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Mark

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Hey there! I’m Mark, I’m 28 years-old and am from the lovely, albeit wet and windy UK.

Not long ago I came across Cam’s YouTube channel, and more recently started perusing these forums. I have come to a decision to quit gaming, kind of… I’ll try to explain :P

A little bit of back story. I have been playing games for as long as I can remember, but as a child, like everything else it was never more than a hobby to me. Problems relating to gaming started to arise during High School. Being pretty good at most sports meant that I was never really a target for bullying, but life changed so suddenly, as it does for everyone at that time, and personally I found it hard to adjust. Things came to a head when at 14 I was diagnosed with IBD, a medical condition which has the potential be a very debilitating. To keep a long story short, it had a detrimental effect on both my physical and mental wellbeing.

Fast forward to today, and I am fortunate to have been in remission for a number of years, and while my life might not be in the place where I aspire it to be, I am very, very, very grateful for a lot of things and am proud of what I have accomplished in that time, and of the person that I am.

I have no doubt that my obsession with gaming coincided with the negative changes in my life. Over time, gaming became part of the routine. With the odd exception (Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress being two games that spring to mind, although I haven’t played either in over two and four years respectively). I have never really been someone that plays games all day, every day, but I have come to accept that far too much of my time has been wasted playing video games and procrastinating on the internet, the latter of which has arguably become the bigger problem of the two, and are the reasons for me being here.

In answer to the statement I made at the beginning, one reason for not wanting to quit cold turkey is that my gaming habits have changed over the past couple of years, and as I’ve become more aware of what my addiction triggers are, my approach to gaming has changed as a result, and I have gradually played less and less. Another reason is that I do like a couple of hours in my day to relax and switch off, be that though gaming, watching a film/TV series or whatever. This is also important to me taking into account how fatigue relating to my condition, can affect my day-to-day life. I want to stress to people that I’m not using that as an excuse. If I could hit the gym every day, I genuinely would, but the fact of the matter is that despite being in remission, I have many a good day, but I have bad ones as well, and listening to my body is vital in my situation, otherwise it can be a case of taking one step forward, two steps back.

Going forward, my aim is to play in moderation (argh, not that word!), but I mean strict moderation, something akin to the number of hours Richard Kuo stated he currently plays in Cam’s recent video, and the only games I will play are single-player oriented games that are rich in story and atmosphere. Anything else is no longer worth my time as far as I’m concerned.

With that being said, I do feel it is important for me to take an extended break from gaming altogether. Despite my average gaming time per week being considerably small when compared to some, I’ve never gone a number of months without gaming, so the 90-day detox is something that I’m seriously considering, and after that period, I can make a decision on how best to move forward. Be it to game in the way I outlined above, or not at all. I’m very much open to either.

 

The first steps…

  •             While I find single-player games to be a lot more manageable, multiplayer games have long been a crux of mine, more so playing with random people rather than friends. Cam’s video relating to a false sense of accomplishment hit the nail on the head for me. Games like Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead as mentioned above, among others, provided me with me a temporary escape, social interaction, constant measurable growth, challenge, they ticked all the boxes. I have moved further and further away from multiplayer gaming over time, and despite returning to Call of Duty with the release of Black Ops 3 last November, I realised straight away that some of the bad habits were returning, so a week later I sold the game on. No more multiplayer games for me.

 

  •       PC gaming is a no-no. I intend to use the computer for working, coding, editing etc. Not to game on. I have uninstalled my Steam account and deleted all the games from my profile. While this doesn’t get rid of them for good (unfortunately), it gives me the sense of wiping the slate clean so to speak. I’m also in the process of selling some of my games and consoles, both old and new. Again, not a crucial step, but it helps me mentally to move forward.

 

  •       No mobile or browser-based games, even though I don’t actually show any signs of addiction with these particular types of games, and I haven’t played any for as long as I can remember, I might as well add it to the list!

 

  •       My obsession over console achievements/trophies has lessened over time, but they have continued to be a thorn in my side. Trophy notifications have been turned off and I will no longer keep track of them through the console or on the internet if/when I do return to play single-player games.

 

  •       Reduce the amount of time I spend browsing the internet, and to make sure that when I am on the internet that I’m using it for a purpose and not just to procrastinate.

