Whoop whoop journal time!

[Ethan]

Day 0 (I forgot to write yesterday):

I've been pretty lethargic, last night I cleared off Discord, all the games, and wiped my Chrome profile clean of games. I haven't felt too emotionally extreme in either direction (neither excited to be clean, not depressed and anxious without my drug) but I've been notably tired. 

I deleted my Discord account and haven't done games for about four days now, but putting it officially into words is a bit... Nerve racking? For lack of a better word. Still, I'm determined this is the right thing.

 

Day 1:

Today, I still don't feel irrationally stressed or angry, just melancholy. I realize that *all* of my prior friendships have been framed around games and as such are unlikely to last now that the influence is gone. 

Sometimes I catch myself going on my phone searching the first letter of various gaming sites I'd visit, catching myself off guard. How often was I keeping myself distracted (more accurately, drugged) by browsing these sites and monitoring these community sites for new activity? 

I've been planning on how to meet people--maybe I'll actually run that meetspace DnD group I've always wanted now haha.

Today though, I'm at least distracted by work, which allows me to focus on something else. Filling in the time does help.

 

Day 2 tommorow 🙂

[Rudianos]

Hello, Ethan, and welcome to the forums!

I think that real friends would stick with you no matter what, though it might be a bit challenging to find new topics to discuss.

As for mindless surfing, I'd highly recommend visiting r/nosurf on Reddit, this sub is all about getting rid of this bad habit.

Wishing luck with DnD group.

[Carya]

2 hours ago, Rudianos said:

 

As for mindless surfing, I'd highly recommend visiting r/nosurf on Reddit, this sub is all about getting rid of this bad habit.

Not gonna lie, I still suffer from this issue and it seems to be very common about gamequitters. Replacing an addiction with another one.
I think that I will have to draw the line NOW to stop using computers for entertainment altogether and only using them for work-related purposes. There are billions of other healthier ways to pass time during breaks.

[Jason70]

6 hours ago, Ethan said:

Sometimes I catch myself going on my phone searching the first letter of various gaming sites I'd visit, catching myself off guard. How often was I keeping myself distracted (more accurately, drugged) by browsing these sites and monitoring these community sites for new activity? 

Internet browsing was a problem for me too. It's common on this forum and when you just start quitting to want to binge watch youtube videos and surf the web because it's another form of consumption another way to avoid hard work or escape reality. What personally helped me is that I hid my phone in a completely different room as for my laptop, I mostly use that for work and didn't have the reputation as a distraction device. This doesn't help anyone though and like Rudy said, try seeking online communities for getting over that specific habit.

2 hours ago, Carya said:

There are billions of other healthier ways to pass time during breaks

Also yes, some ways can be walking, or meditating, reading a chapter of a book, doing some light exercise (10 push-ups or 10 jumping jacks), journaling/writing down thoughts or even just sitting in silence thinking. Wish you luck! 

Jason

[Ethan]

Despite Day 3 technically not being over, I still wanna post--first responding to above posts.

First, thanks for the concern all. I love how active and helpful this community is and I also love how honest everyone is. 

6 hours ago, Rudianos said:

I think that real friends would stick with you no matter what, though it might be a bit challenging to find new topics to discuss.

It's sad for me to say, but I can only think of one or two people who I haven't either shunted out of my life due to my reliance on games, or were friends just through games. Still, I'm already looking at places to find new friends.

3 hours ago, Carya said:

I think that I will have to draw the line NOW to stop using computers for entertainment altogether and only using them for work-related purposes.

This is one of my commitments. However, I'm making a caveat as far as researching personality science, and compling Tabletop resources go. Obviously if these things take the same attention as games do, I'll cut them but I doubt that will be the case (personality science because it's mostly centered around others, and dnd because you really have to culminate your work with others in meetspace.).

50 minutes ago, Jason70 said:

Internet browsing was a problem for me too.

Wiping my Chrome profile just let me notice how often I went for internet surfing (though in particular game forums and discord). 

