I'm about to turn 44. I thought about going back to gaming and buying a new system but I don't think I can do it. I feel like gaming made me feel less lonely but at the same time it stopped being fun. I couldn't play longer than 20 minutes.

I joined a book club but I still have trouble reading books. I can't seem to sit my ass down long enough to finish one. One reason I quit gaming was to have more time for books. My attention span is still shit. I use Reddit and YouTube more than before.

On the weekends , I spend most of time running errands to not be at home alone. I just don't know what to do. I like being alone but it is getting old doing stuff by myself.

I went to a football game alone last weekend and didn't even stay the whole game because I felt lonely while there because everybody there was with someone.

How do you cope with the loneliness in your life after gaming?

Hello, i am 16 years old classmate borned in Poland.

This is very hard decision i ever took in my life.

I lost today roblox account from 2021 created from random hacker and a few og accounts months ago. I used to spend hundrets hours playing them, but now its over. I dont achieve anything at all.

Will i continue gaming in 2027?

No, after new year starts, im selling my PS4 pro and games. I will have phone for contacts and sometimes reading short informations. I will have my PC just for school and selling random things. I cant waste time anymore. The champter is closed. I want to change my life like always going outside, being with friends/parents and do other good things. Not with just being silence and just sit at room doing nothing by playing games. It ruined officialy my life and most of people of my school. Im giving last 2 months before i quit to celebrate exactly 11 years and then closing champter. Im hoping i wont return it, i be fighting with it to have my normal life back with my own steps.

Thank you gamers.

Do I enjoy video gaming or does my brain like the easy dopamine?

There has always been this loop, I will see a random clip of a video game I want to play online. I will say no I don't need it. I might even start playing a mobile game. Then I will cave in and get a gaming laptop or a console.

I will then buy whatever particular game I wanted to play, play it for a few weeks or months and then buy another game and never think of the other game again. The cycle will repeat itself until eventually I go from playing all day to playing for like 20 minutes here and there and then I get bored and turn it off This will last for a few months to a year.

Then I realize this is kind of wasting my time and it was a waste of money. So I end up selling the console or the laptop getting my money back and then I'll go for the same amount of time without gaming until the itch comes back.

I'm not sure if I enjoy gaming or if it's just a short dopamine thing or if it's even a shopping dopamine

Any advice or thoughts. currently, I just sold my Xbox.

I posted this to confessions and was actually forwarded here. I’m so happy this community exists. I have been struggling for my whole life. but I just came out of a 30 day gaming binge and I have never quite let it get that bad. I actually just snapped out, it was insane. I have been playing this game that recently launched literally since its notification. This game was the first thing that I had to look forward to in a while. that’s actually why I ‘broke up’ with the guy I KNEW was playing me and just using me financially, because he ended up being all I let myself look forward to. I guess I kind of kept myself in such a fictional place mentally for so long, living a lie. This game and the community on it, really helped me snap out of that. But I ended up giving 30 days straight to it. I put a lot of money into this game as well (gacha😭)(and I also know the devs fckn suck and the games a scam) but financially, I will be okay. But I have seriously neglected my health. And shut off everyone in the actual outside world. Now that the community on the game has become toxic, it caused me tons of mental stress. And I realized, I CAN just turn it off. It’s crazy. I genuinely kept myself stuck for so long (again). I always joke that my in game avatars are the “real me” and I do mean that literally in a sense, but this genuinely felt like my life. I was fully enveloped. I guess this was kind of the straw that broke the camels back in my journey up until this point. I want to have a normal life and have friends and do stuff, and I’m a pretty girl most people would think is normal. But something in me has just always felt more at home navigating through purely my mental, not physical. the current isolation period I’m in definitely started when I moved states during Covid. We were all virtual for the longest, and the Only way I got to actually interact with my friends back home was through Fortnite. we would literally just drive around, play music like we would if I was still there. I was so lucky to have those friends, because I was not capable of making friends again on my own once my new school was irl again. But I did this as a kid as well. I also was addicted to moviestarplanet. I would sleep throughout the day when everyone was awake, and spend all my time on there. And I always felt like a “chud” because I wish I could have fun and actually want to do stuff like everyone else. i remember always wanting to play yandere simulator and sims so bad as a kid. trying to pirate them from an iPad so I could just walk around, navigate, and live life like a normal girl. And that makes me sad to remember, because that’s a kid. but I’m still here. Part of me can understand why I feel this way. But I guess I really put it all together tonight. I think I definitely need to get help, and it’s long overdue.

