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At first I had a lot of anxiety because the mechanics of the game would penalize me pretty harshly if I was away for a few days/weeks and wanted to come back. T

by siquick 11y ago

At first I had a lot of anxiety because the mechanics of the game would penalize me pretty harshly if I was away for a few days/weeks and wanted to come back. The lizard part of my brain started urging me to play it in a way that was so urgent it felt like I could almost reach out and touch it. But I had deleted the app from my device, and when I sat myself down and told myself that those urges had no weight because the consequences would never be felt since I wasn't going to play the game again. The second sentence is the most important here - good work on getting rid.

shostack 11y ago
Thanks! I consider myself fairly self-aware and the most fascinating aspect of this for me has been observing my thought process as I went through this. The way I laid it out above makes it seem rather simple. Like, I had a five second mental conversation with myself and was like "oh, ok, no consequences so I don't need to care anymore." However the reality was that it was something I needed to continually coach myself on until I internalized it over the course of a day or two. The initial realization of this came pretty quickly, but actually breaking the hold it had on me took real repeated effort. I have newfound respect for those who are able to kick much more harmful addictions where the body's response is "pain and agony" vs. just "an annoying nagging feeling."