Day #1, First journal

[Zarvic]

Hello, just posted my introduction and motivation a minute ago.

So to start this is not the first time I decided to "quit" gaming, it is I believe my third, but it is by far the most real. Last night after wasting a few hours playing after having spent the day with family, I got this very desperate feeling of time I have been wasting playing games, and the wasted opportunity to have leveled up my real life skills. I should be in a better position, financially and professionally.

On a somewhat sporadic hunch I decided to delete all the video games off my computer, (all that free space for new hobbies maybe?) and I hopped online to look up this game quitters program I came across during a previous attempt at quitting. Remembering what i had read online this time I decided to put some money on the table and go for it, truly go for it. So here I am, day #1 of no video games. 

I aim to read some more of the Respawn material today and get caught up on my class work for the week. I also wan to look into a few replacement hobbies I can look into trying out. Most importantly I want to set myself up for success when I get that inevitable urge or craving to re-download some game and play for a short hour or two in the future.

[royal panda]

Welcome to the forums! I wish you good luck on your journey to quit!

 

[Zarvic]

Day #2 here, yesterday was good, less productive than I had hoped, today is labor day and I will be going to my parents with my fiance and son. I have some class work to catch up on, last night I bought a Udemy course on python programming, I have dabbled with it before while learning penetration testing and IT automation, but I never took the time to actually learn it. I want to make some simple programs, maybe a couple algo trading bots to play with and maybe lose some money on the stock market.

Hope to get some class work done over at my parents today, got my week planned out on the calendar as well. Got lots of work to do today, so gunna close here, goodluck anyone that is reading this!

[C_tail]

Good luck with your journey. Very nice that you are learning Python; this sure isn't time waste. If you make an algo trading bot it might be easier and cheaper to test it out on cryptocurrency, fees are normally a lot less there.

[Zarvic]

3 hours ago, C_tail said:

Good luck with your journey. Very nice that you are learning Python; this sure isn't time waste. If you make an algo trading bot it might be easier and cheaper to test it out on cryptocurrency, fees are normally a lot less there.

Thanks for the suggestion, I had initially planned on just doing some paper trading as a proof of concept, and would cross the bridge of the limitations when i got to the point of wanting to throw in some real money. I had not even considered all aspects of it, nor had I considered cryptocurrency but I will certainly consider it a more logical start point to focus on!

[Zarvic]

Day #3, still no urges to play, but yesterday I did spend the day at my parents with family so didn't have a chance to even think about gaming. Going to be a busy week as Friday I will be flying out to help my fiance's father move out of state. I have lots of work to do so losing the weekend doesn't put me behind on my studying or anything.

I have a few goals for the near future I aim to complete before Christmas, first of which is to quit eating ice cream, and to start working out every day. I have been eating a cup of ice cream each day for about two years now almost religiously and have only recently begun to see the effects. Just another addiction i might as well kick.

I also want to find a new job, more in line with my chosen career I am studying for. The hard part is covid-19 has created an employer market with the number of unemployed looking to work again, companies are re-hiring staff they laid off at lower wages and more responsibilities. This all may just be an excuse I am actively working to find and maintain that belief, but it is sometimes disheartening to go through job ads and see what they are offering versus what they demand.

Anyways, cheers to another day off gaming!

[Zarvic]

Day #4 Not too much has happened, mostly working on setting up some good habits and replacing some bad ones. I am really wanting to get a better job, I think the biggest driver to wanting to escape is that I am very far from my career goals so I believe getting a job that is in the field I want to be in would remove some of the desire to escape into games.

Yesterday after work as I was driving home I had a slight desire to game, felt I deserved a reward for going to work, pretty silly thought process as I had not yet achieved anything that deserved a reward so that is a thought process I need to change. However it did highlight a concern for me going forward and that is, what can I do to reward myself, I need something that felt as enjoyable as gaming, is as accessibly as gaming was, and that I can do independently. Maybe i am working out how I can later justify gaming again when I have serious urges.

Anyways, Monday and yesterday I did not get the amount of class work I needed done so today and tomorrow will be more catching up on that than anything.

Woke up feeling a little down so going to turn that around before heading into work, got a lot of sporadic thinking going on today so need to get that sorted out as well.

[Max]

Good job with setting goals and willing to achieve them. Also very good with suppressing your gaming desires. I believe in you man, you can do it! 

[TheNewMe2.0]

Finding activities to replace gaming is very important to recovery. Keep searching and hopefully you'll find some good things to do instead. Rewards are good to look for too.

[Zarvic]

Was a long weekend, Friday I flew out of state to help my father-in-law move, we drove over 14 hours and had to unload two uhaul trucks at a storage so I have not had time to write. This is my first chance I have had to sit down since Thursday night and I am exhausted. A part of me wants to play some games for a few hours as a reward for all the hard work of this weekend, but I know I just need to find something enjoyable to do for a few hours as a reward/ wind down activity.

