Today i got to meet my teachers. Was a fairly typical meet-the-teacher experience but i definatley noticed something different. When i stepped onto that campus today i was a new person. For one, i drove myself there. i knew when i stepped out of my car and walked on my high school campus i was a different person. I felt like i was transitioning from a boy to becoming a man, school was the place that i used to use wow to shelter myself from and when i went to that campus today i had something that i hav'nt had on a school campus in a long time. Confidence in myself. On top of the fact that i have quit wow and can enjoy life more, ive lost 30 pounds and look completely different. I feel like i left old thomas behind and am now embracing new thomas. Its such a feeling that i can hardly describe in words. Just last year old thomas moped the campus and imprisioned himself in wow and today i knew that something had changed, something was different. I was ready to take on anything that came my way. Im having a really difficult time describiing exactly what i was feeling today at my school but let me assure you it was absolutley incredibile. i didnt feel like anyone was judging me. i didnt have to worry that i would not be accepeted because i was over weight or because i was addicted to gaming. i didnt have to "hide" myself from people i knew, i did not need to be " invisible " the majority of us went through some insecure times when we were teenagers, even i as a teen know and accept this fact but today, even though ive been working on alot of problems in my life, today was the day that my peers were able to see. the people i associate myself with will no longer recognize me as an over weight gamer. i dont know what i would have done without olganon.org if i lived my life the way i did before all of this for another year i cant tell you that i would be able to make it. Im some-what in shock of the fact that so much worry and neglect can build up in peoples heads. This school year is going to be my first year in 5 years that i am going to take down my social barrier. That mental wall i held up to people because i didnt want them to know i spent hours and hours playing wow. I can take that down this year. I dont have anything to hide. i feel like i could walk into a library and raise a bookshelf. i know longer have an excuse to not involve myself, its not longer than anti-social gamers state of mind attitude any longer. what this website has done for the emotional status of a 16 year old boy in orlando florida is beyond what the 26 letters engraved in this keyboard have to offer. If i could share with you even an ounce of the sensation i went through today i could cure all of the gaming addicts on here. I cant speak for subtance abusers out there but i can tell you that gaming addiction robs you of certain things in life. Today was the day that after i had claimed those things back that i was able to show them back to my community. ive said alot about how this summer has changed me so much and i think what im tryin to get at here is today was the first day that i was able to show it to what all students could call the majority of there livelihood that being; school. Im goin set a goal for myself here that i just thought of as im writing this, on the first day of school august 28 2010 i am going to break my gaming discs. i think this is the most ive ever actually look forward to school because im anxious to see how everything plays out. I would in no way consider myself even an ameatur when it comes to curing a gaming addiction but i would like to offer those of you still suffering from the place i once was a little bit of advice. As ive often described in previous posts about having a vast amount of spare time when you quit gaming cold turkey. If you are doing basically anything besides gaming ( to a certain extent obviously dont take up cocaine to use up your spare time ) you are making progress towards your recovery. This may sound bad but there were times where i would just go and sit on my couch for a couple of hours and do basically nothing because i had a strong urge to game and even though i wasnt accomplishing anything ( it probably is a better idea to occupy your mind with something rather than nothing, even if it is something as simple as a jig saw puzzle ) you are still RE-TRAINING your brain not to need to game. Ive read some were on this website about how our brains adapt to how we spend our time and our daily routine. For example if you were to buy a starbucks coffee every day for 15 years it might be a bit difficult to stop going to starbucks coffee. now you apply this theory on a topic that is addictive such a cigarettes or in this scenario, gaming. WHen trying to quit an addictive behavior you must not only over come your brains message to you to go about your daily activities being gaming but also over come the addictive aspects of gaming which is why it is much more difficult to over come a gaming addiction than it would be if you went to star bucks everyday for 15 years. If you didnt find this helpful im sorry but this is something that helped me alot in my recovery process. i would tell myself- even if you are doing absolutley nothing it is better than gaming. quite honestly that would be the truth when it comes to your recovery process because by not gaming your re training your brain not to include that in your daily routine and avoiding the addictive aspects of gaming. believe me, it is much easier to get involved in activities and do things outside of the house during your free time but if you find yourself at home with a few hours and nothing to do and you have a strong urge/sensation to game what i did in that situation was quite simple; i did nothing. I included sitting on the couch pondering my thoughts as an addiction recovery method. its sort of like if you strapped a subtance abuse/addict to a chair for a month and just fed him and kept him alive, the addit would be incredibly bored but you know that its better for the recovery process to do nothing than to game. Again please dont take this the wrong way, i would encourage signing up for classes and volunteering in your community etc etc etc 10 times over before i would reccomend sitting at home where you have the possiblitiy to game but its not like you can be doing yoga from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed if ya know what i mean : P
Tom, as some others have said, you have reached a place of great insight for your age (and that's not meant to sound patronizing, it's meant to really applaud you). You're in a wonderful place in life and it's so inspiring. I hope you can take what you've learned and how you've grown and continue to propel yourself into an amazing life.
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It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine....
Im goin start from the begginging to make sure i explain everything. Its about the girl that i met and like. As ive stated in a previous posts, a women in my neighborhood named ann who my mom does accounting work for and i occasionaly pet sit for got re married to a guy named rick and rick and his family moved into anns house. rick has 3 kids and one of his daughters is in my grade named jeanna. My mom is a good friend of ann's and ann and rick and all of there kids occasionaly go out on our boat with my family to water ski and stuff. unfortunatley due to this economic down turn anns house got foreclosed on, a shame because had she have been able to make payments jeanna would have consequently being in the same neighborhood as me, gone to my high school. Ann and Rick found a new home in there price range but the neighborhood it is in is zoned for a different high school. I was really bummed because i was hoping this girl would be able to go to my school and seems as it was her first year and she wouldnt know anyone i could be like one of her first friends and possibly... her boyfriend ? :D so i was kinda down for a couple weeks knowing that they would probably be moving into this new house but them my mom told me that the bank turned them down for the loan amount on there new house! WOW i mean bad for ann and rick but that opens the possiblity that they find a new house zoned for the high school i go to! So a few weeks went by and i had my hopes up a little bit but i knew they could pick a house not zoned for my school so i tried not to think about it. Then today my mom and i went to the movie theatre to go see tom cruises new movie and my moms new car has that sync system so it can have phone capabilities via the radio system. Basically my mom can make and recieve calls and talk to people through the radio system, im sure you know how that works. So were on our way to the movie theater and what do you know Ann calls my mom! so my mom awnsers it and you wouldnt believe it..... THEY GOT A HOUSE ZONED FOR MY HIGH SCHOOL! they even were pre approved or something like that, they got the house pretty cheap and my mom who is an accounting major told me theres a strong chance that they get that house. How fortunate my luck is. i could see this story in one of those " how did you meet " kind of things. Ann also went on to say how jeanna is a bit nervous about going to a new school and from what she said, jeanna has probably 3 or 4 of the same classes i do, that doesnt mean that there at the same time but its a start. Ann was like " yeah she is going to have to meet some new people yaty yaty ya..." well i can tell you for sure that she will have me to talk to ! :D :D :D
Today was the first day of school. Today was also the first time i drove to school. This morning when my brother and i got in my car and backed out of my drive way i accidently bumped into my dads front bumper and caused it to fall down. It was like 6 in the morning and i should have been checking more carefully when i was backing up but when i heard that noise of my car running into my dads my heart dropped. i was like oh no did we hit it? my brother opened the passenger side door to check and before he could even utter the words i could tell by his facial expression. Ive been driving for a little over 3 months now and havnt hit anything yet but this morning i hit my dads car. I got to school late because of it and i felt terrible the entire day because of what had happend. When my dad got home from work today he wasn't really mad or upset which was a bit releaving and i drove with him to the collision repair place to have the car worked on. Seems as all of my families cars are in my dads name and he pays for all of them and there insurances, it wouldnt make much sence to file an insurance claim for only a bumper. However my dad and i both drive an expedition and expedition bumpers are fairly massive and right now the left side of the bumper is completely severed from where it was attatched in front of the wheel which could cause, if the mechanic cant repair the broken bumper, my dad to have to purchase an entire new bumper. I guess its just a part of life. My mom told me that when she first started driving one time she didnt even get a car off the lot before wrecking it. And i know my dad has totaled a couple cars in his life time. But i am genuinley a pretty safe/solid driver and i didnt want to be part of the 60% of 16 year olds that get into an accident there first year. Im not sure if running into your dads car counts ( like i said my dads name is on all of the registrations so technically my car is his ) as getting into an accident as he didnt file an insurance claim and didnt cause damage to someone elses property but he is going to have to pay alot of money to fix it. Dont get me wrong i know that my parents will be able to afford to get the bumper fixed and i told my dad i was sorry and im sure my parents expected accidents from me but when it actually happens its a really sucky feeling : ( i hope i can remember this experience for when my kids crash there cars at 16. I try to look at the positives in that atleast i hit one of my families cars so that we dont have to pay to get someone elses car fixed and also my insurance rates wont go up.
Besides the car incident getting me down, the first day of school was actuallly ok. I knew going into this year that trying to recover those social skills ive lost from gaming for so long wasnt going to be an easy task but even the first day i could tell a difference from last year. Ive gained a decent amount of confidence after losing so much weight over the summer so that may have helped but, i could tell that i was atleast a little bit more comfortable talking and socializing with people i knew and newer people i hadn't met yet. I know its going to be a journey but im sure i can get through it. The incoming freshman are often in a similair place im in so it can be easier to talk to them also. Im sure alot of you have seen mtv's new show " if you really knew me " i cant watch this show because it nearly brings me to tears. its a show quite literally about the same situation im in right now. teenagers in high school coming together to overcome there social insecurities and make for a more interactive and positive student body. Sometimes i picture myself in a situation like that. If people really knew me, knew what ive gone through. Knew the problems i face every day. Knew how far ive come in my recovery process. Knew me for who am i. If i do watch this show i have to flip back and forth with a different channel to keep myself together. sometimes i wonder how someones opinion of me would change if they read my entire olga story cover to last post.
If you ever get that feeling of being down I always tell myself, tommorows a new day. Within the past 6 months ive changed my perspective on life so much. I went from my biggest concern being if i could attend that nights raid to wanting to have a relationship with someone and spending time with friends and family and enjoying my life, school is much more important to me this year than in others. I spend alot of time thinking about my future and what i want to do with my life. In less than 2 years when i turn 18 and go to college what my goals are, things i want to accomplish. Last summer if you would have asked me what i wanted to do with my life i would probably tell you somethine along these lines " im looking forward to moving out on my own so i can plan my own schedule and eat dinner when and where i want to and wont have to worry about missing a raid because of an activity my family has planned" as ive gone into details in other posts, being a raider on wow while still having to attend to your parents every deed can be difficult and at that time, my biggest concern with movin out on my own was that i can raid every night and wont have to worry about being cut off early. Now my family is more important to me. my grandmother has 7 grandchildren. Shes getting older and i know one day she wont be around any more. i suppose all of these thoughts are just part of growing up and maturing.
Ide like to add some more information to my previous post
One of the classes i signed up for this year was weightlifting. and today as most teachers do on first days, the coaches gathered the 200 or so kids on the bleachers just basically to explain the rules etc etc.. but during the first week alot of students show up late to classes throughout the day because there still tryin to remember where they the classes are/how to get there. so today as expected there was this freshman girl who showed up late and she walked in the gym and asked one of the coaches where she was supposed to sit, the coach replied " anywhere you want, make some new friends". The girl immediatley was put out of her comfort zone, i was watching her the whole time as this was going on as she was fairly attractive and i knew as soon as she turned her back to the coach and preceeded to walk towards those bleachers that she was going to sit at the end and keep to her self. And thats exactly what happen'd the girl walked to the end of the bleachers and sat by herself and didnt say anything for the rest of the period. i was sitting towards the top and from the moment the girl sat down to the moment the bell rang i debated whether or not i should go and sit with her and get to know her. I didnt but now i regret it and if i could go back and do it over i would go sit next to her. I really felt for the girl being a freshman in your first day of high school i know it can be tough. i thought to myself, wow thats just like me. sittin by yourself during a " free period ". she even looked depressed, im almost upset with myself that i didnt go sit with her. I think meeting new friends/people is one of the most difficult problems i face, i can hold up a conversation fairly well and i can easily talk to i have known for a while.
Ah what an unfortunate tale i am going to bestow on you today.
Were now in the second week of school so let me bring you up to speed on where im at. So you've read the post about the girl im intrested in named jenna, well a week had went by and i didnt really get the chance to talk to her so i told myself i needed to do something about it. this last weekend was my high schools first football game, it was an away game but the away school was like 10 minutes away so. i got in my car that friday afternoon after school drove to her house knocked on her door and asked her if she wanted to go to the football game with me. She told me she was leaving to go to her cousins house in kissimee, thats where she lived before she moved down here. right as i was about to walk away with dissapointment she asked me for my number which was really the only reason i went over there so i immeditaly stumbled my number out to her and got in my car and danced a little jig : P i went to the football game with a friend of mine and had a great time but i would have liked to bring her. i probably exchanged 100-150 texts with her everyday throughout friday and the rest of the weekend and we really were able to have some good conversations and get to know each other. monday i offered to give her a ride home and buy her a slurpee at 7-11, she was more than happy to get a ride home as she has to walk a ways after getting off the bus but for watever reason she didnt want a slurpee. no problem. i dropped her off at her house and texted her a bit that after noon. Since thursday our cable has been out and seems as we bundle it with the same company, the internet, the tv and the home phone have been down so ive had to find other ways to entertain myself for the last 4 or so days. good for avoiding gaming i spose. Today the cable man got here while i was at the gym and when i got back he was filling out some paper work in his truck on the road to our driveway so i knew then that the cable was back. Now by this point in time i had got to know jenna pretty well and really had a thing for her so obviosuly when i got back on facebook she had friend requested me and i accepted it. *sighs...* this is where the story goes down hill. as i accepted her friend request and the page refreshed the first thing i checked. relationship status. she moved here from kissimee i guess i was automatically under the assumption that there wasn't anyone back in kissimee she was seeing because kissimee is so far away however if you havnt figured it out all ready the relationship status said; in a relationship with Rob Diorio. i didnt even get the chance to finish reading those 6 words before my heart dropped. on facebook your relationship status is either single being 1 word or in a relationship so when i saw that capital R my stomach was practically ripped out of me. I was crushed. I should have known better to check her facebook status before gettin involved with her. i should not have gotten ahead of myself. i probably would have checked her status but my cable was out remember so. I feel so stupid i got waay to ahead of myself way to early. i thought about her all the time and couldnt wait to get that txt messg back that had her name on it. its hard to explain how hurt and upset i was in words. it seemed like everything was going my way for a change, life finnaly started to turn up for me. and then in less than a second It falls in ruins again. ill be able to get over her but it will unfortunatley cause me to put my wall up again... after i had gotten over the shock factor i clicked on this guys profile. The first thing i notice is; under the activities section of his profile his ONLY activity is- smoking weed. Yes for those of you who may have not understood what i said this girl who i put on a pedistool's boyfriend's only activity on facebook is smoking weed. First of all if you did illegal things such as smoking weed why would you post it on a public social networking website? Thats beside the fact that if the only thing you can think of to write in your activities section is smoking pot than you are obviosuly a loser. i have hardly any hobbies or extracurrculuars as ive said in earlier posts and i can still think of better things to write to do as an activity than smoking pot. what a loser. i dont mean to judge those of you who do smoke weed but if you were to compare me to this boyfriend she has i think 9 out of 10 people would say no contest. i guess if those are the kind of people she is involved with maybe i dont really want to be with her. atleast i didnt go too far and have to have her tell me she was with someone else. I was so upset when i found out she was with some body but now its been a few hours and ive calmed down a little bit and had the chance to think about it it may have been for the best.
Gaming urges are almost entirley absent. Another thing ive noticed is the overall desire to game is not there anymore. Im still trying to be able to break my discs but im waiting for the right time to do so.
I am not yet ready to confess my "sins." But be assured that is not good. I have been through a lot in that time I was playing. And I keep passing more and more. One crisis after another and not to stop playing.
