DeepSpaceAI

40/90 Wow, it's been a really long time since I posted a status update. I'm not sure what to say entirely. I feel pretty sad and unfocused at the moment. I feel like things should be getting better and I should be making the changes that need to happen so I can live a better life. But I'm not. I've considered relapsing a few days ago, but didn't have the time to, so I eventually talked myself back. It feels wrong to post after such a wide gap. I can't really say things have been different, but I've continued making minor adjustments to make working a little more comfortable for now. However, maybe I'm just putting too much pressure on the idea of having a perfect life after 90 days. Typing that makes it sound unrealistic. I finally did some more of the Respawn modules and I think that helped to give me a better outlook. I have some more concrete plans moving forward. For now though, I think I should call it a night. I feel bad about leaving this post as is but fuck it. Got to shatter the ice and get back into the groove, as they say.

31/90 Phew, yesterday I was unable to finish my work until almost two hours after my shift was supposed to end. It was inevitable because I came in and my co-workers were still cooking stuff up and until 7ish. Also, one of my co-workers who was supposed to close with me ended up getting stolen and had to do main checkout. I did my best to get it all done, but between a mountain of dishes and being unable to really start closing down some equipment until much later than usual, I just couldn't get out of there on time. On the bright side of my shift, I got to chat with one of my co-workers and invited her to play some D&D. To clarify my intent, it is purely platonic. I honestly thought it could be a fun way to make some friends since she said she liked board games. But, anyways, our banter was probably the best part of my shift. Today, I think want to try going to the library. I want to pick up one book and actually try reading at a realistic pace (before I got a book and finished it in two days which made the pile I had checked out a lot more intimidating). I also remember that there are some volunteering opportunities there. It might not be exactly what I am looking for, but I wouldn't mind getting some more information. Gratitude List: Thankful that my one of my co-workers and I have similar interests.Grateful that my financial situation looks like it's in an upswing.Grateful for my Mom helping me get food a week or two ago. I've still be relying on that supply.

Thanks for the feedback Mettermrck! Yeah, I definitely think I was ready to let go from day 1. Thinking back, I almost don't feel like I was playing for myself most of the time. However, the time I spent watching video game stuff on Youtube and playing games on my phone consumed my time and life. Even when I tried to moderate in the past, I had never said no to those things until now. I feel like that's the biggest reason why it was so easy. Your second point reminded me that I actually was really excited at one point for the adventure ahead. The first thirty days has kind of been a roller coaster of emotions. My primary focus was to resolve some issues I was have in my University (trying to not get bad grades) and getting a job since my financial position was about to leave to me homeless. And I think I was more or less successful with both of those things. I think I stopped being excited just because those two things took a long time to accomplish. This really is the first breather I have had since the start of my detox and I think it's the perfect time to get excited and try out more things. Thank you for reminding me this is supposed to exciting and not to get terrified of that step 2. I think I may have been hyping it up the wrong way.

Ha ha, I can really empathize with not wanting to be stripped while working out. I wear boxer briefs so I don't think you should be too concerned about shorts on a leg press if you wear longer underwear. I also tuck in my shirt which helps when I do dead lifts and squats. I gotta agree with Onlysoul a little bit though. You're bound to show off more flesh than you normally would at the gym. I think you may be overthinking the compliment. I sympathize with you feeling distant from your wife but you guys are just friends at the moment, right? Perhaps you should invite her to workout with you or to try marriage counseling, something that could rebuild that relationship. That's what it sounds like you want, but don't take my word for it. You should do whatever you think is right. I also empathize with wanting to step up your performance at work. That's sort of the process I'm going through right now but on a more existential level. Honestly, that part is way harder than the 90 day detox. Keep up the good work Bob!

Hey OnlySoul, It looks like you're making great progress! I really like your spreadsheet. Learning a new language and reading seem like really productive activities. I'm not sure what language I should learn though. I really like how reading has measurable growth attached to it. Honestly, I never thought about reading only a few pages a day since I usually binge on media (like watching 5-10 episodes of a TV show if it catches my interest). I guess I always had the expectation that I should read a lot if I want to get into reading. I think your model has given me something to aspire to. Keep up the good work!

