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Daniel's addict journal


Daniel Harrison

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MA 15+ I dont censor anything 

I just recently experienced my 20th birthday while still addicted to video games, it was a thought provoking discovery to learn that I had been wasting my life away for the past 6 years.

Attempting to quit had always ended up ultimately as a failure.

Here is the recovery journal for my gaming addiction. 

 

 

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Day 1.

One amazing thing that happened/I did today :

Ate vegetarian (1.5 months in)

That's also the only "good" thing I did today.

 

Weekly Goal(s)

I want to get more involved with minimalism, my trashy nokia dumb -phone is all setup but unfortunately the charger prong is straight and not angular (so it won't even fit in the power socket) - a replacement that fits the wall is on the way but its going to take a while. 

Everything that I consider of value is going to need to fit inside the 50L convertible storage box that's on the ground in front of me.

 

Monthly Goal

To give therapy another shot.

 

What went well today:

My ability to quit and delete any progress in the game that I'd been playing (essentially self destructive behaviour channeled through a positive intention). 

 

What I could have done to make my day better:

 Slept earlier (it's 2:42AM) 

 

What I will do differently tomorrow:

Sleep at 2AM and take 5mg melatonin at 1:40AM - I work night shift so getting up early isn't a problem in my case. 

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Cont.

About halfway through the book "1984" by George Orwell and it's frightening how the themes in Oceania parallel today's feminized world. 

Going shopping soon for more books (Aldous huxley's "A brave new world" is one that I'm planning to read next) 

See, when you're bored as hell even books can become appealing. Its looking like I'll be able to meet my sleep deadline tonight with no real stimulus keeping me awake all night.

Cont #2

Did a bit of cleaning and shopping today. Haven't used the internet harmfully apart from music (which I consider a useful tool for recovery), reading books (very legally of course) and obsessing over my custom PC upgrades (which are all ordered and on the way - the urge to geek out over specs should cease until they arrive, hopefully.) 

For anyone interested :

Case upgrade (Cougar Panzer Max) Giant behemoth of a full tower case, positive on all accounts except for the bottom shroud.

Motherboard upgrade (ASROCK b-450) - this one has some build quality issues from what i'm aware of, but came with all the features I wanted. So it's a win in my book.

Edited by Daniel Harrison
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Day 2.

One amazing thing that happened/I did today :

Slept at the time i wanted to (2am). Slept like absolute shit but that's besides the point! It's 10:16AM. 

Haircut. Was getting way way too long and pissing me off at work. 

What I could have done to make my day better:

Be very very very careful about using things like youtube, I watched one self help video about porn yesterday (Bartow) and I realized it's very easy to binge self help videos if you're not careful. Screw youtube I'll be sticking to spotify, way less risky. 

 

 What I will do differently tomorrow:

Sleep at the same time again. NoFap is probably going to mean dodgy sleep tonight, even with melatonin.

Not going to overtax myself with a bunch of stuff in the first few days, yet exercise is one that will likely be added next - I did a walk yesterday so that might be something I do again. 

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Cont. 

Pretty good day so far, plugged in headphones to drown out the sound of my narcissistic grandmother (very effective method). 

Went shopping, haircut and post office all without getting angry or socially anxious- which is great.

Have to be careful now that I'm home so no chances on youtube or whatever.  Working tonight so there's not much else going on, will do parking practice after work (Have enough hours for my provisional plates now just need to get the hang of parking and all that fun stuff.) 

Been supplementing with Tyrosine and Rhodiola to increase my dopamine levels during the recovery. 

 

Cont #2.

Ok the withdrawals are starting to hit me. What can I say? It feels like torture.

