Hi Guys,
Just played 4 Hours a Strategy game, every game loosing. I was very angry, and knocking with my fists a few times on my Screen. Thats not my general character and i think there are many Players, that play more then 2-4 Hours a day. Nevertheless i decided not to play computer games in my freetime anymore. I am unistalling all computer games in this moment, cause i dont want to launch one of them accidantally when i'm online. My life is not bad, i'm 20 and go to college, studying Chemnistry Engineering. I dont prefer gaming more than meeting friends, but as you might know, you can't always meet friends and of course you have time you have to spent alone. My aim is, not to play Video Games in my free time anymore, so i have more time for learning or just relaxing. Please excuse my bad english, i'm from Germany, its a litte bit difficult to describe my feelings in English. If you have questions/suggestions or hinds for me, please post them.
Sincerly, Tom
And of course, i'll report my progress the next weeks :-)
Welcome Tom.
Game free since 3/3/2014.
Hi Tom, welcome to Olga! I found meeting is the most helpful in my recovery. We have daily meeting at 9pm Eastern time. Hope to see you there!
It's good to have goals and dreams, but while you're waiting for things to change, waiting for promises to come to pass, don't be discontent with where you are. Learn to enjoy the season that you're in--Pastor Joel Osteen
Welcome to OLGA, Tom. I've got a chemical engineering degree, and it's nice to know that there are other people on OLGA who are studying the same thing.
Good for you on noticing how your behavior changes around the game and realizing that there's a problem, and kudos on being willing to look for help on an English-language website...that takes a lot of courage, and I hope you're able to find the help you need. As per your request, here are a few things that have helped me out a lot...
1) Going to meetings. The 9 PM EST meetings are going to be really awkward for you to make and throw your sleep schedule off really badly, but we've got some meetings that happen 6 hours before that most days (between 9-10 PM your time, I think, but you'll want to check that). If you click on the "meetings" tab at the top of the page, you'll get a whole calendar of scheduled meetings...
2) Getting a sponsor. A sponsor is basically somebody who's gotten some good recovery time who agrees to work closely with you to help you learn how to live out a recovery-oriented life as well. This goes closely along with #3...
3) Work the steps. OLGA is a 12-Step Fellowship, and a lot of addicts of all sorts have found recovery through working the steps. I know that I'm finding them to be really helpful...
I hope that some of this helps...
When you're going through hell...keep going. --Winston Churchill There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still --Corrie ten Boom
Thank you all for your answers, just coming home from Cologne.. As LearningSerenity said, going to the 9pm meetings is nearly impossible, but i see, that you have Wednesday a chat at 9pm European time, maybe i'll have a look. To understand the 12Step Program i'll need some time, my school english does not suffice in this case. The main reason why i'm posting on an english website is, that there are no real alternatives in the german web. For now i'm happy that i can share my feelings with others :-)
Hi Tom and welcome to OLGA! I'm so glad you recognize you need help and that sharing with others is vital to your recovery! Please don't stop sharing. We're here for you!
Glad you checked back Raupe! My experience is that recovering from any addiction is tough. Having a language barrier makes it more difficult I'm sure.
The 12 steps LearningSerenity referred to are based on the original 12 steps of Alcohlics Anonymous. I looked online and found a German language translation of the AA text.
http://www.silkworth.net/gsowatch/gerbb.pdf
It may be worth your time to a bit of reading to help understand how a 12 step program works. Just substitute the word "gaming" for "drinking" and "games" for "alcohol".
Best of luck to you!
Game free since 3/3/2014.
Glad you came back, Tom. The 12 Steps are definitely a powerful tool for recovery, but they also are hard to properly understand just by reading. We talk about "working the steps" all the time, but my own experience so far has showed me that I have only ever been able to get a very general idea of what that means by reading them. Reading them is good, and I highly recommend regularly reading recovery material (such as AA's Big Book or NA's Basic Text) on a regular basis, but as I've been told many times, "The only bad way to work these steps is alone."
Feel free to keep coming back and keep posting as long as you like. I hope you're able to join us at a meeting some time soon. Hugs...
When you're going through hell...keep going. --Winston Churchill There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still --Corrie ten Boom