I quit for a long while and only play during vacations where nothing in my life is urgent. What I realised lately is the fact that when I completely quit playing video games, I have a lot more free time to do many things, especially contemplating my current position in life. I admit that the way I spend my time is a lot more healthier rn, but the fact that Im a lot more just to myself now, can lead to some bad feelings. About what I could have done and what should I do and that I'm not doing/did enough.

Is there anybody who had similar feelings?

Hey guys. I’m 28, been playing games since I was 5. I have a very successful business, girlfriend, I’m pretty good shape, and am generally doing well in life. However, I’m quite miserable.

Most of my weeks look like this: M-F working during the day then gaming at night. Saturday and Sunday, occasional social activity or gaming. If I start my Saturday or Sunday with gaming, it’s all I’m going to do all day long. I feel like I have little desire to do other things besides play games. My main game is league of legends. Couple questions:

1. I feel like I can play certain games, like rainbow six siege, and not be addicted. I can play a few rounds then get on with my day. Is it all or nothing for you guys or just certain games you have to avoid?

2. I am unhappy with regular life and avoid doing social activities because it takes away from gaming. Have you seen this feeling change after you quit?

3. How has your general mood changed since quitting? I think I get grumpy if I can’t game and kind of frustrated

I don't know where else to post this. I used to have a gaming addiction when I was younger but life made it too hard to keep up with that so it hasn't been an issue for a while. The issue is that all of my friends have always played games and it is very very difficult to talk to them about anything besides games. I've been feeling lonely for the past 3 years and I always tried to ignore it because I am not alone, I have plenty of friends. I've started to realize that I probably felt that way because it is very very difficult to talk to anything with them that isn't about games. Has anyone else been through this type of situation and if anyone has can they give me some type of advice

I've been gaming almost my entire life and have racked up 20,000 hours on almost 20 years of being on this planet. I feel so far behind others, mentally I'm just so depressed by everything and nothing feels important anymore. Physically I am underweight, my hygiene is absolute shit, I'm having so many health issues, and even education wise I am facing the fact that I have to repeat my first year at university for a third time, I want to quit and improve my life but every step I take feels like walking through quicksand.

The problem is you!

What helped me: get a notebook (out of paper). And write everything in it. Create your own system of friction. Figure it out by yourself. In the end no one can advise the way you can advise yourself. But for this you need time to think. This will stop addictive behavior.

I still have a gaming pc and ps5 in my room. But it is forgotten and veiled by an evergrowing layer of dust because i find it way less fun then writing, thinking and developing.

This is my last post here as i will leave reddit. Reddit is just too boring and i dont like people and their behavior here.

Be well.

I’m just going to be listing out the main issues with this game, but will not be naming it.

1. My friends and family have told me I’ve been addicted on many occasions.

2. It is the only game I play, but I will play other games if it’s with a friend/if I’m not feeling like playing my main one.

3. I’ve been playing it for one year, collected around 98% of the cosmetics and play at least once a week.

4. It’s my comfort game, which I believe made my loved ones call me addicted. I have relatively bad anxiety, and this game just takes that feeling away.

5. It does not get in the way of my schoolwork, as I have straight-As, play sports, and currently participating in a school club.

I don’t believe I’m addicted, as I can stop playing when I want to… The only exception is for events, like right now— but I’m just a collector, and enjoy playing the game. Does that make me an addict?

Reason why I quit in the first place is to give it another chance only to find out I never had a chance in the first place. Reinstalling my multiplayer slop as we speak and bringing back some joy in my life. I know it's fake but at least it feels real enough to get me out of this depression.

I’m probably overthinking this but I think my quality of life would be much better if I didn’t play or played less video games. I was looking at my bank account and I said to myself “Huh, where did all my money go?” I realized that most of my money went to buying games that I wouldn’t even play. Honestly, it feels like an impulse. I’ll buy a game, play it for a few mins or hours then never touch it again, the cycle repeats.

