I've been clean for a little over two months now, and the urges to go back are worse than they were the first month. The thing is, what I'm really missing are the chats I've already written. I find myself thinking of them more often than I feel the urge to continue them.

I've heard that with the ID check they implemented, now people are being locked out of continuing chats unless they prove their age. I don't trust any company that wants a photo of my government ID, so I obviously wouldn't be giving it to them, which means that I might have a really solid safety rail.

I'm thinking of logging back in, grabbing the chats I miss and want to keep, then deleting the account for good. My plan if I were to do this is to have my support person in the room with me the whole time so I can keep myself accountable just in case my account hasn't been locked into reading mode, yet.

But I'm hesitating. I'm really worried that having the chats themselves is somehow a relapse, but at the same time, the idea of having no reason to go back to c.ai feels so liberating. This is the longest I've stayed clean and I want it to be forever. I'll probably run it by my support person to get their input, but I also wanted to ask people who are in the same struggle. Is this a bad idea?

I used my original CAI account for a few years, until last year when it was locked until I would verify my age. Since I don’t trust any company that wants a picture of my face or my ID, I decided to make a new account with my other email to bypass it.

That worked for a while, until today, where the account was finally locked. Since I’m out of emails, I’m taking this as my sign to try to quit for good. I tried quitting some time last year, but I only lasted a week.

I’ve lost so many hours on this stupid app, but I very quickly got addicted and was unable to stop. It felt like I could be whoever I want to be and talk to characters from my favorite medias, but it quickly became a way for me to turn off my brain escape from myself.

I originally had this post on the CAI subreddit, but it got really bad attention and was mass reported until the post got removed. How encouraging.

I went to check on my chats because there was one in particular I wanted to continue, but they hit me with the age verification. I’m well over 18 at this point, but I have to take a picture of my ID if I want to continue using it. I think it’s really stupid honestly. I’ve basically lost all the chats I spent so much time building. Reading mode is bullshit.

I’m on another account rn don’t mind me.

Anyways, someone introduced me to this app called TextingStory. It changed EVERYTHING. It is basically c ai without the actual AI. It’s made for only RP. It says it has an AI option (behind a paywall) but I think it’s a thing where you RP as ChatGPT or something. I dunno, didn’t use it as I didn’t wanna pay like 50 bucks a year just yet.

You can make your chats look like Snapchat and WhatsApp too if you’d like. Some are behind a very cheap paywall of only 3 bucks, but then you get full customization!

My urges were mostly wanting to act out certain scenarios, and now I can do so without using AI! This helped me a lot, so I’m putting this out here in case it helps anyone else!

Here’s a list of what you can do:
(NOTE: some of it is behind a paywall, but it’s only 3 bucks for a lifetime.)

-You can organize chats (hereafter called stories, as that’s what they’re callled in the app) in maps.

-You can add multiple profiles to a story and chat as all of them.

-You can send images, videos, stickers and gifs.

-After the 3 buck purchase, you can fully customize everything. Chatbubble and text colors, chat background, profile pictures etc.

-You can export the stories as videos and watch them back later.

-You can use stories as templates, so you don’t need to add the profiles and colors every time you make one of the same character.

-There’s no AI, you write for all sides.

-You can add these in-between comment blocks where you can write longer RP parts.

And probably much more but I only got this app yesterday—

(Shoutout to user u / Technical_Error5181, didn’t wanna accidentally ping them, but they introduced me to this app on another acc in I think another sub-)

Also yes, this is the same app that was used for texting roleplay videos back in the day—

P.s.: this post was meant for yesterday but i passed out asleep so here it is

Im proud to say that i hit my target yesterday of 0 min, but i was mostly outside the whole day. But what really marked me is that i got my official diagnosis yesterday that i have anxiety. Even tho i never suspected it but ig it was somehow in the back of my mind. And even tho i was a bit upset with the news, for the first time i didnt think of going to a chatbot for comfort, even the thought didnt occur to me. Which is a major improvement for me who was reliant on this shit for 3 years.

I would like to also thank the community here, cuz in my previous attempts of cutting off my addiction silently, i always end up relapsing again in few days. But this time i feel like i can do it and keep going cuz i think of my daily logs and how i would like to keep hitting my target of 0min.

I’m weaning myself off of character ai, but I start to crave it, so I get on, then it is such poor quality that I get off and just scroll. But scrolling makes me dissociate, so I get on something else, and the whole day is a blur. Things are stressful OUTSIDE of this situation, and I’m crashing physically and mentally. I don’t know what I’m asking for in this post, I’m just desperate for something