Day 3 without games - what it's like

Hang in there Tamercloud. Just take it one day at a time.

I enjoy being active outdoors in the countryside; gardening, walking and watching nature.

It takes 30 days unplugged before your neuroendocrine system returns to perceivable homeostasis. We see this in patients going through residential substance abuse rehab too. As your mind and body restores balance in thought, hormones and stress response, you are able to think clearly.

When we are addicted to gaming, nothing else in life seems fun or interesting compared to our games. When we quit, it takes time for our brain to rewire so that we can enjoy other things. In addition to that, we experience withdrawal, which can last anywhere from a week or two to several months. If you haven't read the list of withdrawal symptoms yet, check it out here: http://www.olganon.org/?q=game_addiction_withdrawal_symptoms

It's a long rough road to get balance back into our lives after quitting gaming, but it's worth it. Is it possible to use what you learned in game design in some other avenue? If you can, try to attend some meetings. We have one every evening at 9 pm EST. It helps to talk to others.

Hang in there!

Hi Tamer,

Getting off the games definitely did not solve all my problems. It helped with a few, quite a bit. And it made it possible for me to work on the others.

If I go back to gaming, everything goes back down the tubes. As long as I stay off gaming, I can keep making little improvements day by day and moving in the right direction. It takes time. If we walk 10 miles into the woods, it's 10 miles back out. But even just a few small positive steps each day move me in the right direction. Before I know it, I look around and things look very different... I'm in a new place.

Hang in there! You're worth it.

IS there any way you could get out and spend a day a week in somewhere more busy where there are clubs, librarys (to look for self-help books) and things you like to do?

Any trains or coachs going? How long would the drive be? How long can you spare to get out?

Wouldn't adventuring like that would help your boredom? Wouldn't it help your loneliness if you say hello and meet people on your travels? What ways can you help your depression to get better?

Moderation is the 'Holy Grail' of many gamers. A true addict is unlikely to be able to moderate. The only way to find out would be to try once you had had a good breather from gaming, but then you might risk undoing all the good work you had achieved. The devious addict brain might say "you can do it now, you are better" but later the gamer might find that he was wrong to believe that. There are many stories of this happening on this website. But it would be your choice, everyone is different, and you can always learn from experiences both good and bad.

Oh wow, Tamer, sounds like you're in a really rough position with really tough choices to make. This is where "one day at a time" saved me. I, too, could not see a path, much less a grand plan from where I sat over 2 years ago. So, I began learning to simply take care of today knowing that if I do that, tomorrow will be taken care of, too. And the Serenity Prayer applies here- Grant me the serenity to accept what I can not change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I still pray that prayer A LOT! Keeping you in my prayers.

You are indeed in a very bad spot, tamer. You would be like an alcoholic working in a brewery. Perhaps, once you get a job in the game design field, you will be concenrating on the design aspect so much that the games won't call to you. But, if you are truly addicted, which it sounds very much like you are, spending time designing games will only be a trigger to game more. We addicts find it impossible to moderate our gaming time. It's all or nothing for us.

You said designing websites was soul crushing, but it seems to me there are other avenues that you might explore. For instance, in the film industry where computer graphics are being used more and more, or in the advertising field, making computer generated commercials. Anyway, it's some thoughts. Good luck!

Tamer,

The skills required to design and work on games, (unless you've been specifically working on something more proprietary like the Unity engine), will very easily translate to other fields. MANY other fields. C# and C++ are the core of most game engines out there, even Unity and Unreal are based on them, but these langauges also allow you to work on so much else. Application design for software developers working on educational software, healthcare industry, interactive web design, mobile management, backend for business sytems, etc.

There is such a freedom to choose from with the skills acquired through game design the only hindrance would be your perspective on how rewarding it may be. Designing games sounds fun because of the creativity behind it and the experience we've had as gamers, but in reality, you're still staring at code most of your day. You can be "creative" with anything you design.

