, tv in the background). I was really intrigued by this 'simple' game. It was some kind of puzzle game with a  skill level for children. I realised I was playing a game and still didn't want to stop. Something was just really interesting and strange about the game that kept me hooked. I also realised in that moment that the game I was playing was strange for my style/skill level, since it seemed too easy. One of the levels I was playing was some kind of pair matching game. (There's a very low level of logic in dreams). The symbols involved were like 'cell structures' that you'd see in a biology class. (I did very well at biology and genetics in school, its something i've not revisited since however).

Today's Progress

  • I really want to make a conscious effort to organise myself and my goals.
  • Everytime i'm bored, I always want to do something that is towards my goals, but i'm too afraid to start without careful planning.
  • I've still never been able to manage a precise goal system that works for me. I struggle mostly with WHERE to write it. I found I also prefer RPM method over SMART method. Technology lets me down as I don't check it often enough. Papers also tend to get lost. I'll probably attempt to write this in my bullet journal (But i've neglected any 'To-Do's' over the past few days.
  • Instead i've been messing around on Social Media and drinking.
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Day 9

Last Night's Dream #7: It was an end of the world scenario. I was in a shelter with some ppl I knew back in High School (Not my friends tho). It was like we had to get along to survive. I was sitting on a fence out the front of the sheltered cave thing and bullets were being shot at us. Everyone told me to get down, run inside ect. Inside there was some old guns. Someone said we need to take a gun and clear out the (zombies?) that're deeper in the shelter. The gun had to specifically be one that would 'fire twice' on two shots (Like burst fire in a video game). I don't know anything about guns, so I just took this old looking pistol thing. Very slim gun and was rusty. We all took an elevator mine shaft thing to go down a few levels. It was dark. In the elevator I asked how do I 'quick equip' my gun in the hud (LOL). The hud was blue. When we got off the level, things came at us from different directions and everyone went different ways. I struggled to pull the trigger twice on the gun (To make sure they're dead). I was chasing after one that was running really fast. I couldn't aim properly and I couldn't pull the trigger easily. Eventually, there was a surface in this world. It was like stepping out in a completely different reality/world where nobody was trustworthy. I ran out of a basement carpark from a big looking mall. There was traffic and cars on the otherside.

Today's Progress

  • I've tried writing down my goals in steps in my bullet journal. Sometimes i'm just not satisfied with how it works and it really annoys me.
  • I might have to try again with writing it in a way I like it. This has been holding me back for months now!
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