Hello everyone, my names Matt. I am 27 from Sydney Australia. I have finally decided, after many failed attempts, to give up gaming for good! It has held me back from achieving my goals and basically living the life that I want to live. It has been a determent to my education, relationship with my wife, and my career. I have been playing games from around the age of 8 on multiple platforms, it has taken up such a significant part of my life and I never really saw it as a negative influence until I started university. I am currently completing my Masters of Teaching, and also work full time as Student Learning Support Officer. When I finish work I find it so hard to dedicate time to my education and I am slowly falling behind, I struggled significantly through my Bachelors degree due to gaming. I also feel that my social skills are really underdefined, finding it hard to simply answer the phone or hold up basic small talk. Only during the last year have I really been putting an effort into trying to hone those skills and am finally seeing progress. 

My game time really fluctuates depending on how interested I am on the game, but once I am really enjoying something I can neglect the majority of other aspects of my life, sending me into a constant state of depression and anxiety. I really want to stick to this program to improve my life, I need to. I have started by deleting all my games, permanently,  I really struggled with this because I spend so much money and invested so much time in these games it is hard to part with them. Anyways, thankyou all for the support, hoping to start my daily journal soon.

Hey Martin,

Happy to see you found your way here. I totally felt you when you mentioned struggling to delete your games. The money factor was a big one for me. I spend thousands on games. When I quit I parted with over roughly $5000 in games and consoles. That was tough. Looking back now though? Totally worth it. 

All the best!

@MuMuMelonThanks appreciate it, glad to know someone is in the same boat.