I (31 m) probably shouldn’t dramatize what I’m going through with dire terms like “addiction” or “compulsion,” since I didn’t end one of my elderly parents for refusing to buy me an oculus headset, or turn down a job offer because it would get in the way of my gaming, or spend hundreds of dollars on some high-tech 3D game that probably won’t even run on my faulty toaster of a Laptop. Others may see their own struggles differently, but I prefer to frame mine as a really bad habit that saps away time, effort, and joy that I could be allocating to other more meaningful activities.

Lately, I’ve been averaging 5 to 7 hours per day on the Don’t Starve games, simply because I love creating intricate, endlessly sprawling bases from scratch, and it’s the only activity that fully distracts me from the fact that I just got fired from my cart pusher job a few months ago because I lost my composure and flipped off a customer for honking his horn in my face and cursing me out when I accidentally got in his way.

Yes, I am well aware that mature, sensible adults should conduct themselves professionally in the workplace- I’m typically very polite and even-tempered, even with folks who are not so tactful, but I was simply caught off-guard and tired from the previous night’s shift. I had a lapse in judgment. That being said, I certainly got what I deserved for antagonizing the customer. My manager was fully justified in letting me go, since it would have reflected poorly on the company and set up a bad precedent if he gave me a slap on the wrist for insulting the clientele. I made a grievous mistake that I’ve been ruminating on for far too long, and I am ready to move forward and wipe the slate clean somewhere else.

Now, I’ve filled out dozens of applications for so many different positions at Lidi, Walmart, and Quickchek, but they all either ignored me or rejected me outright. I even tried setting up interviews with KFC and Qdoba; the folks at my local KFC turned me down because they never actually scheduled any interview— the bot on the company website just automatically sets up fake appointments to dash the hopes and dreams of filthy, human meat-sacks. I got my in-person interview with Qdoba, but two weeks have passed without a callback, so I probably didn’t impress them too much. Now I’m just waiting for Walmart to reach out.

In the meantime, I keep playing that infernal game because it’s the only distraction from the incessantly castigating thoughts in my head that tell me that I’m a useless, insufferable, and intolerable burden on everyone around me. The ludicrously abusive, borderline deranged, and immeasurably self-hating monologue still loops around indefinitely when I’m playing Don’t Starve, but it also gets slightly fainter and turns into almost charming background music that I could either tune out or mockingly sing along with. Yes, I am on antidepressants, and this is as close to stable as I can get. All the previous medications I took under the guidance of well-intended doctors came with horrific side-effects. Now, I sleep in, gorge myself on comfort food, and waste 5 to 7 hours on a game that doesn’t give me any transferable life skills or benefits, and the sheer futility of it all is underscored when my character inevitably dies, erasing all my imaginary progress and starting a new world. It’s painful, pointless, and demoralizing, but it honestly feels just as pointless as my endeavors to find a job, practice my musical instruments, or animate another video for my YouTube channel after the first got completely ignored. It’s all pointless and empty to me now. I want to stop gaming, but it’s my only escape. I know I should be grateful, since I’m on the brink of getting the low-income apartment that I applied for years ago, but I just feel mounting apprehension and powerlessness.

