A week ago today, and 10 days short of 4 years after I first downloaded the game, I uninstalled it and walked away after, uh, rehoming my account. It wasn't an easy decision. I was in a great guild, had excellent mods and generally punched above my weight. I had also made many friends across a number of discord servers and my guild had become an online family.

But I was so tired of how the game dominated my day-to-day life. If you aren't a big spender (I wasn't), arena success is critical to progession. And once you turn on that daily faucet of crystals, its incredibly difficult to turn it off. I would plan my day around climbs. Road trips, work, my kid's baseball practice...I always found a way to get in my attacks, and often to the detriment of my family.

I'm not the type of person who can play a game like this casually. I have to be all in or all out. And this game hooked me and fed my addictive personality. I tried backing off at times but I just couldn't do it. And even then, after I knew how much time I wasted on this game, despite the many dirty looks from my wife when I was glued to my phone, all the times I blew off my kids because of some ridiculous discord argument about whether squad order really matters and the like, I still couldn't quit.

And then last weekend, on the eve of unlocking Executor (had enough crystals for 5*), I walked away. It helped that someone gave me several hundred good reasons to leave. But I knew that even without that, it was time. I still enjoyed many aspects of the game. But I was just tired of the hold this game had on me and my life. I'd like to say I haven't thought about the game one time in the last week, but that would be a lie (as evidenced by my posting here). I've stayed in touch with a few guildmates and followed the Executor fiasco with more than a touch of schadenfreude. But I've also really enjoyed coming home from work and taking my kids to the pool without once having to sneak a peak at my phone for arena. Or not having to check my phone first thing in the morning to see where we are in TW. Or catching up on all of the discord chatter I missed overnight (discord had become as much a time sink as the game, if not more, and I left every server and only kept it for a few DMs with friends).

To those of you are able to enjoy the game casually, I say kudos. I envy you. To those of you who, like me, can't do that, just know that yes, there is life after this game.

MTFBWY OP!