30/90 Wow, 30 days down. And... It felt easy. Really easy. So easy, I am questioning whether this is the change I was expecting it to be. I know it was step one of changing my life into something great. But... I have no idea what step two is. Make friends? I think that's what it was supposed to be but I feel really lost with this step. How do I break this step down? Find people I want to be friends with? Think about what kind of people I want to be friends with? Know myself well enough to know what the best relationship for me is? Fuck. Honestly, I didn't start feeling depressed until I started considering what I should post today. I can't really say why some overwhelming emotions overcame me while I was writing. I guess one big thing that I'm still trying to understand about myself is how out of touch I am with my emotions. Well, I think I've calmed down a bit now. I suppose I feel like I'm using my time poorly. I didn't really do much of anything today. It's kind of weird, my outlook at the start of the day is much different from then to now. I started the day with a goal in mind (pick up my first paycheck and deposit it into the bank) which I did. But afterwards and even beforehand, I didn't really do anything. Around 6 or so, I had exhausted my go to activities (Youtube and cartoons) so I decided that I'd work on developing one of those programs I mentioned a couple of days ago. I made myself familiar with some of the math I had done to analyze the Collatz Conjecture. Basically, (at the risk of giving the answer away) I found patterns that reminded me of Pascal's Triangle and recursion. Because of the way I'm visualizing it, I think I'm really close to making a program that could predict the number of steps it would take for any number to reach a 4 -> 2 -> 1 sequence. The only flaw that I'm trying to wrap my head around is that how I've abstracted the problem is also subject to the same freakin' pattern. I'm not even sure how that's possible, but it's really interesting to me. Also, I may have over exaggerated that having a program that does this could be considered a solution because, if that were the case, then even a simple program that follows the two formulas given in the conjecture until a 4 -> 2 -> 1 sequence is reached could be considered a solution. Anyways, I think the next step I'll try to take now that I'm a little more comfortable with my job is to find volunteer work. That seems like it could be very rewarding for me and I think it could have the potential to let me make some friends while being fulfilling in other ways. I'm not quite sure where to begin with this task either, but it feels less daunting and vague than a goal like making friends would be. Gratitude List: I'm grateful that a lot of great things in life are free. Specifically music comes to mind right now.I'm grateful for the small spontaneous things that happen in life to keep it exciting.I'm grateful that despite having only a couple of friends that I still have someone I can be completely honest with. (Edited for a minor grammar fix.)

Thanks Onlysoul! Strangely enough, every time there is confrontation between my roommate and I, it only affirms my beliefs that I am going through the right process. Our relationship is complicated because of the history we have together and because we live together. I have planned out (essentially) how I am going to deal with him. I've offered him other ways for us to connect, said I don't want to talk to him about video games (which I think in reality has become, "I don't want you to bring up gaming news"). I'm considering moving out, but my financial state is also a bit complicated. For now, I'm tolerating the situation.

29/90 I thought I might do something different today. I want to focus on just making a gratitude list, and potentially adding one to every daily post. I don't really have anything to say today other than I felt I got to connect with my co-workers a lot more today. Gratitude List: 1. I'm grateful that my co-workers are all so friendly. I've really enjoyed their company so far. 2. I'm grateful to the people I interact with here. You all inspire me to seek more out of life. 3. I'm grateful for politics (oddly enough). It has been enjoyable, challenging, and interesting to spectate. 3a. I'm grateful to the hand full of people I follow who show conflicting angles to real life scenarios. In a way, politics and learning more has let me feel as if I was engaging more with the world. 4. I'm grateful to have a job now and feel more control with my survival.

Hey Tom! Glad to see you're moving forward in a positive way. I like your gratitude list! I think I might try making one as well.

Thanks Bob! I truly hope that I can make the extra positive changes to make my life great. I feel the next step (now that I'm somewhat comfortable with my job) is committing to writing here daily and continuing with the Respawn program.

