Tired. Start a game. Not going, great, team feeds, get frustrated. Keep playing to win again. Late night. Regret. Next time I'll just play a few games.
Wake up. Tired. Struggle through the day. Get home. Bored. Nothing else to do. Play. Late night again.
Wake up. Really tired. I'll get in a healthy cycle one day. Push through the day, get home. Just one game, and then early night. Fuck it. I'll game, watch some porn, and win a few before going to bed.
Next day... What's your cycle?
So, I think it's time to normalize this. Gaming, Porn, and add an unhealthy diet in there, you've got yourself a cocktail of dopamine.
Gaming: cortisol, adrenaline, dopamine, etc. Get's you distracted, having fun, get to put life on pause.
Porn: dopamine, oxytocin. Feeling more relaxed, less frustrated, nice change from X hours of gaming.
Fast food: Dopamine. Fatty foods are comforting, fill you up quick. Add sugar (energy) and salt; good times.
And when you stack behaviors foods ant other things (porn, junk food, smoking, drinking, drugs) on top of one another, like magic spells (MTG) or adding 10 enchant creatures on one beast, it hits a lot harder all at once. Many things combined together in your gaming session make it a mega session of as much dopamine you can squeeze out. Sustained levels of dopamine for hours that even sex can't compete with (it's true, look it up).
The reason I am writing this, is that you've probably already analyzed your cycle. Why you are you so hooked, etc. Yes, gaming is addictive in itself, a piece of your brain tells you to go back every time you feel frustrated, sad, or stressed or bored, but what else is there? What are some emotions that bring you back?
I would suggest writing your top 3 reasons? It could be loneliness (nothing else to do, it's better than being a lone in misery), escapism (from something stressful in your life that you are avoiding), competitiveness (lack of challenges in your life currently). etc. I think we sometimes do this at the end of a night, when we are feeling regret, so we being to ponder and try to reflect on why we are like this and why we keep going back. But, once asleep, the next day, we go on and it continues. I would suggest taking a moment, and writing down some points as to what your cycle looks like in a day (in addition to your top 3 reasons). E.g., Finish work exhausted --> nothing to do, lonely --> game too much --> guilt --> feelings of disappointment --> need to escape --> Game again. (Feel free to add as much detail as you want).
This kind of exercise is really just to analyze yourself, without judgement, and just take the time to dissect the process like a scientist. We're not looking for solutions here, or results , or some false promise we'll give ourselves to suddenly change; just some digging.
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