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not keeping days- i have been exposing myself to sexual media of sorts, but the relationship feels very different (just like w/ games, which I occasionally still play). i understand the unique niche of desire sexual media can fullfill, but also understand well how so much of it goes against my values. i think that how and why i access that media has shifted fundamentally (though i still need to do a lot of work to truly be free of impulsive actions and trauma-related decision making).  cheers!

Hey Vee, Great to see these marginal gains adding up and being recognised! I can see you've been working on your sleep hygiene, which can definitely be overlooked by many people in daily life.  Excellent work also on continuing to push through with your daily morning routine and breakfast little by little. I'm sure you'll become more consistent with your breakfast goals in no-time with some environmental optimisations along the way All in all, 1 up for another day of resilience and gratitude towards your journey!

Day 40 to 46 Still not gaming, and I realise there have been over 100 days in the last 12 months that I haven't gamed! I haven't felt particularly tempted to since my last update either. I went for a great jog last week, getting my best 1K without trying, and my third best 5K. I meant to jog more, but because of the heat I'd need to either wake up earlier or decide on a well-lit route for night jogging. The weather should cool down in the next week, so I can be more flexible. Self-management Routine - My sleep schedule is moving closer to what I'd like it to be. I haven't had any late nights recently, though sometimes I lie in bed for ages in the morning. Since coming back from holiday I've consistently taken multivitamins. I've also been reading every day for over a week (and signed up to the local library), although not specifically as part of an evening ritual. I've journalled every day for over a week, having had some blips earlier in the month. Eating - I've been consistently eating breakfast again, thank god. I've been better at lunch and dinner than usual, though still not managing three meals every day. I've been trying to slightly cut down on sugar, but it's hard! Leaving the house - I haven't pushed myself to do anything new or interesting, but I think I left the house most days anyway. I think it would be good if I went out in the sunshine more.  

1. Introduce Yourself - Let us know who you are, where you're from and why you want to quit games. What's your main goal now that you've quit? Hi everyone, Thanks for being part of the community here. I've recently enrolled into the Game Quitters Basic program to try tackle my journey recovering from gaming addiction. Over the years trying to quit, I've always come back to gaming somehow. So, who am I and where am I from? I am a 20 year old Psychology student at University in Australia. I have always been one of the high-achieving students ranking top 10 in multiple subjects back in high school, up until Year 12. I started trying to quit gaming at the end of Year 10. I managed to survive in Year 11 while still gaming and getting good grades in a few subjects. However, Year 12 was when things started doing downhill. It was when I started failing exams and tests, lost my friend group as they went to their own paths in life, and felt lost in life. I also felt very lonely, stressed and depressed. I continued to resort to gaming as unhealthy means to deal with my difficulties - avoiding the inevitable uncertainty and challenges which we must all face in life. Why do I want to quit games? What is my main goal now that I've quit? During my final 2 years of high school, I coincidentally met an anaesthetist living in Sydney while playing League of Legends. I was in a pretty bad spot during those final 1-2 years (especially my final year) failing tests and exams. During these final 2 years and my gap year, I'd see him online from time to time. Aside from playing the game together with his son, we'd also chat a bit about life and random stuff. Sometimes, he'd share a bit about his career and what kind of anaesthesia procedures he did from his day at work. We'd also play some chess on the side here and there (but I'm pretty terrible frankly, compared to his chess skills haha). I didn't really think about my career much in high school, and why I wanted to enter a particular career. I do admit though, I was one of the students who decided to give medicine a go. Reflecting on that time, I definitely got pulled into the herd mentality; many friends and peers around me also wanted to get into medicine. However, I don't think many of us actually understood the reality of what the career entailed. It can be easy to only look at the pleasures, without actually understanding and experiencing the struggles embedded within a career. Medicine just "felt" like something challenging to aim for, and also "felt" like a possibility that could be reached to "make life better for everyone"/help people. I left high school with some unsatisfying grades nowhere near enough for Medicine. I knew for certain I wasn't going to get into Medicine after my Year 12 exam and test failures. My mental health was pretty terrible also. My parents said it was impossible for me to get into medicine in my life, after