Games Being Like PMO?

What kind of games do you play? I would avoid certain types of games such as MMORPGs because they are designed to be addictive.

 

Personally I found games like 7 Days to Die and Ark to be soothing, as you can easily play with others or by yourself and at your own pace. I played Smite a lot for a bit and while I got better at playing it all the time, it has one of the biggest learning curves ever so you start dedicating more time to it. Just be careful of games like that and I don't see a problem.

 

Honestly games are not harmful unless you choose the wrong games to play and/or prioritize them over other things in your life. Unless you want to be an e sports gamer I suggest if you feel you are mostly playing due to lack of other things to do, then find some other things in your life to fill up your time. Here are a few suggestions that I personally think help fill up your time with meaningful activity:
-Reading books
-Spending time with Family
-Spending time with close friends
-Improving your skill set at whatever you are passionate about
There is nothing wrong with playing games but if you feel they are in control of you rather than you are in control of them then I would suggest you cut them out for a while and only play a small amount every once in a while and see where it takes you. Good luck!

-TheBigBadWolf

 

A few DOZEN? That definitely sounds like an addiction to me. Right now, your gaming is taking up more time than a part-time job. Hell ... three dozen would be 36 hours, which is nearly a full-time job.

Gaming provides a similar kind of 'super-normal stimulus' that porn gives you. That's why you can sit and play a game for 6 hours and barely notice the time go by ... just like with porn, right?

And it doesn't surprise me that this is happening despite the fact that you've quit PMO. Your brain wants those surges of dopamine. Since it's not getting them from PMO anymore, it's getting them from video games.

I'd put yourself on a strict video game diet. 10 hours a week, tops. If you can't hold yourself to that, I'd highly suggest quitting cold turkey. Will life seem dull and boring without video games? Yes--and that's a sure sign that you have an addiction. I thought life would seem dull and boring without casual, anonymous sex. Drug addicts think life will be dull without their drug. But it's worth it to live a life where you're in control of your desires, instead of your desires being in control of you.

If that doesn't tell you that you've got an addiction, I don't know what will.

 

By doing nofap i took my gaming pc (i once ago build it myself, it's a fantastic machine, i love it) to the boxroom and bought a cheap laptop for forums, internet banking, supplement research and so on.

By doing research on the dopaminergic reward system, i realized the path is not just about nofap, it is about connecting my dopaminergic reward system to real world situations. everything digital (pc games, internet, tv, even radio) hijack the brain. at the moment i do listen to classic music once in a while, watch 2 - 3 episodes of star trek, and i am active at this nofap forum. this feels ok for now, but playing computer games is too much i can handle. i loved it somehow, but computer games have no place in the life i am creating.

 

Yeah, I destroyed my life using video games. I don't think they are bad. I don't care what the addiction is, I think it's always the individuals fault. So yeah, I used to game 10 hours per day every day. I think it's not as dangerous as PMO because PMO is this taboo, you have to find spare time, you have to do it alone, generally you don't talk about it to anyone and it just grows and grows and you hide it in shame while it kills you inside. Game addiction? You can just blatantly say you're addicted to games and your friend goes "yeah man me too" and you have a laugh about how shitty your life is. That's my opinion.

I think trick is to know yourself, know your triggers. Be perceptive about your emotions. Any time you feel like playing a game ask yourself, "am I trying to avoid something or is it casual whim to have fun". I now play 2-3 hours of games a week, instead of playing I mostly watch Let's Play's on YouTube. And I change the games I watch frequently, I don't let my mind obsess over it. All this happened painless, slow and organically. I didn't have to give it up and deal with the massive hole it left in my life, I didn't let it drag me down anymore either.

Like I said, you just gotta learn to observe yourself. It's really the corner stone of good mental healthcare.

 

Quit them for a week. See how you do. If you don't have any problems, it's ok, but you will have learnt something nonenthless, and maybe next week you'll think "hey well you know i don't really need it that much for today.
If you find problems, definitely quit for some time.

 

I don't know if it's a problem to you, but to me games are a bigger threat than PMO. I played games my entire life until I hurt my arm playing a few months ago and now I can see it was a huge problem in my life.

I discovered nofap community a few days ago and after reading about the dopamine cycle I believe it was the cause of my addiction to games. In my life some of the problems gaming brought to me are similar to the PMO problems I read here.

A month ago I started to do therapy and I can see that all of my addict behaviors were a way to run away from the real problems I have inside me, and by your report I think you are doing the same thing by just changing one addiction to another.

Try to quit for a while, like you are doing with PMO, and see what you can learn from that.

