20th time quitter

[Mouxine]

Hi everyone,

I'm 27 years old french man, married and have  kids. I have gaming issues since a long time. My first time with a gaming console was at 2 years old because I was always stuck with my older brother who played a lot. My parents have always been very busy so I think I played a lot to avoid being bored and to ease my stress as a kid. I played many games, and I always played being obsessed with an ideal of "perfect gaming". At the age of 15 or 16, I successfully stopped gaming during two years because I became catholic and I was totally into it and it was easy to quit gaming and being faithful. Once I started a licence of philosophy, studying was hard and I relapsed, thinking it would be okay to play a bit. I even took a girl, my wife now, to a gaming exposure in Paris. 

I got my licence, but I was gaming more and more, then I failed my first grade master because it was too hard for me  and I needed to play more and more to cool down after ... 30 minutes of studying. I was engaged and my fiancee was thinking I had a problem back then. Since I failed my master, I started working with my father who owns a company and got married. Even if my work was valuable, I was procrastinating way too much and playing video games every day. My first kid was born, and it was horrible for me to stand my baby wailing. Thus I played even more and got angry way too often at my baby...

My wife threatened me to quit me, so I gave into even more efforts. I learned to manage my anger and stopped gaming again. It was so better. But then because of my brother telling me I should control my gaming issue, it's better than just cut it firmly, I thought he was right. And I relapsed, I stopped again, then relapsed again because I couldn't find anything relaxing and challenging to dream about something else than my stressfull life. According to my wife, each time I relapse, I get angry and selfish again, the truth is I'm not even aware of it, only until it becomes a big issue... I got 2 other children, and now I'm hooked into games again, because of nostalgy and the need to think about something else than kids or work. Yesterday I decided to quit again because my wife told me it's starting again to polute our lives. It's been like 6 month I learned about Game Quitters, and I thought I was strong enough to stop without purchasing Respawn. The truth is : yes I could but I don't, so I've finally decided to give it a chance, it's less than 30 €. I've been surprised because it's much more helpful than it seemed to me before giving it a try.

Why I'm quitting ? To become a better man. I want to become a saint, an unknown one sacrificing itself in secret for the world's redemption, and gaming is just the worst thing happening to me everytime because I become selfish when I play and I lose so precious time. I want my wife to be proud of me, not struggling with my anger everyday. I want to be able to work and not procrastinate like an idiot because I took my gaming session first and forgot I had other priorities. I want to be able to enjoy something in life without thinking it's boring because it's not frenetic like a bullet hell shooter !

I feel really like an idiot, relapsing so many times, not learning from my past mistakes and now I struggle with discouragement ! So ashamed of myself but, thank God, I know there's hope.

[GCepeda]

I relate a lot to your post. I too have relapsed endless amounts of times. But so long as you remain devoted to quitting and keep in touch with others in a network like this, you'll eventually overcome. Welcome. ?

[TwoSidedLife]

I reckon everyone gets a little better at quitting the more times they try. I love your persistence also! God bless you.

[Cam Adair]

Hi Mouxine, welcome to the forums.