It has been a while since I was a teenager, but I will share with you two lessons I learned very early on which I think apply to your story: Lesson 1: every girl already has a boyfriend - even the 'least interesting' girls can find a boy if they want one - if you don't understand this you will be single for a long, long time Lesson 2: never girl judge a girl (woman, etc) by her taste in men - what makes a woman like a particular man is unfathomable - if you like her go for her and time will tell soon enough if you are compatible (as opposed to relying on your imagination)
Final point - long distance relationships don't survive well - so if you are in competition with Mr. Stoner from Kissimi you have the home field advantage.
Imagine a conversation like the following: I love hanging out with you Thomas, as i am alone all the time now Stoner and I live apart. He is a nice guy I known him since grade school. But it is so hard he is stoned all the time - too stoned to come and see me...
One thing really jumps out at me, too, about this situation... here she is supposedly in a relationship with Mr. Stoner, but she's texting you 100-150 times a day? And she jumps up to give you her phone number? If I were Mr. Stoner, I don't think I'd appreciate that too much.
However... one additional thing to think about is that, if she treated Mr. Stoner this way, maybe she'd treat you the same way as well, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.
There is so much pain and suffering in this world we live in. Perhaps due to the girl i used to like but just in general lately ive been feeling really down. I seem to see all the bad in life. I dont feel like im living my life the way i should be. this website is the only real way i can express the way i feel. i was reading an article about suicide and it said people who consider suicide have more pain than they do resources to cope with pain. that makes sence. im not considering suicide but i would be lying to you if i said i havnt thought about it. in fact thats the reason i got on olga to write because i started to think about suicide. i dont really know why. its hard to explain. i just have alot of negative thoughts on a daily basis. its not so much that i would ever commit suicide but the fact that i think about it every once in a while and that its a possibility thats floating in my head really scares me. i started tearing up a little bit when i was writin this.. why? i dont understand alot of the things going on in my life. i dont really have a problem with gaming any more but this is the only place i feel comfortable talking about stuff like this. sometimes i dont really feel the need or desire to live. ive been on an emotional roller coaster the past couple weeks. I cant finish writing this i have to focus on somethin else right now.
For failed Marriages/Broken Families/Neglected Children/Loss of Friends/Job Loss/Failing Grades/Lost College Degrees/Lost Months/Years/Loss of Time/the real lives of our sons/daughters/spouses/friends, and last, but not least, for the loss of OUR OWN REAL lives into the games - emotional/spiritual/mental/emotional/sensual.
i wonder if the ceo of the big gaming companys would change his mind about starting his business if he read this message first. Sometimes i wish i could get all the ceo's and owners of the big companies in one room and force them to read even one if not all of the horrible things they put people through.
Hey, Thomas11, thoughts of suicide are serious. Tell your parents that you are having them. Please. Do not take this lightly. It is not normal, cool or okay to think about killing yourself. You need to tell this to somebody you know who cares about you. Telling us at Olga is a start, but let's mobilize some Real Life support for you on this. Today. Okay?
Sorry to hear about the girl trouble. I've certainly had my share of it, which has convinced me that girl trouble is mostly in my own mind. That is to say, the only reason it's a problem when some girl doesn't like me is because I make it a problem by the way I think about it. Rather than thinking stuff like, "She's so perfect. I love her so much. If only we could be together, then I'd be happy," I try to think stuff like ... "Next!"
Seriously, one of if not the best cures for relationship troubles is to get interested in someone else. I'm so sure of this that the minute I find myself starting to get interested in someone new, I immediately try to line up a date with someone else new. This helps me keep a less off-balance viewpoint of things. It reminds me that there are all kinds of interesting people in the world, including something like 3 billion members of the opposite sex.
I can't control what another person thinks of me. But I can control what I think of me. And I choose to never-never-never give someone else the power to make me feel bad about myself. That one, I reserve for me alone.
Getting blown off by some girl is a cue to immediately begin getting dates with as many other girls as you can. Try to make it a game. "Can I go up to three different attractive girls today and smile and say hello to them?" (Not as easy as it sounds.) "Can I get a date with somebody -- anybody -- to the football game this weekend?" "Can I come up with five funny, confident-sounding opening lines to try out at the next party I go to?"
Consider asking for help from some of the guys you know who have the most success with girls. Just say, "Dude, I can't believe the way you have so many ladies after you. How do you do it?" Then, take notes.
Generally, if you can find a way to enjoy the *process* of flirting, dating and the other elements of human courtship, rather than focusing entirely on whether or not you are finding and winning the heart of the elusive Miss Perfect forever after, I think you will find that you will suddenly become far more attractive to girls and begin going out with lots of them that are lots of fun, having a great time and breaking hearts rather than having yours broken. (Not that breaking hearts is the goal but, if it has to happen, better them than you.)
My two cents. And don't forget that thoughts of suicide absolutely require immediate intervention. Do it. McPhee
I just happened upon this site and read all your posts. You really need to talk to your family about this.
This site has gotten you going in the right direction. Now its time to bring it the attention of your parents or a counselor at school.
It isn't weakness to ask for help, its strength.
Heart breaks come and go, we have all made it! You will too!
At least you're not like me: in the middle east dodging mortar fire :P
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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~John Stewart Mill
thats todays date. this date i think will stay with me for the rest of my life.
today started normal, school came and went as expected. Only a 4 day school week this week thanks to having labor day off.
This friday is when my high school plays their rival in football. Wekiva verse Apopka, a game students look forward to all summer long. My high school is only like 4 years old and many of apopkas students ended up transfering to wekiva after it was built so when we have the apopka wekiva game students often walk to opposing sides of the stadium and socialize with people they know from the other school. Apopka has been around for a LOOOOOONGG TIME, in fact Warren Sapp graduated from apopka high shool. Apopka has a nationaly ranked football program and typically beats wekiva by 50 or so points (
Today i was feeling a bit down about the way my life is going so i decided to try and look at the progress i've made in the last 6 months and appreciate what i do have. Everyday, not all day all the time but definatley everyday i get the feeling that im not getting everything i want out of life. 6 months ago i was 40 pounds heavier and gaming every hour of the day relativley no friends, no life, no existence. now im headed down the right path. i dont game hardly at all actually. those casual console games or less addictive computer games( flash games, cd-roms etc.. ) i used to do in previous posts after quitting wow are no longer needed. i do occasionaly play the new halo with my brother but thats only if he lets me play : P i think alot about what it would be like if i went through another year living in my shell. people all around me even though there completely oblivious to the gaming struggles ive over come will tell me " wow you've changed alot or your really growing up/ comin out of your bubble " kind of thing. this year i have more friends than i did last year. im closer to alot more people, i can talk to someone if i need to or ask them whats going on in there life. last year i really had maybe 1 or 2 close friends. this saturday were throwing a huge 16th suprise birthday party for my best mans girlfriend : D my whole life ive lived in the same neighborhood and theres probably a good 10 kids in my neighborhood that i know and have gone to school with from k-12 grade with. even kids that dont live in my neighborhood but ive gone through school with that i know who they are. ive really appreciated having that lately. in my high school ive known alot of the kids since i was really young regardless if i hang out with them or even talk to them its a sense of familiarity, i know that guys first and last name, ive seen his parents a time or two. the reason i say this is because one of the guys that lives in my neighborhood, two years ahead of me but ive still gone to school with him, played football with him occasionaly kind of thing. joined the marines. Im not sure if its just something about high school or going into adult hood or maybe just everyones junior year but holy cow its hit me like a ton of bricks. life. what am i gonna do with it? where do i wanna go to college? what am i going to make of myself? im 16 years old, 24 months ago my biggest concern was what was for dinner : D now i have to decide if im going to join the marines? wow..... honestly my plan was to go to college right out of high school as ive got about a 3.5 cumulative gpa and finaces to do so however.. i really am not sure : / my dad served in the military, and so did his dad, do i? so many things happening SO FAST omg its scary!!!! the grandma told me that its good for many young guys to join the military right out of high school because it helps them grow up and then when there done with there service they have some money saved up to buy a house/go to school. my dad went to college right after high school and flunked out his first year and had to join the services to mature him up a little bit. he went back to college after serving and graduated with no problems. is that going to happen to me? am i ready to handle going to college? can i live on my own? do most people go through the same things im going through at my age? i believe im certainly qualified to join the military. do i even want to?its just an option i guess. i just am not sure if i can handle all of these things life is giving me right now. im still a kid as much as i hate to admit it. im supposed to make decisions that are going to effect me for the rest of my life. theres really a lot of confusion in my mind honestly lol. im kind of like, oh dam im an adult now.... ermmm?
im the youngest of 7 cousins and 5 of us are really close and we coincidentaly were all born consecutivley. for example if the youngest of us my brother was in 1st grade and then the oldest in 5th and one of us in each of the grades in between. so ive got 2 older cousins one a year older than me ( senior in high school ) and one that graduated last year and i talk to them sometimes about the same things im going through. my oldest cousin who graduted has not done anything since his graduation. many of us blame him for not getting his life rolling but i can understand for his situation. he lives out in the country sort of and theres not alot of places around him where he could get a job. he has plans to go to college but that hasnt happend yet and he has bad ashtma and he doesnt think he could join the military. he lives at home still and my family is worried about what he is going to do. The way i see it ive got 3 options after graduating high school. Go to college. Join the military. Join the work force. Nowadays joinin the work force after high school is basically impossible and not somethin i want to do so thats out of the question. my cousin i think had happen to him what i talked about earlier in my post how life creeps up on you. he wasnt prepared to do something with his life. dont get me wrong im not mad or dissapointed with my cousin at all i can understand how he got how he is.
you know ive never told anyone on this earth of the things i talk about on this website. not my parents my friends my family no one. i think they would think differently of me if they read my topic begginging to end. honeslty i feel alot of anxiety when i think about someone in my personal life getting ahold of this website. if they read my life concerns and story. would they think im a loser being a former gaming addict? people used to critcize me alot about gaming. i wonder what the reaction would be if i had people who are close to me read this. i doubt i will but if there is anyone who hides everything on there topics from there real life friends and family ide appreciate it if you told me. i dont think its healthy not to share all the things ive said on here with someoen is why im concerened
It's very normal to start questioning where you will go from here when you are 16. If you don't want to join the military, you don't have to (unlike the guys who graduated from high school at the same time I did, back in 1972). If you don't want to go away to college, you don't have to do that either. You could take a year at your local community college and get a bunch of your gen eds out of the way, then head off to a 4-year college once you've got the hang of college-level work. You could spend a year doing some kind of volunteer work. My daughter joined a youth ministry team after she graduated from high school and travelled the country for a year leading youth retreats.
If you are concerned about anyone you know reading this thread, we could move it to one of the gamers-only forums, and then the only people who could read it would be people who had the same problem you do. I know it's hard to see it this way, but if I was you, I would be proud of what you have overcome to get to where you are now. You may not want to shout it from the rooftops, but if anyone asks, don't be embarrassed. Be proud of the strength you have shown in overcoming gaming addiction.
—
"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun." -------William Wordsworth
Hey, Thomas. Good to hear from you. I was wondering what happened, what with the talk about suicide a while back. A couple of people tried to convince me you were a troll, in part because you write so well they figured you couldn't be just 16. I didn't believe that at all. I did wonder if you might be in some kind of in-patient program for depression. Instead you're considering enlisting. I considered joining the Marines when I was 17, but I never did. Instead I went to college for one semester, then dropped out and hit the hippie trail, hitchhiking around the West, working at menial jobs, even staying in Salvation Army homeless shelters. I eventually went back to college and graduated with honors, not that I'm recommending this career path. I think I was mostly just plain lucky. Anyway, glad you're well. Hang in there. McPhee
Well Thomas11, my name is Mario (no pun intended) and I'm an video game addict. I know what you mean about the excessive game use. I once did a 32 hour straight video game binge. What is happening in the drug world kind of way to look at it is your wanting a bigger high. You see, your WoW isn't getting you those highs as you once had when you first started. Therefore, you are now actively looking for a new "drug" to get you higher. The only porblem is WoW is pretty much the highest you can get. Now, you can look back and see what damage this substance has done to you: your fatter, your less athletic, you have social problems with people, and you feel as a 16 year old that you unfit for life. What do you do? Are you going to fight back or just let it all happen? Well sitting there with a TV in one hand and a computer in another is not going to get you anywhere, I can tell you that much. What are you doing now is idling in that high. You are neutralizing so much that you actually do other things around it your drug. Now you have it figured out so that if you use WoW and watch TV, that somehow your going to be more interested... and your not. Like I said it sounds to me like you have "maxed out". You have done more wow than possible and now you are wondering.. how can you get high next?
Well then, why are you even in recovery if you are looking for the next big thing. First step: stop looking. There will always be a newer game... a better game play... available. Just give it time and virtual reality will be set in. OH BOY! Then everyone will be doing that because it has a bigger high. When it comes to video games, there is always something better. Thomas, it is your time to get off the train like the rest of us. You need to be looking for ways to heal from your addiction and not just bathe in your juices, so to speak. What I mean is abstinence. Have you ever tried not playing WoW for 1 day? How did that feel? If you can't do it alone, we all will be waiting online for you... I'm not going anywhere - I'm not going to play another game. If you need support, I'll be here. Send me a private message and we can talk.
Good luck Thomas, and remember - recovery is about letting go of the video game juice, not finding another video game.
Wow, very proud of you Thomas... you cancelled your subscription! A very good choice I assure you. 1/16 of your life isn't that much. Sorry, I just don't feel it is when you have your whole life ahead of you. Stop looking back - look forward to years CLEAN from online games. Looks pretty good to me.
I know you want help Thomas. You are in the right spot. Best of luck and for god sake take a walk outside and turn of media!