Anyone who has this kind of problem I am very convinced they are doomed to never have good life style habits ever, things like being avid reader, being very good student in school, especially if it completely fries your baseline dopemine that makes you incapable of achieving anything else. I am sadly in this situation and I probably have to accept the fact that my goals I wanna achieve like being avid reader, being good student and just have overall not have shit unattractive life style habits is just impossible. I don't even know if it is possible to fix my situation I am just sick and tired how people who were very good students in school, avid readers, acting like they did it purely because of hard work, and that anyone can do it if they are like them, but reality they were just born with right genetics since the start, they had innately better self control, better conscientiousness etc.

Harvest Moon Back To Nature will be the last game i will ever play in my life, i know i will cry my heart in that cold night of 31 of December, but, i need to do it, gaming has stolen most of my life, i need to let it go.

So guys, I am 25M and just started out in life.

I went to another country after my father told me to move there and forced me to leave my current job due to the global crisis. Things didn't end well. I stayed there for around 10 months, earning nothing, just going to interviews and not hearing back.

I was a SWE who learnt coding by myself. After the pandemic, my university degree was impacted by online studies 2 years, so I got less exposure to practical work. Back then, I was working with the same people who were older than me or around my age, so we shared the same knowledge. I was always improving, and in 3 years, I made 2 job switches. I was going for my third switch, moving outside my home country, but things didn't end well due to all the global crises.

I lost my confidence after every rejection and silence. I started believing that I knew nothing about coding and that newbies knew more than me. It became some sort of delusion in my mind.

Even then, I didn't give up. I used to get up and apply every single day through those portals, hoping to hear something back, but nothing happened. I had heard about people getting jobs through referrals, but I didn't believe it until I saw it happening.

So, I came back for the funeral of a relative. My father sent me back, saying that once they got a position for me in their firm, they would call me back. Since I still have one year of visa left, I am unsure about my father. I was there for almost 10 months, and they still didn't help me. How would they help me now that I have returned?

Instead of giving myself false hope, I am thinking of joining my friend's company here. He told me that he can refer me, but my father says I need to fly back in 2 to 3 months.

I am unsure what to do. If I join my friend's company, they might not let me fly back so soon, or they might let me go within a week or a day, as we know how corporate rules work. Plus, no one might hire me if I tell them the truth that I am in this country for just 2 or 3 months.

My sister is telling me to get a small job rather than an SWE job for now, even if it pays less. But for the past 18 days, since I slipped back into my old routine at home, I have started consuming content and gaming again to escape reality.

I have no one at home, and I feel alone. Plus, I can't go outside much because every person I meet asks me, "Where are you? What are you doing? Do you have a job?" and so on.

I have started playing War Robots and Clash Royale again to the point that I have started spending money on games. In these 18 days, I spent $1.74 on gaming. I haven't calculated the food and other expenses, but that $2 went towards gaming.

I am having such strong cravings that I feel like spending more to get better equipment, but I know there is no end to it.

So, what should I do? Should I wait for my father in the hope that they will call me, move to my friend's company as an SWE again, or start working a menial job as my sister and mother are suggesting for some time?

Plus how can I cure my gaming addiction plus this porn thing. I used to meditate read books and also do normal exercise but after unemployment my time has gone shit and left many of those things.

I have lost a lot this year. Please help me out.

From past 18 days I had turned more dumb playing watching more games and even watching aggressive porn and spending time on those fake things.

hey everyone (20M) , wanted to share my story and why i went cold turkey on gaming. it’s long, sorry in advance (tldr at the bottom)

i’ve been gaming pretty much every day for 10+ years. only child, so even though i had a lot of friends and was a pretty outgoing kid, there wasn’t much to do at home and i always had a controller in my hand. tbh back then it was good for me. stuff like skyrim, minecraft or gta let me be creative without being scared of failing.

things changed during covid, like for a lot of people here i guess. i started having panic attacks, a lot of anxiety, kind of a small depression. games were my way out, being someone else in another world for a few hours. that’s also when i started seeing games as art and not just games, which kinda led to what happened later.

high school was chill, i didn’t play that much. i was more into hanging out with friends and girls lol. but i was still watching gaming news all the time and getting hyped for every release.

