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NEW VIDEO: I Quit MMOs and THIS Happened

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AnonymousUser

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I have finally decided to give up playing League of Legends after playing for 8 years. I will give some background information about myself and my introduction to gaming as well as my fall into addiction. I began playing video games around first or second grade, I had the Playstation 2 initially as well as a Nintendo DS. I loved Pokemon, Mario Kart, and a bunch of PS2 games. I fell in love with gaming and it became a way for me to pass the time rather than watching tv. I eventually found Call of Duty in 3rd grade and thought it was awesome so I got it on the PS3 and played almost everyday. I played pretty much only with irl friends for a few hours a day in middle school and never took it seriously at all, it was purely for fun and I had plenty of other activities I did for fun.

In 2013 I found League of Legends when my eye doctor told me about it. I immediately downloaded it and began trying to figure out everything about the game. I watched videos on every champion to learn abilities, read about the game in my spare time and began playing for several hours per day. I went to a competitive private school and in my sophomore year of high school I found some friends who played the game. I became best friends with them and we played everyday, eventually my mom told me I couldn't play anymore so I did what any teenager would do and listened. That was a joke. I decided to play everyday at school during lunch in the library and stay late claiming to do extracurriculars so I could play in the library, the game was blocked at my school so I even had to download a vpn. At this point my social life was great I had lots of friends, I was in clubs, I played sports and I just thought that it was another activity I loved doing and I believed my mom was wrong to make me stop playing. Senior year I told her I was going to start playing again (even though I had been playing the whole time) and she was cool with it as long as I kept it under control. I got a girlfriend senior year and I started spending all of my free time with her and when I wasn't with her or working on schoolwork I was playing league.

Freshman year of college came around and I was excited to start this new chapter of my life. I was majoring in Finance and I made a bunch of friends that lived in my dorm and in nearby dorms, I was still dating my girlfriend because she went to school nearby and we saw each other every weekend. I was focused on my studies heavily this first year and got a 3.9 gpa, I was still playing league but probably only for 2 hours a day and I wasn't taking it too seriously, I was still spending lots of times with friends, drinking occasionally and just doing fun college stuff. Before my sophomore year I made the (looking back horrible) decision to transfer to a top 20 school. I was interested in pursuing a career in banking and I thought it would be easiest if I were in a high ranked school. So I changed my major to economics, transferred and went through the transfer orientation process and made a few friends. The summer prior I had broken up with my girlfriend, it was a messy breakup that I am still ashamed of and I got an internship in finance. I worked at my internship during the day and spent the afternoons going on dates with girls or just watching finance news and going to sleep early.

So when sophomore year rolled around I hadn't played league in months. After a semester without league dedicated to partying and schoolwork I was on Netflix and I watched the league of legends documentary with a friend. I saw all these players that I knew from the old days and it made me so nostalgic I just had to redownload the game. I started playing again but this time I had so much free time that I was playing for 8 hours per day. The following summer I had some personal stuff to deal with and couldn't play league and I also couldn't get an internship. Covid had struck in March and I didn't feel too bad about not having an internship and I had also decided I hated finance/banking and that I might not even need an internship for a career in a different field. I took a remote semester for the fall and joined a league team, all my friends had gone back to school and I felt like I needed some social interaction as well as something to do. I would work on my schoolwork everyday till 6pm and then play league until midnight or as late as 2am. Around late November my computer broke and I had to go a month without playing, it was absolutely horrible, I thought about the game constantly, nothing brought me pleasure and I was miserable. I finally got my computer fixed and when I went back to school in the Spring I started playing immediately.

I played for 8 hours a day most days while doing schoolwork between games or in my spare time. My friends lived off campus and I hung out with them once a week or so. Over the past month it has gotten really out of hand, my main account is elo sitting so I can remain on my team and I bought three smurf accounts to rank up while I stopped playing on that one. I started neglecting homework assignments and started to just play league all day. I would only eat one or two meals a day and I was only showering every couple days, I felt like this wasn't a big deal because I wasn't actually seeing anyone in real life. The past two weeks I went on a crazy binge where I was staying up for days at a time just playing the game. Last night one of my smurf accounts got banned and I was so mad and somehow I came across a Dr. K video ill link it here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_1eRqcJnes). I realized I had a serious problem and immediately watched the entire Dr. K series. I no longer get the same satisfaction I used to from social interactions and I have no goals or purpose in life. My priority over the past year has been to find a job with low hours to be able to game more and live frugally, I never really cared about getting rich to begin with so this seemed ideal.

I think the real problem is I'm just not passionate about anything and don't really enjoy anything outside of gaming. I found a discord server to quit gaming and I talked extensively with a user their last night who gave me some perspective on my problem. I decided to start this journal to keep myself accountable and give daily updates. Currently I am several weeks behind on my classes and schoolwork. My sleep schedule is a mess and I woke up at 5pm today. I wrote down a list of all the assignments I have to do and it is daunting. I have no idea what I will do after college and I am terrified for the future. I don't have any plans for this summer because rather than applying to internships/jobs I played league. I haven't played league in nearly a day since uninstalling it and I had a conversation with my team about taking a break which they were all very supportive of and even if I quit they said they would keep my spot open if I ever decide to come back. Any advice would be appreciated. Sorry for the shitty grammar and formatting I just wanted to get it all out there.

