Step by Step

The first few times I tried to stop gaming, I made the classic mistake of going cold turkey, feeling miserable, and then falling back into my old habits within days. After more failed attempts, it became apparent that my goal had to be deeper. I didn’t just have to stop playing games, I had to change into a person who no longer felt so compelled by gaming. In a nutshell, I had to level up my real world character.

I was not able to change into a new person overnight, and in the end I had to accept that long-lasting change is a process which takes time and commitment. I also hindered myself further by holding on to the belief that I could “fix myself” without any help from others. The truth is though that I did get help from others, I just never directly asked for it. For example, I read up on compulsive behaviour and addiction in order to understand the root causes behind my own behaviour. Those books and articles had been written by other people, and thus those people helped me. You could argue that I “did my own research”, but the fact is I didn’t do everything on my own, despite my ego assuring me that I did. I think if I had reached out more and asked for help, I could have saved myself a lot of time and energy.

Along with learning about the root causes of compulsive behaviour and addiction, I also came up with a plan to reduce my interaction with gaming slowly, step by step, and to replace certain aspects of gaming with other activities. First, I identified the type of gaming which was most compelling to me, which at the time was raiding in WoW. I then set myself a limit to not indulge in that particular activity, but still allowed myself to play games.

It was uncomfortable, and I still wanted to raid, but by allowing myself to still play WoW and other games, it wasn’t so bad. I still did PvP, quested and levelled-up other characters. I also got into a few single-player indie games, such as FTL. The time I freed up by cutting out raiding was put into the gym and other parts of my life which had been neglected, such as my studies, and RL friends and family.

Another tactic I used was to consciously interrupt my thoughts whenever I felt a desire to raid. I would make myself think about all the negative aspects of raiding, such as:

* The endless wipe-fests on bosses which the guild weren’t able to get passed.

* The unfair decisions from guild officers (oh the joys of Loot Council).

* The grinding necessary to have all the consumables/buffs for raiding.

* Where my life would likely end up if I kept wasting time on raiding.

So, my first action was to take a small step away from gaming (I cut off the most compelling part), and a small step toward RL. Full cold turkey never worked for me, but by setting my first limit and replacing the part of gaming I had found most addictive, I finally got my life back on track. For a while anyway.