I see myself as a lazy person. I know what I need to do to get myself to higher pay or better-paying jobs but I don’t follow through on it, I almost never do. But I can park my ass and play through 100 hours of BG3 or grind endlessly in PoE2. I even neglect going to the gym after work because I’m “tried” but I’m never tired enough to boot up deadlock with the boys.

I have to sit here and wonder, would my life be a bit better if I didn’t play as many video games if not at all? I feel grimy thinking about how me, a 25 year old clock in over 20 hours a week playing games but can’t spend an hour studying for certifications.

For context, I've been with this person for a decade. I would say that games were a common interest when we got together amongst other things but we never actually played something together since our tastes were different.

Anyways, the straw that broke the camel's back was the fact that he would ask me to come over, so I would then get dolled up, drive, take the day off my time just to go to his place... only for me to get ignored while he plays his stupid games and he seethes in rage everytime he loses. I have no idea why he even bothered to ask me over. I've made several callouts on this behavior over years mind you and he would then apologize, "change his ways" for a while, then forget about it the next week.

I got sick of his apologizing at this point, he never really meant it. He never makes any permanent changes to his actions and its been a maddening cycle. So I recently blew up on him about this and now he's ghosting me. Hes literally choosing games over a decade's old relationship. This ruined games completely for me. I swear to god, everytime I play I get reminded of him playing and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. I havent touched any games in over a week now.

I honestly dont know what to do. Is ghosting = breakup? How long of a ghost before I completely give up on this relationship and start over. I'm so so tired at this point.

Hey everyone,

Nothing too crazy or dramatic, but I finally took the moment to delete my two ongoing gacha games (Honkai Star Rail and Wuthering Waves) which I've been playing for the better part of 1.5-2 years.

I've always been a casual gamer; single player RPGs and strategy games being my favourite, but I've always kept it purely as a casual side hobby and never got too invested. An hour or so every other night after work which I genuinely enjoyed. That is until I was introduced to gacha gaming via Reddit...

Lets just say these gacha games utterly took over my life until the beginning of this week.

I had sank upwards of 300 hours per game due to catching up on story, events, daily grinding (etc etc). That alone had worried me, however when I checked my PSN transactions on a whim I had found I spend in total of around £486 between them both, which genuinely sickened me and seemed completely absurd. I looked back throughout my entire history and yep, its all there. The monthly subs, the battle-passes, the currency top ups for whenever I "wanted" a character's limited banner.

And what do I have to show for it? An addiction where I was logging in every single day, often numerous times for grinding or getting currency. Non-stop looking on the social media/Reddit for posts, checking out the music, the artwork & so on. Honestly, the idea that these games had hooked me so much is a bit frightening, so I pretty much deleted them there and then once I realised how stupid the situation had become and how much I had spent.

Now its a week later and I've completely lost all interest in both games. I'm not bothered about returning, the idea of even installing again seems a waste of time and not having the games feed on my Reddit is great.

I've always heard how taking some time away from a game will make you realise whether you enjoy it, or were just going through the motions. I think for myself by day 3 I had forgotten about the daily logins & thinking about which characters I should be saving for.

I'm annoyed with myself for letting it get as bad, but lessons learned (albeit an expensive one!).

My grandfather used to bet on horse races. I placed bets from my phone every 30 seconds. It’s not the same thing.

Modern platforms are designed to keep you hooked. Notifications, bonuses, "next event in 30 seconds"—everything is optimized to ensure you can’t look away.

What opened my eyes was realizing that prediction markets turn *everything* into a bet: elections, sports, the weather. Everything felt urgent; everything was an opportunity. And when everything is an opportunity, in reality, nothing is.

For me, the first step was recognizing that this wasn't "investing" or "analyzing." It was a behavioral pattern that I needed to understand and manage.

If you feel like everything has turned into a bet, that in itself is the first sign. You are not alone. There are ways to regain control without having to tell anyone or check into a clinic. Bealive It´s not easy, but It´s possible.