then college. i didn’t fit in at first, didn’t make many new friends, and i went through my first breakup which hit me way harder than i expected. i didn’t really know why i was there, so i went all in on gaming since it was “my passion”. i watched sooo many video essays trying to intellectualize the whole thing. looking back it just made me forget my other dreams. i was consuming stuff all day instead of making anything.

the weird part is i barely played. i was hooked on the content around games. trailers, leaks, gameplay reveals, every single one gave me a rush.

then i found piracy and got a steam deck, and that’s when it got really bad. no more paying for games meant no limit. on every day off i’d install a bunch of stuff, realize i didn’t have time to play it, feel ashamed, uninstall everything, feel depressed because the whole thing took hours, and do it all again next time. at some point the tinkering and the waiting were more fun than the games themselves, which felt boring when i finally played them.

and also i started to treat it like a chore , i was writting everything on backloggd , logging my journal like i was working a fck job with an excel board...

i remember one time asking myself “am i even enjoying this rn?” and it scared tf out of me. i was clearly dependent on it, but i also couldn’t picture my life without games. they were like a pillar of who i was.

when i finished my degree it kinda clicked. i want to pursuie my dream and go back to japan (which i already visited when i was 19 with my best friend) and live in asia, to become champion in kickboxing , and also make a lot of music and i knew this habit would keep me stuck if i didn’t deal with it.

around then i also read dopamine nation by dr anna lembke, really recommend it if you’re struggling with any kind of addiction. she talks about the pleasure/pain balance. basically your brain works like a seesaw and every dopamine hit is followed by a dip so it can rebalance. keep chasing hits and you end up stuck on the pain side, needing more just to feel normal. once that made sense to me, relapsing looked a lot less tempting.

so on september 1st i quit cold turkey. there were definitely moments early on where i wanted to relapse ngl. what keeps me going is music, mma and learning languages, those actually feel rewarding.

41 days in now. i have so much more free time, i’m finally getting into music and fashion and all the stuff i left on the bench for years. i also just became unemployed, which in france means you get benefits, so i’ve got time to work on myself for once. feels like a second wind.

i feel good about myself now. i know a lot of people here are really hard on themselves, so try to look at what you’ve done outside of gaming too. for me it’s im gonna turn 21, good friends, almost 4 languages, and still a few tricks up my sleeve.

best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, second best time is now.

aiming for 90 days and then i’ll see where i’m at. heading to asia next month too (china, south korea, japan) so that should help lol

tldr: gamed every day for 10+ years, realized i was more hooked on trailers/leaks/installing pirated games than on playing them. quit cold turkey sept 1st, 41 days in, filling the time with music, mma and languages.

finally , i can start to walk forward to my dreams , even if it's rough , i walk.

Hi everyone. Let me start with a quick introduction. I’m 16. In my free time, I read philosophy books, manga, and spend my days focused on self-improvement. I usually take an "intellectual break" late at night or when I'm working out (playing basketball solo or doing home workouts).

About two weeks ago, I started feeling like I might be addicted to video games. So, I decided to go cold turkey—no online multiplayer, no single-player campaigns. However, during these two weeks, I’ve constantly felt the urge to play. Trust me on this: I don't have dopamine issues, and my willpower is completely fine. The thing is, I currently lack a clear purpose in life. I have free time, knowledge, and my own money that I earned myself. In short, I have everything a modern person could want.

To get straight to the point: video games used to give me a sense of "fuel." Their achievement systems are much more clear-cut than in real life. When I complete an objective, it feels rewarding to know I accomplished something in the game—for example, climbing ranks in Mobile Legends. I have no issues with emotional control either; I’ve studied Stoicism deeply.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this: should I keep abstaining from gaming, or is it okay to bring it back?

TL;DR: I’m 16, heavily into self-improvement and philosophy, and financially independent. I quit gaming 2 weeks ago fearing addiction, but games used to be my main source of structured achievements (like ranking up in Mobile Legends). Should I stick to the ban or find a balance?

