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Final Detox


RB1

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Great start to my day. I scheduled myself to workout between 10-11am and I did so. I also pushed myself a little harder than usual and added an extra set to each of my workouts.

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Your workout routine is great. 3 sets of 10 pullups is something I haven’t achieved so far. I’m currently working on improving my posture and I’m putting in the work to have good back muscles.

I don’t believe that focusing a lot on avoidance and the gaming free streak is helpful. If you search “trust the process” thread it has an insightful discussion on why you should focus on discovering new interests and identity.

Regarding skateboarding- it was such a love/hate relationship for me. It was an excellent outlet for emotions - in my teens I’d skate 3-4 hours per day, but the injuries would drive me angry. Then I grew out of the sport- it was hard to continue because it wasn’t helping my posture. I felt proud from the few tricks I learned. Ollie was my favourite cause I could do 4 stair sets. I could kickflip on and off, never managed to wire it. Kickflipping gave me highs I swear. The first kickflip made me light headed from the sense of achievement.

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Wednesday July 1st, 2020

Reflection of the day:

Officially 1 week gaming free! It's just the start, but I'm very happy with myself. This is the furthest I've gotten in a detox since my initial one a year ago. I think I've done like 7 or 8 detoxes since then that have mostly ended in a day, longest 3 days I think. Not even sure you can call it a detox, but in the moment I said it would be haha. I'll do a quick reflection of my day, then of the week.

Had class and work all day. I was able to squeeze in a work out between the two and ended up pushing myself during it and added a set to all the exercises I usually do during my workout. It felt great! Gonna push myself even more in the next week with my workouts. Got some school work done. Again not as much as I wanted. I was tired for the rest of the day again. Spent a lot of time in bed with my guitar just learning the fretboard. I'm just figuring out how bass works on my acoustic until I buy an actual bass guitar. My goal is to learn the fretboard so I can eventually lean to walk on bass. I found 2 meals for breakfast and lunch I want to cook tomorrow or the day after. I was going to go grocery shopping for ingredients, but I ended up being lazy and went to carls jr instead and picked up a greasy burger for dinner. I've been eating clean this entire week. This is my first unhealthy meal of the week. I'll call it a celebratory meal for being a week gaming free.

Reflection of the week:

Pros:

I'm having a lot easier of a time staying away gaming this detox after just a week than probably the entire first month of my initial detox a year back. I remember a week into my first detox I was losing my mind. I had to put my computer in a different room and lock myself in my room just to stay off the internet and gaming. I'd have to go on spontaneous walks when I felt like I'd relapse to stay away and keep my mind off gaming. 1 week into this detox, I'm getting cravings for sure, but nowhere as severe as the ones from my first detox. Yesterday and the day before I barely think I had any cravings. Today I got some bad cravings towards the end of the day, which is actually why I ended up getting fast food. I wanted to game so I just did the first thing that came to my mind to avoid doing so, which was apparently indulging in a burger from carls jr. Just got derailed from the topic there, but yeah, I've been having a much easier time with cravings this time around.

I'm playing a ton of music. I've picked up guitar again and am trying to learn bass. I've also been playing piano here and there. Guitar and piano are just activities to kill time right now, but I'm having so much fun with bass. The learning process is addictive and I really get lost in it. This has also led me to listen to a lot more music and discover new music throughout my week. This stuff alone has carried me through my week.

I'm a whole lot healthier. I've been sticking to my workout routine and have been consistently cooking healthy meals (aside from tonight). In just 1 week I'm feeling 5x healthier than I have all year I'd say. I've been short on jogging, but I'll get there. Physical activity, eating right, and staying away from gaming has skyrocketed my physical and mental health. Just feeling this much better alone is motivating me to stick with the detox.

Cons:

I've been pretty anti-social. I mean I always am, but this was a big point of contention during my initial detox. I realized it was a lot easier to get through when staying social, which I said I'd get right to with this detox, but I've been in my own home all week. I mean, I saw a buddy or two earlier in the week, but I could be doing other things like calling friends or texting them too. I'm gonna buy shoes to skate tomorrow night then hit up the park on friday, so hopefully this will get me out and a bit more social.

I've been pretty bad about the schedules I've been setting. I've made plans for my day 3 or 4 days in a row now and I've barely stuck to the plans I made. I've been able to stick to the exercise and cooking I planned, but aside from that I've been slacking. I've planned in advance to get more schoolwork done, call my cellphone service company, go on jogs, and other important tasks here and there that I've all ignored for the most part. I'm glad I've stuck to the workouts and healthy eating habits so I'm ok with it, but I need to work on getting the other things in line as well. Baby steps though.