looking at my grades (which was reality at that particular moment no doubt). My dad also said "it was fate" that I wouldn't become a doctor numerous times. So, one day I told the anaesthetist this story about my dad constantly saying "it was fate that I couldn't get in", and he replied "that's bs". That moment gave me a glimmer of hope after a dark period. I thought, perhaps I should try "touching some grass" a bit more. Perhaps I myself, had been stuck within this negative cynical cycle for years from the start of high school. I was constantly comparing myself to others at school and felt bad if I didn't score higher than others. I took a long moment to look at myself, trying to find out what I lacked as a person. One of the first skills I identified was that I was severely lacking in social skills. I also wasn't mentally healthy due to my recent high school experiences losing contact with close friends, along with how I grew up within my family. I also was completely clueless as to how I should study to get good grades after failing tests and exams for the first time in my 6 years of high school. So I decided to take a gap year. I decided to try save up for a studying skills course (which I heard from some people around me back in high school), to try learn how to recover from my academic failure. I also decided to try volunteering at the nearest hospital to try improve my social skills, and learn a bit more about the hospital and healthcare system where possible. While I was a general volunteer at my local tertiary hospital for a year (2022), I came across quite a number of experiences. From talking to different kinds of patients in the neurology rehab centre (some admitted for months due to serious injuries), burns ward, the day surgery clinic, the ED....etc. Mainly, I just walked around the hospital and had a chat with patients (and the people visiting them). It was quite an interesting experience meeting a variety of people from different backgrounds and perspectives actually. One of my most memorable experiences: I remember talking to this woman (the daughter of a patient who had been admitted). Along our conversation, she started sharing her skepticism of the COVID-19 vaccine and the lockdown, and started to cry out of strong concern for her mother (the admitted patient). The woman - someone with strong beliefs in alternative medicine and healing stones - was very worried about the potential side effects of the vaccine and medication which her mother had gotten, before and during hospital admittance. This was one of my first experiences where I was very uncertain of what I should do. I decided to end up just listening to the best of my ability to the woman, and reflecting on her emotions to the best of my ability (e.g. "this must've been quite hard and frustrating..."). No doubt, my perspectives would have conflicted with hers. So I decided to ultimately respect her autonomy regarding her perspectives towards contemporary western medicine. Perhaps to listening to her concerns simply was good enough at that moment. No doubt about it, this was a very unexpected experience for me. Living the experience was nowhere near listening to the news stories and "preparing" for it. Further along my time volunteering, I occasionally passed some very tired and stressed-out looking doctors. While I can't fully know what might've possibly contributed to their current state, it did ignite my curiosity as to what might've correlated or caused it. One of my biggest regrets was when I passed this doctor in the ED department who sighed very loudly and deeply. I doubted not stopping and asking how they were feeling when passing them. Or even some words of encouragement. I reckon this probably got me a somewhat interested in healthcare systems from around the world. On the bright side, I did discover a pizza-friday pattern where some doctors would order a big batch of pizzas and carry them through the main entrance smiling 😎 👍 One day while volunteering in the ED, I happened to see an early high school friend in one of the resus bays. I led his parents and 2 of his other friends to see him. He had unfortunately been under the influence of drugs, and went missing the night before his hospitalisation. This was another experience that made me felt helpless. I felt like there were many situations where I felt like I couldn't make an impact as a volunteer. I wanted to help support my friend, his friends and his family through the difficulties he was facing, and to try understand him as a person. Human suffering can be very detrimental in the short and long-term, whether it be physical or mentally. However, I do understand that it is inevitable through life as we learn and move onwards with time. At this point, I decided to try looking deeper into the clinical side of healthcare. I wanted to look at both the psychological side and the bio-chemical-physiological side of medicine. The anaesthetist I had met recommended me to try out volunteering with my state's paramedic organisation. I was quite surprised when I found out that we also had the program in my state. I decided to give the experience try: to see how it would be assessing and treating patients with simple medications and interventions. I was fortunate enough to volunteer at some music festivals at the end of last year/earlier