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Quitting LoL (and gaming) again


janppi

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Hello again GQ

I decided to give this community another shot... I quit gaming for the first time 3 years ago and I joined this forum with nickname Yani, too bad I couldn't get my hands into my old account anymore haha ^^ Back then Cam was able to restore that account for me so if the same is possible now, I would be in deep gratitude 🙂

Anyway. Back in the day, I wrote the detox diary stuff here for like 80 days and I noticed that it was super good for the quitting process. At least for me it was, it might not be the same for everyone.

I am a person who likes to be noticed and who is ambitious. Gosh... as you can see it's really hard for me to start telling about my gaming addiction through all this confusion, self-pity, even hatred and bitterness... These are literally the thoughts running in my head as I am writing this. I came out from my last league of legends game 15 minutes ago and am now feeling so many things. All negative. 

The real story begins here

I am now 27 years old. I started playing computer games when I was 3 years old. Until I finished high school, I had no problems with gaming - probably because I was safely under my parents' watching eyes and they didn't really like my gaming habit. Luckily they inhibited it a little so the situation is not as bad nowadays as it could be. After high school and the mandatory army service I started university studies in my hometown, Kuopio (in Finland). This was 7 years ago. I have been stuck doing my bachelor's for seven. damn. years. Usually a computer science degree like that is easily done in 3 or maximum of 4 years but for me it has taken 7. I am almost done though, which is nice. Anyway, as I started the uni studies and got a bit more independent (rented an own apartment etc) the gaming problem began to rise its head. I have always been into sports and different hobbies but slowly they began to not be as enjoyful and fun anymore. They became a means of coping with the gaming induced anxiety. First I had maybe like 3-5 hobbies (including golf, gym, jogging, guitar and band among others) and then I had nothing. Boom. I found myself playing games for 7-10 hours a day. At this point I had to move back to my parent's because I didn't study and I stopped getting money. Also I was no longer depressed so all the benefits were not there anymore. It was time to joing Game Quitters for the first time. 

After joining GQ, I vowed to never touch a game ever again. It was 2017 autumn. I had a dream of getting into the medical school and I had applied two times already, being clearly rejected just because I was bad, lazy and didn't have the concentration nor the techniques to study effectively. I figured that this might be gaming induced too. I started the 90 day detox here. I kept the quitting diary for 80 days or so, completed the 90 day detox and carried on with not gaming for almost 200 days. The entrance exams for the med school passed by and I got the results again. I didn't get in. 

It was heartbreaking. I was rejected from my dream after giving up on another - becoming a professional gamer. My brain was in a state of meltdown and nothing seemed to fix it. I was really lonely at the time too so I bought a new gaming PC with the money that I got from work, and started gaming again.

Big mistake

It was a big mistake. Since then, my life has been a constant downhill. I got sick - probably due to not sleeping well and not excercising - and was soon diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroidism. In short, this is a condition where your neck's thyroid gland doesn't release or make enough thyroxine, which is a hormone that you need - again in short - to function well on a daily basis. I started isolating myself into my home. My main problem in gaming has always been League of Legends. I swear that this game took more from me than anything else in life so far. In season 8, around 2018 I reached my desired rank of diamond after countless hours of play. I had no job, was barely working out in gym and I studied just a few courses in an annual basis.

2019 - girlfriend, gym, quitting, resuming, quitting, resuming

In late 2019, I had decided not to play league anymore, and I was more into R6 Siege, PUBG and WoW. I met my girlfriend in December 2019 and one of my dreams had come true. I had a romantic relationship. It was not my first one and not even the second, but it is the first one with real love and real feelings. So as we grew closer, great joy brought black clouds with it. The life in a relationship was not as easy as I had thought. My gf and I both had some issues simultaneously. I was mostly struggling with my thyroid related problems and all this started to affect my stress levels. I had to cope with the pain. It was time to open League again and join my friends to play 5v5's in the rift. This was probably 9th or 10th time during 7 years that I had stopped and started playing this game again. 

My girlfriend quickly realized that I started playing this nemesis game again. I started showing dark and vile emotions, sometimes directed to her (mostly in bursts of rage after being frustrated because of a ranked game loss). 