Thomas, I don't and didn't think you were a troll. If I were you, I would try not to worry too much about what other people think. They are going to think whatever they want to, and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it anyway. The most important thing is what you think about yourself. I am very pleased to say that you seem to have a good, strong self-image, and it is getting steadily stronger and more positive the further excessive gaming recedes into your past and you involve yourself in the real world. One man's opinion anyway. Glad to hear you are doing okay, are not locked up in the mental ward and are feisty enough to bite if provoked, it looks like. McPhee
today however i faced maybe one of the toughest obstacles in my gaming recovery. when i used to game, i played with alot of the friends i know in real life. some even live in my neighborhood and are in my grade/class and i would see and talk to on a daily basis. my cousin played with me for the longest time and thats one of the reasons were so close. i can honestly say that had it not been for runescape and world of warcraft i would not be as close to my cousin as i am today. i had been through like 7 pvp seasons with my cousin being my partner in world of warcraft and towards the peak of my gaming era my cousin and i had as ive stated hit upwards of a 2000 rating in our arena teams, the only reason i mention this is because my cousin and i really spent a ton of time together and were close to each other because we communicated and interacted through runescape and wow. we would play arena together in the same room when he would come over and when you win 10 in a row, you bond simple as that. even in runescape, my character was level like 133/136 and him and i would do alot of things together. my friend in the neighbordhood who got me into runescape and wow ive spent alot of time with and been close to. sometimes i would spend the night at his house and he and i would game until all hours of the night, we've level'd characters from 1-80 together and we have even done the recruit a friend experience bonus together for those of you familiar with that feature. my cousin has probably a good 5 or 6 friends that all played wow with him too and my cousin, my friend inthe neighborhood and my cousins friends who through the game i got to know really well would all raid at the same time on wow and we got really close and had a good male bonding experience on a re occuring basis, for exmaple i can remember us throwing together several 10 man groups because so many of us who played together knew each other in real life and were able to better connect that way. many people say that they make friends in the game and talk to them on vent and socialize in that way but it brings it to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL when you actually know the people in real life that your playing with and have been friends/family with them all of your life, its like throwing a touchdown pass to your brother in a high school football game. not that ive ever done that but you get what im saying. ive even made close friends through the game as i stated before that i still talk to but its so much different if you hang out with the people outside of wow also. for exmaple a few weekends back my cousin and i went to a college football game and we had an extra ticket so we brought one of his friends who played wow that i knew. thats been the hardest thing in letting go of my games. i know that its not a healthy hobby to be a part of but, i can honestly say that I HAD ALOT OF FUN AND EXPERIENCES when i played. i was a part of a group that accepted me. for the time i was in the game, i got to be the creme of the crop. its not the gaming i miss, its the experiences and enjoyment i got out of playing with friends. my cousin, my best friend in the neighborhood. yes the games were fun but more than that when my cousin and i barley beat that arena team rated 300 points above you just out of shear knowledge of each others playing styles, thats a really good feeling. when you've got 10+ people on your friends list that you know and met in real life that you can hit up to run raids and groups with thats alot of fun. i know that gaming is not a healthy alternative to life experiences. but today i got a text from my cousin. it said exactly " i just wanted to tell you a few of us started a runescape pure clan if u wanna join dat be cool" wow. the mental ability it took to restrain myself from calling him up that very moment creatin an account and playing 20 hours a day to become the most advanced among the people in our clan was absoltuley exhausting. i REALLY WANT TO PLAY WITH HIIM. i know i would have so much fun playing with my cousin and the friends of his that ive grown close to and ganging up on some in experienced ill advised players in the pvp area as a clan would be such a blast. we would be screaming on vent and sharing the enjoyment of killing players together. just like old times. god i really wanted to join him. that reminds me, this last friday i went over to jenna's house for a couple hours to hang out with her before we left for our high schools football game and her brother who is leaving for the military in a few months plays wow...... what are the odds. she was doing her hair or something so her brother who ive met is like you wanna come in here? so i went into his " bat cave" and there he is on the computer in a dungeon ive been through a thousand times. my mind flashed backed a thousand times over. the images i got standing there watching him play world of warcraft........ hes like so.... have you ever played this game? i hesitated for a moment.... i said no, i lied. i dont know why i told him no its not like he would have cared i mean after all he is playing. ide like to say that i didnt feel like having a " wow" talk with him but thats not true. im not sure why i told him i had never played. throughout our conversation tho which lasted roughly 10-15 minutes i specifically remember him saying" really you dont play this? huh you seem like the kinda guy that would play " mmmm wow that really struck me. i look like the kind of guy who is playing world of warcraft? thats not the kind of self image im tryin to set for myself, if anything its what im trying to avoid. and the fact that he had mentioned it twice?mmmmmmmmmmmm not good not good. i played dumb and asked him about his character and such, he was really not very good in all honesty. i casualy asked him " you dont think this is like... not healthy?" " doesnt this get addicting?" he responded with one of those soft spoken awsners that really mean i dont think so. what an ironic event. the girl i like's brother plays wow. great....... how funny that she lives ( brother included obviosuly ) right next door to my best friend in the neighborhood who used to play wow haha. im standing there looking at his computer, i asked him what his class was lol as if i didnt know from the instant i glanced at his spell bar. he was a level 80 mage. its sad to say i could probably find my way through the dungeon he was running with my eyes closed. if only he knew what i've learned about world of warcraft. if i didnt like his sister i would have introduced him to this website. i almost felt bad im like."" oh no....ricky dont........." as if he was about to inject himself with a posionous substance of some sort. the moment i walked into that room and turned my head around the corner of that monitor and saw the flashing robes of the bloodelf looking back at me the evil gaming addiction in side of me just roared, get back to the game your guild needs you!!!!
Oh mcphee, the moment i read your post i didnt think for one second that you would in any conciousness consider me to be a troll so please dont get the wrong message. and i did sence a hence of concern in my current living arrangments if thats the right way to word it? i live in a suburban household with my mom dad and brother. no history of mental illness in the family. although the fact that you considered me to be a participant in a mental ward or depression program of some sort is rather concerning i suppose. im of average height, now of average weight. get about a 3.5 unweighted gpa. other than certain aspects of my life could qualify as atleast to some standards, a normal high school student.
Thanks for the update, Thomas11. That does sound like a puzzle with your cousin. I think it's important to recognize the good things that we got from gaming, as well as the bad things. If we act like there were no good things, we are basically lying to ourselves, and it's hard to see how that is going to work out well in the long run.
To my mind, the only way to come to a healthy, sustainable conclusion that we really don't want to game any more is to walk all the way around the topic, examining it from all sides. One way is with a cost-benefit analysis. Here's the one I did: http://www.olganon.org/?q=node/20920.
Your doesn't need to be this long. You can start with just a few things on the pluses and minuses side, and add to them as you go along. On your benefits side would probably be: Having fun playing with my cousin. On your bad side might be: Gaining weight. Just possible examples, not suggestions per se.
I think it's a good idea to do it honestly, and not start out with the plan that you're going to end up deciding not to play. If you do the CBA and it looks like gaming is good and you want to do it, I think you have to be ready to say: "Well, I guess I'll game some more."
That's not that hard. What's harder is when it comes out very clearly that gaming is a bad idea, and yet you still say, "I'll game some more anyway." That's where it gets crazy. Not that there's anything awful about crazy. We all act crazy sometimes. But if you keep looking at your CB, and it honestly indicates that gaming is bad for you, odds are pretty good you'll eventually decide to quit. Or not. Up to you.
With all thats been going on i completely forgot about my 5 month anniversary. I quit gaming on 4/29/2010 and just a few days ago marked the 5 months anniversary of when i quit gaming. I can honestly say that this year of high school ive noticed a signifigant improvment in my social status. Certainly nothing remarkable but compared to where i was coming from, alot better. I can see the light in my life where i couldn't before.
This last saturday was my high schools homecoming. my last two years i hadnt gone because i was probably raiding on wow but this year i went and it was absolutley amazing. we had to dress up and wear a tie ( for guys ) and i went with a group of like 30 friends to take pictures and then we went to dinner before it started. god it was so much fun i danced with all the ladies for like 4 hours. my school sold 600 tickets for 30 dollars a piece and we hired a proffesional dj-ing company even tho we had it in the gym they decorated it so much u culdnt even tell it was the gym. about halfway through homecoming it struck me. wow what changed about me from this year to last? lookin up and down myself almost in disbelief like wow im at homecoming partying it up lol. today was monday and the first day of school after homecoming weekend and people in my classes were saying things to me like " wow thomas i didnt know you were such a partier" this morning i stepped on the scale. 165. at the end of last year i was 210 thats almost 50 pounds!!!! i take weightlifting at school with our head football coach and then go to the gym after that and a while ago i started usin the tanning booth our gym offers im turning into a jersey shore cast member lol :P it really was nice that more than one person in separate class periods told me i was rockin it at homecoming. i dont know how i got there but the next thing i know im in the middle of the dance floor with the rest of the popular kids at my school. I kept saying to myself wow how'd i get here? ive really gained so much more confidence in the last few months its so comforting. i wish every night culd be a homecoming night lol.i could hardly feel my legs they were so sore.
I need help, i've been struggling and it really concerns me
let me start by saying i had a fantastic and productive weekend for the most part. we had friday off for watever reason so my high schools football game was on thursday and i went with my friend in my neighborhood that i usual go to the games with and some other kids i know. It was an away game and i got to see and socialize with some of the guys i knew from the other school which was cool. spent the night at that friends house thursday night after the game and just chilled. friday was even better! got up early and his dad took us out to a fairly classy breakfast ( his parents are ..well... affulent :D) then we all went to ( all being me my friend and the other kids that spent the night ) ride go karts on this track we have in my city. after that we played a round of mini golf, our mini golf course is really extravagent and is even nicer than the ones you see in the movies so that was alot of fun, then we all went to our own houses. took it easy at my house for a little bit then i went to see jackass 3D with a different friend of mine and his crew. HILARIOUS ! ive seen all the bam episodes ( rented every season via netflix ) and we saw it in 3d at the movie theatre which was neat. it was nice to be busy all friday including friday night. friday night used to be the night of the week i looked forward to the most because i could raid as late as i wanted to without worrying about having to go to bed to get up and go to school. it was the most " conviyent" < spelt wrong; raid night if you will. since i quit gaming if i wasnt doing anything friday night i felt out of place and like i had no purpose or like i was missing out on something because friday night used to mean intense wow raid from 6pm- morning. so even tho i had a great day friday during the day, the fact that i was even occupied friday night was special. i felt blessed. saturday morning i went back to my friends who i went to the football game with and watched a couple hours of college football with him. let me take a break here for a minute to give you some back ground. in a previous post i talked about a guy i knew in my neighborhood joining the marines and growing up and becoming a totally different person, saturday he had.. not so much a party but like a welcome back sort of thing with his family and he posted on facebook all were invited so i had planned on showing up and paying my respects kind of thing. my lifetime friend who i used to game txtd me and told me he was there ( my friend who i used to game with lives next door to the guy who joined the marines and has known him well since he was born so... ) so i figured now was as good of time as any to drive my truck over to his house and see wat was up. there was alot of people there i knew which was cool, people from school, people who all ready graduated. was just a nice thing to have to wish the marine the best. while we were there my friend invited me to go to a basketball game with him that night, i graciously accepted the offer and we left shortly after i arrived to make it in time for the game. it was my first time seeing and being inside the orlando magics new stadium. wow it is really incredible! it was a preseason game against the bulls and the magic were up like 50 points pretty quickly so of course my friend and i got to talking. and what else did we conversate about but games. ive gone through thick and thin with my friend when it comes to games. he started playing runescape in the 4th grade, i did in the 5th grade. we switched to wow about the 6-7th grade and have been going back and forth between wow and runescape and even sometimes playing both at the same time ( difficult but not impossible, and yes we would have both open at the same time ) up until this year, 11th grade when we both quit playing about the same time. he is on the bowling team, i dont think ive mentioned that yet and the only reason i do is because hes the " anchor " of the team which i guess means hes the captain and he can averaged like a 240 or something crazy like that. basically hes been the head hancho of the bowling team since he joined his freshman year and hes been bowlign in leagues for a long time. good for him that hes involved in something hes enjoys and hes really good at it. he told me the highest he has ever bowled is a 299 1 pin away from perfect : D his dad is a bowler too which is cool. some people at our school think the bowler are kinda dorks which i guess they are but you wouldnt hear that from me, personally im proud of my friend for being apart of somethings hes good at and having a serious, passionably, enjoyable hobby and sport to be apart of outside gaming. if i enjoyed bowling that much i might have joined the team. hes at the bowling alley, which is about 3 minutes from our houses. i was kind of suprised after i reviewed the last 10 or so sentences that i wrote so much about my friend's bowling career which was not necciasrly relevant to my point, what im tryin to say is that he has atleast something he does outside of gaming. so anyways my friend and i while at the game got talking about gaming. we hit evvveerything u can imagine about our experiences gaming. we talked about runescape wow, and even the game aion which we both played simultanionsley for about a month or so. i really got into the conversation and i rememebered all the good times me and my friend had together. we were really close, i would go over to his house and spend the night and we would game together for hours on in. those of you who are familiar with the recruit a friend experience bonus in world of warcraft. we used that even tho we allready had maxed characters to level up additional characters and then transfer them over to our accounts. even back in burning crusade my friend and i level up a character from 1-70 together. at some points in time we were in the same guild and would raid together. we ran dungeons together. i would go over to his house alot and we would game together.whether it was wow or runescape, we always did things together. towards the end of our gaming careers in wow when we both had 3-6 lvl 80 characters atleast we would run instances together sometimes all day for gear. my cousin played as ive stated before and my cousin had friends that played wow with us and me, my friend, my cousin, and my cousins friend would someimtes all get together and run dungeons. it was nice knowing people that well. its like i could wake up saturday morning and i just knew the people i played wow with would be on shortly do to dungeons and what not. we pvp'd together we did everythin together. my friend even became friends with my cousins friends. ive said in a previous post that having people you know in real life that play wow with you is a special experience thats different than not knowing the people you play with in real life. i was in the same grade and same classes as my friend i played wow with and we went to school together in the same car. i have 7 cousins including myself and 5 of us are all around the same age and are really close so obviosuly me and my cousin that played wow could share that special experience together with other people we knew was absolutley celestial. the only thing i could think of relating it to would be a group of fireman that have worked together for years and save someones life out of a burning building and have that great team bonding experience. when you barley down a difficult boss and that piece of gear drops for the person who needed it and was the only reason you were killin the boss in the first place and then everyone screams with cheer on vent, thats a good feeling. your heart jumps. you feel accomplished. my main was a holy priest so i was ALWAYS helping my friends healing dungeons. anyways my friend and i got to talking about games. we shared so many different experiences i cant even begin to tell you it wuld take too much time. from times we've shared together in games lets leave it at that. i asked him if he was currently playing any games he told me he plays call of duty in his spare time if hes not bowling. but he told me he was thinking about going back to runscape. which really got me thinking hard... oh boy here it goes i thought to myself.... as soon as the game ended on the ride home i couldnt help but think about the name of the topic someone has posted on here worded along the lines of " gaming- my relapse and back" thats not the exact name but its similair. i reallllllly didnt want taht to happen. im workin on like my 5th or 6th month sober, see the fact taht i dont even know how many months its been is a good thing.
I put a space between these next lines for a reason, I work really hard at quitting gaming and as far as i have come im sure all of you would be upset if i had a relapse but that doesnt even account to the contradicting feelings im going through right now. I can truthfully say that if my friend started playing runescape again i could not hold back. i couldnt live with the fact that he was on rs progressing and i was not, ESPECIALLY if it was a friday night that i was not busy and i knew he was playing runescape. i wouldnt have the willpower to keep myself away. put yourself in my shoes. thats like trying to lift a cruise ship.
saturday night i came home and immediatly went to sleep even tho it was only 10 because i knew if i waited up ide end up talking to my friend more on facebook about gaming so i just went to bed. sunday morning. today. i did a bad : / today ive probably spent a good 4 hours at the LEAST on the runescape website reading current updates and forums posts, famalirizing myself on the games latest and greatest... etc etc... the typical routine one would go through upon returning to a game after say a year. not that i had returned yet i just wanted to prepare myself on the even that i did. i really dont even like to type wat else happens. when i quit gaming i forgot my runscape password and i knew that recovering your password can sometimes take a while and i wanted to have everything in order in case i needed to start playing again on short notice. so i easily and quickly recovered my runescape character and was logged in the game today. I logged into runescape today. does that break my sober streak? i didnt do or accomplish anything in the game the only reason i logged in was to see if the password i changed the account to worked. i wasnt actually logged into the game for probably more than 10 minutes. not good though. it was the first time i had actually experienced game play first hand of either world of warcraft or runescape since i quit gaming on 4/29/2010 10:44 pm. im dissapointed with myself more than anything. those of you who respond to this post if you wouldnt mind including with your message, your opinion on whether or not you wuld consider my gaming activities today to be a " break " in my sober streak as i cannot decide. im really in a rather urgent position if my friend were to txt me and say hey i signed up for runescape membership again tommorow i would easily fall back into addiction.help.
Another quick note i wanted to add to this last post
even after such an amazing weekend which i had to work at so hard to get to the position to be able to have the social group and " resources ?" to pull off its saddening to think i may lose that. basically i had a great (mostly) non gaming-friend related weekend and this had to happen right at the end. i know if i went back to gaming those weekends would not exist anymore.
I've been back to Evony twice since my stopping. Once for 5 minutes to talk to an old gaming friend and to see what would happen, and once for a minute or two to look for someone I thought might be there that might have needed help out. While i was there i did spin the wheel of crap and look around. Since i'm on McPhee's countup and he didn't seem to mind if i didn't count it as a relapse, i don't count it.
You might want to read your own blog from top to bottom and see if you can channel the feelings you once had that brought you to the quitting point, and take yourself through that journey again...see if that doesn't give you a bit of strength here. Review all the things you struggled with and things you did with yourself to avoid the call of the game - the yearn.
Do them again. Good luck!
—
Ariadne~
Letting go again - Change is never easy, I fight to hold on, and I fight to let go.
thank you. i have actually told myself several times over the last few days that i need to read my topic from page 1 to end and remember what it used to be like. the fact that you reccomend it to me on top of that is going to push me to do so. i need to find the strength to fight again.
Hey, Thomas. It's hard to be perfect. I don't think it's a great and fine thing to go back to playing computer games, even for a little while. But it's not the worst thing either. The majority of people who quit gaming find themselves tempted by powerful urges at some point. Many of them give in at least once. It doesn't mean you've failed or you have to start over or all your time game-free has been wasted. It is just part of the process for many people. So be cool and stay strong and don't beat up on yourself. It's hard to be perfect.