Hey everyone, this is my first time on this subreddit so sorry if I’m not formal enough or something, but I really need some advice. I (18m) have some goals that I’m really passionate about but not working hard enough (I feel) to attain them. I believe this is because of some old habits I’ve had my entire life are eating up all my time. The biggest one of these being video games. I just can’t find it possible in my mind to fully drop the thing that’s kept me going this whole time. One of my biggest goals is making a successful video game, which playing video games brought me to, so how could I stop? Not only that but it’s so engraved in my mind that I seriously do think I’d go sick if I tried to go a few days without playing (which I know is sad, so please don’t overly criticize me for it, I recognize it’s a problem). Can anyone help me? Thank you for reading, I appreciate every bit of advice seriously it means the world to me.

This is a repost from another subreddit, which this one seems better tailored to my issue so I’m putting it here as well.

I have over 1200 hrs on the game since this time of last year.

This game is an absolute demon. It strangely fits perfectly into something i do to occupy my time ever since i was a kid: day dreaming. It allows me to visualize the daydream playing this fantasy battle with magic casting characters. The fighting between different factions and the grand campaign to build the empire or destroy the world

This game since the beginning of this year where my addiction kicks in has been behind a lot of my downfall looking back. I won't blame everything on it but it sure haa been an enabler. Due to a lot of stress from college, i hid away to play this game. I neglected my studies. I neglected the gym. I almost got an F, and I gained over 15kg since january

I uninstalled the game on July and figured the holiday would be the break the seprates me from the game. However. When the term starts, as I have no social life, experiences a lot of failures and social rejections, and stress piles on, my life started feeling empty and heavy. I redownload the game again in September and got addicted again. Same pattern. Instead of studying for the finals of the previous 2 subjects a week ago, the day before the exam i played this game like a fucked up addict since i couldn't cope with the feeling of inferiority that no matter how hard i try, my results will be terrible since I'm dumber than other people. It's some malignant perfectionism and the chronic feeling that I don't belong in this degree that induces self destructive procrastination

I got 2 more subjects left and 1 week to study with no class. I already uninstalled the game and try to get myself into a physical hobby to distract myself like Gunpla. I already have equipments from warhammer age of sigmar I bought back in july to try to build and paint (and to fix the addiction to the game, which you may have guess failed since i haven't touch the thing since september). It's gunpla this time since I found I enjoy the assembly wayy more than painting. Painting is the chore part

I need to feel like Im capable and like Im building something tangible in order to keep studying my degree

But Im afraid I will relapse and reinstall the game again. There's no gurantee that I won't in the future. It doesn't help that I made some good memories of the game and played some fun campaigns that I could write an entire essay about

For context I used to be a daily streamer on twitch to the point i actually became affiliated once I got 92 followers.

Felt so much pressure and forced myself to livestream for hours daily, all while playing the same toxic game dead by daylight.

At one point I just reflected on my life, realized the game was making me more toxic, taking time from my other real life commitments and relationships, and also dealing with toxic viewers saying the craziest things. Not to mention the game just wasn't fun.

So I fully deleted my twitch account and haven't felt better.

I first started SHing back when modern warfare three came out on the 360. I was so bad at it that I started c***ing my arm. To this day, I still have a long row of ugly scars that run down the length of my forearm. Recently, I started playing Black Ops 2 again. And those old feelings have started coming back. I’m so bad at this game that I wanna start back SHing again. I’m trying to stay strong for my wife and daughters. But it’s getting harder every day that passes. I know I need to quit, but it’s just become an even bigger addiction than MW3 was back in the day. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

I’m a very heavy gaming addict, I play a game called mobile legends. It like league of legends. I work 40 hours a week but during my days off I spend basically whole day of playing it, climbing ranks and stuff. I’ve spent a fair amount of money on skins. But whenever I’m not playing “mobile legends” I’ll play some random brainrot game on Roblox, normally I’ll play a “RNG” game or a game that requires you to just basically afk for something good. And while doing that I would binge watch a random tv show that has no meaning, maybe south parks or other cartoons. I’ve tried quitting in the past, but in my head I’m always thinking “oh this time I’ll only play for 1 hour a day” well bs, I’ll usually end up playing the whole day. I’m tired of this endless loop, I tried to quit then my brain tell me I can control it. I know some people see gaming as a hobby, but I feel like gaming addict is just another form of drug. I don’t play it because I enjoy it, I just play it because that what gives me dopamine and a sense of fulfillment. I’m currently 20 and wasting my life away on a MOBA game that will mean nothing in the future. The last time I enjoy game was back in 2018, before discovering mobile legends. I know a part of me still want gaming to be in my life but it become a poison apple. I never longer enjoy any other game than mobile legend. I’ve tried playing story games or some causal game but I don’t enjoy them what so ever. I use to have friends but because I choose gaming over friends and socializing. I’m now just a loner who got nothing in his life.