I haven't read at all. I don't think I said in my initial posts, but I'd like to read on a daily or every other day basis and I haven't picked up my book at all.

I've been spending a lot of time in bed. My instinct when getting cravings has been to lay down in bed and clear my mind or even just take a nap. I have been getting a lot more sleep and better quality sleep than I usually do so I shouldn't think of it as such a bad thing, but I've just been spending more time than usual lounging around on the couch or my bed. I'm glad I'm sleeping more, but It becomes hard to get up and ultimately is making me lazier than I should be.

I'm still spending a lot of time on my computer. I've been on youtube a bunch through the week, just not watching gaming content. I've been listening to a ton of music on youtube, watching the news, random entertaining videos, cooking videos, and other things. I'm using it a lot more productively, but my goal with this detox is to stay clear of gaming, but also really to just take my eyes off of my computer screen in general as well. I'd like to reduce the time I spend staring at my screen regardless even if all the time I spend on my computer was productive. Just staring at a screen makes me feel more depressed regardless of what I'm doing. Cutting down screen time is important to me.

I've been drinking at least 1 drink a night. Usually just one beer, which doesn't hurt, but I can't end my day without it at the moment. I'm so used to having games to play at night or a gaming stream to throw on to take my mind off of everything and eventually sleep. It's been my way of taking the edge off and I don't have that anymore. Drinking has been the only other thing that's come close to compensate for that feeling so I've had to drink each night. It's not a problem, but I'd like for me to be able to feel satisfied at the end of the day without having to drink at all.

 

That's all. I wrote a lot more cons than pros, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I've improved myself this one week than I have all year. This is just the start too. I will work on my cons and continue to work towards my goals that I set. I said I want to have 15 meals, 5 for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each by the 1st of october memorized and well done, which I'm already 4/15 the way through. My fitness goal is already off to a great start and I'm getting back in touch with music. I'll be skateboarding again in no time and I'm really hoping that I enjoy doing it again because I'd love to have a reason to spend more time outdoors. Great week! I'll continue to take this one day at a time though.

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9 hours ago, Amphibian220 said:

Regarding skateboarding- it was such a love/hate relationship for me. It was an excellent outlet for emotions - in my teens I’d skate 3-4 hours per day, but the injuries would drive me angry. Then I grew out of the sport- it was hard to continue because it wasn’t helping my posture. I felt proud from the few tricks I learned. Ollie was my favourite cause I could do 4 stair sets. I could kickflip on and off, never managed to wire it. Kickflipping gave me highs I swear. The first kickflip made me light headed from the sense of achievement.

Every skater remembers the first time they ollied, dropped in, and kickflipped. I'd say those are the top 3 moments that every skater will remember in their life without a doubt. I know what you mean about the kickflip high. Early into learning it you can't help but smile each time you land it. I think it's because skating is so demanding and requires that you eat so much shit so accomplishing your tricks is that much more satisfying. Other activities require determination before you accomplish some skill or goal, but skating requires determination and literal physical pain. Rising above that is like no other feeling.

I've been on and off with skating for pretty much the last 6 years. I've barely skated in the last 2.5 years, but I've constantly said I'd get back into it sometime. My life is always better when I'm skating. I totally understand the love/hate relationship. I've gotten injured too many times to count and now that I'm older it actually means something. There're much worse consequences to injuries now and I'm not exactly in the position at this point of my life to be getting injured and going to the hospital to fix and pay for a skateboarding injury. i've definitely gotta take it easy on my board when I get back on it and change my approach to it so I'm not in any high risk situations. But that being said, skating is an activity where you can get injured real bad from just about any situation even if it's just flat ground. I've gotta be careful for sure.

Cool to know you skated and it once gave you that exhilarating feeling it once gave me as well. Do you ever think about going back to it? 

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Thursday July 2nd, 2020

Start of day thoughts:

Started off pretty bad. Wanted to go on a run first thing in the morning but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I've got work in a bit then class later and that takes up most of my day. I'll try to go buy those skate shoes in the afternoon and go grocery shopping to make those meals I wanna cook. I'll try to squeeze in a workout somewhere mid day and maybe I'll even go on that run in the afternoon.