Damn, it sounds like you've made some really amazing progress while I was away. I'm glad to hear that despite the adversity, you actually faced those challenges and overcame them in healthy ways. Being supportive of your wife is good. I may be too far from the situation, but it sounds like you still want your marriage to work, if nothing else. Being jealous of her financial success seems pretty natural to me. To give that a positive spin, it just shows you're hungry for even greater things for yourself. That desire to push yourself to even greater lengths is a feeling I've really been trying to capture and use myself. It really sounds like you're on your way to those greater things. Keep up the great work man!

28/90 I know I haven't been taking this detox as seriously as I could be. I think that is evident with somewhat infrequent posting here for the past week or so. Yesterday and today (as in the day before yesterday and yesterday since it's past midnight as I write this) was my first real weekend since I started working. I lasted my entire ten hour shift, only really starting to feel the pain during the last two hours which I stole (I was still working but ideally I should have been done when I was scheduled to leave). Then I had this weekend. Overall, it felt like it was a daze, especially yesterday. There were moments where I would lie on my couch and stare at my ceiling, almost dreaming while I was lying there. My thoughts kind of went all over the place and I think it's how I usually felt watching Youtube for a long period of time (gaming gave me a dopamine/adrenaline rush so generally my mood was more positive afterwards). I guess I realized I was living my nightmare scenario of having dropped out of college (even though I haven't). It feels like that because I am genuinely asking myself whether college is the right thing for me. I had an argument with my roommate which was amusing. I tend to look at it in that light because I completely understand his motivation and I'm hyper aware of the angles at which he is trying to manipulate me and pull me back into gaming. I know because I feel like they were angles I considered at various points throughout my life. I actually experienced the fact that gaming is boring a long time ago. I started to learn about emulation and roms. For context, I grew up pretty poor and pretty much any money I ever earned before I was 18 all went to video games. Suddenly, I had access to every single game that I had only dreamed of playing growing up. With such a vast amount of choice, it made it hard to truly pick what games I wanted to play. Nothing really, truly met my expectations. I learned that it was boring. It was boring having so many options. It was boring not feeling like I earned a game and now had to commit to my purchase and the experience I had bought. It was the first time I had ever had an experience like that. I think that's what initially triggered my need to take gaming to the next level. At first it was Minecraft, then it was League for a long time. I digress. I had an argument with my roommate, which kind of made me aware of the flaws in how I am taking this detox. I'm not really taking advantage of the time I have now. Admittedly, instead of creating a new life for myself, I have shifted the weight of time spent on video games, game news, and Let's Plays onto anime and manga. But that's just as bad as if I was sitting on my ass and watching a video game stream, counting the minutes until I was finished with my detox. I can't deny I haven't been doing the detox as well as I could have been. I blamed that on the transition from school onto work, but really that's just an excuse. I spent plenty of time perusing Youtube when I could have been setting some goals for myself and meeting them. Really, I had intended this post to be a little more positive because I thought of some good goals that can add the challenge I've been seeking in life. I think that's why I found school so boring. It never seemed to really challenge me. The ways it challenged me were because of my own laziness and inability to really engage, not because the content ever felt hard. I digress... Again, ha ha. My goals involve a couple of programs that I thought up near the beginning of my detox. The first was a project that I was offered a decent amount of cash for but I never really followed up on (nothing crazy, just a couple hundred bucks, which was a figure mentioned in passing). I talked with the person about this project again near the beginning of my detox and think it's a possibility that I can jump on for some good experience. My other idea was to make a program that solves an "impossible" math problem, which I think I found the solution for a month or so before my detox. It's called the Collatz conjecture apparently, and while I don't have a formal proof written, I think I could write a program that predicts the number of calculations that would have to be made to reach the 4 -> 2 -> 1 sequence. I could also verify by making a program that follows the two different formulas and prints the result until it reaches 4 -> 2 -> 1 sequence. It would be a lot more efficient than some of the online programs that do this because it wouldn't have to deal with the HTML/CSS/JS/PHP exchange/nightmare. I still want to engage with the lack of a social circle but I'm still frozen on this front. I have no idea where to even begin. I think I might just have to do it. My thought is to perhaps use meetup.com and try and meet some people for a hike or some other social outing. Well sorry for the ramble, I suppose I just had to get it all out. Thanks for taking the time to read that.

