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TwoSided's Journal (V2)


TwoSidedLife

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Decided to start a new journal. Not sure how often i'll be posting.

About Me:

I'm a young woman from Australia. I've been gaming since I was a child. I found gamequitters around mid 2018 and have been attempting 90 days gamefree since. In the past I was addicted to a multiplayer shooter (Especially the trading of in game items. I had made $200 USD from nothing). Since 2014 I completely quit all multiplayer games. From then to now i'm addicted to a variety of singleplayer games. I usually play for 15 hours.

I decided to quit because gaming has impacted my education a lot. It wasn't until I became sober from heavy pot use (3 yrs non-stop) at the end of 2017 that I realised gaming was a problem. The prior days to searching for gamequitters, I found myself opening games, playing for ~5 mins and closing them repeatedly for hours trying to find a game I could get hooked on. I've never spent huge amounts of money on games and have never bought in game items. Most of the games I own are pre 2014. There are many popular games today that i've never played (Tho i've played and own a few, i'm still more content with older games).

My hobbies for the most part are learning and playing guitar (Electric Rhythm). I do a range of things like D.I.Y, woodworking, making videos and music, digital art. There's lots of things i'm still keen to do and explore.

In the past I found it best to ignore streaks. Though for reference, i've been to 66 days twice. Majority of other streaks were less than a week. My last streak however went for 58 days. Every quitting experience gives me more insight.

I'm currently in a relapse stage. But I finally managed to go 1 day after over a month in relapse. I'm unsure when i'll be back to posting here. I still have a strong desire to quit.

Hopefully my journal teaches you something new. I look forward to and learning from the community here and the experience of quitting. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

>1 Day 

  • Managed to go my first day game free (again).
  • Throughout my relapse, I was able to somewhat maintain daily tasks. I decided to quit again because I still spent too much time gaming, particuarly after my day has ended. I usually gamed for around 4-12 hours, going as late as 5am on some nights. Gaming atm impacts my sleep.
  • There's no end to the games I play anymore. I've become addicted to multiplayer again.
  • I think a key factor for relapse for me is loneliness. I spend majority of my day alone since my family goes to school or work.
  • I studied school online when I first began stopgaming. I'm studying school online again this year. This first half of this year I dropped out of an in-person course due to anxiety. I've had problems with anxiety since I started smoking pot

I want to hit 90 days this time. Another factor for my relapse was alcohol. I haven't considered quitting drinking, but want to be more aware that it can cause relapse.

The only precautions i've taken is giving my account to my sibling. This has been a system for a while and I haven't had my account back for a few weeks. I've been gaming using their computer on their account - which has helped me stop playing the singleplayer games I wanted to 'perfect'.

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Day  4

  • I'm happy i've committed myself back to stop gaming. Getting past 3 days is another milestone for me.
  • Been tempted a few times to game with my sibling. Been trying to find other things to do with them. So far i've just opted for tv shows. Eventually I hope to come up with a project we can both work on.
  • Throughout my relapse I found some hobbies i'd like to try out soon (Electronics). Looking forward to that.
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Day 1 (Relapse)

  • Played a game yesterday on Sunday. Did it cause I was bored and didn't have anything planned.
  • I noticed that taking Sunday's off (Schedule free days) could've contributed to my relapses. (I've had about >10 weeks of free Sunday's)
  • I gamed for ~2 hrs. I have no interest going back since it still feels the same as before (Boring).
  • After I stopped, I worked on creating a schedule again. I stopped scheduling before because I felt overwhelmed. I added sunday's back in, but kept it as a relaxed day that doesn't require too much willpower or discipline (Compared to the rest of my week). I tend to tweak my schedule a lot. I should've continued that when I felt overwhelmed, rather than trying to force myself to conform to it (I probably felt like I was 'doing it wrong').
  • I count it as a relapse, because if I didn't, I know i'd use it as an excuse to 'relieve' my cravings. Instead I want to face my cravings and accept them for what they are.
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Day 4

  • The cravings aren't as strong as every other run i've had.
  • I'm having lots of fun doing my own thing.
  • Currently i'm just working on making art to sell online (Passive income). I've never been really into art, but i'd consider myself good at it. I reckon anyone can do it.
  • Still on the search for a system that works with scheduling. It'll probs come down to experimentation again.

