Hi all, I am new here.
I'm not sure where to really start, but I'm encouraged to see that many others struggle with the same compulsive gaming habits that I do.
While this is an issue that I have grappled with for a long time, currently the Game of Choice is World of Tanks. What started as something casual progressed into a full-blown addiction. As a busy, working dad of small kids, I would make sure to always squeeze some gaming time into my routine. Usually 2-3 hours a night, after the kids and wife had fallen asleep. I didn't care that I'd show up to work each day beary eyed from sleep depravation.
I told myself that it wasn't a problem, even though I knew it was. I suppose I was able to convince myself that as long as I limited my gaming time to when everybody was asleep, I was still fulfilling my vital role as husband and father.
It turns out even this was a problem, though. See, while I may not have been taking time away from my family directly, I was robbing them indirectly. My lack of sleep made me more irritable, and my near-constant longing for gameplay time manifested itself as a bubbling frustration with those around me. I think I was just a more angry person in general, and sadly the people I love had to suffer that.
In time, I couldn't deny that a problem actually did exist. And for short bouts I'd have success in stepping away from the game. Each time though, I'd come back believing the lie that I could somehow manage the time, and not let the game control me. Sometimes I would go back and forth in a sort of cycle, often uninstalling and reinstalling the game daily!
Well... the time has come for me to step away for good - from all electronic games, not just World of Tanks, since even playing Minecraft on my tablet eventually results in reinstalling World of Tanks on my PC.
I can't go back. I refuse to let my time and soul be sucked away any longer. My time on this earth is short, and I've already wasted hours upon hours on something that hasn't offered any return on the high price I've paid. What I wouldn't give to get that time back.
It's only been a couple of days now since I made this choice, and it hasn't been easy. But, I've got to keep going!
Anyway, thank you for reading my little story here. I suppose I wrote it mostly for myself, but maybe it'll help somebody else too.
Hi rogan and welcome to Olga. Congratulations on making the choice to take your life back from gaming. It is a hard journey to travel, but you certainly don't have to travel it alone. Make use of this website by posting how you're doing, posting to support and encourage others, reading posts to learn more about gaming addiction and the struggles we all have with it and, if you can, attend meetings. It all helps. Hope to see you around!
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. ~Maria Robinson
Thanks! Glad to be here, and I'll be happy to post my progress as this goes on.
Welcome Rogan!! I've found coming to the online meetings here to be the most helpful. Hope to see you in one of them.
Hugs, Lisa Video game free since 4/17/2014
Hi Rogan glad you're here! I related a lot to what you shared. I am a busy working dad with a 5 and 7 year old myslef. While I was gaming I did "just enough" to get by as my role of a father and husband. I experienced the same thing anger and frustration emotionaly I was not fuffiling my roles at all.
Quitting gaming is not easy but it is possible with the help here. I hope you attend the meetings they are a huge help.
"Yesterday is History, Tomorrow a Mystery, Today is a Gift, Thats why it's called the Present"
Are the meetings EST?
yes
Hugs, Lisa Video game free since 4/17/2014
Hi Rogan2929,
Welcome to OLGA, I'm glad you found this place. I fully understand the addiction to World of Tanks as it was a game I started playing in June 2013. It's highly addictive and I would often spend hours (3 - 8) a night playing until 3-4 in the morning then having to wake up at 6:30 to rush off to work. As bad as it was playing all night then staying up all night I would then surf the web nearly all day at work looking up WoT related websites. Probably a good 6-7 hours of my working shift was consumed with me either watching videos, reading forums or thinking about WoT so I totally understand how you longed to play the game again. I just wanted to click that BATTLE button again.
Like you I struggled with gaming addiction for years, 16 years roughly. I also have a wife and kid. I wish I could say I waited for my wife to go to bed but usually after my daughter was in bed I was playing. I too tried moderating but I couldn't. It was night after night where I promised I would just play so many battles and be in bed by 11:00pm but that never happened. Moderation is something I can't do. I finally ended up removing WoT (and all the other games) for good off my computer and i've been game free since Aug 6/14. It's had it's challenges but it can be done. Many of us here have been game free and so can you.
Come to the meetings, read other peoples posts and you will see you aren't alone. They are very helpful. I hope to see you in one of the meetings soon.
Jorey
Jorey
Jorey, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has been hooked on that game!
I've come to realize that World of Tanks is genuinely one of the most addicting games I have ever come across. Really, no other game has so drawn me in - so enthralled me - as this one. Why is that the case?
I believe it comes down to the way the game offers up random rewards that are so typically used in MMOs to hook their players. I'm not talking about the mission rewards or other free stuff from WG, but the dopamine-inducing reward of the gameplay itself: the almost ecstatic experience of that round you just fired going through an enemy's hull.
The reward is random because not every shot penetrates. Some end up in the dirt. Others are absorbed by the tracks. Still other shots glance harmlessly off a thick UFP. But when your cannon booms and successfully delivers its payload, the sensation was joyful. You're even further rewarded with seeing how much damage you just caused, and if you're lucky enough, the sight of your enemy's tank transforming into a smoldering wreck. There you go: random reward, dopamine response. Rinse and repeat.
That thrill is what brought me back nearly every time. I longed to put round after round into the opposing team - simply because it felt good. And it was so easy to keep playing, too. After all, what could "one more" game hurt, right?
Ugh. Ten-thousand plus "one more" games actually seems like a lot, now that I think about it.
Then there were the times of immense and immeasurable frustration. You know, the night where you have one loss after another, seemingly to defy all sense and make a fool out of your college statistics professor.
One of the things that finally convinced me of my need to terminate all access to this game was when I took a moment to consider what I was giving up. I already knew that I was losing sleep, and it was probably hurting my job performance. I already knew I was more irritable with my wife and kids, especially after a bad losing streak. Who knows what it was doing to my health. It's probably best that I leave that question unanswered.
What was I doing all this for though? Seriously? Was I really giving up this much for a lousy, immature, computer game? A computer game that wasn't even all that fun anymore, simply because of my repeated frustrations with a dying winrate? What else was I going to toss to the WG developers? My soul?
Questions like that prompted me to consider that for all that I had given to World of Tanks, I had absolutely nothing to show for it. I couldn't even consider myself an "above-average" player. So sad.
Yeah, I cannot go back to that kind of enslavement.