If you're an addict, moderation does not exist. No one here can give you advice on how to moderate :-P

Goodluck,
Jesse

Moderation is nearly impossible. You're like an alcoholic who wants to work in a bar as a bar tender. Very difficult to do!

It would make sense to keep away from games you get sucked into, as a minimum. There are no guarantees that would be enough. Be aware you could be deluding yourself. No offense intended. It's unlikely any gamer on here is going to give you any hope or recommendation about moderation. It's a risk you have to take on your own. Although you will always get support wherever you are in your process if you fall off the wagon so to speak.

If you were my son I would be telling you to travel or do some volunteer work to broaden your horizons. He never listened to me and I don't expect you to either! I hope it works out for you.

All the best.

Congratulations on 6 days.

If the friend that you lost touch with, because of his trying to get better from games, knows that you are now in recovery for games do you think that he would like your company now?

The gardening sounds like a great activity to get away from the screen. Can you think of any others that might work for you? Going for a walk, a bike ride, even driving to and sitting in a nice nature setting.

Keep coming back Tamer!

Then keep coming back! :) Tamer, I saw some bit of a not great movie recently - can't even tell you the name of it or who was in it - where a guy said to his girl something that resonated with me - "Give yourself and the human race a break." His tone was tender and caring, not harsh or demanding. Give yourself a break today. As often as you need to, remind yourself that today you are taking first steps toward better days and those better days will come as you walk toward them. Yeah, that sounds like a platitude, but in my experience it's the truth. With time and continued practice, your focus is going to shift, and you really will be able to see possibilities you just can't see at the moment. Big hug. And I like pulling weeds, too.

Congrats for getting past the temptation, Tamer. We need rewards and ways to relax. Just stay open to new, healthy ones. You'll find them.

tamer, that's quite a combination of challenges you got going on in your life. I will pray for your healthy journey through all this. How are you doing now?

I want to highlight that being in the game-design work environment is definitely not going to help you overcome this addiction. It's a big brick-wall. With the famous "marshmellow willpower test" done on children at Stanford (I give you one marshmallow now but you can get two if you wait a little bit), the ones with the greatest ability to hold off temptations seemed to have used "intentional distractions" --> a whole variety of activities to prevent themselves from looking at the marshmallows. But the kids who tried to distract themselves but kept looking at the marshmallows, didn't fare very well. So "visual stimulus" is a huge element when it comes to willpower. Once you "see" your cravings, bottom-up brain circuitry can often take-over and hijack your brain to where you break all your past promises. In your case, in game design industry, where you have to "see" videogames all day, everyday, I really can only imagine how difficult it must be for you to stay away.

In my small opinion, perhaps it makes sense to stay away from the game-design industry while you develop your willpower muscles to the point where you can fight video-gaming addicton at will, and then return to it later if you still believe it to be your calling. In the meantime, skill-building and collecting inspirations from other areas can only expand yourself as an individual and even a better game-designer in the long-run.

But all my hearts and prayers to you whatever happens. Keep strong, tamer ... other tips:

1) Depression-prone people (I am among them, somewhat genetic in my family), researchers have found, have a big problem with ruminating and negative self-talk. Try to give yourself lots of love, acknowledgements and compliments. Optimal ratio is 3~4 positive self-talk for every negative one.

2) Meditations can do wonders for your willpower. I suggest reading the book "Focus" by Daniel Goleman. He goes into how meditations can literally rewire your brain to decrease rumination, depression and increase impulse control, emotional control and basically transform your neural activity.

HI Tamer I resonate with a lot of what you ahve been saying in these posts and I hope you are still doing well.

I quit gaming twice once I lasted ninee days the second about the same. I was depressed and lonely bored and doing nothing really save pushing myself to look for work and doing other things that normally get neglected by me. Being alone wiht our thoughts seems to be one of the hardest times when the urge ot give in is the worst, but this community is here to support us.

I get the impresson that you are a writer for game design inventing storys dialogue and such. Could you not parlay your crative side into another career? I myself like to think of myself as a writer thoug hI"ve never publsihed a setence I have realized thoug hthat gaming has not only killed my desire to write but stymied my creativity.