Use this as a learning experience. Now you know that talking with people you used to play games with can be a powerful trigger for urges. Next time you find yourself in that situation, you can be ready for it. Come up with a plan for how you'll deal with it next time it comes up. It doesn't have to be a perfect plan. Just something. Like, say, you'll change the subject. Or you'll leave the room. Or you'll make an effort to remind your friend of all the undesirable things that come from playing games excessively. Then, next time you find yourself in that situation, try to work your plan. And whatever happens next, make it a learning experience.
It's hard to be perfect. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because it means there is always room left for improving the amount of joy you get out of life. And I don't know about you, but I am always happiest when I feel I'm making progress toward a long-cherished, worthwhile, challenging goal. Not so much when I get it, and certainly not when I'm feeling frustrated. But when I feel like I'm getting there. So now you have another goal, one that's long-cherished and worthwile and challenging. And you can do it, too. Good luck with it. McPhee
as usual your post really got to me i read it a couple of times. i think this experience is some what aimed at becoming a better person and being able to accept yourself. ive got alot of things i need to sort out.
I've spent alot of time thinking and soul searching about me and my life. Today i found myself in the middle of a 4 hour gaming session, looked up from my computer at the sticky note i tick tacked on my poster board on 4/29/2010 and immeditaly realized, wow thats in 2 days. this is the 10th month of the year, in 2 days i will have gone 6 months without gaming except for this last week or so where i have fallen a few times. Half a year. Half a year i have gone through so much. As suggested i went back and read my topic, especially the first page. For the most part i was like ..... wow this was me? i wrote this? i hardly recognized my own writing voice. right then i made a decision that i was not going to have a relapse. i got off runescape. i wanted to atleast wake up on friday morning on 10/29/10 and not have to game. im really going to treasure this anniversary. 6 months is a long time. something that got to me after reading my post was about the summer time, immeditaly i started to feel some anxiety. i cant go through another summer like the last one. i had quit gaming maybe a month before summer started and was still going through a really rough patch in my life. i cant and will not go through another summer like the last one, it was awful. its only the first semster of school and im all ready worried about summer. what kid my age is " worried " about summer lol? the other day i was talking to a friend of mine about summer and she told me " ya the beggining of last summer sucked, i was grounded and i couldnt do anything, i couldnt see my friends or go out or do anything fun " it took me a minute but i was like... well what did you do? she said she just stayed home and read. i thought to myself, wow i was voluntarily grounded all of last summer lol. not that i did any reading but essentialy i did nothing. i dont want the school year to end like last year and be in the same non involved routine. im almost sure i wont have another summer like that but one cant help but worry. one of my good friends ive known for a long time has been " going out " with this girl i know for a good 3 months and they spend atleast every other weekend together doing something and im like... without a doubt they'll keep in touch over the summer if not spend even more time together. sometimes ill ask him what hes up to and he'll tell me hes over at his womans house or doing something with her. i wish i had stronger relationships like that, not even neccisarily with a girl but just.... how would one go about wording " stronger relationships" i think you get what im going for though. i wish i had more people that i was closer too that i knew without a doubt i would see over the summer time. As i mentioned i made it a point to stop gaming TODAY and as soon as i exited the game i changed the text display on my phone to say " be yourself " this is more symbolically if anything because it reminds me its ok to be sociable and put down your walls. this last weekend i went to a restaurant with some people i know to watch the ufc fight, had never seen a ufc fight before but i went just to hang out with them and one of the people that came ive known since elementary school but never was really close with kind of thing? well anyways this guy has been really short all of his life and i know hes very insecure about it and when he was younger he took steroids to grow taller. hes still short today, not unhealthy or unnaturally short just shorter than most. hes on the weightlifting team and his body is ripped through the roof- so when i was talking to him over dinner he really broke down and started talking to me about how hes such a broken person from when people call him dwarf, midget, gnome, frodo, or some variation of an insult to his height and how its always really bothered him and made him feel in secure, he told me thats why he started lifting weights so he could feel stronger than those people and most likley he is now. i was like wow, i was really moved that he shared that with me. if there wasnt other people there and it was more the scene than a ufc fight i would have felt comfortable sharing my gaming troubles with him. i havnt ever told anyone about my feelings expressed on this website but this guy, who i had talked to for the first time in years made me feel comfortable around him. its like now i know he gets it? he has troubles too. hes always been short but thats not something he can control and.. who cares? its probably hard for him too to make friends with the way people make him feel. i mean i can hide my addiction but this guy cant hide his height. its hard to explain the way this guy expressed his sadness. he was in a restaurant with a group of guys he felt comfortable around and he just broke down for a couple minutes. sometimes i wonder if my entire school read my topic from beggingin to end what that day forward would be like. this sunday is halloween and i dont have plans yet and just like summer im worried ill be stuck inside with no one to spend it with, if my friend goes to his girlfriends then idk what im going to do. i dont rlly want to go trick or treating, im 16 and i dont rlly want the candy so. grown out of that i guess. last year i hid in my yard and scared kids but i dont find that as ammussing anymore either. hopefully i find some fun halloween plans. anyways this weekend is going to be a good one i can feel it. im going to make friday a good day in honor of 1/2 year free.
When i come to my topic on olga to write a post its such a relieving experience. its like im throwing this moments in a bank and i can evaluate my self. where i want to be, where im headed. whats next. the feeling is un imaginable.
Another quick note; recently ( including the short guy on the weightlifting team ) people i hang around have been telling me i look much more " built"- as in more muscular and more tone. that is such an invigorating feeling i cant begin to explain it. like when you spend 5 months going to the gym and someone finnaly tells you your getting bigger as in muscular its makes u feel like u want to spend every wakin minute in the gym to get other people to say that. perhaps the biggest party guy at my school the other day was talking to me and he said " dam thomsinton" ( my nickname with some people is thomsinton, i like it and they mean it in a good way so ) your looking built, ide feel comfortable taking you to a party" not that ide probably go to his type of party but still. ironicly this same guys brother complimented me also. when i was at the restaurant i got to talking with the short guy about weight lifting and stuff and thats when he said " ya i could tell like when i saw you i was like wow thomas is getting big" people say " big " now a days as more musclar in case any of you were confused thinking he called me big as in fat, which if anything he would call me skinny.
The best medicine for game addiction when you are first trying to get away from it is working out - it gets you out of the house, away from the computer and it makes you reconnect with your body. I too put on weight in my 2 years on second life and the first thing i did was start working out to get away from my 8-16 hour a day investment of time in it - it works so well it's hard to explain.
Yeah, gooutalive and Thomas11. The exercise seems to be central for many people. I've been feeling low and not very productive the last week or so. I think it may be because I haven't been running or biking every other day as I normally do. I've finally gotten some more work, as in money-earning work, so hopefully the last two or three years of financial disaster may be ending, or at least easing. But trying to make all these deadlines makes it hard to keep exercising. Last night I went for a 45-minute walk. Let's see if it helps any today.
Glad to see you getting back to your commitment to not gaming, Thomas11. I do think it's a better way to go than spending several hours a day playing a computer game. Hope it keeps up. McPhee
Things have been going well the last week. I sense a generally more euphoric mood to myself. I know people who suffer from depression lack certain sensations in their brain that stimulate hapiness and lately i think ive been experiencing more than my usualy amount of hapiness. Its difficult to explain but i feel like i put myself " back into the game" of real life that is. As if when i gamed i logged out of real life and into my virtual world but just recently ive recovered my real life's gaming account and hit the ground running. Today a friend of mine texted me and asked me if i wanted to hang out after school, i guess it shouldnt have come as such a suprise as we've hung out before but when i opend that message and read it im like......wait.... he wants to do something with me? oh ok lol. Its great i met this guy who lives in the neighborhood across the street from me and weve become fairly close friends. we have alot of common intrests and share alot of the same thoughts about life and things. we can talk for hours and hours. i really only have that kind of relationship with a select few people and im glad i was able to meet a new friend and realize that i can expand my horizions more. I found someone who likes me for me and just wants to hang with me and not for the wrong reasons. Today ( his names cody so i can stop refering to him as my friend ) we went for a run and probly ran a good mile or so outside and then chilled at his house and, he plays the guitar and hes that guy in high school who is really into like classic music from like the 70s and 80s and is good at the guitar and such and wears the music shirts, anyways he showed me some basic stuff on the guitar and we talked about music for a while. Most of you reading this probably dont find this to be a big enough deal to want to discuss on here but for someone in my position, i like to remind myself of all the progress i make to make sure im on the right track. I feel like i can go and do things if i want to. Confident. Theres someone out there who actually wants to spend time with me and gets me and having that which has been absent in my life for so long is. Healthy. After codys house i went to a friend of mines in my neighborhood to study for our american history test as we usualy do when we have a test and we were there by ourselves for a while and he told me im the only person he can really talk about anything with.... he said it pretty casually and then went to the bathroom but it really sunk in for me. Its nice knowing. I talk about everything with him, even things i dont feel like talking to my parents about. Sometimes on the weekend ill be at his house for an entire day and we basicaly rotate conversation topics between sports,cars,girls,school,gossip, and various other things 16 year old guys would talk about to each other. When i type this i cant help but get the feeling that there is no need to " report" what would really be considered normal behavior for someone my age, but then again thats why im here. To promote healthy and normal behavior for someone of my age. In my previous post i talked about sam, the shorter guy on the weightlifting team and my conversations with him and today it hit me, well why dont i join the weightlifting team? i take weightlifting as a class at school and i go to the gym after school, sam told me his bench went up 50 pounds when he joined the team. I really enjoy lifting weights, weightlifting starts in the spring, around january,february ( i think thats spring lol ) and im actually looking forward to it now. its about 1-2 hours every day after school which is really just what im looking for. going to be fun.
Killin', Thomas11. Hang onto that post and read it next time you're feeling low. It just drips strength, self-knowledge, confidence, kindness (to yourself as much as anybody) and humanity. I just loved the description of logging on to real life and discovering you have an active account. I have been treating real life like a game lately and it is not as nutty as it sounds, at least for me. And you -- you have come a very long way in a short time. What a stud. Congratz. McPhee
Today I felt for the first time that I was not missing out on life.
Saturday nights used to be a prime night in my week because it was 1 of the 2 days that we didn't have school the next day which meant harcore raiding well into the next morning. Well tonight I didn't have any gaming obligations so a buddy of mine asked me if i wanted to play poker at a kid on our high schools baseball teams house. Like any high school you have the kids on the baseball team that hang out, the football team, drama, etc. So i guess you could say that the baseball team is pretty " popular ". anyways i went to play poker and there was quite of few kids there that like me didnt play baseball but still went to play poker. As im sitting there counting my chips ( i have become skilled at texas hold em/black jack after days of mindless gambling while afk-training on a game ) im like wow, these guys are like the creme of the crop at our high school. people i used to feel almost inferior too lol. Had a good time. Like most high school cafeterias during lunch time, the jocks sit with the jokes the cheerleaders with the cheerleaders, freshman-freshman, juniors-juniors and so on. At lunch i sit with a group of other juniors most of whom are on the soccer team and ive got to know them pretty well but a good 20 or so juniors in that lunch period who are probably the most popular in my class sit together who are all big partiers and what not some of them were at the poker game which idk why but to me that was pretty cool lol. We had a good 12 guys to play poker and we ate and watched some college football. Just chilled. It was great. Again Im not sure why this type of thing is such a big deal to me but to be able to do that was a big event for me.
I was going to delete this post after i read it again but its good for me to write this down so if im feeling down or falling off the wagon i can read these posts again to help me out.
Why in the world would you delete this post? It's awesome!
Life's too short to everything to an addiction. And here you are going out, doing new things, meeting new people. This is like the ultimate success story!
Stumbled across this website today http://www.twloha.com/index.php. Great website. As soon as I read the first paragraph i felt strongly about it. It talks about the pain people go through and releasing it and finding a better you. I found myself in alot of this website. It's hard to explain but it meant alot to me to know that websites like that exist. I know that had I not of joined this websites movement i would still be going through the pain i was last year. How drastic of an effect the 5 pages of posts has been on my life cannot be described. Its nice knowing theres other websites for people to go to if they dont neccisarily struggle with gaming. Ive sort of discovered a new appreciation for life in general. you only get to do it one time. Like traveling to a foreign country, better make the most of it. I make it a point every day i wake up to refuse to let deppresion, or sham, or any other degrading emotion get the best of me. I watched the video on the front page of that website. Did you know that a survey in 2009 said that 14% of high school students have at some point SERIOUSLEY CONSIDERED commiting suicide? Thats 1/7. Not to mention the fact that im sure many of them said that they had not ever considered it even if they had because they were afraid. 1/7 of the other students i go to school with have considered suicide. Its a scary statistics. I can say that im a recovered 1/7. If put in the position to do so i would gladly join a movement like that websites. its almost common knowledge that high school can be tough for alot of people and in turn leads to some suicides but i didnt think that 1/7 students had ever seriosley considered it. Thats ALOT. that website is called " to write love on her arms " which is mostly for girls but i guess some day soon your supposed to actually write love on your arms all day. Not sure if ill be doing that but if i come across a similair website i would participate. did you know that the golden gate bridge ( i think thats the right bridge ) in las angeles had the most suicides since it was built, it averages a suicide every 3 weeks. over 1,300. 30 people have survived the fall and 19 of those 30 have come forward and said the second they let go they thought what am i doing i dont want to die god save me.
Hey, Tom. You're going some good work here with your posting. I believe many people, myself included, have been inspired and invigorated by the amazing courage and intelligence you have shown in recognizing and confronting your excessive gaming, as well as the myriad of other challenges involved in teenage life. If you want to help others, you are already doing so. And helping yourself at the same time. I'm not sure how that works, exactly, but it seems to. Thanks much. McPhee
Thanks!! That meant alot to me, its nice to get a view from someone who reads my topic. A sence of mind that has helped me over come gaming is to, in my head atleast, put myself above gaming. Like I would do if someone were to offer me drugs or invite me to participate in an explicit activity of relavant nature, you have a sensation in your head that thinks " no thanks, im better than that, not for me "
Today was a great day. I've been looking for a part time or seasonal job for a while now and today i got one!!!!!!! let me give you some background. I live in orlando florida. Florida is home to many world famous amusment parks as im sure i dont even need to mention, having only lived and been rasied in florida i take these parks for granted but anyways, during the holidays especially these parks need more employees to help traffic the additional customers. So i applied for a job at universal stuidos and i got an email requesting i make an appointment, i made it for today at 4 and i went and had an interview with an HR rep and he gave me a job as a bus boy for a pizza joint inside Islands of Adventure ( islands of adventure is a large amusment park branch owned by universal studios ) Im so excited, december 1 i have orientation and i get my id and my uniform and such. I also get free addmission to like 5 or 6 universal studios owned amusement parks and I get 2 park passes every 4 months that i can give away to friends and family. Working in the food and beverage industry of the park i get a 3 dollar lunch voucher every day that i can use to buy myself lunch with which is fantastic, if anything ill use those 3 dollars to buy some chips or some water or somethin and take it home and save it for another time. Obviosuly ill be busing tables but amusement parks are fun places to work. My parents told me i dont have to file for taxes inless i make over 12 grand and im sure i wont so i get to keep the money i make which is nice. I have a debit card and i plan on saving the majority of the money i make for college, not that im paying for the cost of my college but im sure while im in college ill have more opprotunities where i want to go out and do something with my friends and having that extra cash wuld be nice. Not quite sure what i want to do with the money just yet but this is going to be a new adventure for me non the less.
