How it Works
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.
Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.
At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Remember that we deal with gaming excessively, cunning, baffling and powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power, that one is God. May you find Him now!
Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.
Here are the steps and principles we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:
Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over gaming, and that our lives have become unmanageable.
Principles - Honesty and Acceptance
Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Principle - Hope
Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Principle - Faith
Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Principles - Action and Courage
Step 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Principle - Integrity
Step 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Principle - Willingness
Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Principle - Humility
Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Principle - Brotherly love
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure, them or others.
Principle - Justice
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Principle - Perseverance
Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Principle - Spirituality.
Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other obsessive gamers and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Principle - Service
Many of us exclaimed, What an order! I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
Our description of the obsessive gamer, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:
(a) That we were obsessive gamers and could not manage our own lives.
(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our excessive gaming.
(c) That God could and would, if He were sought.
Edited by: lizwool at: 8/16/2013 10:32
Introduction by Dervish DuKot of Tristan On behalf of the Online Gamers Anonymous community, I welcome you to our new message board. We hope you enjoy the new look and find value in posting interactively. May each of you find strength and compassion. For those who have come here via a cross-post from another message board, know that we have a full website of which this discussion board is only a part. Please check out our other resources by clicking the Home button, on the Main Menu. We are here for those gamers who feel they have reached a point where they no longer have control over their gameplay. We are also here for the families and friends of those people who have seen first hand what can happen as a result. This discussion board is not about placing blame, nor is it about trying to ascribe responsibility for one's addiction to either the player or his friends or family or even the game manufacturer. The problem of online game addiction is a very controversial topic which has many aspects and cannot be easily resolved within the context of our discussion board. In addition, our limited resources do not afford the few of us enough time to address this particular topic in any depth. We have seen so far that a large number of people who brooch this particular argument have not taken the time to really read the existing posts, and so they repeat the same thing that a dozen other people have already said. Well, we just don't have time to answer the same questions anymore. And besides, we are not here for those folks, we are here for the people who truly have problems and who truly want help. While we may revisit this topic once we have grown a bit, again, we are but a few people working hard to provide a valuable resource for learning about and overcoming online gaming addiction. Discussion Board Rules This is a heavily-moderated board, due to the subject and its potential for inviting emotional postings. We will be monitoring content more strictly than the average admin might and this is for a reason. Posts that are off-topic may and probably will be either closed or removed. The players of online games are an invaluable resource for the things they know and the things they've experienced. Please feel free to share your views on the topic of online gaming addiction. Resources We have many ideas for resources and so we will develop part of our message board to include those as well, sorted by type. Our views of online games As a final note, it is not our position that online games or the people that play them are bad. Nor is it our contention that the manufacturers of these games are bad. This is not to say, however, that the manufacturers always act with the player's best interest at heart. But we realize that games are meant to be fun diversions from the toils and stresses of everyday life. For others they provide connections to friends across the globe that they might not have met otherwise. We realize this and in that context these games can be quite beneficial. On the other hand, we also realize that a disproportionate number of people are not able to regulate their play with some of the games, sometimes resulting in very severe problems for the player and his family. Again, it is a complex issue, but our primary focus is on helping the player and his immediate family, not on trying to ascribe blame or responsibility. Again welcome and feel free to contact any of the OLGA/OLG-Anon staff directly with any questions or problems. - The OLGA/OLG-Anon staff.
Liz Woolley
Whereever he is, I wish Duke Dervish well... He gave us a good start.
Leveling in Real Life