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@RB1 I cannot say honestly. The last time I got knocked out was from this. I was looking to buy new shoes, but my shop only had a model with very thick soles. The shoes were very “high” and uncomfortable. I never skated in that type of shoes before. All my old models were kind of the same and never threw up surprises. I still bought this model and went to skate in the evening.

I was raising the height on a 180 frontside ollie on flat and as I landed, I was thown on to my back pretty hard. In my teens, I had properly ollied a 4-stair set dozens of times with dozens of successful bails and never did something like this happen. Reason for that was I had gear that I could trust.

I was furious at these shoes but considered the fall fateful. Then, after seeing a doctor my priorities changed to working on my back and muscle growth.

Edited by Amphibian220
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I've been having a pretty good day. I missed my morning run, but I made it up with a good workout. I've done pretty much everything I've planned to do today other than that. I've been thinking about how asocial I am as a person a lot today. I can be social at times, but for the most part I am asocial, uncomfortable in large groups and get more and more unconfortable in groups of people the longer I am around them, kindof awkward, and a bit of a recluse. I mean I'd say pretty much everyone is at the moment with lockdown, but I've been a recluse for 2 years now I'd say. I have this weird fear that when lockdown ends, I'm not going to know how to behave normally around others at all anymore. Just some random thoughts.

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Thursday July 2nd, 2020

End of day reflection:

I posed 3 hours ago saying I had a good day overall, which I did, but I've been thinking about gaming non-stop since then. I got pretty close to relapsing but just drank and watched tv the entire time to get my mind off of it. The mind game/bargaining phase that I've forgotten about has begun. My mind kept telling myself reasons why I deserve just a moment of gaming. "You went gaming free for a whole week so maybe you deserve at least an hour of fun." "It's not like you're gonna do much anyways. You're quarantined. This is the time to game. Take the break later." "Just game tonight and pretend like it didn't happen and get right back to the detox." I know where this ends every time. One slip and I'm back to my old ways. I will not let it happen.

Aside from my last 3 hours, the day was great. Got a solid workout in, good day at work, got some school work done, talked to an old friend, bought shoes to skate in. I actually didn't touch my guitar or piano all day today for the first time since starting this detox. Maybe that would've made the last 3 hours earlier. I did need a break from them though. My fingers and their joints are killing me from guitar. I went from not playing guitar for years to playing 2+ hours a day. Other than that I just watched about 2 hours of tv.

I'm really ok with watching a ton of tv. I don't know if other gamers experience this, but gaming has made my attention span so short that I can't enjoy watching tv shows alone much any more. I can with friends around, but when on my own I enjoy it a lot less. It's not stimulating enough like gaming or watching gaming content on youtube or streams. TV might be what some people are trying to avoid with this detox, but I'm actually trying to get myself to be able to sit through entire episodes again. 20 minutes was about as long as I could go before I lost my mind from boredom, but I got through two 50 minute episodes of a show just now. I don't remember the last time I watched a 50 minute episode alone. I think it was when the last season of game of thrones was airing.

I've known gaming was a problem for me since middle school, but I didn't realize how damaging it was until 3 years back I really lost the ability to just sit down and enjoy watching tv or movies. I lost that stillness in my mind that I needed to get through episodes and that sudden loss terrified me. I knew then that I needed to make real change, but here I am three years later more or less in the same state. At least I'm here working on it again. I will keep trying my best to better myself.

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Friday July 3rd, 2020

Start of day:

Feeling really depressed this morning. I don't want to do anything today. I've taken care of one school thing, but other than that I've done nothing. Barely gotten out of bed, didn't eat a real breakfast, had a cup of coffee and a slice of bread, haven't taken a shower, just been sitting around. Feel like this is gonna be a tough one to get through. I'll do my best.

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RB1, do you visualize the things you want to achieve? Is there a good clarity and justification (the why) - because if there isn’t your “soldiers” aren’t going to take the task seriously. It has to make sense. At the moment your soldiers sort of know that video games are bad, but are still questioning the order.

Do you visualize conversations with people, what you are going to say, the tone, what impression you leave on people, what actions you take? This will take you a long way in understanding how to achieve the greater goals that appear elusive.

I’m writing this because a good sense of direction stops you from having mixed feelings. It unlocks “the how” to do it. Time starts to get scarce immediately- there is only enough of it to do all the healthy activities.

