First journal

[Metalgear222]

Hey all,

What a rush of mixed emotions. I feel fear, anxiety, uncertain, hopeful, excited, worry, curiosity, disappointment, sadness, and overwhelmed. But I'm here and tried to be honest as possible with myself while I get started turning over the page in my life. No, closing a lifelong book and starting a new book altogether. I soo sooo badly want this to be the end of my gaming. It has caused an immense amount of grief, especially lately as I have just discovered through introspection that the last 3 jobs I've lost as well as losing the girl I love, was all stemmed from my addiction to gaming. On top of the fact that I'm coming off a binge of 8 weeks straight of 16 hours a day gaming. This doesn't include all the lies I tell my family in order to continue gaming without them knowing I have an addiction. I have no control of this and need out. Thanks for reading.

[Amphibian220]

Welcome to the forum! Can you share what sort of mission you are pursuing in life and why the video games are interfering with it?

Apart from that, what sort of activities do you enjoy doing for recreational purposes. What kind of people are you interested in as friends? Maybe you could list some traits or a particular sport?

Finally, Cameron Adair has a Vlog that covers many issues. I remember one of his videos with a caption: “About to relapse? Watch this” He basically addressed the most frequent and salient issues that a person who wants to sort out his difficulties may have.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Amphibian220

[Metalgear222]

Im pursuing finding a career that Im passionate about and living a life I'm proud of everyday. Video games are a numbing agent for everything. The lack of time spent into hobbies I love, the lack of effort I put into my relationships, my coping mechanism for anything, the support/crutch of my laziness. I love rock climbing, playing drums, anything active, being around nature, traveling, intellectual talk and pondering. 

I want to hang around genuine people, that's one trait I did love about my gaming connections, most of them are genuine people. I want to be around active healthy people that don't have any terrible addictions in their life so I can be inspired by them.

Where can I view this vlog?

[Realworlder]

@Metalgear222 Hi and welcome to the forums! Good luck on your journey! It is great that you came to this realization and know that something need to change. It might seem like a small first step, but actually it is a huge leap to start working toward life without gaming. I am not sure if you have done anything in the respawn program but what helped me most was to burn all the bridges connected to gaming and build new ones towards habits I enjoy and allow me to achieve things in the real world. However you will need several of them to replace every aspect of gaming which makes it, in turn so addictive. 

[Amphibian220]

Here is the link 

 

[Alexanderle]

10 hours ago, Metalgear222 said:

Im pursuing finding a career that Im passionate about and living a life I'm proud of everyday. Video games are a numbing agent for everything.

That is the most important thing, I would say. Videogames were just a strategy, you used to get there. You identified with it, you liked it. It fulfilled you. Nothing wrong with that. Now the interesting thing is that this is not the case anymore. But that is the beauty of it: Try to look out, what will give you this feeling again. The feeling of fulfillment and happiness. Start to experiment with different things.

 

15 hours ago, Metalgear222 said:

I soo sooo badly want this to be the end of my gaming. It has caused an immense amount of grief, especially lately as I have just discovered through introspection that the last 3 jobs I've lost as well as losing the girl I love, was all stemmed from my addiction to gaming.

 If so far, trying to badly end it, maybe now you could therefore try to start something new. Something better. That is a fundamental difference imo.

1 hour ago, Amphibian220 said:

Here is the link 

Therefore, I actually disagree with what Cam says that all you need to do is just trying to do someting else. I agree that you should do something else, something more meaningful. But not as a strategy for "not gaming". The fear of relapse is the biggest reason, while people fail with recovery. That would be like eating salad for the sole reason of trying to not eat chocolate. The result will be that you want the chocolate even more and you perceive the salad not nearly as fulfilling. I see this stuff all the time in the forum - that those "replacement activities" are not perceived as gaming was fulfilling. But once you fall in love with the salad, chocolate will become meaningless. Start to love other activities and you are not a gamer anymore. Cam himself relapsed after years. The only reason was, because he was still a gamer. Once you are not a gamer anymore, it is inevitably that you are not "addicted" anymore.

10 hours ago, Metalgear222 said:

I love rock climbing, playing drums, anything active, being around nature, traveling, intellectual talk and pondering. 

I am therefore more curious to hear more about your pursuit of these things. That all sounds amazing!

Edited May 6, 2020 by Alexanderle

[Metalgear222]

Day 2. Thank you for the detailed response. I watched that video and it makes a lot of sense, but It feels like I picked the worst time ever to quit. With covid having my city on lockdown, it's tough to pursue spending time doing other things. And the friends I do still have only hang out one night a week to try to respect social distancing. I can play my electric drums and exercise on my own/get outside for a walk but there's still a ton of free time that I need to fill. 

In a moment of weakness yesterday I called my ex to just see how she was doing, I haven't tried to or talked to her at all since we split over 10 weeks ago. She didn't call me back. I guess when it rains it pours. All the emotions I have from quitting a lifetime of gaming as well as finding out the girl I loved doesn't even care about me at all is crushing me. The positive side is that I know what to do differently next time. I know my relationships will be 10x better without gaming in my life. Both with friends and in dating.

Any recommendations for things to do while my city is on lockdown that worked for you guys?