I haven't officially quit thogh i think it's been 24 hours now i'm planning to quit when i wil lbe away from here with family on the farm away from my computer.

Oh I almost forgot what else I wanted to say. I don't know about you but for me you tube makes me want to play so much more. Assuming when you watch you tube ure watching gaming you tubers like gopher and whoever not internet cats or whatnot.

For myself I attended a meeting last night on here got off andp roceded to cue up a lets play ep that had been posted, thankfully i got upset with myself turned it off and went to bed.

After I quit gaming, I felt the same way that you are feeling. I thought that since I had quit, everything should go back to the way it was before I started gaming and I should want to do all the things I used to enjoy doing. But that wasn't the case. It takes a long time.....months for our brains to rewire after quitting gaming. And if gaming was all you ever did in your free time, then it may take even longer. Watching videos of gaming will only feed the addiction, too, so it will be worse.

I would encourage you to search out new hobbies to replace gaming. It really helps to find something else that you enjoy to fill in the time. Get out of the house and do something different. I've always had a problem with procrastination too, and there's even a procrastinators anonymous. So we're not alone in that. Hang in there. You're doing great.

Well, in my honest opinion from what I've seen people go through on here, it really isn't the best idea to keep them in your life at all. Everyone goes through that phase where they are determined to quit, then they start justifying reasons for moderating the amount of time they will allow themselves. 1 or 2 hours of a single player game (mine was Final Fantasy when I relapsed) easily turns into 3 or 4 hours. Then when you feel like the story of the game is boring you, another game comes into the mix because hey, you need to stay entertained, right? Then that involves you balancing just that original game with the new game which will end up increasing your hours spent per day again, and so forth...

Most people end up back here. We welcome them with acceptance because we all know how difficult it is and we've all been through it before.

The part I hate most is that your worst enemy lies within yourself, providing the rationalization for why you can moderate. Why you can be the only one who would be successful in a society of gaming addicts where games are designed to make you play for hours. The justification and arguments with yourself are the worst.

So sorry to hear, tamercloud, that you have given up so soon. Two weeks off the games is a good start, though, so I hope you'll try again after you finish up the games you want to finish. And yes, like Chris said, cutting down on gaming does not work for addicts. We just can't do it. It's all for nothing for us addicts. I wish I could just play a certain kind of game, but any electronic games just feeds the addiction. I know that from experience. And watching others play is a great trigger. I feel like.....if they can play I want to also.

It's overcoming those cravings to game that gives the victory. The addict brain will tell us all kinds of things to get us to go back to gaming. Eventually we learn to recognize the lies of the addict brain and not start that first game, despite how our thoughts are leading us. Anyway, I hope you finally succeed in overcoming. Best of luck to you.

tamercloud, there are sober alcoholics that work as bartenders. It is possible you can work as a gamedesigner and remain abstinent from games. I understand where you are coming from, I found games extremely interesting when I was in active addiction in-part because of the creative world they had. Most of my early writing was based off of the different games I had or the narrative they provided and it was easy to produce.

However, there are other ways to work on that same creative function without resorting to games. Books and comics are a time-honored and effective method, we addicts simply have the trouble imagining the scenes in the stories because it's such an alien format. That does not mean it is impossible, just difficult.

It's important you take the time to determine whether or not you want to stay sober and what you are willing to do to get it. This is a daily process: would you trust someone else to help you or a even a power greater than yourself? These are questions only you can answer, not I. I hope at some point you start reading the massive amounts of programatic text available. Just remember it's a day at a time.

Tamer, if you are a true addict, game design might not be the best option, though it is not entirely impossible. I consider my best friend to be a game addict as well, but he does artwork for tablet games now. He spends so much time dedicated toward his deadlines and generating new ideas for potential games, he hardly has time to game anymore. For a lot of us, though, we just need to be able to walk away entirely and not have them anywhere in our lives.