Today i got to meet my teachers. Was a fairly typical meet-the-teacher experience but i definatley noticed something different. When i stepped onto that campus today i was a new person. For one, i drove myself there. i knew when i stepped out of my car and walked on my high school campus i was a different person. I felt like i was transitioning from a boy to becoming a man, school was the place that i used to use wow to shelter myself from and when i went to that campus today i had something that i hav'nt had on a school campus in a long time. Confidence in myself. On top of the fact that i have quit wow and can enjoy life more, ive lost 30 pounds and look completely different. I feel like i left old thomas behind and am now embracing new thomas. Its such a feeling that i can hardly describe in words. Just last year old thomas moped the campus and imprisioned himself in wow and today i knew that something had changed, something was different. I was ready to take on anything that came my way. Im having a really difficult time describiing exactly what i was feeling today at my school but let me assure you it was absolutley incredibile. i didnt feel like anyone was judging me. i didnt have to worry that i would not be accepeted because i was over weight or because i was addicted to gaming. i didnt have to "hide" myself from people i knew, i did not need to be " invisible " the majority of us went through some insecure times when we were teenagers, even i as a teen know and accept this fact but today, even though ive been working on alot of problems in my life, today was the day that my peers were able to see. the people i associate myself with will no longer recognize me as an over weight gamer. i dont know what i would have done without olganon.org if i lived my life the way i did before all of this for another year i cant tell you that i would be able to make it. Im some-what in shock of the fact that so much worry and neglect can build up in peoples heads. This school year is going to be my first year in 5 years that i am going to take down my social barrier. That mental wall i held up to people because i didnt want them to know i spent hours and hours playing wow. I can take that down this year. I dont have anything to hide. i feel like i could walk into a library and raise a bookshelf. i know longer have an excuse to not involve myself, its not longer than anti-social gamers state of mind attitude any longer. what this website has done for the emotional status of a 16 year old boy in orlando florida is beyond what the 26 letters engraved in this keyboard have to offer. If i could share with you even an ounce of the sensation i went through today i could cure all of the gaming addicts on here. I cant speak for subtance abusers out there but i can tell you that gaming addiction robs you of certain things in life. Today was the day that after i had claimed those things back that i was able to show them back to my community. ive said alot about how this summer has changed me so much and i think what im tryin to get at here is today was the first day that i was able to show it to what all students could call the majority of there livelihood that being; school. Im goin set a goal for myself here that i just thought of as im writing this, on the first day of school august 28 2010 i am going to break my gaming discs. i think this is the most ive ever actually look forward to school because im anxious to see how everything plays out. I would in no way consider myself even an ameatur when it comes to curing a gaming addiction but i would like to offer those of you still suffering from the place i once was a little bit of advice. As ive often described in previous posts about having a vast amount of spare time when you quit gaming cold turkey. If you are doing basically anything besides gaming ( to a certain extent obviously dont take up cocaine to use up your spare time ) you are making progress towards your recovery. This may sound bad but there were times where i would just go and sit on my couch for a couple of hours and do basically nothing because i had a strong urge to game and even though i wasnt accomplishing anything ( it probably is a better idea to occupy your mind with something rather than nothing, even if it is something as simple as a jig saw puzzle ) you are still RE-TRAINING your brain not to need to game. Ive read some were on this website about how our brains adapt to how we spend our time and our daily routine. For example if you were to buy a starbucks coffee every day for 15 years it might be a bit difficult to stop going to starbucks coffee. now you apply this theory on a topic that is addictive such a cigarettes or in this scenario, gaming. WHen trying to quit an addictive behavior you must not only over come your brains message to you to go about your daily activities being gaming but also over come the addictive aspects of gaming which is why it is much more difficult to over come a gaming addiction than it would be if you went to star bucks everyday for 15 years. If you didnt find this helpful im sorry but this is something that helped me alot in my recovery process. i would tell myself- even if you are doing absolutley nothing it is better than gaming. quite honestly that would be the truth when it comes to your recovery process because by not gaming your re training your brain not to include that in your daily routine and avoiding the addictive aspects of gaming. believe me, it is much easier to get involved in activities and do things outside of the house during your free time but if you find yourself at home with a few hours and nothing to do and you have a strong urge/sensation to game what i did in that situation was quite simple; i did nothing. I included sitting on the couch pondering my thoughts as an addiction recovery method. its sort of like if you strapped a subtance abuse/addict to a chair for a month and just fed him and kept him alive, the addit would be incredibly bored but you know that its better for the recovery process to do nothing than to game. Again please dont take this the wrong way, i would encourage signing up for classes and volunteering in your community etc etc etc 10 times over before i would reccomend sitting at home where you have the possiblitiy to game but its not like you can be doing yoga from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed if ya know what i mean : P
thanks for reading
Tom
this website has saved my life
Good for you, and have a great year in school, Tom!
"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun." -------William Wordsworth
Tom, as some others have said, you have reached a place of great insight for your age (and that's not meant to sound patronizing, it's meant to really applaud you). You're in a wonderful place in life and it's so inspiring. I hope you can take what you've learned and how you've grown and continue to propel yourself into an amazing life.
It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine....
Thomas - i literally got chills on my arms reading your post about how you felt. So very excited for you!
Ariadne~
Letting go again - Change is never easy, I fight to hold on, and I fight to let go.
Ive got a bit of an amazing story to tell today.
Im goin start from the begginging to make sure i explain everything. Its about the girl that i met and like. As ive stated in a previous posts, a women in my neighborhood named ann who my mom does accounting work for and i occasionaly pet sit for got re married to a guy named rick and rick and his family moved into anns house. rick has 3 kids and one of his daughters is in my grade named jeanna. My mom is a good friend of ann's and ann and rick and all of there kids occasionaly go out on our boat with my family to water ski and stuff. unfortunatley due to this economic down turn anns house got foreclosed on, a shame because had she have been able to make payments jeanna would have consequently being in the same neighborhood as me, gone to my high school. Ann and Rick found a new home in there price range but the neighborhood it is in is zoned for a different high school. I was really bummed because i was hoping this girl would be able to go to my school and seems as it was her first year and she wouldnt know anyone i could be like one of her first friends and possibly... her boyfriend ? :D so i was kinda down for a couple weeks knowing that they would probably be moving into this new house but them my mom told me that the bank turned them down for the loan amount on there new house! WOW i mean bad for ann and rick but that opens the possiblity that they find a new house zoned for the high school i go to! So a few weeks went by and i had my hopes up a little bit but i knew they could pick a house not zoned for my school so i tried not to think about it. Then today my mom and i went to the movie theatre to go see tom cruises new movie and my moms new car has that sync system so it can have phone capabilities via the radio system. Basically my mom can make and recieve calls and talk to people through the radio system, im sure you know how that works. So were on our way to the movie theater and what do you know Ann calls my mom! so my mom awnsers it and you wouldnt believe it..... THEY GOT A HOUSE ZONED FOR MY HIGH SCHOOL! they even were pre approved or something like that, they got the house pretty cheap and my mom who is an accounting major told me theres a strong chance that they get that house. How fortunate my luck is. i could see this story in one of those " how did you meet " kind of things. Ann also went on to say how jeanna is a bit nervous about going to a new school and from what she said, jeanna has probably 3 or 4 of the same classes i do, that doesnt mean that there at the same time but its a start. Ann was like " yeah she is going to have to meet some new people yaty yaty ya..." well i can tell you for sure that she will have me to talk to ! :D :D :D
this website has saved my life
So what you're saying is, today was a good day.
"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun." -------William Wordsworth
Yes it was a great day!
this website has saved my life
Today was an interesting day
Today was the first day of school. Today was also the first time i drove to school. This morning when my brother and i got in my car and backed out of my drive way i accidently bumped into my dads front bumper and caused it to fall down. It was like 6 in the morning and i should have been checking more carefully when i was backing up but when i heard that noise of my car running into my dads my heart dropped. i was like oh no did we hit it? my brother opened the passenger side door to check and before he could even utter the words i could tell by his facial expression. Ive been driving for a little over 3 months now and havnt hit anything yet but this morning i hit my dads car. I got to school late because of it and i felt terrible the entire day because of what had happend. When my dad got home from work today he wasn't really mad or upset which was a bit releaving and i drove with him to the collision repair place to have the car worked on. Seems as all of my families cars are in my dads name and he pays for all of them and there insurances, it wouldnt make much sence to file an insurance claim for only a bumper. However my dad and i both drive an expedition and expedition bumpers are fairly massive and right now the left side of the bumper is completely severed from where it was attatched in front of the wheel which could cause, if the mechanic cant repair the broken bumper, my dad to have to purchase an entire new bumper. I guess its just a part of life. My mom told me that when she first started driving one time she didnt even get a car off the lot before wrecking it. And i know my dad has totaled a couple cars in his life time. But i am genuinley a pretty safe/solid driver and i didnt want to be part of the 60% of 16 year olds that get into an accident there first year. Im not sure if running into your dads car counts ( like i said my dads name is on all of the registrations so technically my car is his ) as getting into an accident as he didnt file an insurance claim and didnt cause damage to someone elses property but he is going to have to pay alot of money to fix it. Dont get me wrong i know that my parents will be able to afford to get the bumper fixed and i told my dad i was sorry and im sure my parents expected accidents from me but when it actually happens its a really sucky feeling : ( i hope i can remember this experience for when my kids crash there cars at 16. I try to look at the positives in that atleast i hit one of my families cars so that we dont have to pay to get someone elses car fixed and also my insurance rates wont go up.
Besides the car incident getting me down, the first day of school was actuallly ok. I knew going into this year that trying to recover those social skills ive lost from gaming for so long wasnt going to be an easy task but even the first day i could tell a difference from last year. Ive gained a decent amount of confidence after losing so much weight over the summer so that may have helped but, i could tell that i was atleast a little bit more comfortable talking and socializing with people i knew and newer people i hadn't met yet. I know its going to be a journey but im sure i can get through it. The incoming freshman are often in a similair place im in so it can be easier to talk to them also. Im sure alot of you have seen mtv's new show " if you really knew me " i cant watch this show because it nearly brings me to tears. its a show quite literally about the same situation im in right now. teenagers in high school coming together to overcome there social insecurities and make for a more interactive and positive student body. Sometimes i picture myself in a situation like that. If people really knew me, knew what ive gone through. Knew the problems i face every day. Knew how far ive come in my recovery process. Knew me for who am i. If i do watch this show i have to flip back and forth with a different channel to keep myself together. sometimes i wonder how someones opinion of me would change if they read my entire olga story cover to last post.
If you ever get that feeling of being down I always tell myself, tommorows a new day. Within the past 6 months ive changed my perspective on life so much. I went from my biggest concern being if i could attend that nights raid to wanting to have a relationship with someone and spending time with friends and family and enjoying my life, school is much more important to me this year than in others. I spend alot of time thinking about my future and what i want to do with my life. In less than 2 years when i turn 18 and go to college what my goals are, things i want to accomplish. Last summer if you would have asked me what i wanted to do with my life i would probably tell you somethine along these lines " im looking forward to moving out on my own so i can plan my own schedule and eat dinner when and where i want to and wont have to worry about missing a raid because of an activity my family has planned" as ive gone into details in other posts, being a raider on wow while still having to attend to your parents every deed can be difficult and at that time, my biggest concern with movin out on my own was that i can raid every night and wont have to worry about being cut off early. Now my family is more important to me. my grandmother has 7 grandchildren. Shes getting older and i know one day she wont be around any more. i suppose all of these thoughts are just part of growing up and maturing.
Thanks for reading
Love Tom
this website has saved my life
Ide like to add some more information to my previous post
One of the classes i signed up for this year was weightlifting. and today as most teachers do on first days, the coaches gathered the 200 or so kids on the bleachers just basically to explain the rules etc etc.. but during the first week alot of students show up late to classes throughout the day because there still tryin to remember where they the classes are/how to get there. so today as expected there was this freshman girl who showed up late and she walked in the gym and asked one of the coaches where she was supposed to sit, the coach replied " anywhere you want, make some new friends". The girl immediatley was put out of her comfort zone, i was watching her the whole time as this was going on as she was fairly attractive and i knew as soon as she turned her back to the coach and preceeded to walk towards those bleachers that she was going to sit at the end and keep to her self. And thats exactly what happen'd the girl walked to the end of the bleachers and sat by herself and didnt say anything for the rest of the period. i was sitting towards the top and from the moment the girl sat down to the moment the bell rang i debated whether or not i should go and sit with her and get to know her. I didnt but now i regret it and if i could go back and do it over i would go sit next to her. I really felt for the girl being a freshman in your first day of high school i know it can be tough. i thought to myself, wow thats just like me. sittin by yourself during a " free period ". she even looked depressed, im almost upset with myself that i didnt go sit with her. I think meeting new friends/people is one of the most difficult problems i face, i can hold up a conversation fairly well and i can easily talk to i have known for a while.
this website has saved my life
Ah what an unfortunate tale i am going to bestow on you today.
Were now in the second week of school so let me bring you up to speed on where im at. So you've read the post about the girl im intrested in named jenna, well a week had went by and i didnt really get the chance to talk to her so i told myself i needed to do something about it. this last weekend was my high schools first football game, it was an away game but the away school was like 10 minutes away so. i got in my car that friday afternoon after school drove to her house knocked on her door and asked her if she wanted to go to the football game with me. She told me she was leaving to go to her cousins house in kissimee, thats where she lived before she moved down here. right as i was about to walk away with dissapointment she asked me for my number which was really the only reason i went over there so i immeditaly stumbled my number out to her and got in my car and danced a little jig : P i went to the football game with a friend of mine and had a great time but i would have liked to bring her. i probably exchanged 100-150 texts with her everyday throughout friday and the rest of the weekend and we really were able to have some good conversations and get to know each other. monday i offered to give her a ride home and buy her a slurpee at 7-11, she was more than happy to get a ride home as she has to walk a ways after getting off the bus but for watever reason she didnt want a slurpee. no problem. i dropped her off at her house and texted her a bit that after noon. Since thursday our cable has been out and seems as we bundle it with the same company, the internet, the tv and the home phone have been down so ive had to find other ways to entertain myself for the last 4 or so days. good for avoiding gaming i spose. Today the cable man got here while i was at the gym and when i got back he was filling out some paper work in his truck on the road to our driveway so i knew then that the cable was back. Now by this point in time i had got to know jenna pretty well and really had a thing for her so obviosuly when i got back on facebook she had friend requested me and i accepted it. *sighs...* this is where the story goes down hill. as i accepted her friend request and the page refreshed the first thing i checked. relationship status. she moved here from kissimee i guess i was automatically under the assumption that there wasn't anyone back in kissimee she was seeing because kissimee is so far away however if you havnt figured it out all ready the relationship status said; in a relationship with Rob Diorio. i didnt even get the chance to finish reading those 6 words before my heart dropped. on facebook your relationship status is either single being 1 word or in a relationship so when i saw that capital R my stomach was practically ripped out of me. I was crushed. I should have known better to check her facebook status before gettin involved with her. i should not have gotten ahead of myself. i probably would have checked her status but my cable was out remember so. I feel so stupid i got waay to ahead of myself way to early. i thought about her all the time and couldnt wait to get that txt messg back that had her name on it. its hard to explain how hurt and upset i was in words. it seemed like everything was going my way for a change, life finnaly started to turn up for me. and then in less than a second It falls in ruins again. ill be able to get over her but it will unfortunatley cause me to put my wall up again... after i had gotten over the shock factor i clicked on this guys profile. The first thing i notice is; under the activities section of his profile his ONLY activity is- smoking weed. Yes for those of you who may have not understood what i said this girl who i put on a pedistool's boyfriend's only activity on facebook is smoking weed. First of all if you did illegal things such as smoking weed why would you post it on a public social networking website? Thats beside the fact that if the only thing you can think of to write in your activities section is smoking pot than you are obviosuly a loser. i have hardly any hobbies or extracurrculuars as ive said in earlier posts and i can still think of better things to write to do as an activity than smoking pot. what a loser. i dont mean to judge those of you who do smoke weed but if you were to compare me to this boyfriend she has i think 9 out of 10 people would say no contest. i guess if those are the kind of people she is involved with maybe i dont really want to be with her. atleast i didnt go too far and have to have her tell me she was with someone else. I was so upset when i found out she was with some body but now its been a few hours and ive calmed down a little bit and had the chance to think about it it may have been for the best.
Gaming urges are almost entirley absent. Another thing ive noticed is the overall desire to game is not there anymore. Im still trying to be able to break my discs but im waiting for the right time to do so.
thanks for reading
Tom
this website has saved my life
I am not yet ready to confess my "sins." But be assured that is not good. I have been through a lot in that time I was playing. And I keep passing more and more. One crisis after another and not to stop playing.
Thomas, Thomas...
It has been a while since I was a teenager, but I will share with you two lessons I learned very early on which I think apply to your story:
Lesson 1: every girl already has a boyfriend - even the 'least interesting' girls can find a boy if they want one
- if you don't understand this you will be single for a long, long time
Lesson 2: never girl judge a girl (woman, etc) by her taste in men
- what makes a woman like a particular man is unfathomable
- if you like her go for her and time will tell soon enough if you are compatible (as opposed to relying on your imagination)
Final point - long distance relationships don't survive well - so if you are in competition with Mr. Stoner from Kissimi you have the home field advantage.