 

Improving myself…

I’m still working out the kinks on this one. As mentioned previously, I like some time in the day to switch off, but admittedly I need to find alternate ways to do that. Reading is definitely something I need to do more of. Getting back into coding and editing could be a way to replace some of the time spent mindlessly browsing the internet. Improving my overall fitness is a long-term goal of mine. One step already taken in the regard is the restarting of my yoga regime which I need to keep up for the sake of my creaky knees! A strict gym schedule isn’t feasible as I’ve already outlined, but I can certainly improve my consistency as to when I do go. Whatever goals I decide to aim for, I want to keep it manageable, that doesn’t mean that I believe people shouldn’t reach for the stars, but I have the mind-set that you should learn to walk before you run. Something I’ve been working more and more on in the past few months is to live in the moment, and not to constantly look to the past or what may come in the future. It helps me to appreciate the smaller things in life which I think is important.

 

That’s it for now, if you’ve got this far then congratulations and I wish you all the best!  :)

 

Edited by Mark
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Hello Mark

Good luck with the 90 DAY-detox! I also just started with this and I hope we can both finish it :) .

I could really relate to the procrastinating on the internet. The last half year I didn't game much anymore, but just browsing the internet happened more frequently. Instead of this, I'm also trying to find new ways to replace this and find something else I can do like reading, music, shows/movies, ... . If you find something good, let it know because it might be something I could also utilize :) .

 

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Hey Mark! Thanks for joining us here! Lots of members from the UK in our community. If you find moderation isn't working so well then commit to the 90 day detox and you can always go back after if you find your life is in a more positive space. I know I always say this but if you can't go 90 days without gaming you probably shouldn't be gaming, but only you know how it's impacting your life (be it positive or negative).

Either way we are here to support you. :)

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Hello Mark

Good luck with the 90 DAY-detox! I also just started with this and I hope we can both finish it :) .

I could really relate to the procrastinating on the internet. The last half year I didn't game much anymore, but just browsing the internet happened more frequently. Instead of this, I'm also trying to find new ways to replace this and find something else I can do like reading, music, shows/movies, ... . If you find something good, let it know because it might be something I could also utilize :) .

 

Hey, good luck to you too! It's interesting that you were able to reduce the amount of time you spent gaming as well, how did that come about? Did you become more aware of the amount of time you were putting into games and how it was affecting you personally? Or did gaming simply lose some of its appeal? I found it to be a combination of the two.

Like me, I'm guessing that you found browsing the internet to be an easy way to fill some of the free time that had suddenly become available to you. Right now, I actually feel this will be the harder habit of the two to overcome. Who knows though, that may change as time goes on :P

 

Hey Mark! Thanks for joining us here! Lots of members from the UK in our community. If you find moderation isn't working so well then commit to the 90 day detox and you can always go back after if you find your life is in a more positive space. I know I always say this but if you can't go 90 days without gaming you probably shouldn't be gaming, but only you know how it's impacting your life (be it positive or negative).

Either way we are here to support you. :)

Thanks Cam!

I think it's important for me to state that I have tried gaming in moderation in the past, but that was at a time when I wanted to play multiplayer games. Now that my interest in playing online has waned, and I'm committed to no longer playing those types of games, I will be coming at it from a different angle than before. You're right though, although I'm in the belief that I can control my gaming habits when playing single-player games, I need to find out how much actual control I have, and how much has simply been an illusion. Taking a break is the only way to do that.

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Hi

Well for me personally, what helped me to reduce the amount of play time and eventually not game for a period of time, was the sudden realization how my life was going to look, if I kept gaming in my free time every day. I visualized myself in like 3-4 years and if I saw myself still playing video games every day in this future, I would be really disappointed. When I stopped with games in the beginning, it wasn't so difficult to not play, because it was really clear to me why I shouldn't be playing. After a couple of months, it go harder because I was slowly forgetting why it was so important to not game anymore. So a good tip here is to always remind yourself every day why you are not playing games anymore ;) .

The biggest difference I noticed in this period, was that I wasn't living on automatic pilot anymore. I became much more aware of my life and my environment and the things I wanted to do. When I was just gaming, I didn't even think about most of these things and every day was just the same.

Yeah totally agree with browsing the internet. If you stop gaming, there's a lot of free time you get in return and if you can't fill that up, it's easy to start browsing the internet. I hope I can find a better replacement in the future, but I find it not so bad as the game addiction. You eventually get bored with browsing the internet, but with gaming there's no end to it. 

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