Rethinking recovery

Life in Recovery
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My therapist asked me to rethink my recovery. What are my goals?
Surely living a month in active addiction every time I get a subscription for a streaming service isn’t what I want.

Yet at the same time, does technology give more pain than banning a big part of it? Not really.
Life’s better than ever. I like myself. I’m confident. I am a lot more social. I have a good job(30-45 hours a week) in which I have a future. I know what I want in life. I’m starting to make new friends. I no longer think of myself as ugly. I’ve started going to the gym.

All in all, I have very little internal motivation to lessen my screen usage. And I’m struggling with a higher power. I believe in God, but I don’t think He gives a fuck about me. So I don’t get a lot of strength from Him. My rock bottom is so high that it can’t be called a rock bottom. So why care? The only reason I have to quit is that I know active addiction is bad.

All in all, I struggle with motivation. But by sheer luck, my subscriptions to streaming services all ended yesterday, on my birthday. So I’m gonna do what Paul @Dolse71 did… but a few decades earlier in life :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: . I want to have abstained from recreational youtube and subscribing to streaming services for a year when I turn 20.

I’m going to be tapering my addictions in baby steps instead of instantly going all in and giving up within weeks. I’m 19, I still have plenty of time to “quit”, which I can accept now. I do not need to be perfect. So for the time being I cannot watch youtube recreationally, so only when I need a tutorial of sorts. And I cannot get my own subscription to a streaming service nor use someone else’s in private. I can still watch live TV. Or watch with someone else on their account. This should make a pretty big difference when it comes to time spent abusing technology.

I will take further steps when I’m ready, but the past has shown over and over again that I won’t instantly be able to control my technology use for longer than a few weeks at a time. And technology abstention sadly isn’t possible in this day and age.

I am already struggling though. My mind is making excuses left right and centre. And I don’t have a lot of resolve at the moment…

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I’m really tired (it’s middle of the night for me and my dog woke me up to chat) so I might not fully understand but somehow I have a good feeling about this, Jan. What I especially like:

This sounds manageable.

Manageable and true.

I support you. And it’s admirable you self-examine like you do. And go to the gym. Super positive steps. Not even baby steps either. Well done!

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Thanks Faugxh, I appreciate that :smiley:

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Sounds like a good plan, Jan. Keep in mind… it’s progress, not perfection that matters. None of us will ever perfectly manage our addictions.

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I seriously relate to you a lot man, like I said I use to have the worst gaming addiction to call of duty when I was 17, I wouldn’t leave my house I’d wake up smoke pot stay in side all day, game till 5 6 in the morning sleep a hour or two and repeat. I haven’t touched a Xbox in years, recently I downloaded a call of duty mobile game for my IPad and instantly started abusing it, bought a Xbox controller to Bluetooth and play, my Xbox controller shit the bed in two days and I took it as a sign. Hasn’t touched the game since… I’m seriously addicted to everything, attention seeking was a big thing for me in school, addicted to being the class clown or being a jock or being cool, addicted to internet and devices now, addicted to sex and sexual thoughts. My pre workout, literally pretty much everything you put in my damn face I will be addicted to… for me my adhd holds a big part in it…. I try to focus on my two big ones cocaine and alcohol, those are the ones that really ruin my life. The others are definitely still there but I can be semi mindful of them and put some control and Halts to them, but the drugs and alcohol theyre is zero control…. Just wanted to say I relate your doing good, you’ll figure things out little bit at a time. Just stay mindful and don’t beat yourself up to much. It’s really to hard to push literally everything out of are life’s man, we do need to focus on the really bad and enjoy life a little as well. Yes it’s always best to be the best we can, but sometimes we stress and kill are selfs more trying to be perfect, it’s impossible. ,much love hopefully nothing I said is triggering or offensive

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I got faith in you buddy even if you did just make me feel old :joy: I got myself a new bad habit, online gambling, so maybe we can help each other out a bit with screen time. Mine is worse late at night and into the early hours, I know it’s wrong and I haven’t really got the money so I need to quit before I lose what I have got but I’ve been saying this for over a week now and I haven’t managed to stop yet.
Anyway good luck mate I know you got it in you :+1::no_entry_sign:

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It’s a very interesting take Jan,

I like your perspective that you can’t eliminate what encourages your addiction, TV, games YouTube etc. but you can find ways to circumvent it, I relate it to an alcoholic cannot say bars should be banned because they cannot attend them, they just choose to not visit them because of their addiction.

The thing about addicts is addiction takes many forms, It generally relates to overindulgence in one or many activities to the point where it can become unhealthy. I know this cause I say I have been an addict with ADHD my whole life.

My addiction didn’t start with alcohol, it started with different things. Baseball cards. Sports. Bicycles. And I would overindulge and collect things like an obsession just for that satisfaction, and then the only satisfaction was more.

I still do it to this day. One drink would lead to a hundred drinks. One TV show would lead to watching an entire series. Video game level would lead to me completing an entire series and have to complete it on expert mode just to satisfy my requirements

YouTube I’m a YouTube whore, one video leads to a hundred, often about the same subject matter from different perspectives,

The Bonus here is you have found some healthy outlets and it seems like your doing well, your working what the US would call a full time job, I’m not sure if you graduated high school now. But that’s a accomplishment, your hitting the gym daily. And it’s a super self esteem booster. Confidence is a serious plus from many aspects, people in general can see confidence coming from a person, there’s a difference in confidence and conceited, but it’s an easy tell tale, on the plus side the ladies love a confident man. So there’s that too.

If you seek perfection you will always fail, but if you practice until you can’t get it wrong, you will be successful.

Sobriety is a science, science is practiced. If you see your doctor they are a “practitioner” or practicing medicine. There’s no solid 100% perfect answer. If you treat sobriety like a science and practice it with different mentalities. You’ll eventually find what works for you. I wish you all the best my friend.

Some food for thought. I’m officially old as shit, my son is a year younger than you

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@Fury @anon53116147 that ADHD part truly sucks. I never know if my obsession is from ADHD or addiction. Really makes recovery a ton harder.

@Dolse71 online gambling is very dangerous :grimacing: I think I’d be addicted to it within minutes if I’d started it. And I’m telling you that you’re gonna stop today. That way you won’t have to pick a day yourself as that could take months.

@Lisa07 @Lorelai thanks for the kind words :blush:

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