Imagine a conversation like the following: I love hanging out with you Thomas, as i am alone all the time now Stoner and I live apart. He is a nice guy I known him since grade school. But it is so hard he is stoned all the time - too stoned to come and see me...
Carpe Diem Mate
- dark
One thing really jumps out at me, too, about this situation... here she is supposedly in a relationship with Mr. Stoner, but she's texting you 100-150 times a day? And she jumps up to give you her phone number? If I were Mr. Stoner, I don't think I'd appreciate that too much.
However... one additional thing to think about is that, if she treated Mr. Stoner this way, maybe she'd treat you the same way as well, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.
Jane
There is so much pain and suffering in this world we live in. Perhaps due to the girl i used to like but just in general lately ive been feeling really down. I seem to see all the bad in life. I dont feel like im living my life the way i should be. this website is the only real way i can express the way i feel. i was reading an article about suicide and it said people who consider suicide have more pain than they do resources to cope with pain. that makes sence. im not considering suicide but i would be lying to you if i said i havnt thought about it. in fact thats the reason i got on olga to write because i started to think about suicide. i dont really know why. its hard to explain. i just have alot of negative thoughts on a daily basis. its not so much that i would ever commit suicide but the fact that i think about it every once in a while and that its a possibility thats floating in my head really scares me. i started tearing up a little bit when i was writin this.. why? i dont understand alot of the things going on in my life. i dont really have a problem with gaming any more but this is the only place i feel comfortable talking about stuff like this. sometimes i dont really feel the need or desire to live. ive been on an emotional roller coaster the past couple weeks. I cant finish writing this i have to focus on somethin else right now.
this website has saved my life
I found this message on the olga site
For failed Marriages/Broken Families/Neglected Children/Loss of Friends/Job Loss/Failing Grades/Lost College Degrees/Lost Months/Years/Loss of Time/the real lives of our sons/daughters/spouses/friends, and last, but not least, for the loss of OUR OWN REAL lives into the games - emotional/spiritual/mental/emotional/sensual.
i wonder if the ceo of the big gaming companys would change his mind about starting his business if he read this message first. Sometimes i wish i could get all the ceo's and owners of the big companies in one room and force them to read even one if not all of the horrible things they put people through.
this website has saved my life
Hey, Thomas11, thoughts of suicide are serious. Tell your parents that you are having them. Please. Do not take this lightly. It is not normal, cool or okay to think about killing yourself. You need to tell this to somebody you know who cares about you. Telling us at Olga is a start, but let's mobilize some Real Life support for you on this. Today. Okay?
Sorry to hear about the girl trouble. I've certainly had my share of it, which has convinced me that girl trouble is mostly in my own mind. That is to say, the only reason it's a problem when some girl doesn't like me is because I make it a problem by the way I think about it. Rather than thinking stuff like, "She's so perfect. I love her so much. If only we could be together, then I'd be happy," I try to think stuff like ... "Next!"
Seriously, one of if not the best cures for relationship troubles is to get interested in someone else. I'm so sure of this that the minute I find myself starting to get interested in someone new, I immediately try to line up a date with someone else new. This helps me keep a less off-balance viewpoint of things. It reminds me that there are all kinds of interesting people in the world, including something like 3 billion members of the opposite sex.
I can't control what another person thinks of me. But I can control what I think of me. And I choose to never-never-never give someone else the power to make me feel bad about myself. That one, I reserve for me alone.
Getting blown off by some girl is a cue to immediately begin getting dates with as many other girls as you can. Try to make it a game. "Can I go up to three different attractive girls today and smile and say hello to them?" (Not as easy as it sounds.) "Can I get a date with somebody -- anybody -- to the football game this weekend?" "Can I come up with five funny, confident-sounding opening lines to try out at the next party I go to?"
Consider asking for help from some of the guys you know who have the most success with girls. Just say, "Dude, I can't believe the way you have so many ladies after you. How do you do it?" Then, take notes.
Generally, if you can find a way to enjoy the *process* of flirting, dating and the other elements of human courtship, rather than focusing entirely on whether or not you are finding and winning the heart of the elusive Miss Perfect forever after, I think you will find that you will suddenly become far more attractive to girls and begin going out with lots of them that are lots of fun, having a great time and breaking hearts rather than having yours broken. (Not that breaking hearts is the goal but, if it has to happen, better them than you.)
My two cents. And don't forget that thoughts of suicide absolutely require immediate intervention. Do it. McPhee
I just happened upon this site and read all your posts. You really need to talk to your family about this.
This site has gotten you going in the right direction. Now its time to bring it the attention of your parents or a counselor at school.
It isn't weakness to ask for help, its strength.
Heart breaks come and go, we have all made it! You will too!
At least you're not like me: in the middle east dodging mortar fire :P
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~John Stewart Mill
September 7 2010.
thats todays date. this date i think will stay with me for the rest of my life.
today started normal, school came and went as expected. Only a 4 day school week this week thanks to having labor day off.
This friday is when my high school plays their rival in football. Wekiva verse Apopka, a game students look forward to all summer long. My high school is only like 4 years old and many of apopkas students ended up transfering to wekiva after it was built so when we have the apopka wekiva game students often walk to opposing sides of the stadium and socialize with people they know from the other school. Apopka has been around for a LOOOOOONGG TIME, in fact Warren Sapp graduated from apopka high shool. Apopka has a nationaly ranked football program and typically beats wekiva by 50 or so points (
this website has saved my life
Today i was feeling a bit down about the way my life is going so i decided to try and look at the progress i've made in the last 6 months and appreciate what i do have. Everyday, not all day all the time but definatley everyday i get the feeling that im not getting everything i want out of life. 6 months ago i was 40 pounds heavier and gaming every hour of the day relativley no friends, no life, no existence. now im headed down the right path. i dont game hardly at all actually. those casual console games or less addictive computer games( flash games, cd-roms etc.. ) i used to do in previous posts after quitting wow are no longer needed. i do occasionaly play the new halo with my brother but thats only if he lets me play : P i think alot about what it would be like if i went through another year living in my shell. people all around me even though there completely oblivious to the gaming struggles ive over come will tell me " wow you've changed alot or your really growing up/ comin out of your bubble " kind of thing. this year i have more friends than i did last year. im closer to alot more people, i can talk to someone if i need to or ask them whats going on in there life. last year i really had maybe 1 or 2 close friends. this saturday were throwing a huge 16th suprise birthday party for my best mans girlfriend : D my whole life ive lived in the same neighborhood and theres probably a good 10 kids in my neighborhood that i know and have gone to school with from k-12 grade with. even kids that dont live in my neighborhood but ive gone through school with that i know who they are. ive really appreciated having that lately. in my high school ive known alot of the kids since i was really young regardless if i hang out with them or even talk to them its a sense of familiarity, i know that guys first and last name, ive seen his parents a time or two. the reason i say this is because one of the guys that lives in my neighborhood, two years ahead of me but ive still gone to school with him, played football with him occasionaly kind of thing. joined the marines. Im not sure if its just something about high school or going into adult hood or maybe just everyones junior year but holy cow its hit me like a ton of bricks. life. what am i gonna do with it? where do i wanna go to college? what am i going to make of myself? im 16 years old, 24 months ago my biggest concern was what was for dinner : D now i have to decide if im going to join the marines? wow..... honestly my plan was to go to college right out of high school as ive got about a 3.5 cumulative gpa and finaces to do so however.. i really am not sure : / my dad served in the military, and so did his dad, do i? so many things happening SO FAST omg its scary!!!! the grandma told me that its good for many young guys to join the military right out of high school because it helps them grow up and then when there done with there service they have some money saved up to buy a house/go to school. my dad went to college right after high school and flunked out his first year and had to join the services to mature him up a little bit. he went back to college after serving and graduated with no problems. is that going to happen to me? am i ready to handle going to college? can i live on my own? do most people go through the same things im going through at my age? i believe im certainly qualified to join the military. do i even want to?its just an option i guess. i just am not sure if i can handle all of these things life is giving me right now. im still a kid as much as i hate to admit it. im supposed to make decisions that are going to effect me for the rest of my life. theres really a lot of confusion in my mind honestly lol. im kind of like, oh dam im an adult now.... ermmm?
im the youngest of 7 cousins and 5 of us are really close and we coincidentaly were all born consecutivley. for example if the youngest of us my brother was in 1st grade and then the oldest in 5th and one of us in each of the grades in between. so ive got 2 older cousins one a year older than me ( senior in high school ) and one that graduated last year and i talk to them sometimes about the same things im going through. my oldest cousin who graduted has not done anything since his graduation. many of us blame him for not getting his life rolling but i can understand for his situation. he lives out in the country sort of and theres not alot of places around him where he could get a job. he has plans to go to college but that hasnt happend yet and he has bad ashtma and he doesnt think he could join the military. he lives at home still and my family is worried about what he is going to do. The way i see it ive got 3 options after graduating high school. Go to college. Join the military. Join the work force. Nowadays joinin the work force after high school is basically impossible and not somethin i want to do so thats out of the question. my cousin i think had happen to him what i talked about earlier in my post how life creeps up on you. he wasnt prepared to do something with his life. dont get me wrong im not mad or dissapointed with my cousin at all i can understand how he got how he is.
you know ive never told anyone on this earth of the things i talk about on this website. not my parents my friends my family no one. i think they would think differently of me if they read my topic begginging to end. honeslty i feel alot of anxiety when i think about someone in my personal life getting ahold of this website. if they read my life concerns and story. would they think im a loser being a former gaming addict? people used to critcize me alot about gaming. i wonder what the reaction would be if i had people who are close to me read this. i doubt i will but if there is anyone who hides everything on there topics from there real life friends and family ide appreciate it if you told me. i dont think its healthy not to share all the things ive said on here with someoen is why im concerened
this website has saved my life
It's very normal to start questioning where you will go from here when you are 16. If you don't want to join the military, you don't have to (unlike the guys who graduated from high school at the same time I did, back in 1972). If you don't want to go away to college, you don't have to do that either. You could take a year at your local community college and get a bunch of your gen eds out of the way, then head off to a 4-year college once you've got the hang of college-level work. You could spend a year doing some kind of volunteer work. My daughter joined a youth ministry team after she graduated from high school and travelled the country for a year leading youth retreats.
If you are concerned about anyone you know reading this thread, we could move it to one of the gamers-only forums, and then the only people who could read it would be people who had the same problem you do. I know it's hard to see it this way, but if I was you, I would be proud of what you have overcome to get to where you are now. You may not want to shout it from the rooftops, but if anyone asks, don't be embarrassed. Be proud of the strength you have shown in overcoming gaming addiction.
"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun." -------William Wordsworth
Hey, Thomas. Good to hear from you. I was wondering what happened, what with the talk about suicide a while back. A couple of people tried to convince me you were a troll, in part because you write so well they figured you couldn't be just 16. I didn't believe that at all. I did wonder if you might be in some kind of in-patient program for depression. Instead you're considering enlisting. I considered joining the Marines when I was 17, but I never did. Instead I went to college for one semester, then dropped out and hit the hippie trail, hitchhiking around the West, working at menial jobs, even staying in Salvation Army homeless shelters. I eventually went back to college and graduated with honors, not that I'm recommending this career path. I think I was mostly just plain lucky. Anyway, glad you're well. Hang in there. McPhee
I deleted this post after much thought
this website has saved my life
Well Thomas11, my name is Mario (no pun intended) and I'm an video game addict. I know what you mean about the excessive game use. I once did a 32 hour straight video game binge. What is happening in the drug world kind of way to look at it is your wanting a bigger high. You see, your WoW isn't getting you those highs as you once had when you first started. Therefore, you are now actively looking for a new "drug" to get you higher. The only porblem is WoW is pretty much the highest you can get. Now, you can look back and see what damage this substance has done to you: your fatter, your less athletic, you have social problems with people, and you feel as a 16 year old that you unfit for life. What do you do? Are you going to fight back or just let it all happen? Well sitting there with a TV in one hand and a computer in another is not going to get you anywhere, I can tell you that much. What are you doing now is idling in that high. You are neutralizing so much that you actually do other things around it your drug. Now you have it figured out so that if you use WoW and watch TV, that somehow your going to be more interested... and your not. Like I said it sounds to me like you have "maxed out". You have done more wow than possible and now you are wondering.. how can you get high next?
Well then, why are you even in recovery if you are looking for the next big thing. First step: stop looking. There will always be a newer game... a better game play... available. Just give it time and virtual reality will be set in. OH BOY! Then everyone will be doing that because it has a bigger high. When it comes to video games, there is always something better. Thomas, it is your time to get off the train like the rest of us. You need to be looking for ways to heal from your addiction and not just bathe in your juices, so to speak. What I mean is abstinence. Have you ever tried not playing WoW for 1 day? How did that feel? If you can't do it alone, we all will be waiting online for you... I'm not going anywhere - I'm not going to play another game. If you need support, I'll be here. Send me a private message and we can talk.
Good luck Thomas, and remember - recovery is about letting go of the video game juice, not finding another video game.
Thank you for your time.
Mario
Mario here! I'm a video game addict!
Wow, very proud of you Thomas... you cancelled your subscription! A very good choice I assure you. 1/16 of your life isn't that much. Sorry, I just don't feel it is when you have your whole life ahead of you. Stop looking back - look forward to years CLEAN from online games. Looks pretty good to me.
I know you want help Thomas. You are in the right spot. Best of luck and for god sake take a walk outside and turn of media!