I don’t have that level of clarity at the moment, but I’ll share to what lengths I went to. I couldn’t get employed some time ago, so I literally went to a local transportation hub dressed in a suit and approached strangers with a prospective offer. I had to step on all the annoying emotions of pride, laziness, self-doubt to get into some interesting conversations and see that my concept can work. I still didn’t get employed but I just need to step on that pedal more.

Edit: I think you should go cold turkey on TV because research has shown long ago watching a lot of tv is bad for the mental state (even more so for a video gamer who is volatile) Let sport be your video game.

PS. I missed my fitness challenge today cause of my stomach pains but I will attack it tomorrow

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3 hours ago, Amphibian220 said:

RB1, do you visualize the things you want to achieve? Is there a good clarity and justification (the why) - because if there isn’t your “soldiers” aren’t going to take the task seriously. It has to make sense. At the moment your soldiers sort of know that video games are bad, but are still questioning the order.

Do you visualize conversations with people, what you are going to say, the tone, what impression you leave on people, what actions you take? This will take you a long way in understanding how to achieve the greater goals that appear elusive.

I’m writing this because a good sense of direction stops you from having mixed feelings. It unlocks “the how” to do it. Time starts to get scarce immediately- there is only enough of it to do all the healthy activities.

I don’t have that level of clarity at the moment, but I’ll share to what lengths I went to. I couldn’t get employed some time ago, so I literally went to a local transportation hub dressed in a suit and approached strangers with a prospective offer. I had to step on all the annoying emotions of pride, laziness, self-doubt to get into some interesting conversations and see that my concept can work. I still didn’t get employed but I just need to step on that pedal more.

Edit: I think you should go cold turkey on TV because research has shown long ago watching a lot of tv is bad for the mental state (even more so for a video gamer who is volatile) Let sport be your video game.

PS. I missed my fitness challenge today cause of my stomach pains but I will attack it tomorrow

Thanks @Amphibian220 for the insight. I think I have some sort of image or idea of the outcome I want for myself if I were to accomplish my goals and be gaming free for 3 months. I have visualized it before, but I do not actively do so. Thank you for reminding me that I should actively visualize my success. I think that is incredibly important.

I also do understand the why behind my goals, but again, I don't actively or consistency think about it. These are the two reasons (aside from the many smaller reasons).

I realized in the past few years that by my own definitions and standards that I am bad at life. I thought to myself one day that if I could see myself from third person and judge that persons life style, I'd think he has no life and is fucking it up. This depressing thought got me thinking that if anyone ever felt this way about themselves, then their first priority should be to start making major life changes immediately.

The other reason is that I feel like I am a bit immature for my age and I don't have the ability to work on myself as long as I am actively gaming. I knew that I needed to quit or at least commit to a long term detox if I was serious about working on myself and my maturity. I've tried a million different things to work on these aspect of my life while continuing to game, but none of them have worked. Until I take a break from gaming or stop entirely my maturing will not begin.

I guess I do have a third reason that ties into the, "sense of direction" that you're talking about. I think gaming numbs me to a point that I will never find passion or motivation for anything else until it is cut out of my life. There're some things I've wanted to do with myself for a while now, but the passion/motivation for it would never surface since I'm always so numb from gaming. This is extremely important to me because I grew up as an extremely motivated person. I think I wrote about this in a past post, but growing up, I woke up every morning and went to bed every night with a purpose. That purpose varied throughout various stages of my life. Those included improving at sports like soccer or skateboarding, bettering myself as a musician, and sometimes even just looking forward to my days hanging out with friends. My identity used to be very centered as well. I wanted to be a musician growing up and that was absolute in my mind at the time. I had no doubt that was who I was and didn't ever think that sense of identity would change.

Having had a taste of that level of passion for anything at one point of my life makes me want to reclaim that. I'm not passionate about anything at the moment. I grew up gaming and somehow maintained that passion as I gamed, but now I think gaming has consumed me to the point where it's numbing crushes any potential for passion in my life. That's why I say I think in order for there a chance for passion to enter back in my life, I need to put down gaming. That is a huge reason for this detox.

Thank you for sharing your story on your determination and past motivation by the way. I personally find it very difficult to open up about anything personal, so when others do so to any degree with me, I really appreciate it.