Hey everyone, long-time lurker here. This sub has been helping me cope with my addiction, so I'd like to share my experience with you, hoping that it might inspire people to take another look at their lives. English isn't my first language, so I'll try my best.

About four months ago, I took the OGTT, and the results showed I'm at high risk of developing diabetes. I have family members with diabetes, so this was alarming. The doctor didn't prescribe me any medication and told me to make lifestyle changes first.

I have experienced a lot of trauma since I was a kid, so I escape from reality all the time. Four years ago, I bought a gaming laptop, and since then, I have used gaming as a way to avoid responsibilities. I've been a freelancer for five years, so I have a very messed-up sleep schedule. Usually, after staying up late almost every night playing games, I'd be exhausted and lie in bed all day.

The test results made me realize how much damage gaming did to my life. I had a good education, but I basically wasted it because I didn't have the time and energy to build a career. Instead of facing life's challenges head-on, I chose to game. Self-discipline could go to hell because why choose the boring grind when I could get an instant dopamine rush? If I really think about it, even if I didn't have that laptop, I probably would have chosen other things to escape from reality, since I've gotten way too used to running away. Anytime I had a setback, my first instinct was just to rush to whatever gave me a quick, easy escape.

Now I've decided to make a change. I learned that skinny-fat people like me need more muscle to absorb glucose, so I started hitting the gym again. By lifting weights at least three times a week for two months, planning my meals, tracking my daily calories, and avoiding refined carbs and added sugar, I managed to get my fasting insulin level back to normal. I still need to retake the OGTT in a few months, but it's a great sign. I also have far fewer cravings for junk food since I started eating healthily.

Building muscle is a complex project. It's a battle you need to fight every single day. You need to sleep well, eat well, and manage your stress levels. I don't want to lose my gains, so I'm pretty motivated to do all of the above. My sleep schedule is still messy, but I'm trying.

Last month, The Witcher 3 remastered came out. It's my favorite game, and I've spent 400 hours playing it. I did play it a few times, but it ruined my sleep, so I stopped. I simply got too scared that I might slip back into my old life.

I want you to know that whether you're a man or a woman, you NEED to do resistance training. It's one of the most powerful tools to help you live better and longer. I won't go into detail because there's so much information online. I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but I'm determined to make it last this time. I want to take back control of my life.

If you lead a sedentary lifestyle, watch your glucose levels. About 2 in 5 people in America are prediabetic. In China, the number is 1 in 3. So, please, make a change. Take a walk, eat one less cookie, or drink one more glass of water. Start small, and don't stop.

My husband (28) & I (26) have been gamers our whole lives and it’s been a staple in our relationship.
Usually we’d be playing games together for 3-5 hours on weekdays after work & sometimes from 10am to 1am on weekends (we’re young & no kids, also home bodies). It was our together time, even if we weren’t on the same game; it was basically our second job. Howeverrrr, recently we’ve been butting heads…ALOT!

I’m pregnant now (5 months) & haven’t been able to consistently play games like I used to for multiple reasons: motion sickness, headaches, screen brightness making me nauseous, exhaustion, and honestly just a lack of desire. I find myself wanting to read, prep baby stuff, watch comfort tv, etc. Despite this, I’ve been trying to be understanding & respectful of his decompression time and have been able to join him here & there, but I’m lucky if I can manage 2-3 hours of gaming in the entire week now. Due to this, I feel like there’s a lot of time where I’m alone at night cause he’s gaming & I get pissed when I end up in bed alone at the end of the night cause he’s still online. On top of this I just feel sad for him, he always looks so incredibly tired (we’re talking actual under eye bags)- he’ll game till midnight or later & go to work at 5am and text me mid day how tired he is.