Great work Bob! I'm glad you were able to get a handle on the no fap component, which is something you'd been working on for a while. I agree with Onlysoul about not focusing on weight. Personally, I think body fat percentage is a better judgment of health than weight. Admittedly, it can hard to totally avoid that number so if you do still set goals with that, it should never be more than two pounds a week (one pound from eating less, one pound from working out). I think the fact that you've been losing so much weight each week is a testament to how bad soda was for you. Keep up the good work changing your life into something you like!

25/90 Wow, four days since my last post. I'm a little surprised honestly. Thanks Mettermrck! I definitely find a lot of use out of therapy. That third party perspective has been really useful in various ways. Work has been pretty damn stressful. I got done with training the day of my last post and started working on the floor. I haven't been handling it amazingly, admittedly, because of some crazy pain in my feet. I know as I keep going it'll hurt less and less. There's been minimal guidance, which is a little frustrating to start, but I think that will translate into more freedom once I understand what needs to get done. Overall, it's been awkward adjusting and it's been difficult to engage my own feelings. But I'm trying to stay positive. I wish I could say more, but it's really all just been work. I feel like once I'm a bit more adjusted to working, I'll be able to use my time away from work a little more effectively. I'm just happy to have some money coming in so I can go out and experience some new things.

21/90 Thanks for the encouragement Mettermrck! I'm glad my roommate and I are able to have some other activities we can do together besides video games. Today was a pretty interesting day. I did more computer training today for work and I'm going to run a cash register for the first time. I'm thankful that work is so much closer than it used to be. I can walk there in less than 10 minutes! During my therapy appointment, I got some really heavy shit off my chest, so much so that my appointment extended for an extra hour for us to talk. I had a lot of emotions coming out of it that I'm still feeling, even now. Then I bought some cheap but nice work shoes. I was worried the quality might be lower because of the price, but at the very least I have my full uniform now. Today's been pretty busy and I've had a lot less time on my laptop than usual, which feels like a nice change. I made plans to get back into working out again tomorrow, which be nice. My friend and I only managed to work out for one day during finals week. I'm thankful that we'll be able to start again more regularly. I also think I want to make more friends that are girls. If that eventually turns into a romantic relationship, great, but I think I'd be satisfied just making friends like that. I want to make more friends in general. A pretty alright day, I'd say.

Howdy Bob! You said you haven't found a new activity that motivates you like gaming did. It sounds to me like you're desiring something that's challenging in your life. That's where I think your gym membership is going to come into play. From my experience, going to the gym is more of something that fills the measurable growth category that games used to fill. However, if you have a goal like, "I want to climb this rock wall," or "I want to swim 10 laps without taking a break," I think that could provide the manageable challenge that it sounds like you want. Also, it sounds like you're handling you're anxiety pretty well. It's not a perfect scenario and I'm sure there could be a way to channel that energy into something constructive. However, you're not channeling it into something destructive, like your big three. Let me know how you like meditation! I think that's a great and constructive way to handle it. I've never used an app for that before, so I'm most curious about that aspect of it. Keep it up!

20/90 Thanks for the support! In hindsight (and in practice of some self kindness), I have been focusing on finishing the school term as strongly as possible and getting a job to resolve my financial position. Even if it feels like a majority of my time was spent worrying, I still did that shit. Even if I didn't live a great life while doing it, it's still damn satisfying to have school off my mind and life back as the main focus. Today was my first day of training. I also played D&D with my roommate. It went pretty well. I didn't prepare anything because I was really lost with where to begin so we just roleplayed it out a little bit. Had some laughs and it gave me a clear path towards what to design next. I didn't feel any urges, I don't think. Though, I have been listening to some video game music. Half because of nostalgia, half because I really like the soundtracks specifically. The nostalgia half is fueled by me trying to learn to play one song on the piano. I just happened to hit some of the right keys to make that connection and have been building from there.

