Quitting Video Games Pt. 2 - Week 4 - A Not So Fond Walk Down Memory Lane

Since my first post, I wanted to give some explanation as to the guidelines I’m following while I attempt to go cold turkey from gaming. Initially, I was thinking about stopping for a month. Now, since I’m doing well, I’m going to go for as long as I can. Here are the 3 main guidelines I’m following:

1.      I am not to engage in any gaming including console, computer, arcade, mobile, or any other activity that could be considered gaming.

2.      Watching gaming videos is acceptable although I will be monitoring this to see if it gets out of hand (normally have them playing in background along with podcasts or music).

3.      Be conscious of replacement behaviors, and why I am engaging in them.

Before the past week, my project had been progressing fairly well. I hadn’t engaged in any gaming, the cravings were not frequent, and the gaming pull was manageable. Also, my exercising had increased, and some childhood friends had decided to reconnect with me. Even more, I’ve been preparing for a presentation at a high school and a new TV show had interviewed me for a potential part as a gaming addiction expert. I expected there to be more roadblocks along the way, but I had yet to hit one. The only problem so far was one day where I binged a tv show after a very stressful week. I’m sure there were better ways to cope, but I think this was my brain trying to turn the rumination off. Other than that, things had been manageable… until this past week.

I have not played any video games, but boy did the pull comeback stronger than ever. I’ve also been having crazy nightmares the last 5 nights.  Each nightmare having a different theme and set of events, yet a similar feeling looms in the background of each. I’ll get to these a bit later.

Reconnecting with my childhood friends was something I hesitated about. Our first meeting was at my house where we rehashed our chaotic childhood. There was pride in our story telling as we sat in a hot tub  (an unheard of activity by our parents) feeling the effects long forgotten, yet, here we were, speaking of the unspeakable evils as functioning adults. I would say it was an enlightening experience, but the graduate level courses had required intense introspection on a weekly basis. Everything gained by my friend and I was a better understanding of each other. The trips down memory lane had become pedestrian since my brothers and I frequent the topic at most gatherings. I wonder why this is such a past time for most people. Is it a way to pull meaning from things that have already occurred?

However, my attitude changed with our second meeting, two days ago as I write this. After a full dinner, and once again walking memory trails previously blazed, we decided to visit our old stomping grounds. Houses we once lived in, now updated, gave new life to old stories. The farther we walked, the greater impact nostalgia had on me. We eventually, inadvertently, walked the same route I walked to high school every day. We went so far as to enter the campus, and again, as if turning back the clock, it was as if we were there 14 years ago. I began to desire the past be brought forward. A strange, yet familiar anxious feeling started rushing through me. It was a mix of excitement and puppy love. The tiresome regretful trope then hit me, “If I could do it all over again…”, “I wish I would have been <fill in the blank>…”. I am curious to know if this trip down memory lane sparked some older feelings I was suppressing. After getting home, the friends had left, but the feelings had remained. It wasn’t long after when I was watching some Let’s Plays that I started making excuses as to why I SHOULD play some games, like I was entitled to. The pull was strong and it returned a few times after that same night and into the next day. Fortunately, I didn’t give in.

What do I make of all of this?

I mean not to bore you, the reader, with psychological jargon or a drawn-out explanation bolstered by long-standing theories. I want to present a few factors that I think contributed to the strength of the pull to play video games I experienced. I’m hoping this will help you take notice of your own life, as these factors I believe contributed to a weakening of my will as well:

1.      As I write this, I am sick. I think I felt the beginnings of this illness a couple of days prior.

2.      I have been doing some intense physical training. Yesterday, I had done some core workouts and finished with a 10-mile run (while feeling under the weather). Please listen to your body and don’t be an idiot like me.

3.      With the increasing amount of physical training, I had been ignoring my diet. Several times this week, I stuffed myself to point of feeling like an overinflated balloon. Fun in the moment, but feeling bloated afterwards.

4.      My sleep has been suffering. The intense nightmares have been causing me to wake up in a panic unable to get back to sleep.

5.      My nightmares have been bringing out feelings of inadequacy and causing me to second guess my present self (a trigger for my gaming)

6.      Meeting with my old friends and digging up memories that put me back into a depressed and anxious state. Back in High School, I felt like a match ready to strike, and burn passionately, but never took the opportunity.

7.      Rumination over things I can’t control, and fantasies never to be truly lived. Although the rumination has lessened, I still use it to cope with everyday life.

We are most likely to stumble when we are at our weakest; not at our strongest. Pay attention to what triggers you. For when the avalanche comes, you’ll need to be ready and waiting.