Mario
Thomas, I don't and didn't think you were a troll. If I were you, I would try not to worry too much about what other people think. They are going to think whatever they want to, and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it anyway. The most important thing is what you think about yourself. I am very pleased to say that you seem to have a good, strong self-image, and it is getting steadily stronger and more positive the further excessive gaming recedes into your past and you involve yourself in the real world. One man's opinion anyway. Glad to hear you are doing okay, are not locked up in the mental ward and are feisty enough to bite if provoked, it looks like. McPhee
Thanks mcphee that really meant alot,
today however i faced maybe one of the toughest obstacles in my gaming recovery. when i used to game, i played with alot of the friends i know in real life. some even live in my neighborhood and are in my grade/class and i would see and talk to on a daily basis. my cousin played with me for the longest time and thats one of the reasons were so close. i can honestly say that had it not been for runescape and world of warcraft i would not be as close to my cousin as i am today. i had been through like 7 pvp seasons with my cousin being my partner in world of warcraft and towards the peak of my gaming era my cousin and i had as ive stated hit upwards of a 2000 rating in our arena teams, the only reason i mention this is because my cousin and i really spent a ton of time together and were close to each other because we communicated and interacted through runescape and wow. we would play arena together in the same room when he would come over and when you win 10 in a row, you bond simple as that. even in runescape, my character was level like 133/136 and him and i would do alot of things together. my friend in the neighbordhood who got me into runescape and wow ive spent alot of time with and been close to. sometimes i would spend the night at his house and he and i would game until all hours of the night, we've level'd characters from 1-80 together and we have even done the recruit a friend experience bonus together for those of you familiar with that feature. my cousin has probably a good 5 or 6 friends that all played wow with him too and my cousin, my friend inthe neighborhood and my cousins friends who through the game i got to know really well would all raid at the same time on wow and we got really close and had a good male bonding experience on a re occuring basis, for exmaple i can remember us throwing together several 10 man groups because so many of us who played together knew each other in real life and were able to better connect that way. many people say that they make friends in the game and talk to them on vent and socialize in that way but it brings it to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL when you actually know the people in real life that your playing with and have been friends/family with them all of your life, its like throwing a touchdown pass to your brother in a high school football game. not that ive ever done that but you get what im saying. ive even made close friends through the game as i stated before that i still talk to but its so much different if you hang out with the people outside of wow also. for exmaple a few weekends back my cousin and i went to a college football game and we had an extra ticket so we brought one of his friends who played wow that i knew. thats been the hardest thing in letting go of my games. i know that its not a healthy hobby to be a part of but, i can honestly say that I HAD ALOT OF FUN AND EXPERIENCES when i played. i was a part of a group that accepted me. for the time i was in the game, i got to be the creme of the crop. its not the gaming i miss, its the experiences and enjoyment i got out of playing with friends. my cousin, my best friend in the neighborhood. yes the games were fun but more than that when my cousin and i barley beat that arena team rated 300 points above you just out of shear knowledge of each others playing styles, thats a really good feeling. when you've got 10+ people on your friends list that you know and met in real life that you can hit up to run raids and groups with thats alot of fun. i know that gaming is not a healthy alternative to life experiences. but today i got a text from my cousin. it said exactly " i just wanted to tell you a few of us started a runescape pure clan if u wanna join dat be cool" wow. the mental ability it took to restrain myself from calling him up that very moment creatin an account and playing 20 hours a day to become the most advanced among the people in our clan was absoltuley exhausting. i REALLY WANT TO PLAY WITH HIIM. i know i would have so much fun playing with my cousin and the friends of his that ive grown close to and ganging up on some in experienced ill advised players in the pvp area as a clan would be such a blast. we would be screaming on vent and sharing the enjoyment of killing players together. just like old times. god i really wanted to join him. that reminds me, this last friday i went over to jenna's house for a couple hours to hang out with her before we left for our high schools football game and her brother who is leaving for the military in a few months plays wow...... what are the odds. she was doing her hair or something so her brother who ive met is like you wanna come in here? so i went into his " bat cave" and there he is on the computer in a dungeon ive been through a thousand times. my mind flashed backed a thousand times over. the images i got standing there watching him play world of warcraft........ hes like so.... have you ever played this game? i hesitated for a moment.... i said no, i lied. i dont know why i told him no its not like he would have cared i mean after all he is playing. ide like to say that i didnt feel like having a " wow" talk with him but thats not true. im not sure why i told him i had never played. throughout our conversation tho which lasted roughly 10-15 minutes i specifically remember him saying" really you dont play this? huh you seem like the kinda guy that would play " mmmm wow that really struck me. i look like the kind of guy who is playing world of warcraft? thats not the kind of self image im tryin to set for myself, if anything its what im trying to avoid. and the fact that he had mentioned it twice?mmmmmmmmmmmm not good not good. i played dumb and asked him about his character and such, he was really not very good in all honesty. i casualy asked him " you dont think this is like... not healthy?" " doesnt this get addicting?" he responded with one of those soft spoken awsners that really mean i dont think so. what an ironic event. the girl i like's brother plays wow. great....... how funny that she lives ( brother included obviosuly ) right next door to my best friend in the neighborhood who used to play wow haha. im standing there looking at his computer, i asked him what his class was lol as if i didnt know from the instant i glanced at his spell bar. he was a level 80 mage. its sad to say i could probably find my way through the dungeon he was running with my eyes closed. if only he knew what i've learned about world of warcraft. if i didnt like his sister i would have introduced him to this website. i almost felt bad im like."" oh no....ricky dont........." as if he was about to inject himself with a posionous substance of some sort. the moment i walked into that room and turned my head around the corner of that monitor and saw the flashing robes of the bloodelf looking back at me the evil gaming addiction in side of me just roared, get back to the game your guild needs you!!!!
Oh mcphee, the moment i read your post i didnt think for one second that you would in any conciousness consider me to be a troll so please dont get the wrong message. and i did sence a hence of concern in my current living arrangments if thats the right way to word it? i live in a suburban household with my mom dad and brother. no history of mental illness in the family. although the fact that you considered me to be a participant in a mental ward or depression program of some sort is rather concerning i suppose. im of average height, now of average weight. get about a 3.5 unweighted gpa. other than certain aspects of my life could qualify as atleast to some standards, a normal high school student.
thanks for reading.
this website has saved my life
Thanks for the update, Thomas11. That does sound like a puzzle with your cousin. I think it's important to recognize the good things that we got from gaming, as well as the bad things. If we act like there were no good things, we are basically lying to ourselves, and it's hard to see how that is going to work out well in the long run.
To my mind, the only way to come to a healthy, sustainable conclusion that we really don't want to game any more is to walk all the way around the topic, examining it from all sides. One way is with a cost-benefit analysis. Here's the one I did: http://www.olganon.org/?q=node/20920.
Your doesn't need to be this long. You can start with just a few things on the pluses and minuses side, and add to them as you go along. On your benefits side would probably be: Having fun playing with my cousin. On your bad side might be: Gaining weight. Just possible examples, not suggestions per se.
I think it's a good idea to do it honestly, and not start out with the plan that you're going to end up deciding not to play. If you do the CBA and it looks like gaming is good and you want to do it, I think you have to be ready to say: "Well, I guess I'll game some more."
That's not that hard. What's harder is when it comes out very clearly that gaming is a bad idea, and yet you still say, "I'll game some more anyway." That's where it gets crazy. Not that there's anything awful about crazy. We all act crazy sometimes. But if you keep looking at your CB, and it honestly indicates that gaming is bad for you, odds are pretty good you'll eventually decide to quit. Or not. Up to you.
Good to hear from you, Thomas11. McPhee
With all thats been going on i completely forgot about my 5 month anniversary. I quit gaming on 4/29/2010 and just a few days ago marked the 5 months anniversary of when i quit gaming. I can honestly say that this year of high school ive noticed a signifigant improvment in my social status. Certainly nothing remarkable but compared to where i was coming from, alot better. I can see the light in my life where i couldn't before.
this website has saved my life
Hi everyone
This last saturday was my high schools homecoming. my last two years i hadnt gone because i was probably raiding on wow but this year i went and it was absolutley amazing. we had to dress up and wear a tie ( for guys ) and i went with a group of like 30 friends to take pictures and then we went to dinner before it started. god it was so much fun i danced with all the ladies for like 4 hours. my school sold 600 tickets for 30 dollars a piece and we hired a proffesional dj-ing company even tho we had it in the gym they decorated it so much u culdnt even tell it was the gym. about halfway through homecoming it struck me. wow what changed about me from this year to last? lookin up and down myself almost in disbelief like wow im at homecoming partying it up lol. today was monday and the first day of school after homecoming weekend and people in my classes were saying things to me like " wow thomas i didnt know you were such a partier" this morning i stepped on the scale. 165. at the end of last year i was 210 thats almost 50 pounds!!!! i take weightlifting at school with our head football coach and then go to the gym after that and a while ago i started usin the tanning booth our gym offers im turning into a jersey shore cast member lol :P it really was nice that more than one person in separate class periods told me i was rockin it at homecoming. i dont know how i got there but the next thing i know im in the middle of the dance floor with the rest of the popular kids at my school. I kept saying to myself wow how'd i get here? ive really gained so much more confidence in the last few months its so comforting. i wish every night culd be a homecoming night lol.i could hardly feel my legs they were so sore.
this website has saved my life
Wow Thomas, what a transformation since that first post!!!!
I'm so happy for you.....i loved that bit about dancing 'with all the ladies'
Thanks for sharing this with us
You're the poster boy for the way quitting games can change your life, Thomas. Keep it up. Thanks for the update. McPhee
I need help, i've been struggling and it really concerns me
let me start by saying i had a fantastic and productive weekend for the most part. we had friday off for watever reason so my high schools football game was on thursday and i went with my friend in my neighborhood that i usual go to the games with and some other kids i know. It was an away game and i got to see and socialize with some of the guys i knew from the other school which was cool. spent the night at that friends house thursday night after the game and just chilled. friday was even better! got up early and his dad took us out to a fairly classy breakfast ( his parents are ..well... affulent :D) then we all went to ( all being me my friend and the other kids that spent the night ) ride go karts on this track we have in my city. after that we played a round of mini golf, our mini golf course is really extravagent and is even nicer than the ones you see in the movies so that was alot of fun, then we all went to our own houses. took it easy at my house for a little bit then i went to see jackass 3D with a different friend of mine and his crew. HILARIOUS ! ive seen all the bam episodes ( rented every season via netflix ) and we saw it in 3d at the movie theatre which was neat. it was nice to be busy all friday including friday night. friday night used to be the night of the week i looked forward to the most because i could raid as late as i wanted to without worrying about having to go to bed to get up and go to school. it was the most " conviyent" < spelt wrong; raid night if you will. since i quit gaming if i wasnt doing anything friday night i felt out of place and like i had no purpose or like i was missing out on something because friday night used to mean intense wow raid from 6pm- morning. so even tho i had a great day friday during the day, the fact that i was even occupied friday night was special. i felt blessed. saturday morning i went back to my friends who i went to the football game with and watched a couple hours of college football with him. let me take a break here for a minute to give you some back ground. in a previous post i talked about a guy i knew in my neighborhood joining the marines and growing up and becoming a totally different person, saturday he had.. not so much a party but like a welcome back sort of thing with his family and he posted on facebook all were invited so i had planned on showing up and paying my respects kind of thing. my lifetime friend who i used to game txtd me and told me he was there ( my friend who i used to game with lives next door to the guy who joined the marines and has known him well since he was born so... ) so i figured now was as good of time as any to drive my truck over to his house and see wat was up. there was alot of people there i knew which was cool, people from school, people who all ready graduated. was just a nice thing to have to wish the marine the best. while we were there my friend invited me to go to a basketball game with him that night, i graciously accepted the offer and we left shortly after i arrived to make it in time for the game. it was my first time seeing and being inside the orlando magics new stadium. wow it is really incredible! it was a preseason game against the bulls and the magic were up like 50 points pretty quickly so of course my friend and i got to talking. and what else did we conversate about but games. ive gone through thick and thin with my friend when it comes to games. he started playing runescape in the 4th grade, i did in the 5th grade. we switched to wow about the 6-7th grade and have been going back and forth between wow and runescape and even sometimes playing both at the same time ( difficult but not impossible, and yes we would have both open at the same time ) up until this year, 11th grade when we both quit playing about the same time. he is on the bowling team, i dont think ive mentioned that yet and the only reason i do is because hes the " anchor " of the team which i guess means hes the captain and he can averaged like a 240 or something crazy like that. basically hes been the head hancho of the bowling team since he joined his freshman year and hes been bowlign in leagues for a long time. good for him that hes involved in something hes enjoys and hes really good at it. he told me the highest he has ever bowled is a 299 1 pin away from perfect : D his dad is a bowler too which is cool. some people at our school think the bowler are kinda dorks which i guess they are but you wouldnt hear that from me, personally im proud of my friend for being apart of somethings hes good at and having a serious, passionably, enjoyable hobby and sport to be apart of outside gaming. if i enjoyed bowling that much i might have joined the team. hes at the bowling alley, which is about 3 minutes from our houses. i was kind of suprised after i reviewed the last 10 or so sentences that i wrote so much about my friend's bowling career which was not necciasrly relevant to my point, what im tryin to say is that he has atleast something he does outside of gaming. so anyways my friend and i while at the game got talking about gaming. we hit evvveerything u can imagine about our experiences gaming. we talked about runescape wow, and even the game aion which we both played simultanionsley for about a month or so. i really got into the conversation and i rememebered all the good times me and my friend had together. we were really close, i would go over to his house and spend the night and we would game together for hours on in. those of you who are familiar with the recruit a friend experience bonus in world of warcraft. we used that even tho we allready had maxed characters to level up additional characters and then transfer them over to our accounts. even back in burning crusade my friend and i level up a character from 1-70 together. at some points in time we were in the same guild and would raid together. we ran dungeons together. i would go over to his house alot and we would game together.whether it was wow or runescape, we always did things together. towards the end of our gaming careers in wow when we both had 3-6 lvl 80 characters atleast we would run instances together sometimes all day for gear. my cousin played as ive stated before and my cousin had friends that played wow with us and me, my friend, my cousin, and my cousins friend would someimtes all get together and run dungeons. it was nice knowing people that well. its like i could wake up saturday morning and i just knew the people i played wow with would be on shortly do to dungeons and what not. we pvp'd together we did everythin together. my friend even became friends with my cousins friends. ive said in a previous post that having people you know in real life that play wow with you is a special experience thats different than not knowing the people you play with in real life. i was in the same grade and same classes as my friend i played wow with and we went to school together in the same car. i have 7 cousins including myself and 5 of us are all around the same age and are really close so obviosuly me and my cousin that played wow could share that special experience together with other people we knew was absolutley celestial. the only thing i could think of relating it to would be a group of fireman that have worked together for years and save someones life out of a burning building and have that great team bonding experience. when you barley down a difficult boss and that piece of gear drops for the person who needed it and was the only reason you were killin the boss in the first place and then everyone screams with cheer on vent, thats a good feeling. your heart jumps. you feel accomplished. my main was a holy priest so i was ALWAYS helping my friends healing dungeons. anyways my friend and i got to talking about games. we shared so many different experiences i cant even begin to tell you it wuld take too much time. from times we've shared together in games lets leave it at that. i asked him if he was currently playing any games he told me he plays call of duty in his spare time if hes not bowling. but he told me he was thinking about going back to runscape. which really got me thinking hard... oh boy here it goes i thought to myself.... as soon as the game ended on the ride home i couldnt help but think about the name of the topic someone has posted on here worded along the lines of " gaming- my relapse and back" thats not the exact name but its similair. i reallllllly didnt want taht to happen. im workin on like my 5th or 6th month sober, see the fact taht i dont even know how many months its been is a good thing.
I put a space between these next lines for a reason, I work really hard at quitting gaming and as far as i have come im sure all of you would be upset if i had a relapse but that doesnt even account to the contradicting feelings im going through right now. I can truthfully say that if my friend started playing runescape again i could not hold back. i couldnt live with the fact that he was on rs progressing and i was not, ESPECIALLY if it was a friday night that i was not busy and i knew he was playing runescape. i wouldnt have the willpower to keep myself away. put yourself in my shoes. thats like trying to lift a cruise ship.
saturday night i came home and immediatly went to sleep even tho it was only 10 because i knew if i waited up ide end up talking to my friend more on facebook about gaming so i just went to bed. sunday morning. today. i did a bad : / today ive probably spent a good 4 hours at the LEAST on the runescape website reading current updates and forums posts, famalirizing myself on the games latest and greatest... etc etc... the typical routine one would go through upon returning to a game after say a year. not that i had returned yet i just wanted to prepare myself on the even that i did. i really dont even like to type wat else happens. when i quit gaming i forgot my runscape password and i knew that recovering your password can sometimes take a while and i wanted to have everything in order in case i needed to start playing again on short notice. so i easily and quickly recovered my runescape character and was logged in the game today. I logged into runescape today. does that break my sober streak? i didnt do or accomplish anything in the game the only reason i logged in was to see if the password i changed the account to worked. i wasnt actually logged into the game for probably more than 10 minutes. not good though. it was the first time i had actually experienced game play first hand of either world of warcraft or runescape since i quit gaming on 4/29/2010 10:44 pm. im dissapointed with myself more than anything. those of you who respond to this post if you wouldnt mind including with your message, your opinion on whether or not you wuld consider my gaming activities today to be a " break " in my sober streak as i cannot decide. im really in a rather urgent position if my friend were to txt me and say hey i signed up for runescape membership again tommorow i would easily fall back into addiction.help.
thanks
Tom
this website has saved my life
Another quick note i wanted to add to this last post
even after such an amazing weekend which i had to work at so hard to get to the position to be able to have the social group and " resources ?" to pull off its saddening to think i may lose that. basically i had a great (mostly) non gaming-friend related weekend and this had to happen right at the end. i know if i went back to gaming those weekends would not exist anymore.
this website has saved my life
I've been back to Evony twice since my stopping. Once for 5 minutes to talk to an old gaming friend and to see what would happen, and once for a minute or two to look for someone I thought might be there that might have needed help out. While i was there i did spin the wheel of crap and look around. Since i'm on McPhee's countup and he didn't seem to mind if i didn't count it as a relapse, i don't count it.
You might want to read your own blog from top to bottom and see if you can channel the feelings you once had that brought you to the quitting point, and take yourself through that journey again...see if that doesn't give you a bit of strength here. Review all the things you struggled with and things you did with yourself to avoid the call of the game - the yearn.
Do them again. Good luck!
Ariadne~
Letting go again - Change is never easy, I fight to hold on, and I fight to let go.
Ariadne
thank you. i have actually told myself several times over the last few days that i need to read my topic from page 1 to end and remember what it used to be like. the fact that you reccomend it to me on top of that is going to push me to do so. i need to find the strength to fight again.
this website has saved my life
Hey, Thomas. It's hard to be perfect. I don't think it's a great and fine thing to go back to playing computer games, even for a little while. But it's not the worst thing either. The majority of people who quit gaming find themselves tempted by powerful urges at some point. Many of them give in at least once. It doesn't mean you've failed or you have to start over or all your time game-free has been wasted. It is just part of the process for many people. So be cool and stay strong and don't beat up on yourself. It's hard to be perfect.