50 minutes ago, Jason70 said:

What personally helped me is that I hid my phone in a completely different room as for my laptop

I wish I could--I use my phone and home computer for work, and the way the business I work for operates makes it very hard to differentiate between work and relaxation. All too often I'd (for example) set some VPN servers updating, and "while waiting" would rationale with myself that I could just check a hearthstone site real quick before losing 3 hours on reddit or whatever. 

52 minutes ago, Jason70 said:

even just sitting in silence thinking

I do need to get better at this--I've got ADD symptoms that make it very hard to not fidget or multitask. 

 

Ok, Day 2:

I was out at work all day today. I kept keeping myself from browsing the web, though it was less frequent then yesterday.

I also couldn't keep myself from pacing. If I wasn't actively working or talking, I'd pace around til I made myself sick. Other than that, it was a good day.

[TheNewMe2.0]

I deal with ADD too some. It helps to put away all distractions and only have one thing to look at in front of you. (No 5+ tabs open)

[Ethan]

Day 3: 

Just felt bored today, first day I haven't been at work. Cleared out my reddit. Started writing down campaign notes for DnD. Thought about getting into copywriting.

Also felt really out of breath all day. Couldn't exercise or anything due to it, which sucks. 

I'm taking a close look at new hobbies and activities.

Edit: end of day, I run around my yard with my dog and am so out of shape gotta fix that

Edited March 26, 2021 by Ethan

[Ethan]

Day 4: 

So bored. Still exhausted. Very irritable today.

I need hobbies.

The biggest pull on me has been the urge to rejoin old communities. Haven't gone through. Also dreaming about gaming is rather surreal.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Ethan
Extrapolated a "tad"

[Pochatok]

22 hours ago, Ethan said:

Also dreaming about gaming is rather surreal.

Oh yes, I agree so much! I have gaming-related dreams at least a few times every week. The thing is, those dreams are often unhappy- me gaming results in something odd/bad happening or the games are so magical and other-worldly they do not resemble what they are in reality at all. Somehow, that makes me want to play less, and just dream again more.

What do you mean by "surreal"?

Po

[Ethan]

1 hour ago, Pochatok said:

What do you mean by "surreal"?

I've dreamed I'm characters in a game before, or even that I'm touring the universes in games, but never actually dreamed that I was literally playing the games, right down to how I arranged skill bars and chatted and stuff. It felt visceral and real until I woke up.

 

Day 5:

Was really ornery today. Got a lot of household chores and cleaning done. Kinda just feel like shit though. I'm telling myself that things will feel better soon but I haven't convinced myself either.

This experience makes me really miss my ex though, we could talk about anything. That was one of the things that led me to gaming away my university semesters, oh well. 

 

[Ethan]

Day 6: nothing of note today, but I feel obligated to post something.

Watched some war (World War One era) movies. Really makes you think just how stupid some of our modern struggles are.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Ethan
Clarification.

[WorkInProgress]

Almost everyone who played a lot before detoxing, experiences low Energy Level. That is most likely missing Dopamin (which motivates you to do stuff) after hyperstimulation. After a while this normalizes. A thing which helps a Bit Here is physical activity. A good measure I found is: If it makes me swet it counts😉.

I also dreamed about gaming in Detail after quitting. I also awoke and felt shitty because I relapsed until I realized IT was a dream. This also went away After a few weeks.

These Things pass. Maybe It helps a bit to know this. Best of Luck to you.

Mario

[Ethan]

Day8: oops these last two days have been very busy and productive, so I'm happy 'bout that. 

I'm planning a workout for the extended future, how to get back into music (I dropped it in favor of video games 5 years ago), and yeah.

 

 

[Ethan]

Day 9: finally setup some headphones and banged around on a piano today, wow I'm so much worse then I was even just two years ago. 

For the next ~4 days I'm helping our local church run livestream services for easter stuff, so that's cool.

[Pochatok]

9 hours ago, Ethan said:

finally setup some headphones and banged around on a piano today, wow I'm so much worse then I was even just two years ago. 

Oh yes, I totally know that feeling haha! Quit piano multiple times myself because of time constraints, and every time I sit down to the keys, it feels like my fingers are ramen nooooodles.