Addictions

I’ve always loved playing video games. The first video game I ever played was on Dad’s brand new laptop in 1986. I don’t remember the name of the game, but it was a grey pixel that would move through a grey maze pursued by other grey pixel creatures. I had an airplane simulator that ran off of a half dozen floppy disks, a walk through puzzle game about space that took at least 20 floppy disks, and one of my favorites - Duke Nuke’em. I got the first Nintendo when I was seven or eight, and played video games as much as I could until I was 20. When I was a kid it was maybe an hour a day, but as I got older I would hang with friends and we would have marathon gaming sessions for hours.I played lots of different types of games, but my favorite were role-playing games, like Zelda and the last game that I played, Morrowind, on Xbox.

In the spring of my 20s, I worked at a golf course on grandfather mountain. My goal for that spring and summer was to save up enough money so that I could move to Greenville, NC with my friend Matt Austin and spend the fall doing nothing but hanging out and playing video games. That’s exactly what I did.

Matt, his three roommates and I played video games all day, every day. I spent two or three months in front of a big TV, day and night. We mostly ate frozen food and I didn’t leave the apartment for days at a time. For weeks I played Morrowind for 12 hours a day, every day, alternating long turns with Matt. During breaks other roommates would come in and play Halo, but we mostly dominated the TV with our RPG.

I began to have dreams about Morrowind. It became my whole world. My character was basically a god in the game; I could go anywhere and do anything I wanted. In this game, just like most modern games, you have to build your skill at certain things by doing them for a length of time. For example, if you wanted to get better at archery in the game, you had to go practice archery and get enough points to move to the next level and become “better” at the skill. I spent hundreds of hours “practicing” skills so I could be a badass in the game - and I was. It felt amazing to be able to do anything I wanted in this huge virtual world.

One of my few possessions (in real life) was a mountain bike, and one morning I woke up and looked outside and noticed what a beautiful summer day it was. For whatever reason, I decided to get on my bike and ride around. When I was a kid I rode that bike all over Winston-Salem, to church, to friend’s houses, to school across town, anywhere I wanted to go and not have to ask my parent’s for a ride. I felt the pull of a beautiful day and some fresh air, and hopped on my bike to cruise around and see what was going on. I rode around the apartment complex for a bit, and then saw a little game trail that went into the woods and followed it. Several minutes later I was stuck in the swamp, covered in bugs, carrying my bike over my head, wading through mud. I was struggling physically, but it felt so incredibly good. I rode my bike to the point of straining my muscles to the maximum, and as I breathed in fresh swamp air and looked at the sunlight coming through trees, I had a revelation: the video game was a simulation of reality. It’s a pretty good simulation, but nowhere near as good as actual reality. In reality, you can do the same things as you can in the game, but also infinitely more things. If you practice something you get better at it, and if you practice it a lot, like for 12 hours a day, you’re going to master it very quickly. Just like in the game.

I realized in that moment, that as soon as that game was turned off, nothing that I had done for those few months mattered at all. It was a complete waste of time, just like throwing time away, washing it down the toilet. I had absolutely nothing to show for my time. In that moment, I resolved to never play video games again. From then on, when I spent time doing something, I wanted it to have an effect in the real world. I wanted to be a badass like my video game character, and I knew that all I had to do was to pick a skill and practice, just like in the game, and eventually I would be a master of that skill.

Now, I can’t even imagine what life would be like if I tried to add video games back into it. My life is very full, and it’s full of things that fulfill me. I have an active social life, lots of good friends, plenty of hobbies, and I spend my days and nights doing work that I love to do. I am a badass at the skill I chose to focus on, and the “levels” are infinite; I can keep practicing and keep getting even more badass. It’s that simple.

I don’t think anyone needs to quit playing video games completely to lead a fulfilling life, but I do think that I needed to quit video games completely to lead a fulfilling life. Everyone is different; the goal is to know yourself, and to know what you need to do, or not do, to be fulfilled. This is much easier said than done, of course. I was addicted to video games, and if I let myself, I could very easily, and happily, become addicted again. I could easily start smoking cigarettes again, if I wanted to. I know now that video games and cigarettes both got in the way of me living a fulfilling life, and once I quit those addictions, I created space in my life to fill with things that benefitted me.