As for quitting watching TV cold turkey, I don't think I need to at the moment. I agree with your statement that it's bad for the mental state, but it's not so bad that it's noticable for me like gaming was. Also even if I needed to, I don't think I'm ready to give it up entirely. I think some people can handle going cold turkey with multiple bad habits for long periods of time, but I am not one of those people. I gave up too much during my first detox and that led to a moment one day that was so bad for me that I had nothing to turn to. My determination was crushed and I had no source of comfort, so I turned back to every bad habit at once and ended up going down a rabbit hole for months. My goal with this detox isn't to turn my life around in 3 months, but begin the process of improvement. I used to think that I was so behind in life that I had to turn it around immediately to catch up, but change, at least for me, is a slow process. Too much too fast isn't going to work for me.

I think this detox is working well for me as is at the moment and I don't think I need to give up more. I know I post a lot about feeling depressed, unmotivated, or like I'm failing, but overall I think I'm improving. I have pretty heavy ups and downs, but I understand that it is apart of the process and I'm using this journal to vent at times. It helps me personally to type out on these forums that I'm feeling depressed or like I'm going to relapse when I have those moment, so I do. It probably sounds like I'm coming off very dramatic at the time, which I might be, but I'm using this journal as a medium to keep track of my progress, but also just to vent. I'm venting again haha.

Just want to say reading your replies has helped me a lot in the past week and I appreciate each one of them. I'm doing a lot better at this point of the day. I've got some stuff planned out that I should try and get around to.

 

 

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4 hours ago, RB1 said:

I know I post a lot about feeling depressed, unmotivated, or like I'm failing, but overall I think I'm improving.

Glad you're doing great, @RB1! I feel the same way too, most of the time. Probably because now we are more attentive to what's happening around us compared when we were in front of the computer and playing games. Keep it up and take it easy as always! 😄 

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Saturday July 4th, 2020

Start of day:

Well I relapsed with watching gaming content last night. Didn't redownload any games and play them though thank god. I unblocked sites like twitch and twitter and went back to a lot of the youtube gaming channels I used to binge watch. I think I watched gaming content from 10pm-3am then again this morning from 9:30am-1pm. So that means in one relapse I ended up watching a total of 8.5 hours of gaming content. Yup that sounds about right.

What ends up happening a lot is during holidays like today if I don't have people to be around, I get a little too lonely a depressed. It's more than I can handle and I end up going back to games. Holidays are the hardest time for me in regards to these detoxes. I don't want to continue to use that as an excuse though. I know it's hard, but that just means I need to push through even harder. Plan ahead for days like this so I don't let myself relapse like I did last night.

That being said I'm not done with this detox because I slipped up for one night. Based on my track record, it has basically always been the case that I relapse once, say I'll cut it out and end up going back to gaming the next day and I let it snowball for months. Usually this is the end for me, but I think I can pull through this time. I slipped up last night, but I've already blocked those websites over again and I'm ready to go back to the detox.

The day is just getting started and I'm going to make the best of it.

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Actually, I'm gonna take a moment to reflect on yesterday to investigate how I ended up relapsing.

The start of the day was bad. I ended up waking up a bit later than usual so I missed my morning workout. I also planned to go grocery shopping to get ingredients for this new breakfast and lunch recipe I want to cook, but I ended up not doing so. I felt so drained and woke up so late that I decided to say screw it and sat in my room till about 2 watching TV. I had the day off work and class, so I had no real commitments for the day. I finally mustered up some energy to get up and get some school work done. I spend about an hour and half doing so, then I think I went back to my room and just watched even more TV. I usually don't watch this much TV ever, but I'm usually not as exhausted as I was yesterday either. I then hit up a friend who I was supposed to hang out with that night, but he canceled on me last second. My plans for the evening died and I was thinking about the 4th. I didn't want to be alone on the 4th (night of the 3rd) just being alone and that depressed me. I said fuck it at a certain point and decided I'd go buy some weed and spend the rest of the night stoned and head to bed early. I'd taken a vow not to smoke during this detox since I know it leads back to gaming 100% of the time, but I didn't care and a part of me almost tricked myself into thinking it was ok for that night since I was lonely, but I really smoked as an excuse to game. I bought some junk food, got stoned, ate all of it, then got on my computer, unblocked all gaming sites and spent 5 hours just watching gaming content I've missed over the past 10 days. That ended up being 5 hours of watch time just last night. I woke up feeling pretty shitty from smoking the night before and all the junk food I ate. I've spent the whole morning watching gaming content.

