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Author Topic: Giving Up Gaming  (Read 3634 times)

JBramhall

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Giving Up Gaming
« on: September 14, 2014, 09:15:36 pm »

Hi everyone, i'm semi-new to the forums (have been reading for a while yet haven't really posted). A bit of background on me is im a 17 year old male who is attending my final year of secondary school in little old Ashburton, New Zealand. I have been a gamer since I was around 7 years old when I first got to play my father's PS1 and have been a gamer since. It has helped me through my parent's divorce, their separate re-marriage, issues with dishonest friends and the such. I discovered DF around 12 months ago. It helped me through rough times.

My parents (Mum and Step-dad) and I made a deal (Which they started) that they will give up smoking (they have been smoking for 24 and 38 years respectively) permanently and in turn, I will give up gaming (including DF) till they end of the year. This will be the biggest change I have ever had to make.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to survive this bloody deal???

Thanks,
JBramhall
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Cheeetar

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2014, 09:20:08 pm »

Good for you man. Just find another hobby that you can reasonably invest a large amount of time on, and spend some of the time you'd usually spend gaming on studying or cleaning up around the house.
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dwarf_reform

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2014, 10:40:14 pm »

I'm 31 and my father just died at 48 years old from a heart attack that was at least partially due to his couple pack a day habit..

Even now, at 31, I wake up every morning (and go to bed every night) wishing I could gather up the willpower to finally quit.. Morning and night are when the breathing is worst.. I also watched my grandpa die from cigs as well, and it drove me insane that idiot cigarettes changed him from a healthy 12-hour-a-day welder into a shambling mess that could barely draw enough breath to walk himself to the bathroom..

So, at the very least, you must at least pretend to quit gaming. As you said, gaming got you through some tough times, which is true. On the other hand, smokers feel like cigs get them through hard times, which is very, very false :> Spending four or five dollars on some chemical-laced plant that violently tries to kill you by destroying your only way to intake oxygen has never, and will never, solve a problem or provide comfort :)

Anyway, pretend to give up gaming. Because if your parents are average humans they won't be able to just flawlessly drop cigs out of their lives without a few slip-ups.. Unless your gaming is leading to your grades being low or your dog starving from being ignored, then your game playing isn't harmful in any way (and is a time-passing hobby, the exact same as reading a book, or painting, or watching TV, or hiking.)

I can see where they're coming from, though.. Gaming to you is a second nature.. You've got your daily schedule, something like this: pop out of bed, take a crap, grab some food, play some DF. Now Imagine if you hopped out of bed, took your crap, got some food, and then you couldn't play DF. Yes, DF is sitting right there, fully accessible. Yes, you playing DF won't ruin anyone else's life. Yes, DF (or gaming in general) is a long-time ingrained part of who you are, and for it to suddenly come up missing is a disorienting, if not terrifying, experience..

Its the same with cigs.. The same gut-fear you feel about giving up games (good, fun, entertaining GAMES!) is the exact same feeling they have towards their cigs (good, fun, old friend CIGS!) :) And cigs are sitting right there, or at least they're at the nearest gas station. They're there, they won't kill anyone if one of your parents has a cig, its an ingrained part of who they are, and that is terrible in itself.

Quitting smoking is something like losing a limb.. You get that ghost itch. You'll have quit for two whole months and still find yourself unconsciously patting around looking for your cigs and then remember, "Ah, I quit.." :P You'll see other people smoking, or worse, smell it, and it'll be like your whole battle against them resets.. Its hard.. 131 extra additives and chemicals see to that..

And another thing I can say from experience: those cigs will kill your parents, I swear it. Unless something hammers them even earlier, those cigs will drive the air from their lungs and make them into fish out of water, and its a slow, miserable, gasping process. Embarrassing. Disgusting. My grandfather got exhausted from eating a fried egg sandwich, to where he'd have to sleep for a while just from the raw energy and hard breathing it took to close his mouth and chew..