I watch action movies. Sometimes as much as five days a week. At the end of the day I will put on a stupid action movie so that I can just zone out and relax. I’m pretty sure watching stupid action movies doesn’t benefit me in the long term, but it does feel good in the moment. It’s like letting go of caring about having to do healthy things for myself. I consider it a bad habit, and one day, I’m going to break that bad habit and stop watching action movies. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to watch another action movie, it means I’m going to break my addiction to watching action movies. I can play video games occasionally with friends, and never have a desire to do it more. It took breaking my addiction to video games to realize that they take up my time and energy, don’t make me feel good, and they’re not a good use of my time. They are fun in the moment, they are a great way to escape from the real world and can make you feel incredible sometimes, but they offer almost nothing of benefit to your life in the long term. Doing a hundred pushups a day for a week will make you feel strong, healthy and bold all week, but playing video games for 30 minutes a day will do nothing other than take up 210 minutes of your week.

All of us humans are addicted to many things, all the time. I am addicted to over-eating, action movies, late night snacks while I’m driving, and a big one that I am trying to break right now, scrolling on social media. All of these activities release dopamine in our brain, which is a chemical that signals that your brain is receiving a reward. It feels good, in your body and mind. The feeling of pleasure is caused by or signaled by dopamine being released in your brain. Usually, these actions that we do repetitively to get a dopamine kick make us feel great in the moment, but bad in the long term. Video games are ingeniously designed to trigger dopamine production and keep us engaged as long as possible. Social media does the same. People are literally engineering things to addict us, because then we will pay for their product and they can make more money. It is an age old story.

Now, I don’t mean to lump all video games together here. There are lots of educational and training video games that are invaluable tools. I use Duolingo almost every day; it is generally a challenge in the moment, but makes me feel good in the long term. I feel great about myself if I’ve practiced Spanish a few days in a row. I’m more confident and more eager to talk to people when I exercise that part of my brain, and those are things that give me a feeling of fulfillment (aka feeling good in the long term). There are some video games that are beautiful pieces of art. There are some video games that are extremely well written, that help you to see the world in new ways or from a unique perspective, like a great novel. Unfortunately, I would say these aren’t the majority. Just like action movies and slot machines, most video games are designed to keep you engaged and spending money. These are the games you need to look out for. If you play games like this, then you are probably addicted.

Addictions, especially addictions that you don’t know about, can ruin your life, and almost always make your life worse. If you are aware of an addiction, figure out how to quit. At the very least, being aware of your addiction will help you to manage it.

I’ve never had an opiate addiction, and I never will. I’m too smart and know too much to let myself get addicted to opiates, and both of you are as well. Don’t ever do opiates! If a doctor prescribes them to you, ask the doctor for a non-addictive alternative. If you don’t have a choice, take them as little as you possibly can and stop as soon as you possibly can.

I have a bunch of friends who’ve gotten hooked on opiates and it’s ruined their lives. Only a few of them have even recovered somewhat, and all are changed forever. They seem sad and lost, like they will never see sunlight again. If you get addicted to heroin, come to me and I will help you get off of it, but from what I understand it is hell. Quitting other addictions is much easier. The hardest ones for me have been lifestyle changes, like quitting over-eating and late-night snacking.

There are lots of ways to quit addictions, and I am definitely not an expert, but I know a few techniques that work for me. What it comes down to is getting to a point where you really want to quit. I tried to quit smoking cigarettes for five years, but it never happened until I really wanted to never smoke again. Then it was easy. With quitting video games, it took me riding around in a swamp on my bicycle to have a revelation, and then quitting that was easy as well. The first step is always becoming aware of your addiction, realizing that you do something solely for dopamine and it doesn’t benefit you, and noting that in your mind every time you catch yourself doing the thing.

When you do this, make sure you are nice to yourself. Don’t say, “dammit John, you were so weak because you caved in and ate that cheese at midnight!” It’s important to do it very gently. The things that you say in your head will become your reality. Just make a mental note that you were eating cheese at midnight, put a check on your mental calendar that you engaged in your addiction that day.

The key is to not beat yourself up about the past, to stay in the moment and make good decisions when it’s time to make the decision. Every minute of every day you get to make a choice about what you are doing and how you are doing it. Approach every minute as a new minute; you have the power to do whatever you want in every single minute. Focus your attention on choosing to do the things that will make you feel fulfilled, not the things that will bring you pleasure in the moment. If you focus on leading a fulfilling life, you will begin to experience greater, deeper pleasures that you couldn’t dream of before.