I'm finally feeling a bit better and have snapped out of it and realized how I've drifted back into autopilot for the last 12 hours. I immediately re-blocked twitch and twitter and cleared my cache on youtube so it wouldn't recommend me gaming channels that I binge watch. I still have some weed left over from the night before, but it's gotta go. I know as long as its lying around I'll smoke it tonight or some other night, which means I'll go back to gaming. I'm gonna toss it out now so this doesn't happen.

Honestly, I'm kind of in this weird state where I feel like I'm back in control, but based on my history this always plays out so that I end up going back to gaming. I feel this strange mental control but this emotional doubt that I'll go well in the next few days. I'll try my best.

In reflection, for the first time since my detox began 10 days ago, I didn't exercise, I didn't eat healthy, I didn't socialize at all, I had a slow start to my day, I barely played any music, then I ended up relapsing. I broke the routine I've been gradually building up for 10 days and I immediately went back to watching gaming content. The routine is key.

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Hey RB1, I just wanted to say thanks for keeping your journal here. I read through it and it really helped my resolve to keep working on quitting gaming. It sounds like you had a setback, but you are doing exactly what you should be to get back on the horse--stopping, reflecting, and taking action. It's not back to square one because you learned a lot from your journey so far. You are smarter and more capable than you were before, and you know a new thing to watch out for as far as triggers go. Keep at it!

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@RB1, great realization that video games drain that energy and passion for productive activities. Don’t get overly upset, I want to share a post that was a combination of input from different members on this forum:

“There are two types of relapse.

The first type is still very attached to his former self and feels overly proud about not gaming. This is why when he relapses, there is the unhealthy reaction.

He thinks he “lost” the streak and exaggerates the failure, but he cannot see the big picture. Because he feels defeatist, he goes on a gaming binge and feels much worse. “I might as well just game the entire weekend since I played one game”

The second type knows the complexity of it. He starts attaching to new activities. He is estranging himself from the old habit. He is learning much faster. Just maybe there can be that negligible relapse after which he is happily disillusioned- he doesn’t want games anymore. He is still cautious and on the lookout. But no relapse will have this self-fulfilling acceptance of defeat.”

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Fully relapsed today. Did nothing all day, watched gaming content on youtube and twitch all day and played some games at night. I just get a little to sad on holidays. I'll try again tomorrow. Very disappointed in myself. Sorry.

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@RB1

I would like to encourage you and give you some advice. 

First tip: Remember the horrible emotions associated with relapsing and use the memory of those emotions to prevent future relapses.

Second tip: You made a mistake and relapsed, yes. But do not let that mistake define your journey. Reset your progress back to day 1 and start over again. 

Third tip: Remember that this battle is just as much a battle of the mind and emotions as it is one of habits. Having routine is good but if your heart and mind are not put into submission to this new routine and strategy, it makes it harder to form a new routine and life. In your mind, form a new identity for yourself. Remind yourself that with the start of this journey, you are no longer a gamer and thus it is no longer part of you. Think of it as a new start to a new phase of your life and leave the old behind to embrace the new. (Plus, put this in writing. It helps having it down on paper to remind yourself.)

Fourth tip: Don't expect to feel super good right away. When I started this journey, I didn't feel good at first. I was dealing with the emotions and uncertainty with a new life I hadn't really known for a long time, but in the end, I accepted these urges and cravings as being part of the process of freeing myself and that they would soon pass. Don't see those emotions as being abnormal. Rather learn to dance around them when they come at you and learnt to ride the wave instead of the letting the wave carry you. Now, I hardly feel those urges and cravings and I am enjoying hobbies and activities I previously did not enjoy (such as watching TV and learning a new speaking language).

Fifth tip: Take it one day at a time. Trying to view the goals from weeks to even months actually makes the journey harder. Take each day as a battle to be won and remember that every victory will help you feel better about yourself. 

Sixth tip: Don't feel like you have to go through this battle alone. Remember that you have this community of like minded people who are going through the same stuff you are and we are all willing to talk and encourage you when you need it. Also reach out to a member of your family too and get their support if that is what you are comfortable doing (Plus knowing your family supports you in this journey helps a lot and you have someone to be accountable to).