Hey Tom, I wanted to make a response to this separate from the daily journal. Let me restate that I really empathize with your situation as that was my life for the past two years. I want to share my experience/"wisdom" with you and hopefully it can give you some clarification in your own life. First, let me say you should NOT kill yourself over school. Relapsing was NOT stupid or retarded. Shit happens. You seem like you don't have all the tools at hand in order to fight back against shit happening. That doesn't mean you shouldn't quit video games. They probably are a source of a lot avoidant behaviors. However, while you do a 90 day detox, you must also find and/or make those tools for yourself. Maybe it will even take more time than that. Second, let me appeal to your sense of urgency. School should be your number one priority right now. Quit video games, and study. It doesn't matter if you fail, if you don't even try, it will feel even worse. Try and talk to your professors and to academic advisors (and financial advisors if your apartment/food/water is being threatened). Asking questions will help to clear your head. Work with the people closest to your anxiety. If you're worried about class, professors are the best people to talk to. And you're probably paying them a shit load of money to answer your questions and work with you. Take five minutes to write down all the things you need to do. Everything that comes to mind. Just put it on a paper or in a word document. Prioritize it if wish. Then go down the list and start checking them off. It might help to order them from easiest to hardest/shortest (time to complete) to longest. If you need to send some emails, do that. Five minutes and email. Five sentences to break any ice and get into contact. "Dear Prof, I'm Tom, a student in your CE 341 class. I'm currently worried about my performance on the finals coming up. Can we meet so I can ask questions on the subject? Thanks! Sincerely, Tom2". You can (and maybe should) ask them how to study. Next, a "just do it" mentality may help you for this term, but it sounds to me like there are much larger issues you might want to address. It sounded like you weren't satisfied with your degree. Hell, maybe you're not even satisfied with college. There's this quote from a show I like (called Bojack Horseman) that says, "It takes a long time to realize how truly miserable you are. It takes even longer to realize it doesn't have to be that way." That's a good summary of my experience. If your major or college doesn't feel satisfying, if you're not reaching for the goal because you want to make to a difference, then you're never going to put 100% into it, even at it's most pleasurable and exciting. So don't. Stop. Take a break. Find yourself. I went to a university right out of high school. What a horrible financial mistake that was. This year was my fourth year and I'm only at junior standing. I'm looking at about 30,000 USD in debt (about 34,327,000 Won according to Google). I did it all because it was my mom's dream for me to go college. I wanted to be a computer scientist which perfectly with all of my major interests. Eventually, I realized that I didn't know why I was doing it. I'm grinding away and getting half-baked successes and many failures. What's the point, right? The most reasonable goal for myself seemed to be to work for a Google a year before burning out and having my current existential crisis then. What a shitty goal, right? My dream was to burn out after a year with Google. I was only in it for the money and for someone else's wishes. The dream I had for myself had no purpose and no destination. So I stopped. I'm taking a gap year to find myself, to volunteer, to travel anywhere that I can, to live I life I can be satisfied with, to make some real friends that have their own goals and ambitions, to get a girlfriend (who can hopefully be my unwavering companion), to get fit, to not eat college garbage, and to find a reason to own my education. I don't want to do it for my mom. I don't want to do it for the money. I want to do it because I want to progress society. So I suppose take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm still in the middle of the journey. Truly though, you should live the life you want to live. Build the other parts of your life that are just as important. For friends, you can try and contact your gamer friend outside of the game. Make it a priority to be around people who support you and want you to succeed. Not having that is like you're missing half your life. I digress... You can and will get through this. It is inevitable, one way or another. I'm not sure if you're religious, but that might help bring meaning to your life. If you're not, here's what I like to think. Everyone dies eventually. There's no reason to die early. Struggle and fight to be happy, in spite of the misery or boredom of life. Even people who are homeless and destitute can have moments of happiness. They can still have good days. So fuck circumstances. Happiness is attainable no matter who you are. Sincerely, Chase

Hey Tom, I read your relapse story and I think I'm going to make a different post there. I strongly empathize with your situation, as that was my life for the last two years. Quitting gaming is a great first step towards self improvement. Though, you truly have to face other issues in order to succeed with the 90 day detox. There is a reason you relapsed and that is because of the other problems videos games are helping you cope with. Face it one day at a time though, real change takes that kind of dedication. Good luck with your 90 day detox!

