Ok, I found some things out on Discord already now, thanks for your responses!
On discord Sizzl also asked me the following: I am a little curious @^scorp^ ... After battling addiction, coming out the other side and building up practice to help others, writing a book etc... The first thing other people here do is "peer pressure" (but in the kindest sense) you to try and re-install UT; does this not raise red flags? Or is it about identifying root cause and addressing the underlying issues to understand why it's a problem in the first place, and that you no longer feel like these kinds of things can become a problem for you?
I'm not very good at giving a short answer to a question like this, so I decided to write down an answer to this question with providing some context. Someone suggested it would be best to answer it here on the forum in this topic, so here you go:
I played UT from 15 up to when I was 19. Tried to quit a few times but came back within 2-3 months every time again. I failed my exams in 2002, shortly after playing the WCG qualifiers in NL, in which I got 4th. Failing my graduation year did make me aware that I was really fucking up back then (which I knew for 2 years already) and part of me felt stronger and stronger that I wanted to get out. But I couldn’t quit yet, not even when I redid my graduation year. Happily, I did enough that year to graduate while still playing.
I did reflect a lot on what was going on those days in UT though, becoming more and more aware of what I was doing and why. I’m very self-aware and started reflecting on myself and life at a young age I think, even though I couldn’t make the ‘right’ choice yet. (Whatever the right choice is of course, because I believe that things do happen for a reason).
The inner struggle of willing to play vs. quitting was already there in the periods that I quit a few times (and asked for bans on UTA for example), but it started to become more and more clear to me that I had to really leave. I was lucky in a way that I didn’t like UT2k3 and the whole 1on1 DM scene started playing that, because it made it easier to quit back then. And it also helped to go to university and experience another part of life, hanging out with friends, playing sports again, having fun, etc. That first year I started playing less UT already.
I did start playing poker at the end of that first year though. That’s when I quit UT, except for some UTA matches for MoD or TF maybe (because me and my brother were vgood with Zyx and my bro still was in touch with him as well).
In poker it was not even the money that got me addicted, it was the same feeling like in UT. Willing to be the best. One side because of the attention of others and insecurity I had in RL, because of always feeling that I don’t fit in. But even more because of the intense feeling of power when being one of the best and playing with your opponents and the mind games that come with it, especially in 1v1. (I mainly played Headsup poker, just like I played 1on1 in UT)
I chose to go poker professionally. I knew it had the same addictive aspects as before and because of the experiences in UT I was aware that I would lose myself in it. But I made the conscious choice to go that path and play for max. 5 years, mainly to try and reach the top and also get financially independent. Small two years later I quit. Not financially independent, although I had a lot of money back then. But I felt unhappy with life, depressed, quite similar to the days in UT. In the beginning I liked it, but after like 1-2 years I lost motivation to get any better and felt some sort of emptiness, as if I had nothing to develop in there anymore. The money kept me playing for like one more year those days. But then even though I was at my best in poker, I felt that the money didn’t do me any good. So I quit. (Which is not to say that I don’t miss to have that amount of money sometimes nowadays
)
Going through all that helped me in finding out who I am and what I really want in life. I found out I can be very good in some kind of ‘own world’ I create, but it’s disconnected from regular life. Because of the feeling of not fitting in in the world, it’s safe to find my way in those worlds, but because of the disconnection to the real world it won’t make me happy.
At the time I quit I started studying psychology at university and also did some courses and coaching sessions/therapy besides my studies, for both work and personal development. I worked out a lot of personal stuff, but also experienced similar addictive patterns in relationships, in which I got lost twice as well for like 5+ years and 2 years. Not everyone might see that as addiction, but for me the reasons underneath were in the essence the same. I just ran away from starting up something in the ‘big scary world’, by feeling that if I was just together with my gf then I could enjoy that the rest of my life and didn’t need anything else. Even though that other part of me was screaming that the relationships didn’t feel right.
So that’s quite the third area in which I experienced and lived through all the questions and pluses and minuses. Nowadays I found my peace with it. I started my own company, combining my own experience with my psychology study and coach other people and give lectures and workshops to kids, parents, professionals and organizations. At the moment mainly about digital addiction (gaming, social media), but in the future probably more about self-awareness and finding your own essence of life in general.
Does that mean I’m zen now and will not fall back into addiction now? No, the attraction is still there. But I think everyone has their own life patterns and you’ll always feel a certain vulnerability on those, even when you lived through it and worked it all out. But because I went through it and found my peace in it, I feel that I can more easily see what I’m doing and step back from it.
Five years ago, I did play poker again for about 1-2 months. I felt from the start that I didn’t want it, but I lost myself in it again. And even though I made some money with it, it made me unhappy. But it was a good experience to relive that and feel what it did to me. And it showed me that I could make the decision to quit more easily now. I’ve felt similar patterns of attraction to women, who I felt from the start were not right for me, but still ended up going after them. But also in there, I could finish it before I got tangled up in a new, poisoned relationship.
So yeah, I do feel a vulnerability to play UT again and it will probably do something to me. I will probably not accept if I’m not one of the best anymore and get frustrated, which will result in early attempts to get better by playing more. But I can feel that I won’t lose myself into playing for days or weeks in a row. Playing and reliving UT can help me to connect to the feelings I had when I was playing as a kid though. Especially in my UT-days I was so disconnected from myself, that it’s tough to relive how I felt in those years. I hope to re-open that part of me, so I can use it in my book.
//Only thing I want to add is a bit more context on the positive side of my addiction. I do believe that there’s a lot of qualities that came up in my addictions. On the one side in what I got out of UT, like my independence, my extreme focus to reach certain goals, strategic thinking, mind game/meta thoughts, etc. There are also qualities on the other side, in what I was running away from, as in: what that taught me and how I use that in my life these days. But that side is a bit tough to explain in a few sentences. In general, I’m adding this last paragraph, because we tend to see addiction as a bad thing, but when you’re addicted it’s part of who you are. If you can live through it, then it’s about taking these qualities with you and use them in a positive way in other aspects of your life.
I don’t mean to say that this is an easy thing to do. Every individual meets different things in life, either in addiction or broader in life in general. It’s not up to me to say if someone can find his way to cope with that and how he/she should do that. I’m just trying to show my perspective from my own experiences, both in life and in my work as a coach.//
^scorp^