Early last week he said he will set boundaries & only game on Fridays & Saturdays. This was unprompted and made me happy! Well today (Sunday), we had friends over & when they left he was on the game & he didn’t hop off until I got out of bed at midnight and started yelling at him (told him 3 hours before that he had to let the pup out & put him in the crate for bedtime, and when I woke up the dog was still out and hadn’t been to the bathroom). I definitely could’ve handled that part better & I acknowledge it- getting out of bed 5 months pregnant feels like you’re being ripped in half & I was 100% cranky from waking up😅 I at least had enough sense to wait until his ranked game was over lol. He thinks that I’m over reacting (fair) cause I can’t play as much anymore (not fair) & because he still does chores around the house (cleaning, laundry, cooking,etc.) so it shouldn’t be a big deal. We got into a fight last weekend while cleaning the house together because he stopped 3-4 times to either doomscroll or play a few games while I chugged along the whole time. To which he said I needed to give myself a rest & just because he takes breaks doesn’t mean the task list won’t get done. Idk…I feel like I wouldn’t be as mad about it if he hadn’t made a boundary & push the goal post when it’s convenient for him- I genuinely want to see he has the self control & discipline before the baby comes.

He used to be incredibly self motivated- working out, diet, gaming certain times, planning things, etc. but I feel over the last 1-2 years he’s slipped into bad habits. He’ll make goals for himself (I.e. lose weight) & when it’s convenient he’ll let things slide and loosen up (I.e. goes to a wedding & has 6 beers after saying he needs to cut alcohol from his diet and I point out on #3 that he’s past his boundary cause I waited to see if he’d self correct). It’s like he has no sense of moderation anymore? It feels like the same thing is happening with this video game boundary- I become the nagging wife for expecting him to do what he told me he’d do.

Am I overreacting on this or looking at this wrong? It’s crossed my mind that we’re in two different modes right now: I’m in pregnancy/mom mode & his life remains relatively unchanged at the moment. I don’t think it’s a question of him quitting completely at this time; though I did tell him I would like us to not game at all while we’re on maternity/paternity leave & I’m scared he won’t be able to stick to that. Any advice or feedback is appreciated!

Tldr; Husband is an avid gamer & I can’t join him as much since getting pregnant. He set a schedule for gaming less and broke it within the first week. When called out, he acts like it’s no big deal and blames it on me being envious. I’ve quit & he’s still gaming regularly

I trashed all my discs and consoles, deleted my 12-year-old account with its huge game library, erased my 8-year-old Minecraft survival world with many notch apples, and deleted my OG Fortnite account with OG STW (Free V-Bucks missions) and over 200 skins, including rare ones. I bought a MacBook, so now I can’t play the AAA games I like. I've lost so many opportunities in my life and a lot of money bcz of this addiction. I'm done!

Hey i am 15,Pragyan studying in class 9th.Getting to main point I feel very comfortable,relaxing while playing freefire the cheap dopamine hit again&again to start new match play solo vs squad and so on.. but i want to focus on myself,content creation and some goals how can I my whole day get into this .

If you can help me please reply to this post.

So I think most of us have seen that study that says that the BMI of gamers actually tends to be lower than for non-gamers. But that doesn’t tell us the whole picture. For people within the same height and weight category, would the gamer have a higher or lower body fat percentage vs muscle mass percentage? Unfortunately I think if we try to post a link to a study in the post it’ll get removed. I think a lot of gamers tend to use that bmi study to defend gaming as a harmless hobby and as someone who once was like “I can play games but everything is under control” while things were falling apart I can see other gamers using that same rationalization.

I am struggling to quit gaming, I have untold amount of hours playing games it eats up my time I have sleep deprived myself playing video games basically every waking hour I am sitting in front of my computer (on the days I am not working) I have been trying to quit my biggest struggle is the only friends I have are on videos games I don’t do crowds well I am 36 life is getting lonely I would love to find a girlfriend but I have a hard time going in public because I don’t do crowds and I feel like I am going to have to reintegrate myself into society I want to go back to school but that’s even a struggle because of video games moral of it is years down the road I don’t care to be only known by oh all he done was play video games any input is appreciated

Posting this on a burner so my friends and family don’t see lol.

