Withdrawals
I'm suggesting that all of us recovering gamers could post what our withdrawals were like, and how we managed the recovery with them. We have newcomers, and families/friends of newcomers who might need this information.
Pat's story (note: game was World of Warcraft...the heroin of games)
I did NOT expect withdrawals. I thought: "games! so I'm addicted to games. So what. No big deal!"
YES! big deal. Withdrawals were horrendous.
Here is the list of what I had:
* Anger and verbal abuse, sometimes extreme
* A feeling of emptiness
* Depression
* A disruption in sleep pattern*
* Fantasies and dreams about the game
* The urge to go back to gaming and try to control the time played
* Thinking about the game for extended periods of time
* Uncontrollable feelings or rampant mood swings
* Excessive crying
* Anxiety
* Fear
* Irritability or restlessness
* Sadness
* Loneliness
* Boredom/inability to find an activity of interest
* Lack of motivation/direction
* Excessive amounts of time spent sleeping*
* Nausea
* Difficulty facing obligations, procrastination
* Feeling as though a return to gaming will make you feel better
* Physical illness: colds, allergies
* Restless, unfulfilling, taunting dreams
I had all those.
* Note: We are not getting quality sleep during gaming, so therefore I feel that when I quit gaming, after the first couple of weeks or 3, I slept the sleep of the dead. All I wanted to do was sleep, which is good for a body that was on sleep deprivation for so many years of gaming.
I was very surprised I had any withdrawals symptoms. I felt like everyone I knew did about gaming. It's gaming, so what! It can't be worse than quitting drinking or smoking (did both), but it was. It was awful.
My body was shredded. My mind was chaotic (like 20 drunken monkeys), and my brain hurt (huge headache on one side of brain; thought I might have a brain tumor).
I couldn't relax, couldn't calm down, couldn't think straight, couldn't concentrate on anything. It was awful.
I watched TV, watched movies, read 5 or 6 books at a time, watched Youtube, did everything and anything to get my mind off of the symptoms.
But all that calmed down in a couple of months. I added exercise, yoga, lots of exercise and getting out of the house to change my point of view.
In my opinion: too many people try to quit too many things at one time. They'll quit gaming, then youtube, then tv or movies, etc. My suggestion is to quit those things long after quitting gaming. Quitting gaming is of primary purpose. In AA they suggest you don't quit other things like gambling, smoking, etc. until recovery in AA is solid. I agree with that, and feel the same way about gaming. Gaming is a strong addiction.
I did not have an everyday habit; just most days. But I did spend some days immersed in work with no gaming and no ill effects. So I doubted I would have withdrawal symptoms. I went so far as to not look at the withdrawal page, so as not to be "seeing something that wasn't really there."
But after a couple of weeks, I went there anyway. A bit of a revelation, and I had to admit that even though I didn't have the kind of physical symptoms others had (mostly), I still had a bunch of the other ones. I would have to go back to read my blog to see what they all were, but certainly I was agitated, didn't know what to do with myself,restlessness, procrastination, excessive TV watching. Some of this was probably due to the resurgence of symptoms of the underlying bipolar disorder I was using the games to self-medicate, but a lot was just due to having extra time on my hands and not being able to do my "habitual thing": go play games. I also had a lot of anhedonia--lack of feeling, lack of interest in life, feeling like a robot. Fortunately, I think, I had fallen for someone, and that provided me with the only emotions I felt during that time. I had no interest in real life activities (other than connecting with my new love interest), even those I had previously enjoyed. And it was 50 days out before I threw away all the computer game disks (the ones that weren't online games--this meant I could not play them again without buying them again). So I was still holding some reservations, even though I was able to quit with only moderate symptoms. Everything takes time.
I am a recovering computer game and gambling addict. My recovery birthday: On May 6, 2012 I quit games and began working a program of recovery through OLGA No computer games or slot games for me since December 12, 2012. No solitaire games with real cards since June 2013.
For me it was much the same as Pats symptoms but my game was played on my iPhone so I had to physically stop looking at my phone every second. BOY WAS THAT HARD!!!!
at first I replaced it with logging into Olga instead... Every time I felt like gaming I came here and read and blogged. That helped a ton. But it took time and discipline.
i was also not sleeping well, edgy, sad, angry, tired, and defensive. Learning to trust myself again and let go of those gamer friends and my whole world there was so hard! The cravings were strong ( I still have them :/) but with time and joining meetings here, getting a sponsor and buddies here I made my way put of the dark !!!
Thanks Pat for posting this; it is a huge help to us anons whose loved ones are starting to feel these tough symptoms. Thanks Dan and Rain, too. Hearing all of your experiences sheds so much light onto what our loved ones struggle with.
"Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. The hummingbird's delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life's sweetest creation." taken from Papyrus, Corp.
I knew there would be withdrawals. I had experienced it already once when we lost our internet for 24 hours. I was extremely agitated and remember trying to pretend to my family that it as no big deal when I was actually dying inside, wanting my game so badly.
