Introduction

Hello all!

I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself: I've been playing games since I was a kid with my brothers - I'm in my early 30s now - and it has always been a form of recreation and escapism. I've always played a lot of games, but never really wanted to admit I had a problem. In school, and then college, I'd always managed to do well enough to get by, but once I entered the work-force, my gaming began to have serious negative effects on my work, and has greatly contributed to the loss of two - and almost three - jobs and created serious problems with my family, my marriage, and my overall productivity and well-being.

I've started to take active steps to get the issue under control: I have started talk therapy and also started the process of getting myself screened and treated for ADD, which I suspect might be an additional underlying cause of my lack of focus and contributing to how easily I get distracted.

I've not been a huge online gamer, but my video gaming has still been out of control. I was waking up early to play before work, playing frequently during work, and then often playing at night after work. I've managed to kick mobile gaming/phone apps for about 6/7 months, but until last week was still playing computer games. It has stopped me from spending more time with my family and had serious impacts on my personal relationships.

My current plan is to focus on the therapy and medical issues first, to try to get to the root cause of why I've been playing so much. I've been told that it's important to make sure stopping one bad habit doesn't turn into another one, so I'm open to any advice you all can share.

I'll be joining you guys on the zoom meetings, and look forward to getting to know you as I work on these issues.