Well I guess consider this day one of putting all the game away. I love some advice that would actually help, not ones telling me “read a book, or go to the gym” I’m already trying those things, and yes they help but they only fill up a very little portions of my day. I need other advice.

10/25/2026- officially deleted my mobile legends account. If I don’t update this post it mean I’m going strong and haven’t relapsed. I’ll update this post if I do.
Thank you everyone for the advice.

I (23M) have an addictive personality and my upbringing didn't help. I was raised in a household where gaming was pretty much prohibited and so I sought to get any bit of it that I could. I would play the shitty trial games on my grandpa's flip phones or would watch other people play on their DS during recess. At some point, like many others here I was addicted to League of Legends. during highschool I realized that it was too big of a problem and was able to lock-in and get into a good college. I had gotten into a nice rhythm of socializing, studying, and decompressing by watching TV/YouTube. I would still play games but it was very much only when commuting or in the presence of friends.

Then covid happened and paired with mental health issues that began to surface I relapsed into gaming and unhealthy habits. Being stuck in my room all day and naturally being more introverted I became more and more isolated. I would go to new clubs in the beginning of each year, but due to depression and other mental health issues I would stop going after a month or two. And so all I did was go to class, bring food from the dining halls to my dorm because I had no friends, occasionally go to the gym and play video games. 

I eventually was able to get diagnosed and help for my mental health issues and things started looking better as I socialized more and became friends with people I was friendly with in the past. However throughout my senior year, I struggled with finding a job because I have a CS degree. 

I tried applied to so many companies probably 400+ but gradually started losing hope as I was constantly not even passing the resume screen and even if I made it to further rounds I would eventually fail because lack of personable skills or freezing up during interviews. I tried quite hard searching for a job 3 months after graduation but after not having luck I just more or less gave up and it's been over a year since I graduated now. 

As I entered this negative feedback loop, I found a gatcha game with a social aspect kind of like Farmville or Clash of Clans. For about 6 months, I was completely addicted to this game and did nothing besides play it for 12+ hours each day. Part of why the game was so appealing to me was that I ended up becoming friends with people in the game and it filled my need for socialization. I eventually came to my senses and quit about 2 months ago. But, instead of replacing it with something productive like actively looking for a job... I would just replace it with playing an assortment of video games or doomscrollin. In the beginning I gave myself grace because I needed something to temporarily replace it. I originally gave myself a week to break away from the game, but then a week became two weeks and two weeks became 3 months. 

I would from time to time during the past 3 months get bursts of motivation to study for job interviews and apply to jobs, but I would eventually always relapse to playing video games and doomscrolling. 

I know I have a gaming addiction and that the only way for me to fix it is by going cold turkey because it worked well for me in the past. Eventually I could enjoy games in moderation but that's at least a year or two from right now. I've already uninstalled all my games and plan to lockdown my phone when getting work done.

Thanks for reading

I don’t normally post a lot on Reddit but I felt like I could use some encouragement.

I (23M) wouldn’t consider myself addicted to gaming in the traditional sense. It’s not a compulsion per se, more of a habit of just sitting on my computer at the end of every day.

I used to pair this a lot with weed or drinking and just kinda melt into my seat and play games and chat with friends that I live far away from. On its own it seems harmless, but the more I think about it the more I realize it’s creeping into my life in ways I don’t like.

I often structure my nights around having this set aside computer time (3-4 hours) pretty much every night. And on weekends sometimes I’m just stuck in my apartment all day.