If you love them, you'll do whatever it takes to help them (even if you sneak over to Jimmy's house and play DF like your hair is on fire!). And they may fail. Until you've had your own addiction like that its pretty hard to understand just how evil it is, how itchy it is.. Its a lot like your nose itching, but not scratching it.. It feels unnatural not to scratch, but quitting smoking requires you to leave that uncomfortable itch alone :| They're showing a high level of bravery to even try quitting, so you can be proud in that alone :D

Lastly, to anyone that does read this and doesn't smoke: DON'T. :) EVER.. Smoke some weed before you smoke a cig.. I've smoked weed daily for a year longer than I've smoked cigs (16 years of daily weed, 15 years of daily cigs..), and I've quit smoking weed twice for over a year in that time period.. Quitting weed was easy, EAAAASY, compared to cigarettes. Also, you don't "feel anything" from cigs after the first week of smoking (and what you feel in that first week is nothing, anyway..).. After a couple months of smoking the only thing you "feel" is simply the urge to smoke that next cig, nothing more. Itchy, murderous urge.

I'm 31 years old and have no grandparents left already. All but one dead to cigs, and the only one that lived past 65 years old was the only one who didn't smoke. Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and cigs gone throughout my life and I've got nothing to show for it except for the financial and health damage. If I live as long as my dad did I've only got 17 years left.

That's not very long, measured in DF-playing-time :|
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Zanzetkuken The Great

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2014, 10:50:40 pm »

Can anyone give me some advice on how to survive this bloody deal???

Depends, does FG&RP board count as part of giving up gaming?

If it does, you could probably drop some time reading Homestuck if you haven't (skipping interactive parts, because gaming), just because how long it is will burn a fair deal of time.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2014, 10:52:40 pm by Zanzetkuken The Great »
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Bauglir

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2014, 11:01:58 pm »

Netflix and a well-stocked public library will come in handy. If you get an itch to do something less passive, you can always study something or learn a new skill (can't go wrong with programming or a new language, if that's something you're into). Hiking is also fun if you've got nice places locally.
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Orange Wizard

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2014, 12:31:56 am »

I don't have much advice, seeing as I'm not actually crazy enough to give up gaming. I would heartily recommend checking out FG&RP if you haven't already, because once you sift through all the Fire Emblem and Magical Girls games there's actually a lot of awesome stuff there.
Bonus points because it doesn't actually look like gaming, unless your parents are perpetually leaning over your shoulder and watching everything you do...

Also,
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martinuzz

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2014, 06:23:42 am »

It does sounds like a reasonable deal at first glance.

However, there is a catch. You are 1 person, of minor age, that does not have to kick a physically addictive hard drug. Your parents are 2 adult persons that do need to do that. This will make them miserable, sick, irritable and whatsmore for at least a few weeks, if they go cold turkey, or very long, if they try things like reducing nicotine intake slowly with nicotin patches or chewing gums.
This is where the catch is in. This makes for a very unequal balance of power between the two parties. Not only is there the numerical unbalance of 2 vs 1, but also, there is the compulsive drive to score a shot, which can make people do stupid things, even to those they love. To put it bluntly, your parents will de facto be untrustworthy hard drug junkies, when it comes to quitting smoking.

From a pedagogic point of view, I disagree with your parents putting this on your shoulders. If they really want to quit smoking, they should not need a construct excuse like the deal they proposed you, but instead, just do it.

Imagine the following: You are caught gaming once, your parents resume smoking. Some years later one, or both get cancer and die. You will then feel guilty, because you gamed that one time, even if you rationally know it was the consequence of their own choice to continue smoking. That could be a consequence of this seemingly fair deal. Ask your parents if they thought about that.

Propose this: two seperate deals.
If they quit smoking for a year you do <something your parents really want> for them
If you quit gaming for a year, they do <something you really want> for you
« Last Edit: September 15, 2014, 06:30:49 am by martinuzz »
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andrea

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2014, 07:24:40 am »

I might be wrong, but it is possible that he made the second deal already and what he really wants is that his parents stop smoking.

martinuzz

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2014, 08:53:17 am »

I might be wrong, but it is possible that he made the second deal already and what he really wants is that his parents stop smoking.

