How to stop Game Addiction

I honestly stopped, counting the times I have uninstalled and installed the game of matter for me after around the 26-29th time (without joking, it most likely reached some decent 3 digits). It usually helps for a while, but the come down, after installing the Game again, were so harsh, that it harmed all of my progress in succeeding a life without the game.

This particular tip will have an effect in a few ways: The desktop icon is out of the place, from where you were comfortable to click it. Furthermore, in case you are fortunate enough to have another project to work on, it will help in the way of "out of sight, out of mind". Though we all know that addiction is never out of mind, it is the quintessence of the where the mind wanders to at the end, no matter where it is. But exactly because of that, helping ourselves by creating scenarios we can keep things away from our minds on top is worth pursuing. 

Every time, you want to play the game from this time on, you will have to go a few little extra steps, these extra steps increase the time, in which your consciousness can speak to you and stop you from playing, causing a bad feeling when starting the game in general. Let me tell you, every time I started up the game, I felt like shit, I could feel the judgmental looks I was giving myself mentally. But of course, this one thing did not stop me. But it was a great help in fighting against it and supporting your mental in doing so, because one big goal is, to win your mental in your favor, because it is captured by the feelings and connections created by the very addiction.

If you are in the fortunate situation, that the game of matter for you, is an online game (which is usually the case, but might be that it is not). I have an experimental tip for you that worked wonders for me: Start a match or go online, and do what would be considered trolling. Play bad on purpose, try new things, dumb things, enjoy the game with a different purpose. But please, do not do this when you are angry, upset or in in-game terms "tilted". You HAVE to do it when you are clear minded, calm and sober. The purpose of this act, shall not be the rage but the will to stop the addiction, otherwise this has no effect.

This will make you see the game from another perspective for once and it'll devalue the entire game in your eye. I will argue, that the games we were or are addicted in, usually have some type of element inside, which we value more than things from our real life, sometimes it's a rank (for me it was), sometimes it is special items, sometimes maybe the currency we can grind, in some way or form, a type of progress displayed in a different format, but maybe sometimes the world itself. So devaluing your entire perception, especially with regard to that very thing that you value most, will help you in fulfilling your goal of not clinging onto the game. Because why do we clinge in first place? Because the game has deeply rooted value for us. (Of course there are a lot of psychological topics to talk about when asking this question, especially when the game is just perfectly designed to just trigger your reward center and keep you there by that very mechanic that is embedded into every bit of clicking you are doing within the game, but it can be overgeneralized in this context).

It does not have to be one where you write a lot, some people don't like to write at all and that's fine, my first addiction diary was just a list of days I did not play. I was really proud later on, when each stroke started to stand for a week and not for a day anymore. Make that your secondary goal, you might as well reward yourself for that. But I can tell from my experience, most tips on the Internet, to "reward yourself" with something for the development of getting rid of the addiction, did not help me. I might have sucked at tricking my mind, but it just felt too artificial, or I simply couldn't find anything rewarding enough to make it work. The only reward I could enjoy thoroughly was just the situation itself, the appreciation of my fight and the extra time I had in my hands, not playing that game. Find your own reward, I would say, but keep it real.

Another thing, I wrote in such a diary, was for example the reasons I wanted to quit. Some of these reasons, without too much detail, were the fear of what I would become in the future, if that kept on going. Another was a fear of losing time and my connection to life, to an irreparable extent. And one more I am going to mention here, was the inner desire to finally accomplish something of worth in real life. Find your own reasons, they will remind you in difficult times, so you can stick to your plan.

You probably have YouTube recommendations about your game right? There is the awesome option of "Don't show me content like this" in YouTube. Use it for the content regarding your game and keep conversations about the game as low as possible in social circles.

Do all your friends play it? I know it's difficult, believe me, but it's time to find new friends to talk about other topics you like, can't find new friends in a snap? Try to find topics that spark your interest and try to change the topics of conversations with your existing friends, even though this turned out to be more difficult sometimes than finding and extending my friend circle.

This suggestion, was particularly difficult for me in the beginning, because it felt like I was being delusional and overexaggerating; “how could a video on YouTube harm me?” was a voice inside me…just tell that voice to shut the f*** up. There is nothing delusional about seeing an addiction and cutting every piece of oxygen that the feeling that is caused inside you through elements of the addiction gets. It's one of the worst enemies of a healthy human brain, never forget that. And in case your friends label things as delusional, just because they are playing the game as well, without addictive problems, EVERY BRAIN is differently wired and has different tendencies in how attachment can be created. The friend that made me play this game, is even to this day, playing it on and off but never showed any “symptoms” of addiction or attachment to the game. So people are different, understand that when you have to face arguments from other people. 

Coming back to the YouTube recommendations, how often did a newly released video about either new content or your favorite Streamer in that game, spark you deeply to go and play and try those new things? For me, it did more than enough, to even break the anti-addiction phase. I don't have to remind you, to take all of this serious, if you found your way here, you mean it serious, but nonetheless I want to tell you, take this tip with one more extra caution. It can feel off in the beginning, but someone who quits their addiction doesn't feel better right after it, completely the opposite, your brain has a big gap to fill.

Don't fool yourself, change the Email to reset the password as well :D 

And tell them to keep it, until you accomplish a certain set goal for example to make it feasible and realistic.

And listen, if you are really ready…to give it up forever, you might as well sell your account or delete your development, but by God I know how difficult it is to make that step, especially in the beginning phase, so it is also fine to do it for a certain time range first. For me the motivation was to stop playing during my entire Semester for example, then in the Summer break I started again (I felt disgusted from time to time, but you know how an addiction goes, it compensates pretty well for the feeling of disgust). So I couldn't do it back then, but if you can, do it, give it away to someone forever. But this entry here, should cater to EVERYONE, the cold turkey people and the "warm turkey" (?) people and also for the ones, like me, who need a combination of both. But I will promise you, if you read this far and take it to your heart, you will achieve a non-addictive life, it will cost you a lot of effort and maybe sacrifices, maybe even friendships, but you will do it.