 

@Ommni Do you find therapy helpful? Sometimes I feel I could use a consistent therapist. I once saw a therapist for my porn addiction... stopped because it was WAY too costly. It just felt good to open up to another person about my addiction. Up until that point I hadn't told anyone. So, I felt it was good to finally open up to another.

I actually got the idea from watching In Treatment (HBO show). Really liked the show... Felt like I was going to therapy with each episode. So, when I started developing problems in my life I naturally looked at therapy as a possible solution.

 

Yes the therapy is being very useful. To be honest I don't seek the therapy because of PMO, I have some social issues, I'm very quiet, lonely, and I'm trying to fix that, and therapy is helping me a lot, I believe it could help you too.

It's very costly indeed, but I'm trying to see this as an investment on myself.

 

Sorry, but these games are highly addictive. I played a lot of Rust, you need to check this: (Rust is like ARK and 7 Days to Die... Maybe the Rust is more addictive, but same.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/playrust/comments/5qph5g/the_addiction_of_rust/
https://www.reddit.com/r/playrust/comments/41t05q/rust_addiction_in_a_nutshell/

You need to stop these games, or you will never have time to do other things, like socializing, or talking with people, or find new hobbies. I know it is really hard, because when you stop, you will have so much time, and you don't know what to do.

Sorry for bad ENG, i am from Hungary, and i need to learn this language.

 

Heres the thing though, I'm very active, I'm busy, and I go out on weekends the best I can and have a strict diet. So like, I can go without the games. It's just something I do with my downtime.

 

And by go out I mean I hang out with friends. Don't really drink much.

 

Exactly this.

If you try to quit the playing and at some point what you have to face/do/tackle/create/clean/etc repells you back to playing, then you're in avoidance and that's a strong driver of addiction. Thus you might be free of PMO but displacing the numbing/soothing/avoiding with something else. Think about people trying to quit smoking who gain weight - same shit, they compensate with something else that's readily available and "less bad" (that is not immediately perceived as a coping mechanism, no one will tell you to stop eating because it pollutes their air or damages your body... though they should!).

I've seen my videogame use climb at some points in the early stages of the reboot, and this was clearly a compensation. Being mindful of it helped regulate the stuff and not let it take hold of me and my habits and behaviors. Even today, 180+ days P free and 120+ days M free I'm sometimes still struggling to not let videogames grab my free time and my thoughts.

An idea for you : only allow yourself games that have sequential playing sessions. Like a game of FIFA, a battle of your favorite MoBA, a game of BloodBowl, etc. This way you won't get caught in the "i still NEED to get 43 wolf pelts to finish building the gizmo and then I could finally be able to to the thing that will help me do...", and IF you're mindful of your emotions and thoughts at the time, you WILL regulate by saying "ok, this is the last game". If you fail to do that, then nothing will help of course.

 

Running/Gym/Fitness is a good replacement, because it makes you feel a lot better (after) while keeping you busy. Also it's a great habit to develop, even if you're "not that guy" to begin with. (Trust me, I too wasn't "that guy"). Maybe you can start a contract with yourself at first, saying that you will play as much as you've worked out/ran, etc. Sounds fair...

 

I wouldn't judge your gaming habits as addictive solely based on the hours you play every week. A better view on addiction is this: Do you have a habit that you want to change because you see its negative impact on your life but you can't stop?

Now it's not always straightforward to identify an addiction like this, but this is what it's about: you want to change but you can't. It's about your goals and what you think what's good for you

To me, computer games are comparatively harmless. If I could simply swap my PMO time to computer game time, I think that would be a personal improvement.

However, I noted in my life that computer games do have a negative impact on my life. For example, after two weeks that went very well for me I spent a whole Saturday in my apartment playing Titan Quest. I didn't shower, I barely ate anything, I even postponed going to the bathroom. Now what's the problem with that?
Halfway through the day, at noon, I realized that I didn't find the game particularly enjoyable. The whole session was all about escapism, withdrawal and coping with anxiety. It was not about fun.

Maybe a better way to deal with my anxiety would have been to try and find the trigger of my anxiety in that particular moment (sometimes it's just an unfinished todo) and to take measures to improve my situation long-term (socialize, learn a relaxation technique, go after a hobby, ...).

----

By the way, regarding PMO I also realized that my relapses occur in times of anxiety and stress. I concluded that both, computer games and PMO, are my ways of dealing with anxiety. As soon as I can get a grip on my anxiety, fighting my PMO and gaming habits will be so much easier.

BUT because - unlike PMO - the negative effects of computer games do not seem too problematic to me at the moment, I don't have any ambitions to reduce my gaming time. The situation is quite different with PMO.

Also, sometimes it's advisable to tackle one issue at a time. Like a heroin addict who takes Valium as transitional drug, maybe you want to sort out your priorities and see what area in your life you like to improve the most.