Edited by AnonymousUser
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Welcome to the forum, we will engage with you and offer moral support and advice.

I hope you are intending to work on the respawn pack because as Cam mentioned, recovery and abstention aren’t the same. Recovery comes from good discipline and effort and is a state when you discover real goals. Real goals grant you all that sense of direction and purpose that renders video games useless.

Edited by Amphibian220
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12 hours ago, AnonymousUser said:

I think the real problem is I'm just not passionate about anything and don't really enjoy anything outside of gaming . [snip] . Currently I am several weeks behind on my classes and schoolwork. My sleep schedule is a mess and I woke up at 5pm today. I wrote down a list of all the assignments I have to do and it is daunting. I have no idea what I will do after college and I am terrified for the future. I don't have any plans for this summer because rather than applying to internships/jobs I played league.

It may be that your lack of purpose is both cause and effect of your obsession with gaming, which can provide the illusion of structure and direction without the kind of attention and discipline you need to accomplish anything worthwhile in the real world.

[Full disclosure: I teach at the university level, so I have a different sort of perspective on the problem you're facing. At the same time, I used games to escape from a bad home situation, since resolved, which left me adrift in my professional life.]

Your immediate problem is somehow to finish your current term. What you may need to do is to prioritize the list of assignments you need to catch up on, and dedicate a set period of time every day to doing nothing but work on those assignments. When I say "dedicate" I mean "schedule": actually add it as a block of time in whatever calendar you might prefer (Outlook, Google, etc.), then stick to it.

If you find yourself in a bind with one or another of your classes, a deadline you simply cannot meet, contact the course instructor and, without making excuses for yourself, ask for extensions or even, if it comes to that, an 'incomplete' in the course, if that's a possibility at your institution. You may be surprised how helpful some instructors can be. Not all of them, to be sure, but some of them and maybe, in your case, just enough of them.

Also plan a time in the evening when you will stop working and do something low-key and enjoyable, like listen to music or read a book, so it becomes possible to sleep. Also pay attention to eating regularly, and drinking plenty of water: good sleep, nutrition, and hydration will do wonders for your energy and your ability to pay attention. Also get some physical exercise, even just going out for a walk every day.

As for summer, yes, it's unfortunate that you don't have a job or internship lined up already, but you can take that as an opportunity to reset a little bit, think about the direction you want to take.

You say you no longer want to go into finance, but do you have any sense of what you would like to go in to? If you have the time and the financial support for it, you might consider taking a summer course or two in some other direction, something that just appeals to you on its surface, just to see if it opens up any possibilities for you.

Or try to find a job in some unexpected direction - shelving books in a library; serving as a fire lookout in a wilderness area; working in a bakery - to shake you out of the rut you're in.

Or both . . . and other things besides.

Challenge yourself to learn to play a musical instrument. Volunteer at a food bank. Read 30 books. Take up tai chi.

Really, try anything and everything, even if it turns out to be a dead end, just to see what's possible.

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Thank you guys for the feedback. I took some of your advice and went for a walk today.

Ill divide my day up into the things I did well and the things I did poorly.

Achievements

I finished several different assignments and emailed the professors for the I classes I am behind in and they were willing to give me an extension.

I also took a shower and ate breakfast and lunch.

Underachievements

I spent a few hours watching comedy shows today which isn't something I normally do, but it really took my mind off of gaming for a little while as the cravings were really intense. I also watched hulu for a few hours so I really need to start structuring my time better. My room is still a mess and I plan on cleaning it up at some point today and possibly doing laundry. I ended up falling asleep at 5pm and and waking up about a half hour ago at 2am. I will try to fix my sleep schedule a little bit today. 

I also had dreams about league last night which was very stressful.

I think I will make a proper schedule to finish assignments today and try to get work done today per @Zeno's recommendation.

Edited by AnonymousUser
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It's good that your profs were willing to cut you some slack. The message has been circulating among faculty at my university since last March that we should be more accommodating to our students during while the disruptions of the pandemic continue.

I hope the new approach to scheduling your time works for you.

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Today the cravings weren't too bad, I went on youtube and cleared out all of the recommendations related to gaming which was helpful. 

I talked to my aunt today and she was supportive of my quitting gaming, but she was really trying to rush me into finding other hobbies and things I am passionate about. I tried to explain to her that it was going to take some time and I really just need to focus on my schoolwork for a bit and I will try to find some new hobbies after the semester. 

I woke up at 2am yesterday and I really wanted to stay up to 9pm but I ended up taking a nap from noon to 4pm and then I fell asleep at 9pm. I woke up at 5:30am so the sleep schedule is definitely getting better. 

I cleaned up my entire room yesterday which was good, but I need to laundry over the weekend.

I have a bunch of assignments due at midnight tomorrow so I will not be watching any tv until they are done. Hopefully I can stay committed to this.

Thanks again for all your support.

 

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Haven't updated the journal in a couple days. Just been super busy with schoolwork and I have not relapsed. I went out with some friends to a bar on Saturday and had a great time, I would like to do things like this more but I am so bogged down with schoolwork it just isn't really possible. 

I have also been watching a ton of hulu with my spare time, this is not a great replacement for gaming obviously but I'm not quite sure how to find better hobbies during COVID. Once I get back home from school I'm planning on getting a gym membership and going to the beach frequently. Overall not a bad past few days, but I definitely have a long way to go. 

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