Coronavirus outbreak had started during this time too. It didn't make it easier. EVERYONE was just inside and playing games. I had to be there too. I hadn't worked anywhere in the last 7 months. I eventually went to a familiar work place, just to turn back after 1 week to say "I quit" and return to gaming. 

My girlfriend has been my only strength, the only silver lining during these hard months. She's the one who has kept me from exceeding 18 hours of gaming every day.

Current situation and why I quit (This is important to me to clarify it to myself and tell it aloud)

For the last year I have played so much that I lost track of the hours. It's somewhere between 7000 and 10000 hours. In the last 10 years I also invested 1300€ in this video game. Only to get skins and chests. Not to mention that I bought a 1500€ gaming PC on top of it. I managed to peak in platinum 1 division and then dropped almost back to Gold. The rant about the state of the game would be its own chapter, I can deal with that later. 

More importantly I've come to notice that I have spent on average 14 hours a day on weekdays (Mo-Fri) every day, just sitting on the computer, watching YouTube videos about League strategies and playing the game itself. I have been completely clueless about how to quit. I tried putting my computer away in a closet, disconnecting/leaving from my gaming friends' discord server, uninstalling the game(20+ times) and lately even trying to delete all of my LoL accounts. Deleting the accounts would have been the cure but there was a culprit; when you "delete" the account, it actually goes into a 30 day delete-queue and during that time you can still revert the deletion process. My friends invited me for a LAN party last summer, so I cancelled the deletion processes. Not any of these things have worked and I am clueless. Now I am probably planning to send this gaming PC to my parents so that they can hide it somewhere in their house, thus leaving me without a PC. I would still have my laptop and playing LoL is possible with it too. 

Goals

What I know is, that I can't keep up living like this. I know this has been a lot of text, but it's already helping me to relax and think my own situation through. As I said, I have goals in life: I want that my band is successful (I play bass and compose songs there), I want my CS Degree out, I want to make my girlfriend happy and I want to see the world with her. I know that none of this is possible if I am still gaming and I also know that I am too far gone to stay in the gaming and "play in moderation". I also want to sleep more and become healthy so that I can finally start working and not stress over ranked games so that I lose sleep (It's 2AM btw :D)

 

I know it's selfish of me to think that someone actually reads this in its entirety. I just want to say that I am here to also boost other people's quitting mentalities and I want to help others in their processes. I hope that I can be true to myself this time and quit gaming for good. Thanks for reading, I hope my story can help you all in some way. Maybe as a peer's support? 

-Jani

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Thank you Jani for sharing your story. I'm glad that you find your way back in this community. It doesn't matter did you play 7000 or 10 000 hours last year or how many hours you have played during past 10 years. Don't let those things take you down. What really matters is that you are here now. I hope you will be able to spend those next 7000-10 000 hours to move forward things that really matters you most. I wish all to best for you journey.

Martin

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Hey Jani,

I made an account here on the forum just to respond to your thread. I read the whole thing. I'm also a league of legends (ex-)gamer (Gold I) that is back to quit (for good) after playing my last ranked game today. I've also tried quitting numerous times, haha. But I'm back to Game Quitters and am ready to take this seriously, in order to make a really great life because we have so much potential as human beings.

Your story is inspiring to me because I can resonate with it. Thanks for the totally honest down-to-earth post and sharing all you did. I really wish you the best on your journey and I know that you have what it takes to transcend gaming habits and live a really great and fulfilling life. 

I am working on my electrical engineering degree too, and would like to improve my sleep schedule and get regular with it. I'd like to have serenity and peace in my mind and emotions to be able to productively study, eat healthy, and sleep well and regularly every night. 

Best wishes brother,

Yuri

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Jani,

I have also been trying to permanently quit gaming over and over. The thing that has always been most effective is to have no ability to play the game. The possible ways I can think of are:

 1). Give away all of your computers, laptops, PCs etc.--probably the most effective but this kind of seems unbearable in this day and age

2). Deleting all of your account data--the 30 day delete queue seems to be a big issue. Perhaps you can call the company that makes LoL and ask if they can permanently delete your account immediately.

3). Have a friend/ family member change your account recovery email and then change your account password. You need someone that won't give it back no matter what. 

This doesn't always work for me because I'll start playing new games or just start a new account from scratch. I always find ways to rationalize playing a game again.

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