mikeyb93

Going past merely video games I have an issue where I prefer fiction to reality. While it isn't fun to admit, my actions show that I prefer to enjoy an imagined reality. The imagined reality whether in the form of a game, book, movie, (porn could be here too), etc comes with a predetermined goal that I value. Then I complete or watch the goal get completed. In the games I complete the goal myself. In the movies/books/videos of gaming, I insert myself and appreciate it as if I were the main character. It feels good in the moment because outside of these things I don't have any goals. I may be self employed, but I I don't try to take my business anywhere, it just exists. I lift weights, but I don't have any determined goals for my body in looks, strength or endurance. I practice martial arts, but there is no point of skill, or number of tournaments I'd like to win. I don't have any serious desire for a relationship at the moment. All these add up to me just existing. I would assume that most people on here have stumbled on to some Jordan Peterson video where he talks about goal setting and the act of working towards a goal is where most people get their source of happiness. I have an issue trying to figure out what goal I should pursue, but when I think about any individual goal it seems pointless. I don't have any lack and I don't see how chasing after something I don't need would make my life more enjoyable. Its a frustrating place to be. If I start thinking in terms of attributes that would make my life better it gets a little easier. I would appreciate if my house and car were consistently cleaner. More energy and health, primarily from a better diet. I'd like to spend less time on electronics and less time on politics/fiction in general. I would also like to remove any potential money issue. I think looking at things this way will help me more than thinking "If I get to X point I will be happier". Edit # 1Or... I could buy Civ 5 for less than $15. it sounds so tempting as I have very little to do this week. Wish me luck. Edit #2. Fuck me I really need to stop looking at steam. I am ready to buy games just in case I want to play them later.

Guess its day 8. Doing alright so far. A lot of the cravings have gone away. Its tough to break away from game related content and games. It is amazing how pervasive gaming is in my life. It does help that I really like warhammer 40k and a lot of it is videogame based. Reading books has helped, although I need to find some cheaper ones. $12 is a lot for 400 or so pages on kindle.

What do you watch instead of video game stuff? I am used to watching lots of lets plays and commentaries even when I went through 65 days video game free. I still match some stuff now or have it on in the background while I work. What would you recommend watching instead?

Hey Mike, I hope everything goes will with your new landlord. Congratz on Day 19, your new apartment and the better relationship with your girl.

Almost through week 1. Feeling a lot better already. I have been reading a lot more. Fiction novels and more pleasure reading than anything of great quality, but its enjoyable and keeps me from getting to game crazy. The first few days were very rough with constant thoughts of gaming, but I have calmed back down and am feeling better already. Thanks Mike! There are a lot of Mikes here. Thanks for your concerns a well wishes

Relapse, but one the bright side I am back a lot faster than the last time I went back to games. I was bored on my flight back from Kansas City and thought a phone game or two wouldn't hurt. It really is amazing how I cant stop myself if I partake a little bit. Its all or nothing. Time to go back to nothing. Its been less than a month, but I feel a lot more depressed than I did before hand. Back to day 1

Day 47 How the mighty has fallen. On day 45 I felt great. I was half way done the challenge. I felt great I felt confident that I was going to crush the rest of the challenge without a problem. I was starting to think that I didn't really need the forum anymore and that it served its purpose. Now just a few days later and all I want to do is buy a game and play it until the sun comes up again. I just had a really mediocre day. I feel like I didn't get anything important done and then I broke my 27 day no porn streak. It has me pretty crushed right now and I just want to hide and pretend I'm not mad at myself. I want to stop the negative feels the fastest way I know how, gaming. I don't know what I'll actually end up doing, part of me wants to got o sleep to avoid everything. I still haven't relapsed, but I feel close.

DAY FORTY-FIVE! "Woah, we're half way thereWoah, livin' on a prayer" I have not forgotten about games, but they are losing their power over me more and more everyday. I cant wait until I care about games even less.

Day 37 Still going strong. Outside of wanting to play the app version of a board game I really like I have had very few urges despite checking a game based subreddit or two when I am bored. It is a time wasting activity that needs to be dealt with, but it doesnt make me want to play games. I also found out that a game I was really looking forward to a few months came out recently and I am not bothered by it very much. It interests me much less than I thought it would. I'm happy that at this point I am not just suppressing desires but the desires have, in part, gone away.

