Four things account for most of it. Being good at something. A structure to the evening. People to talk to. A reliable way to stop thinking. Work out which one your game supplies and you will know why every attempt to stop by force has come back, because taking away a supply without replacing it is not a plan.
Why this question beats "how do I stop"
You have probably already tried stopping. Most people arriving at this piece have. Uninstalled, reinstalled, set limits, broken them, felt bad about it.
The reason that loop keeps closing is that the game was doing something for you and nothing else took the job. The evening still arrives. The feeling at nine o'clock still arrives. If the only change you made was removing the fastest available answer, the answer comes back.
One caution before the list. Naming a function is not a diagnosis and it does not mean you have an addiction. Researchers in this area warn openly that "recent publications have suggested that nearly all daily life activities might lead to a genuine addiction", which is a real problem with how this language gets used. You can enjoy something enormously, get a lot from it, and still want it to take up less of your week. That is an ordinary position, not a pathology.
The four functions
Read all four. Most people recognise two, with one clearly dominant.
1. Competence
You are good at this. Possibly the best you are at anything. There is a rank, a number, a visible record of improvement, and a group of people who can tell the difference between someone competent and someone who is not.
The tell: you keep playing after you have stopped enjoying it, chasing a rank or a rating. Losing feels disproportionate. A bad session ruins the evening.
What it usually means: the rest of your life is not giving you much evidence that you are good at anything. Work is fine but nobody says so. Nothing else you do has a scoreboard.
Where else to get it: anything with visible, measurable progression that is not the game. Lifting, running times, an instrument, a language, climbing grades, a craft where the last thing you made is visibly better than the first. It has to be measurable, otherwise it does not scratch the same itch.
2. Structure
The evening has a shape because the game gives it one. Dailies, a raid on Thursday, a season with an end date. Without it, the hours after work are a formless block.
The tell: you play things you do not particularly like because they have a schedule. Missing a daily bothers you more than the game itself does.
Where else to get it: a fixed weekly thing with other people expecting you. A league, a class, a choir, a volunteering slot, a standing Wednesday. The schedule is the point, not the activity.
3. Company
The game is where you talk to people. Some nights it is the only place you talk to anyone. Voice chat running in the background while you do other things is a strong sign.
The tell: you launch it and then do not really play. You are there for the voice channel.
Where else to get it: this is the hardest one to replace and the one most worth the effort, because adult friendship mostly runs on a shared activity. Moving the people off the platform is the first move and it works better before you stop than after. [Keeping the friendships without keeping the game](/guides/gaming/uninstalling-without-losing-your-friends) is the practical version, and [saying it once, clearly, to the people you play with](/guides/gaming/telling-the-people-you-play-with) is the conversation that goes with it.
4. A way to stop thinking
The game is not really the point. The point is that while you are playing you are not thinking about the thing you do not want to think about. Money, a job you dread, a relationship, a diagnosis, grief, an exam.
The tell: what you play barely matters, and you cannot describe what you enjoyed about the session afterwards. It gets much heavier during a bad week and lifts when things are calm.
Where else to get it: honestly, nowhere as efficiently. Nothing is as good at removing a feeling for six hours as an absorbing game, which is exactly why this is the function that holds people longest. What tends to help is not a substitute activity but dealing with the underlying thing, which usually means saying it out loud to somebody. If the thing underneath is heavy, a GP is a reasonable first stop, and it is fine to lead with "I'm using games to avoid something" rather than with the games.
The audit, which takes ten minutes
Do this on paper, tonight or tomorrow.
- **Write down the last five sessions.** Day, rough length, and what you played.
- **Next to each one, write what you were doing an hour before.** Work, a row, nothing, scrolling, lying down.
- **Write one word for how you felt in the ten seconds before you launched it.** Bored, flat, wired, lonely, dreading tomorrow, buzzing.
- **Write what you got out of the session.** Not what you should have got. Company, a win, quiet, an hour that passed.
- **Look at column three and column four together.** The pattern will be obvious to you and to nobody else, which is why the exercise cannot be outsourced.
The answer is often uncomfortable and almost always useful. "I play because I am lonely on Fridays" is a solvable problem. "I play too much" is not.
What to do with the answer
Replace the function before you remove the game, not after. That is the whole strategy and it is the opposite of how most attempts run.
If it is competence, get the new scoreboard running first. If it is structure, book the standing thing first. If it is company, get the numbers and the group chat first. If it is avoidance, get one conversation booked first.
Then reduce the game, and expect the replacement to be worse at the job for a while, because it will be. A new five-a-side on week one is not as good at making you feel competent as a game you have been playing for six years. It gets better. The game got good at it over six years too.
If the hours are the immediate problem rather than the function, [the three changes that make an all-nighter harder to start](/guides/gaming/how-to-stop-gaming-all-night) will buy you the sleep to think clearly. And if the function turns out to be heavier than an evening habit and it has been running for a year or more, [what exists in the UK](/guides/gaming/where-to-get-help-for-gaming-disorder) includes an NHS clinic whose stated aim is controlled gaming and increasing other activities, which is exactly this problem with a clinician in the room.
Common questions
**Why do I play so much even when I'm not enjoying it?** Because you are not there for enjoyment, you are there for the function. Playing on after the fun has gone usually points to competence, to a rank you are chasing, or to avoidance, where the point is not thinking rather than having a good time.
**Is gaming escapism unhealthy?** Escaping for a couple of hours is what fiction, sport and music are all for. It becomes a problem when it is the only tool you have and the thing being escaped from keeps growing while you are away from it.
**How do I replace gaming with something else?** Match the replacement to the function rather than to the hours. A gym membership does nothing for loneliness and a book club does nothing for competence. Work out which of the four is yours first.
**I have friends only in the game. Is that a problem?** It is a risk rather than a failing. It means one activity is holding your whole social life, which gives the game far more leverage over you than it should have. Moving those friendships somewhere else is worth doing whether or not you stop playing.
Sources
- [Billieux et al., Are we overpathologizing everyday life?](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26014667/). The warning that nearly all daily life activities have been proposed as potential addictions.
- [WHO, Gaming disorder frequently asked questions](https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/gaming-disorder). The criteria, and that gaming disorder affects only a small proportion of people who play.
- [CNWL, National Centre for Gaming Disorders](https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/national-centre-gaming-disorders). The NHS clinic, and its CBT focused on controlled levels of gaming and increasing other activities.