I strongly believe you can do this and stay game free. So far, I have been game free for over 30 days and I don't regret my decision. If I can do this, you can too. 😄 Feel free to check out my journal as well and ask me any questions when you have them. I would love to chat with you. 😄 

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Sunday July 5th, 2020

Start of day:

relapsed pretty hard Friday night, all of Saturday, and this morning a little bit. Watching gaming all night Friday, watched games all day Saturday, played games all day saturday night, and watched games most of this morning. I'm pretty hung over, feel like shit from drinking smoking and eating junk food all day, my rooms a mess, kitchens a mess, but I can clean all that up. I feel terrible but I just blocked all gaming sites, deleted my games again, and cut the cable on my computer mouse so I can't go back even if I wanted to. Despite feeling like shit, I know I can get back on track. the last 48 hours were a step-back to my overall progress since starting the detox. I'm not going to reset my day counter since I technically don't have one since I'm trying to stick to the one day at a time and not think about any streak or days remaining.

I've got a lot to do today so I just need to remind myself that there's a lot to do outside of gaming. I'm gonna start with cleaning my room and kitchen, do the dishes, and take out the trash. Once things are cleaned up, I'll start doing the school work I procrastinated on for the last 48 hours. When I get through some of that, I'll either work out or go on a run. I think I'll just lift some weights. By the end of the day, I'll set up my new board so I can head out to skate in the next few days. I won't let that set back end this detox. I can come back.

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15 hours ago, amchow said:

@RB1

Second tip: You made a mistake and relapsed, yes. But do not let that mistake define your journey. Reset your progress back to day 1 and start over again. 

Third tip: Remember that this battle is just as much a battle of the mind and emotions as it is one of habits. Having routine is good but if your heart and mind are not put into submission to this new routine and strategy, it makes it harder to form a new routine and life. In your mind, form a new identity for yourself. Remind yourself that with the start of this journey, you are no longer a gamer and thus it is no longer part of you. Think of it as a new start to a new phase of your life and leave the old behind to embrace the new. (Plus, put this in writing. It helps having it down on paper to remind yourself.)

Fifth tip: Take it one day at a time. Trying to view the goals from weeks to even months actually makes the journey harder. Take each day as a battle to be won and remember that every victory will help you feel better about yourself. 

Sixth tip: Don't feel like you have to go through this battle alone. Remember that you have this community of like minded people who are going through the same stuff you are and we are all willing to talk and encourage you when you need it. Also reach out to a member of your family too and get their support if that is what you are comfortable doing (Plus knowing your family supports you in this journey helps a lot and you have someone to be accountable to).

I strongly believe you can do this and stay game free. So far, I have been game free for over 30 days and I don't regret my decision. If I can do this, you can too. 😄 Feel free to check out my journal as well and ask me any questions when you have them. I would love to chat with you. 😄 

I appreciate all the advice. Couple of small comments then a big question/comment at the end.

I've decided not to reset my counter. I actually don't have a counter to even reset! My slight adjustment for this detox is to forget the streak. It ever really motivated me in the first place and it only reminded me how much longer I had to go. The strategy this time around is to take it one day at a time like you said in your 5th tip. I'm trying just to get through one day for three months. Yes, I know it's the same thing as doing a detox for 3 months, but it's a mind set thing for me that I think really makes a difference. I can't handle 3 months no gaming. No way. I can handle one day without gaming for 3 months. Might sound dumb, but it's how I like to think about it.

I think about your 6th tip a lot. I don't talk about this with family and don't feel comfortable doing so at all. I wish I did. I also don't have friends who're willing to give up gaming. I've spoken to friends about this problem of mine, but not to the extent that I'm explaining on these forums. I'm embarrassed to share how deep this gaming addiction/problem goes for me and so I've never really expressed to anyone in my real life how deep this problem goes for me. I just tell people, "I'm taking a break from gaming to clear my mind." I always ask if anyone friends that I feel need a break from gaming if they wanna try it out and no one ever does. The forums help a ton, but I really do with I had someone in my life that would give up gaming along side me that would help me get through this in real life.

Now for the larger question/comment. What do you mean specifically when you say in tip #3 that I need to, "submit to this new routine/strategy?" I often hear when researching about addiction that addicts need to "surrender to their addiction" which is what I'm assuming you mean when you say submit to the new routine, but honestly I've never truly understood what that meant. What does it mean really? What does it mean to you? Is that what you were trying to say?

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@RB1

What it meant to me is establishing the routine as my new way of life and my new way of spending my time and centering my mind around being a non gamer, 

I basically had to declare to myself on a regular basis that "Gaming is no longer a part of me" and that I am now establishing a new identity and life as a non gamer. 