Looks like I am almost IF already I eat in a 9-10 hour block for the most part. I think the eating diversity is the tough part for me. Thanks for the help!

Day 33 The beginners mindset Cam posted was pretty coll. It seemed similar to meditation or what some would call "being present" or "being in the moment". I think it involves getting ourselves out of auto pilot. So much of what we do gets put on auto pilot. Even as I write this I ignore the feeling of the keys on my fingers or the sound they make. The mildly uncomfortable feeling in my neck, the brightness of the screen in my eyes. All this gets swept away when I am typing on auto pilot. Speaking of meditation I have been practicing the headspace app that Cam, mentioned in a video, article or post. I really like it. I started with 5 minutes and at first it felt like a long time but now it feels almost too short. I am also keeping my room and car much much much cleaner, I am almost compulsive about it. It made me smile going back and looking at how I talked about my room and car being in almost a year ago. Me from a year ago would not have thought what I am doing now is possible and most of this change has just happened in the past few months. I find myself a lot more content. I cant overstate how helpful it has been to commit my morning to some basic habits I want to build everyday. I always found that if I jump immediately into work it is extremely difficult for me to get out and take care of basic things. I have been almost spotless with my habits so far this week. It is a great thing and has made me feel very productive compared to how I used to be. I'm meditating, reading a book for 30 minutes, having some time to worship the Lord and then get a quick ab workout it. It used to feel extremely hard, but now it seems easy.

Sounds like you are getting off to a good start. How does your meal plan look? I always have trouble making and sticking to one. Any tips?

Congratz man! You are doing great. I hope you see it through.

Good luck man! Getting rid of the games is tough, but I am enjoying the changes being game free has brought and I think you will to. Like Cam said, take it one day at a time. Dont focus on trying to make it 90 days without gaming, just focus on avoiding it in the moment.

Thanks Cam! I think I've heard about it before, but I have not read anything more than a sentence or 2 about it. I'm about to check it out.

day 30! I feel great about this. I'm proud of myself even though it has felt fairly automatic for most of the days. I think one of the key differences between this attempt and my last attempt is that I didnt say to myself "I got it" after 13 days of no gaming and then leave the forum and the challenge. Doing that led me to tell myself a little gaming here and there was okay since I "beat" my addiction. This round I have wanted to get versions of board games on my phone but I didnt. When I was in pain I wanted to play games, but I didnt. I wanted to play some other crap because I was bored and was going to goof off no matter what, but I still didnt play video games. The Habitbull app I mentioned in my last post is also doing wonders for me. Being able to see how often I actually do what I say I should do is extremely helpful in seeing my actual condition instead of what I guess/hope I am doing. It gives me statistics and makes it very real to me. Having it pushes me to work on my habits instead of saying "tomorrow" when I am tired or frustrated. Between the previously mentioned items and the fact that I just moved into my new house I am starting to feel like a new person... or at least a different one. I like it and I feel better because of it. Normally I would say "I hope it continues", but I am in control of my fate. If I keep improving in a few more years there will be another new Mike and he will be even better.

Pain I am in a lot of pain. I tore something (probably my hip flexor) in my hip during my ju jitsu class on Saturday. I have dealt with chronic pain since I was 13 or 14 (now 24) I was told it was just growing pains, but I didn't grow and the pains stayed. Around 18 I tore a rotator cuff. They hurt constantly, but I've learned to deal with it and do what I enjoy to the best of my ability. This new hip pain is about 2-3 times worse than my usual day to day pain. Its distracting, keeps me from sleeping and has hurt my general mood. I'm also concerned about my ability to function. Right now walking up and down stairs is painful. I'm worried it wont get better or I will be stuck with permanent damaged like my shoulder. All I really want to do right now is play some video games and forget I have these problems. Get so absorbed I forget about the pain and the anxiety. I really do not want to deal with it. But I am less than 45 minutes from hitting 27 days game free. In other news I downloaded an app called habitbull which is helping me keep track of habits I want to develop and how often I actually do them Its nice to have a good way to keep track of my progress outside of how well I remember