Work > Lesson > Sleep 

Should be alright, I usually quit when it hurts but let's keep going. It really shows the addiction when you quit nearly everything on the internet, if I'd continued using youtube then there's no doubt of having failed again... some mindless internet usage though - like I've been on EBay just looking at the items I purchased and thinking of how great it will be when they arrive, have read 2 fiction books that would be considered a waste of time but in my opinion it's much better than jumping on a game or binge youtube for hours and not sleep again. Oh and spotify is on most of the time! I'll try and reduce over the next few months but no promises. 

Cont #3

So I got back from work, then went driving lesson and even made dinner the moment I got home. It might not sound like alot but to me that's amazing, gonna read then bed at 2:00AM. 

These withdrawals are NO JOKE. I'm an idiot for doing no game, NoFap and no surf together - please no one attempt something like this. Haven't relapsed in any way but holy shit man, I hope I'll be able to sleep tonight, very fortunate there's nothing on tomorrow.

Edited by Daniel Harrison
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Day 3.

 

One amazing thing that happened/I did today :

Placeholder

 

What I could have done to make my day better:

Placeholder 

 

What I will do differently tomorrow:

 

Placeholder

 

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Cont.

Not much has happened today, didn't sleep last night because of NoFap. 

700 Watt gold rated PSU (power unit for computer) arrived and now I need just the case to arrive, might get back into programming when it's all setup again - hoping my motivation can return at least by a little. Having zero is the worst feeling and i've always been like this unfortunately. 

Think grandma nicked (or "moved") my white pair of earphones, but jokes on her because there was 2 pairs. 

Bought a book on kindle that I'm going to finish tonight, might go for a walk with music but I'm just not feeling it right now. No work tonight so it's an empty day. 

Cont 2.

Watched a ted talk on addiction last night, was kind of dangerous being on youtube but i had a goal going into it and all worked out.

Very interesting video on a misunderstood topic. 

Want to watch a movie but I'm going to read instead until the urge dies.

Cont 3.

NoFap urges again, it's getting very hard to stay on track now. Raining outside so can't go for a walk. Fuck

Cont 4.

Ok so the urges go away within like 5 minutes but its some of the worst mental pain. After the urges I find I didn't even want the thing (movie) anyway.

If you keep pushing the pain just goes away and motivation for some good activity replaces it.

Food > Lesson > more reading > bed

Is how my night is looking. 

Edited by Daniel Harrison
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Day 4.

Feel like shit, poor sleep the past 2 days. Its really strange because i was dreaming - the quality was just really poor and i didnt feel very refreshed, also a light state of sleep instead of the normal unaware rest i usually get. 

Was on discord and being a bit too banterous last night. Felt more stimulated than i should have been, it's no wonder i didn't sleep well (just text chatting and a bit of vc for reference, haven't relapsed or anything.) 

At least i know what my goal is for tonight.. the dream itself was kind of hilarious because there was actually 2 of them - totally what i deserve after talking 5mg melatonin but the first was a nightmare with a monster covering my mouth with it's hand, then i hesitated for a moment thinking it was one of my friends playing a trick on me - nope. Freaked out and woke up, very fast nightmare im retrospect. 

The second was me getting called a car theif when it was this other guy (who started running) who stole it, even though he was running with nothing (dream logic) and a fat guy on his bike ride helps me to catchup to him, though we never did because i woke up. 

 

 

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Cont #2.

Going to be resting all day until this package comes, then work and ill likely skip driving today so i dont hit anyone in my drunken state. 

Rebuilt my PC into the new case, feeling better. This is truly a behemoth of a case and im glad to have bought it.

Cont #3.

Gonna do driving as there won't be anyone in the carpark at 11:30pm, anyway.

Got invited to a party on the 13th so that's cool.

Feeling kind of depressed because goals only feel good while you're pursuing them, once you've achieved it all the neurochemicals just fuck off and you're back to feeling incomplete again.

 

Cont #4

You guys dont know this, but i have to eat a full vegan diet (can't even have oil or saturated fat) because I've got heart disease. It's making everything all difficult because there's all these stressful problems taking up space in my mind and I'd be lying if i said i didn't want to relapse. I wont. I can't. But it's getting very hard now. 

