How I Quit
Gaming is essential, but it can’t become an addiction and interfere with your work/social life. How did I achieved to quit this addiction?
Gaming is an essential fun part of our lives for nearly every boy and some girls. It helps us to relieve our day-to-day stress and forget the problems even for a moment for a healthier mind and life. Playing it a couple of hours per week or maybe per day is pretty great and healthy for us because it is something we love, and it is like doing a hobby we love. It doesn’t matter what is it that you play or on which platform; it is a universal thing where everyone enjoys doing.
However, there are downsides, too, if you play it too much. Like everything in life, “enough is as good as a feast.” You have to know your limits when to play it and how because if you have tasks to do with a deadline to tomorrow, you can’t go around playing games the night before that saying that you need to stress out, this is wrong and can’t help your life at all. Limits are important to know. Unfortunately, I was one of those people. I always played games no matter what the situation is with my life or what I had to do the next day. Every time I came back home from school or from a social gathering, the first and the last thing I did was to open up my computer (yes, I am a PC gamer, not a console) and play games until I went to bed. Same cycle the next day and the days after that. This is extremely dangerous both for your health and for your (social) life.
“Gaming addiction is a mental health condition, just as any other health condition.
— Harshil Rathod
I remember, during summers when I was playing games with friends, I was playing until 2–3 AM and going to bed just to wake up a little early so that I could play games more. I’d wake up around 10–11 AM and do the same thing until 2–3 AM. What a life, right? It was pretty fucked-up. I knew I had to change this I knew there has to be something different that I needed to do because this was going to kill me and my life.
NEW IDEAS
I had to come up with new things so that I could forget about games and focus on that. This could have been a hobby, a new skill, a language, anything besides gaming. I came up with a lot of things, they didn’t pay. Eventually, I found out that I like to learn new languages and putting them into use. So, I spent a couple of months mastering my English skills and then started doing translation. I have been translating ever since then. Mostly subtitles but I have done plenty of work over the past five years. I call this a success.
“If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.”
It has led me to have a different environment, spend my times with translating and to learn new things while making those translations. Helped me to get on my feet again and see what is there besides games.
BALANCED LIFE
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should quit gaming completely, this would be absurd since, as humans, we need the fun, the stress-reliever and if you don’t do this it would kill you from the inside. All you have to do is once you are on your feet, realizing how gaming took over your life, and you started to focus on something else, balance it. Balance the gaming life and your social life. This way you would be able to play it according to your needs.
“I always tell myself ‘one more game…’ but then there’s always another and another and another.”
The “how” part would depend from person to person but from my experience, putting a challenge for yourself every day or every week and once you finish your tasks, you will be free to play it however you want. For example, tell yourself that you will work 5 hours today, finish off some projects and read some book and you will be done, after that, you’ll be free to do whatever you want, either play games or go out have fun. Your choice. This strategy seemed the best one yet for me and most of the people out there, I highly recommend you try it but of course, if it doesn’t work for you and you end up shitting the bed, change the tactic, try new things until you find your rhythm, that’s how you will be able to overcome this situation.
ON TRACK
By now, you probably are done with everything and put it into a schedule. These are the first steps. There is another and it is the most important one because if you miss this one, your addiction will follow you no matter what you do. The last step is to make your new lifestyle a habit. Don’t plan it, execute it for a couple of days and quit. This will do not change anything in your life at all. You have to be focused on this and turn it into a habit. The only way to make something count. Follow your lifestyle, be a part of it, don’t just watch from the sidelines.
Okay, so, these are the steps that you have to take in order to get rid of this addiction and how to maintain it. After this, it is up to you to execute this perfectly. However, you must not forget that you have to find your type of distraction or new habit and follow along. Not everyone is designated the same way. It is important to find your distinguish point and focus on it. Other than that, it won’t work.