[Zarvic]

Another journal entry: not sure what day it is since I have quit, but I have not been having any urges really, I mean some here and there, earlier today I was wanting to try DOOM, never really played it before but for some reason I came across a youtube video of it and have been wanting to give it a try sense.

Today was my sons 1st birthday! I really enjoyed it, we celebrated with my parents and my in-laws which was a lot of fun.

I have been under a lot of stress recently, all due to my work/ financial situation. I have been applying for jobs in IT, it is hard to find anything paying a livable wage, that doesn't require years of experience. I have two fairly low level certificates, a Google It Support Professional, and ITIL 4 Foundations, and I aim to be getting the Comptia A+ by the end of next month so maybe that will help land me a job.

I think other than the stress, frustration, and sprinkle of depression due to my financial state I am doing pretty good. Just about all my current issues could be solved by getting a new job, but then I am in fear of what new problems would arise at that point. I also have this desire to always change direction, I am currently pursuing a degree in cybersecurity, but I want to develop some programming skills and pursue work in programming, almost like it would be a faster solution to my current issue. Perhaps it is more fear of working a help desk role for entry level IT, programming seems like a less painful, but more rewarding junior position. I don't know, my brain feels jumbled and maybe I need to write a private journal to get things figured out.

[Bird By Bird]

One of the guys who made the newest Doom gave an interview where he said that the game was designed so people who watched it would be compelled to buy it. It was designed so when you see a video of it on Youtube or Twitch, then you'd want to play it for yourself. Not enough to addict only the player, but also, everyone who watches him. A visual virus.

When I was deep in my addiction, I binged Doom. After the high wore off, I realized the game demanded so much out of me that I no longer had energy for anything else. Energy I should have invested into music, or writing, or exercise was instead being drained by the game.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Bird By Bird

[Zarvic]

I wouldn't doubt it lol, watched a couple lore videos this morning before studying and got what I wanted and moved on. Anyways I am trying to figure out a good programming language to learn, I was chugging along with Python, but I will be learning it again for one of my courses, which is great as I will be able to blow through that course quickly, but I have been doing some research on some more, I guess relevant languages, while python is #1 for most it seems that learning a language like C++ as a first language can go a long way in establishing solid understanding and methods for learning other languages.  The end goal would be to learn some C and some C# as well as a plethora of other languages, form what I have read is C++ is easy enough to learn, but still challenging and bare bones enough to teach important lessons not taught by other languages.

Anyways lots of things to consider and weigh before I dedicate myself to learning it, still got lots of class work I am slacking off on and maybe this whole learning to program is just a nice diversion for me.

Still trying to find that fun rewarding thing to replace gaming, nothing really replaces that reward system, maybe truly learning to create something would.

[Zarvic]

Just about 20 days since I last played any games.. well games I didn't create while learning C++. I have been getting my studying done, I have finally had a few days in a row of actually meeting my goals of pages read. My journey learning C++ has been.. interesting.. Now I may be doing something hypocritical, or at the very least dangerous but I found it very hard learning C++, particularly as the subject got deeper than writing a few cout and cin lines to make a simple program. I have found that learning while making games keeps me engaged, and much more willing and enthusiastic about learning some of the more difficult concepts. So far I have made a guess the code type game, where you have to guess a three integer code, and you get two hints, the sum and the product of the three integers. The game progressively gets harder as you guess the code correctly.

Not sure how others would view this pursuit of mine, but I do not feel it is a dangerous slope, my interest is in learning to code, not play games. For the past 20 days I have not had as much of a struggle not playing as I imagined I would. Sure I had a real hankering for Doom after watching some videos, but after watching some lore videos that hankering went away as I was mostly interested in the story. I also have had a real hankering for playing an arpg recently, like Diablo 3 or Path of Exile, not sure why or how it came about, but I expect it will pass as the Doom kick had. Anyways all is good thus far, looking forward to the 1 month no games day. 

I feel as though not as much has changed as I initially expected, I still waste time on Youtube, have not gotten as far in my classes, and my financial situation has gotten worse. Perhaps my hankering for an arpg is due to my desire to escape my reality to the virtual world. Youtube doesn't fill that need and I have been feeling quite a lot more stress.

[Bird By Bird]

I think it depends on how high code games are on the "how addictive is this for you scale" if the answer is low or near the bottom then I think it's fine. Coding games might cause a relapse into other games if the cravings get stronger in the middle months, but is really depends on the person. A.I. Dungeon is low on the addictive scale for me and I use it once every two months or so to engage in conversation with simulated historical figures or ask the AI for advice.