Note to self - dont fucking relapse you cheeky bastard, gaming is the reason you're in this mess. Youtube and anime is just one step away from gaming, so don't think about doing that either.

Cont #5

So I've been to work, then went parking practice for 40min and came home to make dinner (which is now in the oven) - having some faint urge to learn some piano which is pretty cool. Normally I'd read now but it just feels like I'm wasting my time (and i probably am). 

Im liking this new me but at what point does it just get to be too much? .. 

 

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Edited by Daniel Harrison
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Day 5.

 

Feeling better and i slept last night. 

Did 43min of piano practice which was pretty cool, can now read very basic sheet music (CDEFG notes) and play them. 

Thinking of buying a new toothbrush (probably after lunch) then just a walk before work- after driving practice.

Dinner then reading then bed.

 

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Cont #1

My mood did a 180 while at work, wanted to do parking practice but grandma just didn't want to.

Very angry still but i should be ok after waking up.

Gonna be honest to you guys here -I'll be watching youtube before bed. This will be the non official relapse for gaming.. sorry just my mood isn't in the right place, finally had the internal managed and then the external stressors just pushed me over the edge.

Will try to fix up the slack tomorrow -peace 

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THE END OF THIS JOURNAL

So whilst in my dopamine binge i decided to jack off to porn (yes im an idiot).

In response to this I've smashed my internet modem with a hammer and will now be living life without the internet, the analogy I'd use to describe my reasoning would be this :

Imagine a fat person who gets fed fast food from their parents every night. While the fat person is at fault for his lack of disclipline, it is actually the parents who are directly enabling him to gain weight - if they were buying healthy whole foods the fat person wouldn't have to expend so much discipline by rejecting fast food every night, there would only be one option. 

The internet has been tailoring my behaviour over these last 6 days, pushing me closer and closer to an eventual relapse. Having access to youtube, pornhub, google, social media, gaming, fucking everything 24/7 just does my head in. Watching youtube yesterday set the precedent for me to think "oh well let's watch a movie today" and it all went downhill from there.

This is most definitely my fault and I'd like to admit that, but the internet is going bye bye so i can start living the life i want to.

(Note : I'm using my grandma's phone now and this was tricky to think about because it's not like i can just smash it as well - so today she will set a password and only let me use the phone when im directly next to her on the couch and whatnot. I need to check my schedule for work but beyond that there is zero reason for me to use it while being an addict, fuck learning new information when what i need to do is forget bad habits.)

What was learned these past 6 days :

1.Dopamine is very addictive, once you get a large hit there's a chaser effect wherein you start wanting more and more.

Because of this very reason i think music should not be apart of the recovery process (Unless you have an offline mp3 player of course - ill be buying this very soon). Music > Youtube > Movies > Porn, is what happened to me.

2. Your capacity for doing things when you cut out all the nonsense goes skyhigh. I was doing things one after the other (going to work, doing parking lessons for an hour, coming home not even sitting down just to make my dinner - I'm sure it would have progressed to piano lessons after dinner too. 

Willpower is trainable and it doesn't take years to raise levels, just an intense few days (a week tops, honestly) is enough to become a beast.

3. Fiction is garbage (if you use it to escape other thing's that are actually rewarding, which i think is what most people read for - an escape - i was thinking about how fiction bools felt a lot similar to mindless entertainment a few days into this and its because they actually are. 

Non-fiction is where it's at and this is coming from someone who would come home from school to an abusive family just to read fiction books for fucking hours until dinner. Every. Single. Day. 

Where did that get me? Absolutely nowhere, just imagine if I'd been reading content heavy book like science or history. 

Hope these lessons are valuable to anyone that read all this. I'm not kidding about leaving, this is actually the end of all this - wont be reading replies or anything.

Peace ~ Daniel

Edited by Daniel Harrison
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