My New Beginning

[jondolan1992]

Hey everyone, my name is Jonny and I’m deciding to quit gaming for good.

Well, honestly, this is my third attempt at quitting. I had first quit in 2017 with the help of Respawn, and life was awesome! I felt like I had a lot of forward momentum and things were looking up. Then I broke my wrist. On top of that, i went through an excruciating series of surgeries. My life was seemingly pulled out from under me. So, to cope and pass time, I started gaming again.

In that instance, I gamed for about 3 months, then stopped. I decided I wanted to try again at building healthy, productive skills outside of gaming. I stopped again for about a year, then relapsed earlier this year. On reflecting, I think I got back into gaming to cope with stress as well as create a sense of purpose. The irony is that I feel the most depressed, lonely, and helpless that I ever have in my life. I’m desperately looking to pull back this crutch so that I can sort my life once again. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to build community as a young adult. I dived pretty hard into my career, only to find years later that I have very few significant connections, which is heartbreaking. 

 

Anyways, thanks for reading!

[Realworlder]

Welcome to the forums.

Do not beat yourself up for relapsing, it is great that you have recognized what were the main forces that pulled you back into gaming. The best way to think about it is that if you were able to stop gaming for some time you can do it again and even for longer this time. I have stopped a few times as well and then relapsed too ... now I have not played in over a month and I hope to keep it that way for a lot longer.

When I was in middle school and beginning of high school I did struggle with making good friends, all of my best buddies moved out when we were young and later on I believe this was the main reason for me to start playing video games. Not only I was able to escape reality I had friends that I played with. Later on, I would say that I got quite lucky and made some amazing friendships with people that we are still in touch with and travel and meet across the globe because we are living and studying in different parts of the world. I would say that what helped me the most was to find my own hobbies and things to be passionate about. I think that my passion for science and knowledge was what brought me closer to a lot of friends because I love to converse on almost any topic and traveling was the other thing that draws us together. I do believe that if you focus on things that you love you will find like-minded people and friends. 

It definitely will not be as easy. But you just have to get out there and meet people, of course, certain places attract similar people e.g. if you are passionate about working out you will find like-minded people in gyms and so on. And maybe check on some of your old buddies ... you never know, maybe even people that you w&ere not so close in the past you might have a lot more in common nowadays that you ever had before. It depends on just which paths in life you choose. 

Stay strong and take care 🙂

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Marek