After I actually quit gaming, the worst part I remember was the crazy emotions. I sometimes felt as if I were losing my mind. They would be all over the place (and I'm not normally a very emotional person). Other things I experienced were: the feelings of emptiness; irritability and restlessness; sadness and depression; lack of motivation to do anything - nothing in life was as interesting as gaming had been and wanting to game again, a contant battle. It seems the depression lasted the longest, going on for several months and I just knew if I gamed again I would feel better (and I always did when I relapsed).
Crazy stuff....so glad to be free of that.
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. ~Maria Robinson
I still have difficult pinpointing what my symptoms as an addict in the throes of addiction were, so it's equally difficult to identify the withdrawal symptoms I experienced when I started the road to recovery.
The most severe, I think was the boredom. It wasn't that other activities had lost their luster--far from it. I still enjoyed reading, exercising, going for walks in the nature preserve, seeing friends, and writing poetry. But whenever Friday afternoon hit, you could bet that I'd be on the computer, ready for a weekend of gaming. Sometimes I'd turn off the computer at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, a little disgusted with myself, then wake up feeling absolutely pumped to do it all over again. Without gaming, weekends became my worst nightmare. Suddenly you're acutely aware of how much time there is in a weekend. What the hell do you do with that? And it's all made worse by the fact that you know gaming would fill the gap again. "I'm not doing anything anyway," you reason, "so why not just re-install?"
The good news is that you do find things to fill the gap eventually, and they're always better for you than gaming. The lethargy starts to work to your advantage; you say "yes" to everything because you're so **** bored all the time. Might as well, right? And you end up having a lot of fun. Slowly, you replace all that lost time with new substance: I got really good at baking, tackled harder piano repertoire, devoted more of my time to poetry and literature, became a film aficionado, started voluntarily reaching out to friends and potential love interests, wrote my own dictionary, shadowed doctors at our hospital, and knuckled down on studying and career opportunities.
Yes, the withdrawal symptoms can be vicious--when I quit, it felt like one of my best friends in the world had just been ripped away from me, never to return. But I'm hanging out with a new crowd now, and they're way better guys than he ever was.
Taking Steps toward recovery since November 2, 2012. The difficulty of the path makes it worth the walking.
When I first quit, I was very emotional.. going from periods of feeling empty, to relief that I was finally free, to feeling hopeful, to tears, to full out temper tantrums...
I also felt nauseated at first, and there were a couple days that I spent just hiding under my blankets, because I didn't know what else to do. I had no other real hobbies, and had alienated most of my RL friends with my gaming, so it took a while to find other things that I actually even wanted to do. Luckily, I had a super busy month at school that first month which kept me distracted. I was also finally getting normal amounts of sleep, for the first time in years, but did dream of gaming as well. I always woke up so happy that it was only a dream! Then, at around 30 days game-free, I developed severe anxiety. It has mostly subsided now, at three months in.
I did find that coming here, even just to browse posts, really helped me when I had the urge to play. Being able to post on my blog here when I needed to vent or figure out my feelings was invaluable, as were (and are!!) the nightly chat meetings. My sponsor and the rest of the community here helped me through the worst of the withdrawals. It just takes some time and commitment. Things DO get better. Recovery is a rough ride at times, but I am so grateful to have my real life back. :)
"A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears." ~Michel de Montaigne
I went back to my blog to check. I had most of the symptoms listed here, except for nausea and excessive crying. I think I have to add: I was also very impatient. I wanted to be cured of my addiction, right away. I wanted to be productive, to spend all that gaming energy on something useful. I forgot that I also needed some fun in my life, that I had to relearn to enjoy life without gaming, that all of this would take time, and some of it would only heal with time and nothing else and could not be rushed.
And no amount of time can change me into a different person. I will always enjoy stories, in any shape or form. To be deprived of games does not mean I am deprived of stories. It just means I give up one expression of stories, so I can enjoy other expressions without ruining my life. I am still learning to accept my limitations on a daily basis.
Some withdrawal symptoms never go away. They are just part of the suffering that is the human condition. Overall, life is pretty good though ;)
Perhaps a man who is worthy of the name should put aside this question of how long he will live ..., and turn his attention to this instead, to how he can live the best life possible in the time that is granted to him
Marcus Aurelius
I would say the only craving symptoms I can really be 100% sure about were
1. The constant craving to game.
2. A constant itchy feeling, just being uncomfortable in my own skin.
I would look for anything to do, and any way to get closer to gaming, and continued to do so for a few months, so I'm not really sure if it was withdrawl, or just cravings that I had for those months. Either way, the only other thing I can really remember about how I felt was this big fear of my room and of places where I could game. I couldn't admit it, but something in me just knew that if I was alone with my a keyboard a mouse and a computer I would game. I wouldn't be able to stop it.
Last game played: April 24th 2014
Becca, i love your photo there: it expresses us all. A small delicate plant, flowering in the harshest of conditions, a little sliver life in a tiny crack of the rock.
That to me says "us", the ones who climbed out of our addiction and are blooming!
Great choice Becca.