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JRiz

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Day #0 . Around 3 am Saturday I turned off the PS4, I had just maxed out the first 55 levels of the new Call of Duty. I have started at 9pm Friday with a 20 minute break to chat with my wife on the phone.  As I lay in bed trying to fall asleep I reflected on my day.  My wife was out of town for work but close (few hours away).  We had couples counseling on Weds, and the previous weekends gaming was a hot topic of discussion.  On Friday morning my wife invited me up to her work retreat, offering to find a sitter for the kids.  I was genuinely touched by this offer since our marriage is on the rocks.  I decided it would be not cool to spring that on the kids.  Thanked her for the offer.  At work all the people involved in the gaming charity Extra Life were setting up and it was a typical laid back day so I played CoD on lunch break and MTGA on my second monitor while doing some easy tasks. After going home and doing the dad things I plugged right in with the intent to stop at 10 or 11.  

Anyways I started to think of ways to cover up my gaming, so I wouldnt be tired the next day etc.  Luckily my higher power kicked in and reminded me that this kind of thinking was clearly addict thinking.  I did some pen and paper journaling and decided to call my sponsor in the morning.  When I talked to him, he was clear that we both knew I was in my addict mode with gaming and I need to do something or I would eventual relapse in my other program as well.  On top of blowing my marriage up further.

So after letting my wife know I had binged.  I unplugged the ps4 and xbox, uninstalled youtube and reddit from my devices.  when to sleep about 11 pm. 

Day#1 

Did all my fatherly duties.  Signed up for Game Quitters.  Watched Cars on Disney + with my daughter.  Let my son play switch while I read up on this site.  Signed up for a local chapter of a gaming 12 step program (seems to be online only voice meetings, better than nothing I guess) . Did some Boy scouts stuff with the son, took my daughter for a bike ride.  Got angry with my kid over nonsense (probably just anxiety related from quitting) . Made a list of goals I want to achieve in the near future.  Going to text with my sponsor then watch some Mandalorian on Disney + to see what the hype is all about and goto bed.  My wife is barely talking to me and really hurt.  I suspect it will be this way for a while but I hope eventually she will understand I need to be supported in this as much as I was my 12 step program to get the peace and serenity we both want.

 

 

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Day #2 of 90

Got up later than I would have liked but still early enough to get the kids out the door and to school on time.  Did a 45 minute ride on the Peloton.  This summer I had been riding at least 2-3 times a week and have a really long streak going.  This morning was the first time I had ridden that hard in a few months.  Felt good to accomplish something instead of going into work and immediately start playing Fortnite or MTG-A.  So I went into work and uninstalled all the games on the Epic Launcher.  I have nothing installed on Battle.net,  On Steam I have 1 work related title but tbh I haven't played more than 1 hour of it.  The majority of my catalogue isn't installed. I should make the big step I see done here a lot around my steam account.  I've had that account since 2004.  The fact I'm not just willing to delete it is a testament to the power gaming has over me.  I had a number of times during my lunch break and just kind of boring times in the afternoon where I almost fired something up.  I spent some time trying to figure out how to put parental controls on my account but it looks like I'm going to have to use some kind of third party tool to keep from using games and youtube on my work computer. 

Went to a 12 step meeting and shared about how I'm starting in this detox process.  Even though there are mostly older folks in my program they know about addiction and binges and when I shared how blew past my own boundaries and then started rationalizing and scheming they all knew what I was talking about.  Addictions have very similar patterns regardless of the substance or activity.

Got home from my meeting, said good night to the kids.  Wife is still barely talking to me.  My sponsor told me actions are better than words at this point.  So I'll keep on going.  

This is as hard as stopping masturbation.  I really wanted to play just a little bit at work.  But the last year I have been giving myself that comfort and its gotten out of hand.  I just cant do it in moderation, which sucks.
I go meet with my therapist tomorrow morning.  He's been telling me to quit gaming for months now, so at least I should get some support from him.

