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fe2

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I have already received support from this community in merely 3 days after I start, I am now on module "Fill the Void" and have completed its worksheet. I feel comfortable recording a "public" journal because of all the support in such short time. So l have finished my last game which was a single player game last week. I feel confident about moving on and because I actually like gaming, I hate to see it be my downfall, even if it means I have to completely not play game anymore. I would rather let this happy memory stay within my head than to let it continue and be my downfall that I will regret for my entire life. The major problem I face is that when I feel unconfident towards one of the tasks I have to do, I may just turn to video watching which is just as bad and in my opinion actually worse. Hopefully it will get better as the day move by and I can completely be clean. My advantage so far is that first my friends and family are really supportive in a way that none of my friends play any video game and that my parents support my decision. Another advantage is that I actually got so many stuff to do like I have little free time so this should theoretically keep me occupied. For the free time that remain at the end of the day, I have some many things I want to explore and its actually filling up my void more than I needed. My problem is that I am impulsive from time to time and this could be really detrimental because I could have a relapse easily. However, I think I will do this for the good of myself.

 

 

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So here goes Day 1:

Recently due to Covid-19, it's actually giving me more free time which kind of increases the challenge of not playing video games. I did not play any game today but I did spend a lot of time(3h) to watch video which is really worrisome. Good news is that I spent 5 hours actually getting all of my tasks and responsibilities done so I am really happy right now. This positive mood should be able to encourage me to start with this in the morning tomorrow so I don't watch YT for pure entertainment purpose anymore. Good thing is that I actually do not have an addiction to anything else beside video games. I don't have addiction to any substance or any other forms of media and I REALLY HOPE I DO NOT get addicted to YT. On the bright side, if I can keep up with what I plan to do tomorrow for as long as possible, I will actually be a person with almost no bad habit which makes me really motivated.

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And today I actually realize that life and game share so many things but have several key differences. Both in game and life, the sense of achievement is acquired due to challenges and hardships. This is what I have been looking for my whole life-that sense of achievement. But what separates a game from life is that in life, the skills you learn don't go to waste and translate from one thing to another while the skills in the game is only useful in the context of game. The games I used to enjoy playing, like League of Legends, Dark Souls Series, require so much time and devotion. They practice my skill in fast-reacting, making split-second decision, precision in hand movement and eye-brain-hand coordination. These skills I can train through playing an instrument or competitive sports. In essence, League of Legends is literally just a chess game combined with playing the flute(The prior trains split-second decision, the latter trains precision in hand movement and eye-brain-hand coordination). The skills learned from context outside of game or physically not a keyboard or a controller, enable me to do other things in life better as well, like from chores to performing accurate lab result. It is fascinating to me how they are literally the same thing and trains the same skills but the ones in real life are just somehow more useful than the ones in game. I guess it's because learning a game require comparatively less hardship than learning an instrument so it is less rewarding. There is no point in gaming anymore if I can find something that substitutes the skills it give me but allow me to apply them to a broader concept and yield me more benefits. It's so interesting that I actually never realized that until I have seriously decide to quit gaming. I still think gaming itself is not bad but comparatively to all these other options, it suddenly becomes far less attractive.

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I have no idea why I even go to video for entertainment. It literally does not pose any challenge if it is purely for entertainment. It doesn't give me the sense of achievement and I don't even know why I decided to go there in the first place today. But with these reasonings, I probably won't do it again tmr.

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Welcome fe2!

2 hours ago, fe2 said:

I have no idea why I even go to video for entertainment. It literally does not pose any challenge if it is purely for entertainment. It doesn't give me the sense of achievement and I don't even know why I decided to go there in the first place today. But with these reasonings, I probably won't do it again tmr.

Next time this happens, try asking yourself what you were doing and thinking before you do this. Some people call this different things, but often it goes by "cue-->habit/routine-->reward." Some stimulus or feeling will trigger you to do something, which provides some kind of reward. Once you know how this applies to you watching videos, you can create new habits to either avoid or replace the behavior. 

For example someone who is addicted to video games may have something like this:

Cue--feelings of loneliness or boredom.

Habit/Routine--play video games.

Reward--escapism, no feelings of lonliness or boredom.  

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I struggle with videos as well and it's usually because I have a feeling in my mind that I am just tapped out for the day on intellectual or creative activities. It's always around the same time every day, not coincidentally right when my last dose of Adderall gives up the ghost (need to get back on a 3x a day plan but who knows when I'll see my psychiatrist again with all the offices closing for COVID). Like @DaBest said, it's a pattern we've been indulging in our whole lives so it's the "go-to" when we're feeling a certain way. Breaking it requires conscious effort to rewrite the habit into something better.

Good luck and welcome. 🙂

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Day 2

A really busy day as well and I manage to receive responses for the work I had done and I felt pretty happy now. I managed not to watch video today so that is really good for me. I hope I can keep up with the work though because it is getting very attractive right now and I am not exactly sure why. I am going to put myself to sleep so I don't do anything stupid right now.

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23 hours ago, fe2 said:

Day 3

I have been keeping up ok with my desire to game or to video. I just hope I can keep it that way. Things are about to get busier for me next week so I should do fine. I have developed a new interest- drawing and had been continuing my old one- flute. They really do make me feel more accomplished.

 

chilling with my work tho, sigh

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Day 4

My bad for forgetting to record the journal and hopefully I could learn how to responsible now that gaming is out of my way. Yesterday was an extremely busy day but at least it keeps me busy and out of mind or desire to do something that is less impactful or meaning to the development of myself.

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Day 5-6

I actually finished much of my work from staying up all night yesterday and today, I just feel like it's worth it playing video games again. But since I already destroyed my account, there is no need to do any of that. I start to think that maybe it's worth it to play video game again until I got slapped in the face by this thing named life and realized again, for I don't know how many times that video games cannot bring me any actual profit. I am no idealist and even though I really like gaming, I just had this realization and decide not to do it again. I know it's worth it and I hope I have less of this struggle as I move on with my life.

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Yeah, gaming in moderation is fine but I think most of us here have come to accept that we can't do that. Maybe one day if you really get your life together and find your purpose you'll be able to just sit down and play 30 minutes of a casual game and then stop to do something else but I know that's not where I'm at! It's really hard to avoid gaming right now, I think we all know that too. Most of us, if not all of us, are on lockdown with no social contact.  We can do it though!

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