Hey guys. I haven’t been doing great the last couple months. I feel I’m lacking on many levels.
I’m constantly watching Snapchat stories, which leads to TV, which leads to YouTube, which leads to procrastination, which leads to me getting upset with myself, which leads to me watching more YouTube, which leads me to being unfit, which leads to feeling even worse and down the rabbit hole of selfhate we go. Last Saturday, I hit my two years no gaming mark. I didn’t post it outside of my diary thread simply because I was too embarrassed of the fact that quitting my doc only led to a cross addiction.
But I’ve also been doing EMDR sessions. They’ve helped quite a bit and I’m starting to gain hope. I can be better. And this December I will be better. I want to show myself that I can do what I want to do. So this month I will challenge myself to do so.
I’ll be keeping myself accountable through this thread, but I also simply want to share my progress so that I can look back at it and see the joy that recovery brings me.
Can’t wait to follow along! I’m glad you have a plan 
Rooting for you Jan! And congrats on the milestone! Although I do understand your reservation arguement, this is something to be proud of!
So glad to see u posting and sharing with us what’s going on. I’m sorry uv struggled recently but I do want to say that even though cross addiction may have occurred, I don’t want u to minimize your 2 year gaming free accomplishment. That’s HUGE!! Im proud of you and I’m sure that wasn’t easy for u. We are human and we honestly do the best we can with what we have in the moment. Give urself some credit for ur milestone 
Am glad to hear from you. Progress not perfection and u are continually working on yourself, which is to be admired.
Lots of admiration for you for wanting out of that rabbit hole, Recognizing that you were in it in the first place. Glad that the EMDR is good.
Gaining Hope is so important. That is my wish for you and my hope. Congrats on the two years, it’s significant. Have a good December.
Thanks for the kind words everyone 
I truly appreciate it.
So far December is off to a rough start. My mom’s generous ex-boyfriend blames me for their break up. And now he wants all his gifts back including €250. There’s a high chance that losing that amount of money will cause me a shit ton of trouble. He’s threatening legal action. I told him to go ahead. According to Dutch law, a gift is a gift.
I’ve been kinda stressed about it so I almost overslept. I had to run downstairs, put shoes and my jacket on, and then I ran to the bus. So I didn’t do shit for my routine. Not beating myself up though. That will get me nowhere. I hope the rest of today run more smoothly. At least I’ve got backup deodorant in my bag and I’ve brought water, so that’s at least 2 wins
A.Gift.Is.A.Gift.
You gave up your kitty for him.
I have no idea the legalities but I’m on your side.
I hadn’t even thought about the cats, thanks for reminding me That would probably make my case even stronger if he does choose to take legal action. And thanks for siding with me
First off, Congrats! on your 2 years gaming free That’s a valid win you should be very proud of. Secondly, you’ve recognized the cross addiction and that’s also something to be proud of. Third, the mom’s ex-boyfriend is a wanker that should be ashamed of himself. A gift is a gift not a loan.
My mom’s ex has allowed me to keep the €250. He’s come to his senses and he’s sorry for the harm he’s brought. So I kissed his ass a bit so that I won’t have to keep hearing his whining and told him I forgave him for the slander and everything. So that situation should be diffused for the moment. I hope I can actually forgive him. He’s been a very kind man before the break-up. He behaved irrationally due to the pain he was experiencing. It doesn’t make it right, but it does make it understandable.
December 1st summary
Today started of like shit due to stress from my mom’s break-up.
I recovered my day when I went to school though.
I did a great job doing my homework.
My driving lesson went surprisingly well. I was very calm, even when there was a police car with flashing lights behind me when I was the first in line at a red light.
When I got home I worked on an assignment from 15:00/3pm until 23:31/11:31pm. The deadline was 22:30/11:30pm. I don’t think my teacher will make a problem out of that minute especially since I didn’t know of the assignment until yesterday whilst the rest of my class had been working on it for weeks.
I didn’t use any technology recreationally today besides a podcast.
Now I’m off to floss, brush and rinse my teeth with mouthwash.
I’ll shower tomorrow morning. Because at the moment I am dead. Goodnight all!
~Progress not perfection~
December 2nd Summary
Today was pretty good.
When I woke up I showered like I said I would.
I didn’t do the rest of my routine due to a lack of time. But that’s okay.
I followed most of my classes at school and did a good job with my homework.
Then I went to work where I was tired as fuck.
When I got home I wanted to jump into bed, but decided to power up on the couch for a while so that I’d have enough energy to brush my teeth.
Which I’m gonna do now.
Goodnight y’all
Thanks Charlie
The last couple days have been a bit of a mess. 4 days ago I became sick from accidentally consuming quite a bit of old frying oil. Hurt my stomach like crazy. To soothe the pain I watched some YouTube videos. The next day I woke up feeling better but there was some borderline technology abuse, which I’ll just count as abuse to keep shit simple. The day after, December 5th, I celebrated my sisters’ birthdays, which was fun. That evening I stumbled onto a website with many interesting articles about movies and war heroes. I read about forty articles… So I define that as technology abuse also. Yesterday my mom had to take some strong meds so she passed out for a couple hours so I had to take care of her last night. I watched TV to stay awake so that I’d be aware if she fell of her mattress. I also count that as technology abuse. But the month isn’t over, I’m ready for some more kicking addictions ass
You know what to define as “technology abuse “ for yourself. You also learned a lot about war and heroes and took care of your Mom.
I hope you have a lot of books around too.
Glad you got over the bad oil. I got sick from eating chichironies one time. I think that’s pig intestines fried in oil. Yuck yuck yuck. Everyone else loved them they just made me sick because all the grease.
Have a good rest of your December.
Today is the tenth day of December and so far it hasn’t been playing out the way I wanted it to. I’ve struggled quite a bit with technology abuse. Where do I draw the line? Is obsession the line? The inability to stop when I want to stop? Or simply any form of recreational technology?
Am I able to quit all technology at once? Or is tapering more the way to go about it? I’ve never truly been clean, I simply tapered by removing gaming from the technology pile. That made a big difference. I think I’ll focus on my sleeping pattern and no TV for now. I’ve had someone take over my Netflix account again. Let’s hope I won’t get a new account again knowing it doesn’t work. That would be a tad dumb.
I’m constantly grumpy and my back hurts from a lack of sleep. It’s annoying.
But here I go again. Setting out to fight a beast threatening our society and mental well-being.
For a while, I used an app called Lock Me Out to restrict myself from using certain apps on my phone.
One could even place daily time restrictions or window usage times with the app.
I do so too now, thanks for the suggestion. It isn’t one of those apps that you can pass easily which makes it a ton better