Happy to say I am 1/4 of the way through. It doesnt feel like it has been 22 days or so. I am happy with myself on this end. I have lots of other issues I need to deal with but at least on this front I can say I am getting better. It also helps that there dont seem to be any games I really want to play right now. I am used to gaming as a distraction and coping method, but I shouldnt be checking anyway. Also I have watched a bunch of videos about hearts of Iron because I found it amusing, but those videos are a danger zone and probably could be an easy way for me to slip back into gaming

Coming into day 20! I had a weird urge to play some lego game that came out in 1999. Lego rock raiders or something like that. I looked it up, but didnt buy/download it. I am doing better, not too much to add at this point. Mostly just checking in.

Day 17 full days without video games. No slip ups, not many thoughts. The closest I got was playing the game on google chrome when the it cant find internet. I pressed it once. said "oh wait, shit, thats a game" and closed it. The game was started and stopped within 1 second, so I'm counting it as on the level. I really dont think that much about not playing games. I still want to remain on the forums because last time I got confident I screwed it up by leaving.

Almost there man! Sounds like you are doing well. Did you learn anything in particular about painting. I remember trying to get into models when I was about 15. I remember being scared to put the decals on hope. Congratz on quitting, you moving companies or becoming self employed?

Day 10 video game (and porn) free. It feels good. I have the "I Am Sober" app on my phone to log my time. It felt embarrassing at first; I hated saying I was an addict, but I think humbling myself helped. I stopped trying to pretend it wasnt an issue, that I could top at anytime or "if it isnt games it will be something else". I like being able to see my progress and being able to count it out makes it seem more meaningful than just 1 unmarked day after another. I'm struggling right now though, my cravings for both porn and games are hitting me after being away for the weekend. Part of me says if I watch porn I wont play games or if I play games I wont watch porn. Its tough because if I let my mind wander I start to imagine how much I would enjoy either activity, exactly what I would do, etc. I am going to try to reada chapter or 2 of a book and then go to sleep. Hopefully it works

That sounds like an awesome idea. I can easily keep a journal on my desk. I think being able to see how much time I waste versus how productive I was would be really helpful and push me to be more careful with my time Yesterday I wanted to figure out how long I could actually sit down and work for. Normally I try to pump myself up and say "I can work for 3 hours straight, I got this, blah blah blah". Then I fail, get discouraged and procrastinate. So I set a 15 minute timer and worked for 15 minutes straight and took a break afterwards. Then I tried for half an hour and did that just fine. I was surprised by how much I could get done in a short period of time if I just focused on what I was doing without getting distracted. One thing that helped me was talking myself through my desire to go browse 4chan of be distracted. I'd tell myself it was okay to feel how I was feeling, but I need to get back to my work. I'd lean into and acknowledge the craving rather than trying to ignore it. I'm also going to start making a to-do list. I need some deadlines that from me rather than clients so I can learn to be more proactive. Right now if I finish everything that needs to be done in a day I cant stop myself from goofing off, but its far better than procrastinating.

Almost through day three. Not really any terrible cravings for games for far, but I still think about some of the games I was playing... And now that I think about it I would like to play a flash game or something. I have dinner with a friend lined up in a few hours, so I'm not worried about falling back into games tonight. My bigger issue is dealing with my replacements for gaming. Lots of porn, twitter and blogs. Not great and replacing video games with porn could be a worse alternative. Still looking into ways to deal with this. Tying into the above I am on module 5. I like the idea of splitting things into 25 minute blocks with a short break. It sounds like a very good way to keep myself from bored and going back to browsing twitter or 4chan. The only issue for me is that I am self employed and I need to schedule my work as well and most of my work is not different enough for me to split into 25 minute sections. I think a lot of my problem is that I am prideful and as much as I way suck at time management I dont want to admit that I'm not at yet at the point where I can work for 1 hour straight without someone looking over my shoulder. I get far too ambitious with my schedule because I want to do everything, but fail, get mad at the schedule and end up doing nothing. I'm still fairly hopeful. I would like to stop being ashamed of myself and actually be happy with how I live. I really want this to work and I'm trying to moderate my hopefulness with realism so I dont crash and burn when success doesn't happen as quickly as I would like.

You are on the ball Cam, thanks for the video