In other words (to answer your question), it takes a lot of effort and time to get rid of something that has been embedded in your psyche for so long. 

To get your heart and mind to submit, you have to tell yourself that 'I am not a gamer anymore' and intentionally stick to the healthier hobbies you have chosen to replace gaming (such as playing an instrument or learning a new language). 

What I am saying is: it will be hard to stick to a new routine and life as a non gamer if your mind and heart are still saying 'I am a gamer'. 

Remind yourself (in your mind) of your new identity as a Game Quitter and use it to counter any urges and cravings for games or game content as (from what I have experienced) they are emotion based. Once your mind is in step with your goal, your heart will be in sync given time (Dang that sounds cheesy but I had to say it XD )

I hope I got this point across properly. 😅 Do let me know if my response didn't answer your question. Sometimes I am terrible at getting a point across. 

Edited by amchow
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Monday July 6th, 2020

Start of day:

A bit late. I almost gave in like 20 different times yesterday to unblock gaming channels to spend my entire afternoon being a couch potato. I hit up a friend and ended up hanging out with someone which made it easier to cope. I think now that I've gotten my mind a bit more clear, I can get back to the detox for real. I tried Saturday and Sunday morning to reset, but now on Monday I really will. Haven't touched games or gaming content today.

Once putting down the game, like always, I got a ton of stuff done. Funny how my life immediately improves the moment I put down gaming. I did a full weight lifting workout and went on a longer than usual run, got some schoolwork done, cleaned up my home, and hung out with a friend. Sounds like a pretty good day to me especially after starting lounging around on twitch and youtube for the first 4 hours of the day.

Today I've already got my workout out of the way and got in a healthy breakfast. I was listening to an educational video for my studied while working out and thought I should do this more. I should start listening to podcasts and videos for educational/school purposes while working out. I usually listen to music, but honestly, I'm not the type of person who needs it while exercising. This motivates me to exercise more honestly since I'm getting 2 benefits out of one activity. I'm excited to invest in some nice earphones (since I don't even own a pair at the moment) to use while working out and jogging. I think I'm more focused when exercising, so it might be even better for me to learn this way than to just sit at a desk trying to keep my attention on reading material or videos. I barely can focus when sitting at a desk anyways.

Great start to the day. I will stay way from gaming and finish off the rest of my day strong!

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Tuesday July 7th, 2020

Start of day:

Had a pretty exhausting and stressful day yesterday. Homework was making me lose my mind. Such a stressful day working on homework, but I realized at the end of the day that it totally kept my mind off of gaming. I got in a great workout yesterday that made me feel great the entire day. Feeling a bit sore this morning, which is always a good thing. I'm 100% out of groceries so fixing that will be my morning task to keep me busy. In reflection of yesterday, it was a bit difficult staying away from gaming in the morning, but I was so stressed out with school related work in the aftrernoon that my mind was 100% focused towards that.

I've got even more school work that I must do today so that will keep me busy. I'm also going to go grocery shopping in the next 30 minutes, so cooking a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner will keep me busy too. I've been eating pretty unhealthily for the past 3 days so it's time to fix that. I did some meditation for the first time in a while yesterday and it reminded me how good it is for me. The session was real nice too. Usually, my mind is caught up with one of twenty different things so the meditation just stresses me out even more, but I was really able to clear my mind yesterday. Those kinds of sessions really are therapeutic. Usually, when I have days like yesterday where school work is too much and too difficult, I start to get extremely stressed and angry. Yesterday was stressful, but at no point did I actually get angry. I think the meditation helped with that a bit.  I'm also planning to get a workout in at some point today as well. As long as I manage my time correctly, there shouldn't be a problem there.

Cravings aren't so bad this morning. Just woke up a half hour ago and morning is always the worst time of day for me for cravings. I've got a lot on my mind this morning so the cravings aren't really there. I think that says something about myself. I've got my mind preoccupied with things I need to do throughout the day as a result I'm not feeling cravings.

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How inspiring @RB1, you get into fighting mode when under some pressure. I hope that you incorporate this into your life and increase pressure on yourself proactively in order to keep your focus good (like doing more workouts, fixing things in the home or business etc.). The moment there is too little to do in the day, you seem to waiver. I think this holds true with nearly all ex-gamers.

I’ll remember you as a member that cracked me up and had me laughing for a good minute. You amputated the enemy’s arm!

Edited by Amphibian220
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