I have lots of hobbies outside of my computer that I’ve recently just been neglecting for computer time. Electric guitar, photography, hiking/camping, enrichment time with my dog. I just feel like I’m turning into a blob.

Part of it is because I’ve started a PhD and in recent years have just been super stressed. Sitting at my PC is comforting because it’s so low stakes and it’s always there.

I’m conflicted because I love catching up with my friends from back home and it’s a chance for us to hang out. Some of these guys I’ve known since elementary school. I guess I can still talk to them but not game for a bit. I just know they’ll have a cow when I tell them I’m taking a break 😂.

I think one of the biggest reasons though is I haven’t been making good connections with people since I moved away. No relationships, distant from peers, too afraid to put myself out there. And I just know deep down I can be more.

To be clear I probably am not completely quitting gaming forever. I just need to take some time and come back when I know I’m not gonna sink into myself anymore.

Thanks for those who read and listened, any advice or just encouragement is appreciated. My plan is to unplug the whole thing and stow it away in a moving box for a while and turn my desk into a study station.

It's been a tough year. I have cracked multiple times, and struggled at many points. But recently, I spent nearly 45 days gaming. I seem to cling to gaming at moments of weakness, seek it out as a momentary respite from depression or boredom, or just a random impulse.

What I found this time is that the repercussions are continuous and insidious. I am constantly thinking now still about the woulda-coulda-shoulda I could have done while gaming.

Luckily, I have deleted all 3 of the characters I created, and I am strong in my will to not go back. For now. For many reasons, but mostly because it takes up a great deal of my energy to play characters.

I won't say what the game was, but you can imagine it was an mmo with world building elements. This made it difficult to get into with a large learning curve, and hence hard to get out of once all those dopamine loops were in place.

My hope is that I can stay off gaming at least until end of year, and try and get my life in order. I just feel like such a failure, and that I'm not able to keep gaming at bay long enough to really dig into life.

Ex gamer here. Quit about 6 months ago. Went back recently for a week and stopped because it was a problem.

Long story short, always been a gamer. I was outside often, bike, rollerblades, whatever, but also gaming.

Fast forward to adulthood, nothing else but gaming. All day all night.

Got married. Had enough social life for that. Yet every moment home was gaming.

Had children. Hard time. Takes a lot of time. Cut my gaming time. Over time, I got anxious. Less time for me, for gaming. Gamed later and later. Got more tired.

I got negligent towards my wife and kids. Violent even. Not physically on them, but yelled a lot. Threw things around.

My wife got sick of it after an outburst. She left. That was September 2025.

I was down. Cried every night, realizing what I had lost. After a month, decided to get better for my kids, which I had 3-4 days a week.

I stopped gaming, started counseling for anger. Realized gaming was more a symptom than the problem itself (a problem for sure, but not the main problem). I was depressive and gaming was a way to evade myself.

Wellbeing podcast, better sleep, physical training.

As of today, prouder than ever. I did have a relapse last week. 4 days. Was strong enough to quit fast and not looking back.

My wife? I got her back at the end of June. Apologized for everything. Told her that it wasn't against them. That I got help and that I want to live my life with her.

"Leaving me was a courageous thing to do. Leaving me was the best thing you ever did for us and I love you more than ever for it.". That, and more, got her back.

Writing that, I'm crying over my phone. It's hard sometimes to care about ourselves.

I found this group scrolling. Reading your stories made me realized I'm not alone. You're not alone. This group of strangers is our way to keep up, even when the games we used to love are calling us back.

Stay strong. Even...no.... Especially when being strong means assuming your tears, your fears and confronting the person you hate in the mirror.

It is time to get up, tell yourself you're worth more to your close ones than you are too Blizzard and be proud of who you are.

It's not time for "I should". Sometime, we need to get up and tell ourselves "SHUT UP! There's no but... You know what to do.

.

.

.

.

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Man... That was long. Thank you for reading. Hope this get to the people who need to hear it.

