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Well, I was wrong. When casually reading this thread over the past few months I thought: "at least I don't have that problem". Ay carumba, I just realized I do. Not the first time this has happened. So, I join the letting-go-of-games circle.

The thought that I am free of the negative aspects of games was not totally deluded - I was really not playing much during this time so forgot or felt there was no danger going forward. But my "thing" is that I periodically get "hooked" for a few days or even weeks and then go overboard, negatively impacting my sleep, duties, relationships, state of mind etc. With all the dopamine-dumping from the gaming I later feel like shit. What a clear example of chasing pleasure leading to suffering. Ugh. (is it obvious that I just had a relapse?)

Some preliminary thoughts:

• I think my fascination with games happens because I can have the upside without the downside. If I win, I feel great, if I lose, who cares. And I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile/intelligent/applying myself (I nearly only play various strategy games).
• Should I apply myself to my actual life with the same passion as I do towards games I'd be a happy camper.
• Games are an avoidance of my actual life. Life is difficult, it's easy to succumb to wanting to hide from it in games.
• To quote our friend @genkaku the addictive mindset is "if one's good, two's better". This is the trap I fall into with games.

I think going forward I'll try to just not play games - and focus on my actual life - instead of analysing it too much.

@marcitko said:
To quote our friend @genkaku the addictive mindset is "if one's good, two's better".

We are not the first, nor will we be the last to have a brush with addiction. Whether it’s games or alcohol it can hook you and convince you that ‘more is better’. I loved @genkaku’s down to earth wisdom on this.

I think going forward I'll try to just not play games - and focus on my actual life - instead of analysing it too much.

A sound plan. Until it really penetrates that games are just an expression of mind, an inaccurate abstraction of something that is pretending to be real but is not, and then you can really let go. If you can let go of the idea of winning then you’ve made a big step.

My experiments with mindful playing have also largely stopped. I still have not played recently either a computer game or D&D, all of it was just stuff coming back up from when I used to play. Once in a while I return in my thoughts to it, just to unfold it a little further.

Gaming is not necessarily negative for everyone. @person seems to have found a happy way forward with it, and my cousin uses it to unwind for a few hours a week. And the social aspect of pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons is a major redeeming feature. But for me, the things I am most drawn to are the things that are least healthy — MMORPGs and compulsive strategy games such as Civilisation or Panzer General for example.

This morning, I found myself trying to explain my position on games to a group of older people online who knew next to nothing about games. To my surprise, almost the first thing I found myself talking about was how games fulfil dreams — that for almost every dream there was a game out there — and that they can be a great way to experience stories and myth.

I found myself drawing on my memories of the high points of my gaming life, to explain the reasons people play and the kind of things games teach… the universal game themes of strategy, sequence, tactics, reward and challenge, resource useage. The building blocks of a game experience. And how the real high points have nothing to do with actual gaming but with progressing the story.

One thing a gaming life leaves you with is the memory of having been part of some great stories, of having seen myths play out with your character centre stage. Yes, it’s entertainment, but is it really that different from a book, a theatre play or a movie? It seems to me that this is part of the shared mythological experience of our time, the campfire stories of a technological age.

All this is leaving aside the endless killing of enemies which most games encourage to fill up their game loops, which is deplorable in my opinion. But it is endemic from open-world games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider to story-driven adventures such as Mass Effect, they all use this paradigm.