Yeah as the title reads, I’ve been non-stop gaming since I was about 12. I haven’t been able to be myself at all since it caused me mood swings and also high blood sugars (I’m a type one diabetic) and it’s created my life into something disgusting that I strongly hate and don’t want for myself. Here’s a quick summary: It started with Roblox, I spent a majority of my life playing Roblox (even a little here and there now) and thousands of £ on the game as it meant a lot to me. Then I switched to Overwatch, I played thousands of hours on Overwatch till I got bored and then I decided to start playing Valorant, in which I also had about 2000 hours. Then again I switched and hopped on the bandwagon when Marvel Rivals came out and that was my breaking point, I had about 3000 hours in Marvel Rivals, and that’s when it really got bad. I haven’t been focusing on anything else other than those three games, especially marvel rivals.

I would spend 10+ hours on non-school days and stay up till early morning on school days playing these games. It’s been taking a serious toll on me mentally and causing my grades to drop. Hence for the past couple weeks I’ve been trying to limit myself and focus on my education (now a second year student at university) since it’s never been my priority and I’ve never tried in my GCSEs or A-Levels. So I’ve been contemplating selling my £1200 gaming laptop in order to use that money to spend on better habits like my health, and also to save some. I’m not sure if this is the best idea but I do also have a MacBook for doing my work on. I do enjoy gaming as a hobby but I feel like it spiralled into something outside of a hobby.

So, if anyone also has any ideas on what I can do to make it into a hobby (I would prefer to sell the laptop by the way, it doesn’t do me any good with the amount of distractions on it) then please let me know in the replies.

I'm now in my 30s and realized that I can no longer date the women in their early 20s because it's considered taboo and predatory despite having good intentions. I spent that period of my life addicted to video games with poor self image. Despite significantly improving my appearance and wealth, it's not possible to date younger women even if you look younger than you actually are. All is fine until you tell them your age and it gives them the ick and understandably so. Let this be a warning for those that choose gaming over experiencing what dating and affection is like because you'll just be another old man.

24 years old guy here. Played video games throughout high school and until now. Started university one month ago but did not open a book due to gaming. I the games I piled the most hours on are League of Legends and World of Warcraft. While Wow is an enjoyable thing that I play with friends (have not even played it for a year), League of legends is a curse for my life.

I played thousands of hours, I would have already graduated if I did not waste so much time. My body, my mental health and my attention span has been completely annihilated. Considering that now I am in mechanical engineering I know I will have to cut the shit but I fear I have made myself mentally impaired.

I am kind of scared and grieving over my wasted life. I could be so much more and always failed and relapsed. My sleep routines is damaged and my mental health is destroyed, I lost all the drive for life and lost the passion as well. At this point I play video games to distract myself from the fact I have become a failure and ruined my 20s, I am already mid 20s and early 20s basically were thrown away, will hate myself forever for it.

Hey guys, I'm mainly making this post to try to hold myself accountable and relate to others who feel the same way. I am addicted to video games and for many years now have used it to cope with stress, avoid reality, and as an escape from necessary work. I don't have the discipline to stop when I should and end up wasting time I could use for productive things. I delete the games, tell myself I wont play anymore and just like that they are back on my desktop. I tell myself "just one game" which ends up leading to 5 hours of playtime or more. It is espically hard when your friends are all gamers and you see them online, or they ask you to join them. Admitting a negative habit is hard, but I feel like it's the first step to overcoming it, so here I am. Cheers to you all, and I wish you the best of luck in your battles!

Ive tried to quit gaming once and failed. I would dread having to be sick because being stuck at home would bore me to death.

I also struggled with evening boredom for when I need a low effort hobby but watching tv or looking at the was pretty boring. It made me addicted to caffeine in the evening which ruined my sleep.

Any tips to combat these problems?