Been thinking deeper on my opinions about gaming. I reckon there's a problem with how games are today. The game industry imo is alike to drug dealers. Rather than creating quality content and selling it one off - there's much more interest in having 'repeat customers'. I overall disagree with how addictive systems are used to generate profit. Video games are kinda like phones. Phones were created to help us be productive. Except that there's a huge lack in inherent productive capabilities.

Random, yeah. Tho i've always been the kinda person to share my opinions freely.

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  • 2 months later...

Hey @TwoSidedLife ! It's been a while since I've seen you in this forum.

On 6/3/2019 at 7:13 PM, TwoSidedLife said:

I'm currently in a relapse stage. But I finally managed to go 1 day after over a month in relapse. I'm unsure when i'll be back to posting here. I still have a strong desire to quit.

Hopefully my journal teaches you something new. I look forward to and learning from the community here and the experience of quitting. :)

That's great. As for now, I am trying playing games in moderation (I relapsed after my exams are finished in May). It is okay in some days, but in other days, I struggle to keep my playtime from going overboard. I hope that you are doing well with the detox, and I am looking forward for more of your posts. ?

Edited by Lea
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Thanks @Lea - haha yeah exams sound pretty stressful, especially since you're in uni, you'd have  a lot riding on that.

Been missing these forums. Such a good community here! I think between now and since my last post - I started school again, been really good.

Also been 'moderating', tho it definitely hasn't worked out as well as I wanted it to. As of writing this tho, its my 2nd day. I got really into game mods and decided to give coding a go (So, i'm making game mods ironically), its been going pretty great so far. Idk, ever since trying to quit the first time over a year ago, been feeling really entrepreneurial lol.

Might come back here and post more eventually - I mostly enjoy the community discussions around here rather than talking abt myself tho hahaha. Hope all's going well for you in school life!

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Day 0

I feel like I want to try again. Video game's aren't a real hobby. I do a lot of stuff on the side now, but my game-time is still too much. Currently I feel stuck to my obligation to game with my younger sibling. Recently bought a new game (and tbh it hasn't been the most fun thing...), spent about at least 5 hrs a day playing that. I've never been the type of person to keep up with gaming news, watch gameplay, always have/want the newest games ect. I've just been content with what I had. But that doesn't stop me from being just as addicted, if not more.

I realise I do have a serious problem. I still play on average ~8 hrs a day, since I still game alone. Tho I don't feel like it holds me down as much, it's about half what I use to be at in the past. I'm much more happier and proud of that for keeping myself for keeping to 8hrs (im not limiting myself either, I just get bored after that).  I use to game ~15 hrs in the past (before I started doing drugs), since I skipped school most days. I see that, that average is a lot more than the average. It's a horrible feeling, spending all your waking hours in a video game. Doing whatever you can to ignore your obligations and avoid your responsibilities. I feel that I lack a lot more self control than regular ppl. When I was doing drugs, I didn't game as much anymore. The scary thing for me was that I spent more time trying to decide what to play. I remember sitting there for HOURS just trying to decide. Trying to find something that'd get me hooked. The same cycle repeated when I was sober and withdrawing, during that, was when I decided to search for gamequitters. On top of that, it showed I didn't play games for entertainment, but that I only played seriously. Since majority of the time, I was too high to understand, strategise ect. that would annoy me aswell. I think my problem is only as serious because I have underlying problems (Dissociative Disorder) due to a complicated childhood.

It's also hard to imagine that at some point (2013), I had the will to quit multiplayer games forever. I haven't touched that addictive garbage in years. The multiplayer games of now, look much worse than back then too (Microtransactions just leech off addiction).

My plan right now - I just want to be able to keep a limit to my game-time with my sibling. I also want to not game on weekdays (which i've been pretty decent at so far). I've decided to take small steps, since cold turkey might not be for me (and I may aswell try something different after one year of trying). I think it's more helpful to ppl who's lives have revolved around video games for so long (as mine did with drugs and obtaining money for said drugs).

In future quitting, i'll definitely stick to the forums more. I know i've never made it to 90 because I don't have anything social to do. Since I cut off my friends (after quitting drugs) and I did school completely online afterwards.

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