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How My Video Game Addiction Started
I grew up on the road. I was traveling a lot with my family for their work. Being an only child, the only thing I had to fill my endless boredom with was with video games. I didn’t have other hobbies or sports I could work on and learn. Instead, I had video games, and I had plenty of time to master them. This was the beginning of my video game addiction.
At first, video games did not seem bad at all. Being a gamer meant I could easily make friends with other gamers in school. But because of that, I was only inclined to play more video games and NOT to find other hobbies. To keep up with my friends, I needed to buy and play the newest games regularly. This became a habit that only furthered my addiction to video games.
Video Games are Designed to be Addicting
Video games are designed in a specific way to make us feel good when we play them. For instance, we’ll play a few hours of a difficult level in a video game. Then when we beat it, we are rewarded with a “Congratulations, You Won” screen. There will be bright colors and uplifting music to congratulate us on our hard work. All this stimulates us, giving us a rush of endorphins that signals our brain to make us feel good for accomplishing something challenging.
Being congratulated in real life does not happen often. So people look for that feeling in video games. The game rewards us like a dog following commands for its master and receiving a treat. “Collect all the collectibles and unlock a unique skin.” the video game tells us. So we go ahead and spend 20 hours of mindless playing to get that “treat” of the unique skin.
Happiness comes from progress. We feel good when we see ourselves improve at something. Video games, especially MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games), are designed in a way to make you feel like you are always making progress. Leveling up in those games takes a long time, so every time you do level up, you feel great. You feel like you are making meaningful progress. Except it isn’t meaningful progress, it’s progress that only stimulates your brain and doesn’t move you forward in real-life at all.
Why Video Game Addiction is a Real Problem
The fastest way to ruin your life is to develop multiple bad habits that stick. Here is an example of what happens when video game addiction gets out of hand.
It starts with video games taking up all your time and ruining your sleep schedule. Because of this, you’ll be spending most of your time tired in a chair. Now your physical health starts to deteriorate. Then you stop caring about your diet, eating junk food all the time because you’ve gotten too lazy to cook real food. Going out and being social now becomes meaningless because you’d rather spend all your time doing something “productive” like leveling up your virtual character. Canceling on all your in-person events is when you start losing your social skills too.
It is at this point when one day you’ll look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you are worthless, and video games are the only thing that you are ever going to be good at. Because of this, you will start spending all your money on worthless in-game skins and items so that at least you’ll have something that makes you feel unique compared to the other casual players.
My Video Game Addiction at its Worst
I was playing 16 hours a day on an MMO called Black Desert Online. My video game addiction was so bad I wanted to have that video game running 24 hours a day. I even bought a second computer so I could keep that game running while I played other games. I started setting up alarms in the middle of the night to wake me up so that I could micromanage things in the video game. Playing was the first thing I would do when I’d wake up, get home, and the last thing I’d do before I went to bed. My life revolved around that video game. I even went so far as to set up a remote login on my computer at home so I could play while I was in class. That was bad enough, but it got worse.
I soon started to play some mobile games too. Most mobile games only let you play a little before making you stop. The only way to continue them was to come back in a couple of hours. So it was easy for me to add a couple of mobile games to my addiction. I eventually found myself overwhelmed with games. There were too many video games to micromanage. I had to start giving up everything in my life to keep up, and this was when I snapped.
I quit cold turkey. I sold all my game consoles. I uninstalled all video games from my personal computer and sold my second computer. I felt empowered. I started a Youtube Channel and made a video about quitting video games. I ended up not touching a single video game for six months, but I’m not perfect.
I relapsed
It started as “just one game with friends,” but it led to my competitive urge coming back to me. I realized I was terrible at video games after quitting cold turkey and not playing for so long. It motivated me to want to play again, to prove to myself that I could be good at video games again.
However, this time it was different.
I did end up with a few 16 hour days again. But after a few days of that, I realized that I wasn’t having fun anymore. The only reason why I started playing video games again was to “hang out” with my friends. Best friends who are now all over the world. Video games were our only way of keeping in touch. I didn’t care about single-player games, collecting achievements, or having the coolest skins. I just wanted to be with friends again.
How I beat Video Game Addiction
What finally happened for me was a change in mindset. I thought yeah, I could spend 16 hours a day leveling up a character in a video game, or I can spend those 16 hours on myself and make myself a better person. I started imagining my real life as a video game. I would think, “I’m gonna level up my health by actually fixing my diet and starting a workout routine.” I made a conscious decision to play the game of life and to build a life that I am proud of.
If progress equals happiness, then it’s a no brainer that the ultimate happiness comes from working on yourself. I started getting rid of my toxic habits and replacing them with good ones.
I had to remove the hobby of video games and replace them with something else. I started learning to play Dungeons and Dragons,
Where am I now?
I no longer have the urge to play video games anymore. I’ve learned that I need to put myself first. I’ve been able to find many hobbies that I enjoy doing now that are not video games. One of the biggest hobbies is working on my blog and my Youtube Channel. Being able to share the failures and experiences I had in my life with the world. Because life is hard, and if I can share something with people that makes their lives just a little better, then it’s all worth it.
Nowadays, if I want to play a video game a little bit to catch up with some friends, that’s fine. I have the self-disciple to say, “No,” if I still have things I want to get done that day. I also don’t care about leveling up or collecting fancy skins anymore; it all seems meaningless to me now. I know that any progress I make in-game does not make my real life any better. So I am much happier and content with working on myself in real life and being able to see actual results that move me forward.
