Level 1: Training Stage
Hello there.
I’m Tim Cameron, a struggling musician and freelance writer for www.cracked.com.
A couple of months ago, I decided to quit gaming forever. The epiphany came some weeks after I went to New York on a romantic mission to meet a girl whom I had only ever spoken to online. She turned out to be the sweetest, most wonderful person I have ever met. I came home full of optimism for the future. Now that I had found The One, I thought, I would have a new enthusiasm for life. Creating stuff would be easy! Thanks to Betty, I would finally start writing the songs that would make me famous. It was an awesome feeling, and to celebrate, I bought some beers and played Crysis for six hours straight.
I did the same thing the next night.
And the night after that.
At this point, I realised that certain things would have to change. I turned 30 in April, and I am still working a crummy job during the day, and spending my evenings playing PC games and fearing Friends Reunited. I know I am better than this. My band has got great reviews, and I know I can make something of it if I could only commit myself enough. The solution is to give up games. Trouble is, they’ve been my constant companion for as far back as I can remember.
One of my earliest memories is playing Pong on an ancient analogue console with two dials for controllers and a sound scheme that made your standard Bontempi keyboard sound like the New York Philharmonic. In primary school, I had an Atari 65XE. Secondary school, a Commodore Amiga. In 6th form college, it was a 486 PC. University: Playstation. When I failed to graduate (thanks, Wipeout) I bought a Pentium, and it’s been a long slow slough of beautiful misery ever since. I literally can’t remember a time when games weren’t my faithful companions.
And now I’m giving them up. Only, it’s not that easy. Tell your friends or family that you’re trying to give up alcohol, and they’ll give you sympathy and try to help. However, a grown man cannot tell his family that he is hopelessly hooked on Oblivion and expect anything other than glazed looks of vague disgust. So, I’m making this blog in the hope that I’m not the only person struggling with such a silly addiction. If you are in the same predicament, let me know. We’ll work through this together.
Filed under: Addiction
Good luck with this, Cam. I should probably stop wasting days/weeks/years, and get to writing, myself.
I hope it all works out.
We should totally do this together. It would be a chance for shared hardships, gruff bonding, and who knows… perhaps love.
*wipes emotional tear from eye*
Love, eh? Count me in!
I might as well start now. Now that I’m actually paying to go to school, I really don’t have the time to fuck around anymore.
You can do it, man. Take it gently. The trick is to find other pastimes that are just as fulfilling as games. I recommend you start with masturbation.
If you gradually increase your masturbation time and decrease your gaming time, eventually you’ll spending the entire evening thumping your parson, and you won’t miss games at all.
You’ll now be addicted to porn, of course, but hey. Porn is AWESOME.
I actually went through something similar, but with card games instead of computer games. I played Magic for 12 years, made it to the pro tour and nationals one year, and started a business selling cards.
Then decided to quit.
Why? It just wasn’t fun anymore. Or maybe it was, but I was just looking for a different level of fun. In the end, I decided to move on, salvage what of my life I could, and see where I was…and realized all of my friends were gamers who saw me quitting as either Weakness (with the capital W) or self induced suffering. Why? Who knows. But its a long journey.
It’s terrifying when you realise your life is one big hole you’ve created for yourself. It’s awesome that you were able to turn everything around. I played Magic when I was a high-schooler and I can totally understand the addiction; also, it must cost you a damn fortune to be the best at it, what with the extortionate prices of decks.
I wonder if there is such a thing as a healthy addiction. Probably not.
I love your writing on Cracked! and Juvenile Comedy, and I think that it’s great that you intend to better your life (more time on the band gets no complaints from me, because I like you guys). I wish that I could work through an addiction with you, gruff bonding and all, but my addiction seems to be centered on webcomics, comedy sites, and blogs, so the only way to keep in touch would be a form of cheating. I suppose I’ll just have to watch you suffer alone.
Seriously though, the best of luck to you.