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It's good that you're working with a therapist at the same time.  Keep going, man.  Both to achieve the life you want and to avoid the hell you could create if you let your bad habits and addictions take control.  From what you've described, it sounds like you can't expect much support from your wife along the way and that trying to lean on her might just drive her away.  Lean on your therapist, on your friends, and keep on pushing through until your wife can't help but notice the changes you've made.

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I've also thought about deleting my steam account.
There's a short gif on one of the pinned comments in r/stopgamming showing how to delete a steam account.
It's actually scary for me to look at.

Give it time I guess. You're best off deleting it since it will remove the temptation but yeah, that's not easy.

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12 hours ago, Big Adam said:

It's good that you're working with a therapist at the same time.  Keep going, man.  Both to achieve the life you want and to avoid the hell you could create if you let your bad habits and addictions take control.  From what you've described, it sounds like you can't expect much support from your wife along the way and that trying to lean on her might just drive her away.  Lean on your therapist, on your friends, and keep on pushing through until your wife can't help but notice the changes you've made.

Went to dinner with my wife tonight.  I do have to be careful talking about the trials of dealing with this addiction... She is is supportive-ish but to be honest still mad at me for being in denial about gaming for so long (two years) while being honest about being an addict.  I get it but I'm the type that wants "a parade" for doing what I'm supposed to do.  TBH I'm surprised how kind of annoyed my therapist was.  His reaction was like 'DUH! I've been telling you this for a year now' . which I guess I could get is also  frustrating. He did give me some very supportive words about using a focused program like Respawn and was open to hear and help me process my worksheets.  

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9 hours ago, Avnat Netzer said:

I've also thought about deleting my steam account.
There's a short gif on one of the pinned comments in r/stopgamming showing how to delete a steam account.
It's actually scary for me to look at.

Give it time I guess. You're best off deleting it since it will remove the temptation but yeah, that's not easy.

100% my sponsor in my other program had a shopping addiction around buying digital music, so he gets the collection aspect of the Steam library but he still wants me to delete it. I'm scared to do something so permanent, I'm thinking about doing some kind of encryption thing with the password and giving the key to my best friend and get that back from him later if I can find that moderation sweet spot.  I did the same thing with social media.  I didn't want to "disappear" so my wife has my password and every few months we will hop on together to look around then log me out, but to be honest it doesn't have any real appeal any more so maybe that'll be the way with my Steam library.

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DAY #3 

Got up and went to therapy before work.  My therapist was supportive but also a little annoyed with me because he's been telling me this is a fundamental issue that I've had for the last two years.  I've heard people can't recover till they want it, and I guess that has happened for me finally.  He did think I should get rid fo the Switch as well and not worry about the results on my kid because I should be wanting to keep him away from what happened to me.  I'm not 100% on board with that since I do use screen time controls with my son. But having it in the house is kind of dangerous, but I have a laptop, ipads, phones etc I could relapse on easily, so I dont see the point in making un-needed drama with my kid who HAS shown restraint and moderation.

My wife suggested we get a sitter tonight and goto dinner.  It was nice to have conversation that wasn't completely focused on crisis between us.

Work was hard AF.  We are in code lock so everyone was in total slack mode, games being played in every direction.  It's like being at a raging party and not drinking.  Just a whole lot of not fun.  I did find some work stuff to focus on so that is good.  Tomorrow I'm going to make sure to get a good hard bike ride in before work.  

I'm going to chill out watch some TV then hit sack at 11.

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Day #4

Woke up kinda cranky but got on top of the day.  Did a workout after I got the kids to school.  Cleaned my house a bit then went to work.  Left work at 1pm for Couples counseling.  Was a hard session but generally not bad, which is a win.  My wife said she's glad I've committed to the 90 day detox but she's not holding her breath that I stick with it.  Can't say I blame her, I've made half measure efforts in the past.  Watched the debates after dinner, overall kinda bored but also tired so not that bad i guess.

I did make some effort into finding some new hobbies today.  I went down a small youtube rabbit hole regarding welding.  I have always been into sculpting / modeling and I was wondering if I could get into making art with metal.  I don't know if practically it would fit into our lives but hey I was thinking outside the box.