Use this as a learning experience. Now you know that talking with people you used to play games with can be a powerful trigger for urges. Next time you find yourself in that situation, you can be ready for it. Come up with a plan for how you'll deal with it next time it comes up. It doesn't have to be a perfect plan. Just something. Like, say, you'll change the subject. Or you'll leave the room. Or you'll make an effort to remind your friend of all the undesirable things that come from playing games excessively. Then, next time you find yourself in that situation, try to work your plan. And whatever happens next, make it a learning experience.
It's hard to be perfect. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because it means there is always room left for improving the amount of joy you get out of life. And I don't know about you, but I am always happiest when I feel I'm making progress toward a long-cherished, worthwhile, challenging goal. Not so much when I get it, and certainly not when I'm feeling frustrated. But when I feel like I'm getting there. So now you have another goal, one that's long-cherished and worthwile and challenging. And you can do it, too. Good luck with it. McPhee
Thanks mcphee
as usual your post really got to me i read it a couple of times. i think this experience is some what aimed at becoming a better person and being able to accept yourself. ive got alot of things i need to sort out.
this website has saved my life
Good things to report today
I've spent alot of time thinking and soul searching about me and my life. Today i found myself in the middle of a 4 hour gaming session, looked up from my computer at the sticky note i tick tacked on my poster board on 4/29/2010 and immeditaly realized, wow thats in 2 days. this is the 10th month of the year, in 2 days i will have gone 6 months without gaming except for this last week or so where i have fallen a few times. Half a year. Half a year i have gone through so much. As suggested i went back and read my topic, especially the first page. For the most part i was like ..... wow this was me? i wrote this? i hardly recognized my own writing voice. right then i made a decision that i was not going to have a relapse. i got off runescape. i wanted to atleast wake up on friday morning on 10/29/10 and not have to game. im really going to treasure this anniversary. 6 months is a long time. something that got to me after reading my post was about the summer time, immeditaly i started to feel some anxiety. i cant go through another summer like the last one. i had quit gaming maybe a month before summer started and was still going through a really rough patch in my life. i cant and will not go through another summer like the last one, it was awful. its only the first semster of school and im all ready worried about summer. what kid my age is " worried " about summer lol? the other day i was talking to a friend of mine about summer and she told me " ya the beggining of last summer sucked, i was grounded and i couldnt do anything, i couldnt see my friends or go out or do anything fun " it took me a minute but i was like... well what did you do? she said she just stayed home and read. i thought to myself, wow i was voluntarily grounded all of last summer lol. not that i did any reading but essentialy i did nothing. i dont want the school year to end like last year and be in the same non involved routine. im almost sure i wont have another summer like that but one cant help but worry. one of my good friends ive known for a long time has been " going out " with this girl i know for a good 3 months and they spend atleast every other weekend together doing something and im like... without a doubt they'll keep in touch over the summer if not spend even more time together. sometimes ill ask him what hes up to and he'll tell me hes over at his womans house or doing something with her. i wish i had stronger relationships like that, not even neccisarily with a girl but just.... how would one go about wording " stronger relationships" i think you get what im going for though. i wish i had more people that i was closer too that i knew without a doubt i would see over the summer time. As i mentioned i made it a point to stop gaming TODAY and as soon as i exited the game i changed the text display on my phone to say " be yourself " this is more symbolically if anything because it reminds me its ok to be sociable and put down your walls. this last weekend i went to a restaurant with some people i know to watch the ufc fight, had never seen a ufc fight before but i went just to hang out with them and one of the people that came ive known since elementary school but never was really close with kind of thing? well anyways this guy has been really short all of his life and i know hes very insecure about it and when he was younger he took steroids to grow taller. hes still short today, not unhealthy or unnaturally short just shorter than most. hes on the weightlifting team and his body is ripped through the roof- so when i was talking to him over dinner he really broke down and started talking to me about how hes such a broken person from when people call him dwarf, midget, gnome, frodo, or some variation of an insult to his height and how its always really bothered him and made him feel in secure, he told me thats why he started lifting weights so he could feel stronger than those people and most likley he is now. i was like wow, i was really moved that he shared that with me. if there wasnt other people there and it was more the scene than a ufc fight i would have felt comfortable sharing my gaming troubles with him. i havnt ever told anyone about my feelings expressed on this website but this guy, who i had talked to for the first time in years made me feel comfortable around him. its like now i know he gets it? he has troubles too. hes always been short but thats not something he can control and.. who cares? its probably hard for him too to make friends with the way people make him feel. i mean i can hide my addiction but this guy cant hide his height. its hard to explain the way this guy expressed his sadness. he was in a restaurant with a group of guys he felt comfortable around and he just broke down for a couple minutes. sometimes i wonder if my entire school read my topic from beggingin to end what that day forward would be like. this sunday is halloween and i dont have plans yet and just like summer im worried ill be stuck inside with no one to spend it with, if my friend goes to his girlfriends then idk what im going to do. i dont rlly want to go trick or treating, im 16 and i dont rlly want the candy so. grown out of that i guess. last year i hid in my yard and scared kids but i dont find that as ammussing anymore either. hopefully i find some fun halloween plans. anyways this weekend is going to be a good one i can feel it. im going to make friday a good day in honor of 1/2 year free.
god bless
thx for reading
this website has saved my life
When i come to my topic on olga to write a post its such a relieving experience. its like im throwing this moments in a bank and i can evaluate my self. where i want to be, where im headed. whats next. the feeling is un imaginable.
Another quick note; recently ( including the short guy on the weightlifting team ) people i hang around have been telling me i look much more " built"- as in more muscular and more tone. that is such an invigorating feeling i cant begin to explain it. like when you spend 5 months going to the gym and someone finnaly tells you your getting bigger as in muscular its makes u feel like u want to spend every wakin minute in the gym to get other people to say that. perhaps the biggest party guy at my school the other day was talking to me and he said " dam thomsinton" ( my nickname with some people is thomsinton, i like it and they mean it in a good way so ) your looking built, ide feel comfortable taking you to a party" not that ide probably go to his type of party but still. ironicly this same guys brother complimented me also. when i was at the restaurant i got to talking with the short guy about weight lifting and stuff and thats when he said " ya i could tell like when i saw you i was like wow thomas is getting big" people say " big " now a days as more musclar in case any of you were confused thinking he called me big as in fat, which if anything he would call me skinny.
thx
this website has saved my life
Thanks for posting, Thomas.
The best medicine for game addiction when you are first trying to get away from it is working out - it gets you out of the house, away from the computer and it makes you reconnect with your body. I too put on weight in my 2 years on second life and the first thing i did was start working out to get away from my 8-16 hour a day investment of time in it - it works so well it's hard to explain.
good luck! and many hugs
Yeah, gooutalive and Thomas11. The exercise seems to be central for many people. I've been feeling low and not very productive the last week or so. I think it may be because I haven't been running or biking every other day as I normally do. I've finally gotten some more work, as in money-earning work, so hopefully the last two or three years of financial disaster may be ending, or at least easing. But trying to make all these deadlines makes it hard to keep exercising. Last night I went for a 45-minute walk. Let's see if it helps any today.
Glad to see you getting back to your commitment to not gaming, Thomas11. I do think it's a better way to go than spending several hours a day playing a computer game. Hope it keeps up. McPhee
Things have been going well the last week. I sense a generally more euphoric mood to myself. I know people who suffer from depression lack certain sensations in their brain that stimulate hapiness and lately i think ive been experiencing more than my usualy amount of hapiness. Its difficult to explain but i feel like i put myself " back into the game" of real life that is. As if when i gamed i logged out of real life and into my virtual world but just recently ive recovered my real life's gaming account and hit the ground running. Today a friend of mine texted me and asked me if i wanted to hang out after school, i guess it shouldnt have come as such a suprise as we've hung out before but when i opend that message and read it im like......wait.... he wants to do something with me? oh ok lol. Its great i met this guy who lives in the neighborhood across the street from me and weve become fairly close friends. we have alot of common intrests and share alot of the same thoughts about life and things. we can talk for hours and hours. i really only have that kind of relationship with a select few people and im glad i was able to meet a new friend and realize that i can expand my horizions more. I found someone who likes me for me and just wants to hang with me and not for the wrong reasons. Today ( his names cody so i can stop refering to him as my friend ) we went for a run and probly ran a good mile or so outside and then chilled at his house and, he plays the guitar and hes that guy in high school who is really into like classic music from like the 70s and 80s and is good at the guitar and such and wears the music shirts, anyways he showed me some basic stuff on the guitar and we talked about music for a while. Most of you reading this probably dont find this to be a big enough deal to want to discuss on here but for someone in my position, i like to remind myself of all the progress i make to make sure im on the right track. I feel like i can go and do things if i want to. Confident. Theres someone out there who actually wants to spend time with me and gets me and having that which has been absent in my life for so long is. Healthy. After codys house i went to a friend of mines in my neighborhood to study for our american history test as we usualy do when we have a test and we were there by ourselves for a while and he told me im the only person he can really talk about anything with.... he said it pretty casually and then went to the bathroom but it really sunk in for me. Its nice knowing. I talk about everything with him, even things i dont feel like talking to my parents about. Sometimes on the weekend ill be at his house for an entire day and we basicaly rotate conversation topics between sports,cars,girls,school,gossip, and various other things 16 year old guys would talk about to each other. When i type this i cant help but get the feeling that there is no need to " report" what would really be considered normal behavior for someone my age, but then again thats why im here. To promote healthy and normal behavior for someone of my age. In my previous post i talked about sam, the shorter guy on the weightlifting team and my conversations with him and today it hit me, well why dont i join the weightlifting team? i take weightlifting as a class at school and i go to the gym after school, sam told me his bench went up 50 pounds when he joined the team. I really enjoy lifting weights, weightlifting starts in the spring, around january,february ( i think thats spring lol ) and im actually looking forward to it now. its about 1-2 hours every day after school which is really just what im looking for. going to be fun.
thanks for reading
Tom
this website has saved my life
Holy crap! Nice Tom!
The only winning move is not to play.
That's great Tom!
"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun." -------William Wordsworth
Killin', Thomas11. Hang onto that post and read it next time you're feeling low. It just drips strength, self-knowledge, confidence, kindness (to yourself as much as anybody) and humanity. I just loved the description of logging on to real life and discovering you have an active account. I have been treating real life like a game lately and it is not as nutty as it sounds, at least for me. And you -- you have come a very long way in a short time. What a stud. Congratz. McPhee
Today I felt for the first time that I was not missing out on life.
Saturday nights used to be a prime night in my week because it was 1 of the 2 days that we didn't have school the next day which meant harcore raiding well into the next morning. Well tonight I didn't have any gaming obligations so a buddy of mine asked me if i wanted to play poker at a kid on our high schools baseball teams house. Like any high school you have the kids on the baseball team that hang out, the football team, drama, etc. So i guess you could say that the baseball team is pretty " popular ". anyways i went to play poker and there was quite of few kids there that like me didnt play baseball but still went to play poker. As im sitting there counting my chips ( i have become skilled at texas hold em/black jack after days of mindless gambling while afk-training on a game ) im like wow, these guys are like the creme of the crop at our high school. people i used to feel almost inferior too lol. Had a good time. Like most high school cafeterias during lunch time, the jocks sit with the jokes the cheerleaders with the cheerleaders, freshman-freshman, juniors-juniors and so on. At lunch i sit with a group of other juniors most of whom are on the soccer team and ive got to know them pretty well but a good 20 or so juniors in that lunch period who are probably the most popular in my class sit together who are all big partiers and what not some of them were at the poker game which idk why but to me that was pretty cool lol. We had a good 12 guys to play poker and we ate and watched some college football. Just chilled. It was great. Again Im not sure why this type of thing is such a big deal to me but to be able to do that was a big event for me.
I was going to delete this post after i read it again but its good for me to write this down so if im feeling down or falling off the wagon i can read these posts again to help me out.
this website has saved my life
Why in the world would you delete this post? It's awesome!
Life's too short to everything to an addiction. And here you are going out, doing new things, meeting new people. This is like the ultimate success story!
The only winning move is not to play.
Stumbled across this website today http://www.twloha.com/index.php. Great website. As soon as I read the first paragraph i felt strongly about it. It talks about the pain people go through and releasing it and finding a better you. I found myself in alot of this website. It's hard to explain but it meant alot to me to know that websites like that exist. I know that had I not of joined this websites movement i would still be going through the pain i was last year. How drastic of an effect the 5 pages of posts has been on my life cannot be described. Its nice knowing theres other websites for people to go to if they dont neccisarily struggle with gaming. Ive sort of discovered a new appreciation for life in general. you only get to do it one time. Like traveling to a foreign country, better make the most of it. I make it a point every day i wake up to refuse to let deppresion, or sham, or any other degrading emotion get the best of me. I watched the video on the front page of that website. Did you know that a survey in 2009 said that 14% of high school students have at some point SERIOUSLEY CONSIDERED commiting suicide? Thats 1/7. Not to mention the fact that im sure many of them said that they had not ever considered it even if they had because they were afraid. 1/7 of the other students i go to school with have considered suicide. Its a scary statistics. I can say that im a recovered 1/7. If put in the position to do so i would gladly join a movement like that websites. its almost common knowledge that high school can be tough for alot of people and in turn leads to some suicides but i didnt think that 1/7 students had ever seriosley considered it. Thats ALOT. that website is called " to write love on her arms " which is mostly for girls but i guess some day soon your supposed to actually write love on your arms all day. Not sure if ill be doing that but if i come across a similair website i would participate. did you know that the golden gate bridge ( i think thats the right bridge ) in las angeles had the most suicides since it was built, it averages a suicide every 3 weeks. over 1,300. 30 people have survived the fall and 19 of those 30 have come forward and said the second they let go they thought what am i doing i dont want to die god save me.
god bless
Tom
this website has saved my life
Hey, Tom. You're going some good work here with your posting. I believe many people, myself included, have been inspired and invigorated by the amazing courage and intelligence you have shown in recognizing and confronting your excessive gaming, as well as the myriad of other challenges involved in teenage life. If you want to help others, you are already doing so. And helping yourself at the same time. I'm not sure how that works, exactly, but it seems to. Thanks much. McPhee
McPhee
Thanks!! That meant alot to me, its nice to get a view from someone who reads my topic. A sence of mind that has helped me over come gaming is to, in my head atleast, put myself above gaming. Like I would do if someone were to offer me drugs or invite me to participate in an explicit activity of relavant nature, you have a sensation in your head that thinks " no thanks, im better than that, not for me "
Today was a great day. I've been looking for a part time or seasonal job for a while now and today i got one!!!!!!! let me give you some background. I live in orlando florida. Florida is home to many world famous amusment parks as im sure i dont even need to mention, having only lived and been rasied in florida i take these parks for granted but anyways, during the holidays especially these parks need more employees to help traffic the additional customers. So i applied for a job at universal stuidos and i got an email requesting i make an appointment, i made it for today at 4 and i went and had an interview with an HR rep and he gave me a job as a bus boy for a pizza joint inside Islands of Adventure ( islands of adventure is a large amusment park branch owned by universal studios ) Im so excited, december 1 i have orientation and i get my id and my uniform and such. I also get free addmission to like 5 or 6 universal studios owned amusement parks and I get 2 park passes every 4 months that i can give away to friends and family. Working in the food and beverage industry of the park i get a 3 dollar lunch voucher every day that i can use to buy myself lunch with which is fantastic, if anything ill use those 3 dollars to buy some chips or some water or somethin and take it home and save it for another time. Obviosuly ill be busing tables but amusement parks are fun places to work. My parents told me i dont have to file for taxes inless i make over 12 grand and im sure i wont so i get to keep the money i make which is nice. I have a debit card and i plan on saving the majority of the money i make for college, not that im paying for the cost of my college but im sure while im in college ill have more opprotunities where i want to go out and do something with my friends and having that extra cash wuld be nice. Not quite sure what i want to do with the money just yet but this is going to be a new adventure for me non the less.
Tom : ]
this website has saved my life