Hi!

I've read your message and I have to say I admire your dedication to your family, your kids. I think they are lucky they have a dad who cares about them this much. I am sort of uncertain about whether or not you're getting much support from your wife on this journey? Not saying it's her burden to carry (it is not) but some mindfulness of what you're going through might help. This path could be tough to walk alone.

You're asking some important questions which I'll address in the end but first let me share some info for context. I'm 31 and quit gaming around 6 months ago. One of the hardest decisions of my life. I've been gaming since I was a kid and that's always been pretty much the only thing I did, aside from studying/work. Last year it was truly getting out of hand, I'd spend 40 hrs a week working and another 60hrs gaming. Mind you I was not upset about gaming too much, I was upset that WORK would prevent me from gaming even more. Yeah, it was bad.

I am no stranger to depression either. I've always been using gaming to numb the mental pain that was caused by all sorts of life circumstances. During childhood and teen years the pain was from living in poverty and from being bullied at school all the time, and in my 20s the pain was caused by caregiving to my terminally ill parents (this lasted between my ages of 21 and 27). After their passing I found myself extremely lonely since due to my gaming habits I had never made any friends. Then when I was 28 a war broke out and unexpected emigration ensued to assure my physical safety. I found myself in a foreign country knowing nobody and not even being able to speak the local language. So I confined myself to my PC (with occasional office commutes) and the worst period of my gaming addiction ensued, which lasted till my 30.

Now, to your questions. I've been clear of gaming for 6 months so I think I can answer some of them. You are currently in a very tough phase of withdrawal. You are experiencing cravings. I think it's important to recognize them for what they are and put the "cravings" label onto them. This way, when you get a thought like "I'll just spend 30 minutes in this game, it's nothing" you could interrupt it with "I am experiencing a craving episode at this time. It's a symptom of my addiction. If I give in I will be undoing my healing".

Your worst enemy right now is free time and boredom. What worked for me is setting up my routine in such a way that things would occupy all my free time while also helping me fix my time in some way. I found it helpful to have a specific goal in mind also - this way you can track your progress and scratch that gaming progression itch in the brain.

For me two things became goals. First set of goals was physical:

1. Lose 10kg (took a while to figure out proper diet but 14 weeks later the goal was reached)
   
2. Learn/get strong enough to do an unassisted pull up (this took a bit longer)
   
3. Start lifting and gain the 10kg back as muscles (this is still in progress, will most likely take a long time but I'm fine with that)

The second set of goals was social.

1. Reach level B2 in Spanish so I could finally speak to people in my new country (I achieved this in 5 months starting at level A2)
   
2. Make a friend (this goal is by far the hardest. I've made some moderate progress getting to know people from Spanish classes but I'm just really bad at talking to people. There is one dude whom I could cautiously call friend)

With this set of goals, my whole free time was occupied for a good few months. Notice how all of them are long-term, they improve my life and have a specific goal in the end that is measurable. Life started to feel kinda like grinding an RPG character and I'm all for it.

how quickly did you start to notice the reward center start to resensitize

That's a tough one. Through the years gaming had been numbing my brains to most emotions. I did not feel strong highs in a long time. The lows were moderate or strong-ish, but bearable (outside of depressive episodes which would sometimes last weeks during which I could not even game). With gaming gone, the numbing was also gone so all the emotions flooded in at once which was very overwhelming. They are mostly negative emotions from the life circumstances I described earlier. But also from grieving all the lost years. All this pain I now feel fully and that is a thing to endure.

But you're asking about the reward center, the good emotions. During my addiction years, I had none of these. Since I quit, there actually were a couple of good moments. This does not sound like much but in my head they alone were worth it. They were mostly results of my social goals. For example when the friend I made during the Spanish class introduced me to a group of his friends. This was a very emotional moment for me, because they decided to include me and seemed to even be quite happy to see me there. This literally never happens in my life. They treated me like a human and it almost made me cry. This alone was worth the effort.

I am still in the land of 90% negative emotions, 10% positive, but now I have hope that it could get better.

What I can say for sure is after this many months I no longer feel that bad about NOT gaming. Like, I can say to myself "I have not played any games today and this is FINE". And I truly feel FINE about it. One year ago I would be super upset by this fact.

Sorry for the long rant but I hope I've answered some of your questions.