How playing video games helped me give up alcohol addiction – Reader’s Feature

metro.co.uk:

A reader describes how he acknowledged and dealt with his alcohol problems and the positive role that video games have played in his life.

I am not an alcoholic by definition, but I was a very heavy drinker. Most of my adult life has revolved around drinking and always drinking too much. I have always gamed; drinking and gaming have gone hand in hand. Switch my console on, crack open a tinnie. The longer I gamed the more I drank. Not a good recipe for success. So over the next few paragraphs I am going to share my experience and how it is changing going sober. I promise not to be an evangelist.

I don’t have a regular job. I run my own business, which has periods of intense work and periods of nothing. It’s the nature of the sector I work in. I work away from home a lot and always take a console or other means to game on while sat in a hotel room, in the hope it discourages me from spending the time in a bar. That was the theory but to tell you the truth it never made much difference. I’d have a few pints with my evening meal and that would put the gaming on hold.

I will concentrate now on a typical evening and weekends after. This is during the quiet times. I never behaved like this if work was involved, I’ve always been able to show restraint, but I would still have a drink, as stated previously.

I normally switch on around 7pm and start drinking. I normally play single-player games during the week. I don’t have a favourite genre so whatever takes my fancy. I’ll play through the evening, making progress like any normal gamer, but slowly but surely as the drink flows this will diminish until I get to a wall. Normally it’s because a bit of skill or quick reactions are involved and that’s shot to pieces due to the beer. At