My Recovery Thread

DAY 1
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As of today, I've decided to start a road to recovery for gaming... I know it won't be fun, for the first few weeks, but it will pay off. I'm sick of walking around, in a zombie like status, thinking of some virtual world and virtual monsters that I need to kill. It's going to stop. So, this thread might be a lot of non-sense to you guys but it will help me immensely. I'm going to put all of my thoughts into this thread and look back at it after a month of not playing any games. At that point, I'll decide if I can return to casual game playing or not.

I was reading here that there may be various reasons that people become emersed in games like this, but I don't think that any of them are reasons which are applicable to me. I think I lost focus of my life, lost view of the goals which I wished to accomplish in my REAL life. I came across something new and exciting with obviously attainable goals. Get level 50, get that sword, kill this monster, etc. It seemed to just spiral and get out of control. I believe I can get to the point where I can return to casually gaming, but I'll need to not let it get out of control again.

As I stated in another thread here, my first step is to tell my fiance about everything. She is asleep right now, but when the oppertunity comes tomorrow she will be reading all of this. I'll need her support and encouragement.

At the same time, I don't feel that it is nessicary to destroy things that I have paid for. I'm not going to destroy my games, nor delete them off my computer. I have the willpower to completely stop playing the games, while they are still being available. I will, however, not play any games for the next month. Most things, in a controlled mannor, are not detrimentral towards oneself. I realize that I can play a game, for a few hours a week, without it affecting me. I also realize that I cannot play a game for 10+ hours per day with it not affecting me.

Now, most importantly, are the reasons of why I need to do this. I want to make a difference in someone's life, I want to be a teacher. With the grades I am getting at this point, I won't be able to teach anything. My grades are beyond pathetic and I don't know whether they are going to get better this quarter or not. The quarter is almost over and I am going to try my hardest, but I may have dug a hole that is too deep to get out of at this point. So, reason number one to quit is because I want to become a teacher.

Secondly, I'm missing so much of real life. My brother and his wife are going to be having a baby ANY day now, and to be honest I can't remember the day when they told me they were pregant. I was probably too involved with a game to care. I don't want to be like that anymore. I want to remember their childs birth, the first time I see her, etc. My fiance and I are making wedding plans... I don't want to be looking at wedding cakes and be mentally somewhere else, in a fantasy world. There is too much going on in the real world to be that involved with a fantasy world.

Lastly, I can spend endless amounts of time in this fantasy world... and I haven't improved myself at all. Or, I could spend that time doing something productive in the real world. My fiance bought me a guitar about 2 years ago and I really have no idea how to play one. If I would have only put half of that time into playing a guitar...

It's 4:11am right now and I'm at work. Already my head fills much less cloudy and I'm starting to think more clearly. FFXI isn't on my mind right now, I'm just focusing on this. This is the last week of class, tomorrow is my last day of Econ 201. This week I'll be very busy, with preparing for finals so I don't think it will be difficult not to play any games. The difficult week will be the week after finals, when I will not be working or have class. After that, the new quarter will start and I'll begin some more teaching courses.

3 hours of work are left, and I'm not sure what I want to do with the time. Already I have thought about going to allakhazam and wasting some time looking at FFXI stuff, or going to a flash gaming website and wasting time there. Instead, I'm going to get out some homework and start working on that after I'm done with this post.

So, this is where I stand. I have my reasons, some goals and some random thoughts. I'll post again tomorrow about how I feel and how the day went.