I’ve played games all my life, and I would say there were sometimes more than others where this has become problematic. There were times where I’ve played games the entire day, times where I grinded in games mindlessly for hours to get something done, times where I prioritized games over other more important responsibilities, etc. Yet, in all that time, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get any single game above 300 or 400 hrs. I know that anything below that can still be a significant amount of time, but I have never understood how people have <500hrs or <1000hrs, etc. on a single game, let alone multiple games. I’ve noticed certain games and communities are prone to this, but no matter how much of a time sink I’ve never been able to comprehend how someone can play the same game for that amount of time, let alone have enough freetime to do something like that. As a place of video game addicts, could anyone testify to either experience? How did this happen to you? When did you recognize it as a problem? How can it be avoided? What difference did quitting make in your life?

Recently, in almost every sub-reddit there has been an increase of AI related things. Whether it’s discussions regarding AI, whether it’s the increase of AI bot accounts in servers, or people promoting things they claim to author that utilized AI in some capacity. I notice with gaming in particular, people have been using AI to port video games, to speed up the development process of ongoing projects, to implement within the games themselves, or companies themselves using AI within the development or marketing process of their games, or even the hardware companies who are massively invested AI being leaders in console and PC gaming hardware. Whenever this is brought up negatively, for its consequences to public safety, privacy, environmental issues, labour rights, cost of living, etc. people either seem dismissive, avoid acknowledging the connection, attempt to justify the uses of AI, or double down and become more hateful and vindictive. Would you advise people to boycott gaming for any of these reasons or concerns related to AI? How do you feel about people who justify, minimize or insist on using AI in any of the capacities I mentioned by creators and companies involved in gaming?

Hello! New poster here!

Me (27f) and my partner (28m) started living together 4 months ago. I always knew he was a gamer and gaming was a big part of his life, which I didn't have a problem with until now.

I'm a little confused because he in no way plays as many hours as some other people here in this sub. However, I constantly feel that his life is lacking in other areas and sometimes he can hurt me due to his gaming habits.

He doesn't know how to maintain a conversation that well if it doesn't involve gaming. I can invite him to hang out with my friends and he spends the entire time silent or maybe saying a thing or two. At first, I thought he was just an introverted, serious guy but those past months I can see how his demeanor changes entirely if he's talking about games. He can small talk with strangers if it involves gaming!

And, sometimes, it makes me feel lonely. I can think about two examples that hurt me a lot, both happening during dates:

The first one, we were walking to a japanese restaurant where we'd spend the evening together. In our way, he spotted people playing his favourite game on a geek store. He immediately said "wow! They're playing [game]!" and went to the store without telling me anything else. I kept watching him for a moment when I saw him taking the controller to play with them. That time, I went ahead to the restaurant and he arrived around 30 minutes later.

We argued about how I was hurt he just started playing out of nowhere, and he tried to tell me how "he wasn't going to play for very long" and he thought I'd wait.

There was this other time that happened this week. We were coming home from a date and he met one of his guy friends in the subway. They started talking about games immediately and I could see how he felt so much more energetic than when we were just the two of us. When we left the subway, they spent some more time talking while I was silent until I gave up and went ahead home by myself.

He also has the obvious clues: He plays everyday (albeit not for as many hours as other posts here), tells me how he feels stressed and anxious when he doesn't play for long (which I think it's withdrawal maybe) and it's also his only hobby.

I'm also hurt when I try to invite him to do some other things with me and most of the time he refuses or complains. When he accepts it, he's not nearly as much invested as he is when he's gaming.

Today, we planned to watch a something together and when I asked him two days ago what he feels like watching, he was surprised and told me he scheduled a videogame competition with his friends and asked if we could maybe watch a movie together some other day. He canceled his plans when he saw the effect this had on me. I cried for a bit because I thought his games were more important.

Currently, he knows I feel irritated about his gaming addiction, we've talked about it. But, still, it's like his brain has some sort of "videogames first" setting and I'm exhausted.

But I'm still uncertain due to his gaming hours. Even though he's not playing long hours a day, despite gaming everyday, I feel like his life revolves around gaming. Is that still considered an addiction?