I spend some time thinking about the steam account thing, I know my friend who would be able to hold it for me and not respect the boundary of the 90 days or more.

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Keep up the good work. Nice to hear that your wife is somewhat supportive. I too have a 12 step program that helped me realize my gaming addiction however I am currently only on day 2 of gaming detox. One thing about having other hobbies - just stick with it because you will probably be bored of it quickly. Gaming has a way of fulfilling people so much that no other hobby can compare. You have to retrain your brain and that takes time. Have a great day. 

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Day #5

Still sober.  Work is still very challenging, but I decided to go more social  join the guys playing MTG so that I don't feel isolated when everyone else taking their lunch break.  

Listened to some podcasts, did some recovery homework, then went to my feedback group.  I feel like I talked too much but got some good advice about how to broach hobbies with my wife.

Really tired gonna get up early tomorrow. 

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Day #6

Had some drama in the morning with the wife about setting up a space to do hobbies.  Previously I had an area of the house for video gaming (and porn) that I gave up over the last 2 years.  I suggested setting that up for a place for myself and the kids to do longer term crafts / hobbies.  She said she didn't want that for various reasons that make sense but ultimately I'm in a place of resentment about because she isn't offering any compromise on the situation.  She did say I could use the garage for projects which in the past was a point of contention so I guess we got some where on it, but tbh I don't want to work in the garage.  Sigh. I rode my exercise bike afterwards and that got rid of a lot of the tension.

Got a bunch done during the day, no gaming at work still so thumbs up there.  Tried to lay down and watch something on the iPad while my wife was getting ready for bed, and that upset her and I honestly got way more hurt by it than I should have.  Guess I'm a bit more raw with not using my previous outlets.  

Got a busy weekend with the kids and getting ready for the thanksgiving holiday week, kids school is out all week due to California budget issues.  We are driving down to Southern CA for the week to visit my wifes family so come Monday, updating the journal might be harder.  We shall see.

 

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Day #7 and Day #8

Still Sober, but slightly challenged by my son asking me to play Fortnite with him, or keep him alive while he poops.  I think I handled it okay by just putting him in a bush then walking away.  My son likes watching kid friendly streams and tbh it does still hold sway over me.  Gotta keep an eye on that. Busy weekend with the kids activities.  Had friends over for dinner on Sat.  Lots of unneeded conflict with the wife, our problems are structural in our communication style and sharing (or lack of) control.  I also detached a bit after a long day both days.  I'm waiting (probably indefinitely) for my wife to apologize to me for being overly controlling about some dumb stuff.  

Big issue is I didn't feel like journaling which is a lack of humility on my part.  Need to stay dedicated.

This morning I'm heading to Southern California to Disney Land with the kids.  I'm excited but nervous.  Its a long drive and I wont have my wife to team up with me.  Gonna try my best to run the show with my sanity in mind while still making it fun for the kids.  Never know it might be better than with my wife in the car the way we have been communicating.

Going to try and keep journaling when I get back to the hotel.

 

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1 hour ago, JRiz said:

Still Sober, but slightly challenged by my son asking me to play Fortnite with him, or keep him alive while he poops.  I think I handled it okay by just putting him in a bush then walking away

Hah!  Good creative solution.

1 hour ago, JRiz said:

I'm waiting (probably indefinitely) for my wife to apologize to me for being overly controlling about some dumb stuff.  

JRiz, have you ever read or heard of "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr Robert Glover?  Maybe I'm misreading, but I sense some passivity and resentment in the way you write about your relationship with your wife.

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Day #14

Still sober by the definition I'm going with.  I may need to add Sudoku to my inner circle because I did spend too much time on that app waiting on my family at Disneyland.  

I did a good job with my kids at DL.  My wife and I are falling apart rapidly.  I can do no right in her eyes and her fury is righteous to her so pretty much fuck me.  I don't know if we'll make it through the end of the year.  But hey I'll be sober from sex and video games.

Today my project to keep busy will be X-mas decorations around the house etc.  I'm going to make sure to get a ride in on my exercise bike, gotta burn off all the junk food from Disneyland.

 

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