Hey Bob, good work with staying away from your big three! Yikes, sorry to hear the sparkling water was no good. I'm glad you didn't give into your soda temptation. If you want a good alternate drink, I would suggest tea. There was a point in my life (when I was but a wee lad) where I had soda on a somewhat consistent basis. Enough that I became used to crazy amounts of sugar. Eventually the soda option disappeared (my mom stopped buying it) and we both switched to drinking tea. I noticed that as a I drank more tea, I gradually started adding less and less sugar. After a month or so, I had stopped adding any at all. The drink transitioned from being tasty because of the sugar to a subtle minty(?) kind of a flavor. When I went back to soda a couple of times, I found it gross because of how sweet it was. Some of the flavors that start to appear when you're used to the sugar weren't there. If you've ever had over sweetened tea, that was sort of how overwhelming it felt. I'd buy a generic green tea and add just enough sugar (cane sugar) so that it's tolerable (it'll probably be a bit bitter until you're used to it). You'll naturally use less and less sugar as you get used to the flavor. I'm not super experienced in the world of meditation (haven't formally learned it). I usually meditate in shower, if you can call it that. I know meditation is about emptying your mind, but when I began, I usually just focused on a single train of thought. I would think about a story I was writing, review the character relationships and come up with bizarre, yet natural, connections. I think you can also focus on breathing though I found that difficult to do with a racing mind. At some point, it'll be easy to get in that focused mind set. Once you're focused, you'd don't have to think about anything. Be aware of your body and your train of thought. If you ever reach a point where you wonder, "Wait, how the heck did I start thinking about this?" retrace your thought train. I think you can call simple little exercises like that meditation. It takes practice and time. A bath might be a good place to start. Or somewhere you can easily relax that is in a different environment from your house. You can meditate on your bed, but if you're anything like me, you probably a phone nearby, or a laptop with stuff to read/listen to. You can't really meditate with those or in an environment where you usually use those. Good luck joining a gym and finding a creative outlet. Doing both those things sound like great ways to improve your lifestyle! They definitely fill in the space of being bored. (Also, sorry for the two blocks of text.)

Yeah, a slow poison sounds about right. Two of Cam's videos come to mind that really changed my perspective, my second example especially. The first video described relapsing after doing a 90 day detox (I don't quite remember the context of the video). Part of the detox is to avoid the hyper stimulation caused by gaming, so when you start playing again, you'll slowly start getting used to that level of activity again. I think being accustomed to that stimulation goes hand in hand with becoming addicted all over again. The other video was someone who managed to play in moderation after his detox and what his time spent per week was. He replied with, "I play about 10 hours a month." That number shocked me when I first heard it but it makes a lot of sense. If you play every day, or even every other day, it's easy to get sucked back in. It really seems like it has to be limited to a couple hours on one day of the weekend. The amount of time is not too different from watching a movie once a weekend. Maybe if you want to play in moderation after your detox, you should seriously consider only playing for an amount of time like that. That's good that you're financially stable though. I imagine if that weren't the case, cravings and other things would be much more of a problem. How's your detox going? Or did you decide against doing it?

Hey, glad to hear a routine worked out well for you! Good luck studying!

Howdy Bob! I can empathize with breaking the no fap. When I started my 90 day detox, I also wanted to quit porn (but I was okay with the fap part). Even though I relapsed, I think it's made me a lot more self-aware of my relationship with porn. Even if you're disappointed you relapsed, it's also a good opportunity to bring extra awareness and learning about your behavior. Also, props to 18 days of no porn. You've managed to stay away from the most damaging part of the porn-fap dynamic. I'm glad you got to have a productive day, besides the awkward and sad feelings. Though, I don't want to discredit them, they're an essential part of the process. Keep it up man!