this year. There was no doubt, a lot of drug and alcohol use, coupled with mental health cases. Working alongside nurses and paramedics, I got to understand a bit more about their roles in healthcare outside the hospital. While I understand that paramedics can implement life-saving primary interventions on the scene, their inability to fix and find the root of complex problems left me unsatisfied. A similar thing could be said with the role of a nurse. While they might help administer and (some) diagnose, their role felt restricted due to their inability to dig deep down to the problems presented. Other than these experiences, I also got to understand a bit more about the medical ethics as a volunteer within healthcare, and especially the power imbalances and trust. Simultaneously, I also started volunteering as a listener on this mental health website called 7cups. I realised I wanted to try improve my social skills a bit more, since I didn't fully grasp what I should be doing to empathise best with others. I used the website's resources to help me understand a bit more about the key components of active listening, while listening to the concerns that people had in their lives. I also did some more research into some occupations such as therapists and clinical psychologists. Similar to the roles of nurses and paramedics, I felt like there was a limit to what I could do and help, compared to physicians. Ultimately, I do understand the patient has complete autonomy to their course of treatment since it is their journey. And that different occupations are specialised to help bring the best patient care and recovery in their journey. But, I felt that physicians had the most power and flexibility in terms of finding the problems, and helping collaborate with the course of treatment, to reduce suffering. Aside from volunteering at the hospital, I actually tried out drop shipping to see how much I valued earning money. I decided that earning money and buying stuff for my personal pleasure or for others just didn't feel morally right/the most important thing in life. Having seen some life-changing experiences from others at the hospital widened my eyes to how fragile life could be. I actually did have suicidal thoughts and self-harm back as a child growing up (before high school) due to how my parents treated me. They would say how they "wished I was never born into this world" word for word, and didn't treat me well physically also. Alas, I am aware of the cultural reasons behind it and have learnt to perceive the experiences as being part of my personal moral learning. Ultimately, I'm grateful that I've managed to live through to this day, even if just a bit better. I guess these personal experiences can make you more emotionally sensitive to the feelings of others in tough situations. I am just glad that I persevered through and didn't fall into other unhealthy coping strategies like drug-use and alcohol addiction also.  This is my story of why I want to continue curating the necessary skills such as empathy, problem solving skills, studying efficiency skills... etc. - skills which are essential to becoming a really well-rounded physician. This is why I want to live a more balanced and healthy life away from video games (and porn), which have affected my ability to find enjoyment and contentment in other lower-dopamine activities in life, and my interest and curiosity in knowledge (which has been lost overtime to the psychology of games). Some popular games which I've been long-addicted to include (but not limited): - League of Legends - Minecraft - Wynncraft - Steam games 2. Start a Journal - Having a journal to share your thoughts (be it daily or otherwise) is a great way to process your thoughts and emotions, and as time goes on it's really fun to look back and see your journey. This is also a great way for us to support you! I guess it's time to start posting some daily reflections here on the forums 🙂 3. Interact - Browse around and find a few threads that interest you and add your input. Say hi to other members in the introductions forum. Leave a comment on another member's journal. This will help people become more familiar with you as a new member. We've got your back. Let us know if we can help in any way!

Hello Game Quitters.   Unfortunately it took me too long to update you guys. I had a lot of things going on this month and on my mind in real life. Obviously I do my best to do me and ignore things that is not giving me value and affecting my personal and professional life. I don't care what is going on in the news and what is going on politically in general, especially watching the wrong types of contents on YouTube that is not valuable and teaching me new skills. I'm honestly still thinking a lot of things in my real life while typing this update in general because there is a lot going on right now. ....I did successfully exercise both strength and cardio...before today and yesterday it was a lot of miss days and successful fitness days...it's a lot. Now hopefully the following weeks I'll be in the same consistencies in general with fitness. I'm still valuing Stoicism with a capital S, not lowercase s. I'm still doing well in general too. So I'm going to weight in myself with my FitTrack Dara Scale and get ready for today and have a good day Game Quitters members.