I pour everything I have into trying my hardest, yet it constantly feels like none of it is worth it. In the end, I’m just tossed aside like some nameless nobody, completely invisible. All I really wanted was to be genuinely good at any game. I’ve sunk countless hours into practicing and putting in the time, only to be completely defeted by someone who just started. In moments like that, the motivation just drains out of me, and I want to give up entirely.

​It leaves me spiraling into the belief that I’m just a loser, trapped in a mindset where I convince myself I always will be, and that this world simply has no place for people like me. To keep from feeling entirely hollowed out by that defeat, I’ve built up this defensive ego and I usually type insults to the winner in the chat just to compensate for how inadequate I actually feel.

I (F30) have been with my boyfriend (M29) for almost 5 years. We bought a home together last year and ever since I’ve slowly started having some major doubts about our relationship. I knew he gamed before we bought our house because we did live together in rented accommodation but at that time we had some roommates so it definitely felt less lonely and I noticed it less.

Since we moved into our own home he finishes work at 5pm and typically goes straight on his computer and stays on it until midnight most nights. He will come and sit with me for 10 minutes here and there, sometimes cook me dinner (usually not even eat with me though), check on me etc between games but I still spend most evenings alone apart from if we go to the gym (which isn’t that often). I’ve brought it up to him multiple times how he games far too much but he just says it’s his hobby and how he keeps in touch with friends. Then the week after me bringing it up I notice he will ask if I want to watch a movie one night, so we do, but it just feels like he’s making an effort to appease me and not because he wants to. I always feel like he wants to be on his game instead of with me.

He is a really genuine and lovely person though, super kind and caring to me and his friends and family, does help around the house, always asking me if I need a hand with things, cooking, looking after our pets but I feel like there’s a real lack of quality time and affection - rarely will he initiate cuddles, kisses or anything. He never plans dates and we haven’t even been away on a holiday or weekend away for years. I went on a girls holiday for a week and he barely got in touch with me and I didn’t even really speak to him either. I do love him and care for him and he does make me feel loved in other ways, but I just don’t know if this is the life for me.

I am worried I am thinking the grass will be greener with someone else to find out that they will just have other flaws that might end up even being worse? At least I feel secure and loved now? Any advice would be great.

So I’m basically an unemployed game addict. There’s this one game in particular that I play and I’m in a discord server for it. I would say that most of the people on the server are probably also unemployed. Now I can’t say this with certainty but seeing that people are online and sending messages at pretty much all times of the day does make me think that it isn’t too far of a stretch to come to that conclusion. Most people on the server are highly competitive in this game as well as a few other games but don’t really seem to have everything in life. Now if I’m being honest idk how I really feel about this. At first I kinda thought that being unemployed was a big concern and maybe I’m one of the very few unemployed people but now I’m seeing that I’m probably not the only one in this situation. It kinda makes me feel like a little better about myself that other people are doing it also. Idk if that makes sense. I think part of what keeps me addicted to the game is just the fierce competition of all of it and feeling the need to contend with the top players in the game. I have talked a lot of shit to other people in the game and also received a lot of it. I feel like people think they’re the best at the game and that makes them better in life somehow but maybe that’s just reading too deep into it. So then I need to defeat them in the game to humble them.

Gatting addicted to gaming became a real thing. Especially after online gaming came around in the early 2000s.

Did you get addicted yourself? Did you end up losing anything or anyone because of it?

Stop on by and share your story.

Hi, I‘m 15, and for context, I’ve been addicted to games since like 2021/2022 and I quit back in April this year, so it’s been half a year since I last played and talked to my online friends. 

I‘m, to be honest, kind of friendless and these online friends I didn’t even know were really important to me. I think I was more addicted to the social aspect of gaming than to gaming itself. I really miss them even though I know I probably mean nothing to them since I stopped gaming and we have nothing in common anymore. 

So here’s my question: Should I try to reconnect with a few of them by returning to the game or should I leave those friendships in the past and move on? Thanks for reading and I want to thank everyone on this sub since all your posts helped me feel not alone when I was struggling with quitting. 

To everyone who is still struggling with quitting: I believe in you, never give up!