19/90 Hey guys, thank you for the input! I haven't actually had a session yet because I'm still stuck in the planning phase. When I do get around to playing it, I'll be sure to tell you guys how it went and if it did create further temptation. @Mad Pharmacist, I'm going to try to post everyday. I missed yesterday because I wasn't really sure what I could have written about. Emotionally, I felt pretty empty because I wasn't really productive at all. I agree with all the points you made about DMing except for a clarification I wanted to make what I meant by it being an escape. Essentially, I meant more as avoidance versus an escape for relaxation. Relaxation is temporary and I can usually acknowledge it as such. Avoidance, however, is usually pretty stressful ends up being a very negative escape. As for PBFs, I completely agree. Part of my thought process was based on Cam's video about playing Chess. I can definitely acknowledge that playing a board game online is not really that different from playing a video game. Even a PBF is very similar to RPing on a WoW server or something like that. Today Today was actually pretty good again. My university term officially ended last Friday and I managed to get hired for a job the following Monday. I start training at 9AM (which I know I'm depriving myself of sleep at the moment. I wanted to make sure I wrote today though). It was a huge burden off my shoulders, since I was really worried about my finances. I'm also excited that I'll have 30-40 hours of free productivity a week. My cravings have subsided for the most part (for now). My roommate has occasionally tried convincing me to stop doing this detox and come play video games. He did this again tonight. It's a bit annoying, and, ironically, it makes me want to play video games less. It's unfortunate because I would like to be a good friend and keep being friends with him but stuff like this makes me keep looking at this friendship with "existential crisis goggles". Though, this time, he said something I found pretty interesting. "If you really wanted to chase chicks, you'd already be doing it." Not wholly accurate in intention, but there is a string of truth in there. I have been wanting to put myself into the dating scene when I started this detox, hell, maybe even longer than that. However, I have no idea where I should go to meet girls for a long term relationship. Ideally, I would meet them somewhere that has a social atmosphere and that's not a bar/club. The best idea I've heard is meeting a girl through volunteering (another goal I had for myself). For a scenario like that to work, I imagine I'd have to get pretty lucky. Anyways, that's just some stuff I've been thinking about.

Introduction (Recap) Hey all! I'm Chase and have been sober for about 17 days now (since June 1st). It took me quite a few months to realize that I have an addiction to video games. At one point, I tried taking a detox from my phone, my computer (Youtube and video games being my two favorite things), and electronics in general. That ended in just three days due to me being extremely bored. After some introspection, I realized that the worst tendencies in each of my indulgences were from video games. (Phone abuse was with video games, Youtube abuse was from gaming news and Let's Plays, and video game abuse, well, was with video games). With that realization, I stopped playing right then and there (which lined up perfectly with June 1st, awesome). Justification for [Introduction (Recap)] Hopefully this introduction gives you an idea into my mindset going into my own personal journal. Also, a month down the road, if someone new happens to read this journal, they have a little extra context when reading some (hopefully) daily posts. Today - 17/90 Today was actually a pretty good day. It was a lot more productive than usual. I got a lot of groceries, thanks to my mom, that I was in desperate need of. I checked on some job applications at some local stores which helped to ease some anxiety I was having in that regard. I also read quite a bit today and it felt like it was something exciting. I noticed some cravings for the past few days but today really helped cleanse some of those negative emotions. If you've made it this far, here's my current dilemma: I want to start a Dungeons and Dragons campaign (a very short one, just to try DMing) with my roommate. I think it would be a lot of fun and I think it's removed enough from video games (even though it's still a game) that it wouldn't break the rules of the detox. However, I also don't want to rationalize myself into breaking the rules of detox, even in a potentially minor way. Here's the case I've made to myself: Video games are so addictive and toxic because of four key things they provide: an escape, social connections, easily measurable growth, and challenge. They are also a hyper stimulant. However, D&D is different in some keys ways: the measurable growth is also paired with story advancement (not just an avatar), as a DM, I can be very creative and productive, the social connections are face to face, it is not hyper stimulant, and, best of all, it's not an escape. However, I am completely open to the idea that I am just rationalizing really hard to make an excuse to play a game by any means necessary. In fact, one of things I'd planned to do if I played was gauge how much of a trigger it was or wasn't for me. I feel like it won't be. But I could also be wrong. Thanks for any input on this issue!