That would make the two deal idea impossible. The whole point of two deals is to separate the two to prevent a guilt-trap.
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Cryxis, Prince of Doom

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2014, 11:00:48 am »

archery, designing games for my friends to play through (GM), and larping helped me stop
I play every once in a while but I kinda just slowly stopped playing video games

I took two weeks to draw several copies of the same map just different versions (environment, sites, and hard copy) and writing back story

as for looking for a hobby i found archery and it helps me pass the time

hope you can make it through a year and find a hobby that you enjoy
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XXSockXX

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2014, 01:57:43 pm »

However, there is a catch. You are 1 person, of minor age, that does not have to kick a physically addictive hard drug. Your parents are 2 adult persons that do need to do that. This will make them miserable, sick, irritable and whatsmore for at least a few weeks, if they go cold turkey, or very long, if they try things like reducing nicotine intake slowly with nicotin patches or chewing gums.
This is where the catch is in. This makes for a very unequal balance of power between the two parties. Not only is there the numerical unbalance of 2 vs 1, but also, there is the compulsive drive to score a shot, which can make people do stupid things, even to those they love. To put it bluntly, your parents will de facto be untrustworthy hard drug junkies, when it comes to quitting smoking.

From a pedagogic point of view, I disagree with your parents putting this on your shoulders. If they really want to quit smoking, they should not need a construct excuse like the deal they proposed you, but instead, just do it.
I agree, this is really a stupid idea. Giving up smoking after such a long time is incredibly hard , it's quite likely that they're not gonna make it on first try (been a smoker for 18,19 years now and never managed to quit). I can somehow understand parents trying to get their kids to spend less time gaming, but putting any kind of responsibility on the kid for something that is likely going to fail seems weird to me. As does the idea of giving up gaming entirely for the rest of the year (I personally could do that easily, but I don't get what they are trying to achieve exactly).
« Last Edit: September 15, 2014, 02:03:28 pm by XXSockXX »
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JBramhall

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2014, 04:34:20 pm »

Thanks, you guys have all given me a bunch to think about and I thought I might explain my situation a bit more.

I've wanted them to give up smoking for years now and they know this. I gave up begging them to quit about a year and a half ago now, figuring it was their choice and I couldn't change their mind.

They decided that since between work (I work about 22.5 hours a week at the local supermarket) and video games, I don't really bother to study much that they would try to get me to stop gaming by doing something that I want them to do like Martinuzz said.

They have been doing similar things with my little sisters for years saying if they _________ my parents will give up smoking but its always been something that my sisters can't do.
They doubt I can go through with this as they have already brought several packets of cigs waiting for me to fail and told me such.

The biggest barrier I'm coming across is that we live 15 kms out of town with nothing to do and they are already getting testy with my mum going into a massive cleaning frenzy and my step dad getting angry at every little thing.
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It's said that love is a battlefield. And knowing is half the battle. And forewarned is forearmed. And fourarmed is half an octopus. Therefore, knowing about future love is a skirmish between two half-octopus Battle Chimeras. And that's alright.

XXSockXX

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2014, 04:56:30 pm »

New deal proposal: If your parents stop smoking, they can easily afford to pay you a decent sum of pocket money, then you can quit your job and spend 22.5 hours a week studying (and gaming).  ;)

I'm still sceptical about using the fact that kids worry about their parents as a pedagogic instrument.

Then again, don't be too mad at your parents if they can't stop, it really is hard.
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JBramhall

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #13 on: September 15, 2014, 04:58:24 pm »

New deal proposal: If your parents stop smoking, they can easily afford to pay you a decent sum of pocket money, then you can quit your job and spend 22.5 hours a week studying (and gaming).  ;)

the issue is that our family is barely above the NZ poverty line. I work to help pay for our rent and food and hopefully save for Uni next year
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It's said that love is a battlefield. And knowing is half the battle. And forewarned is forearmed. And fourarmed is half an octopus. Therefore, knowing about future love is a skirmish between two half-octopus Battle Chimeras. And that's alright.

XXSockXX

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Re: Giving Up Gaming
« Reply #14 on: September 15, 2014, 05:10:15 pm »

New deal proposal: If your parents stop smoking, they can easily afford to pay you a decent sum of pocket money, then you can quit your job and spend 22.5 hours a week studying (and gaming).  ;)

the issue is that our family is barely above the NZ poverty line. I work to help pay for our rent and food and hopefully save for Uni next year
I wasn't being serious.
Financial troubles add stress though, which is a trigger for smokers, so that's not good. (Another reason quitting is so hard, withdrawl, both the physical and the mental part, adds stress, which makes you want to smoke more, which you can't, which is frustrating...and so on.)
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