Villagersonline : blogs : russ : Bookman's gave me 2 dollars

From: russ
Date: Mon Mar  8 21:08:53 MST 2004
Subject: Bookman's gave me 2 dollars

Responses
rodhugen: Hey (3/9/04)

russ: Things accomplished so far, and coming... (3/9/04)

russ: 2 month update (5/15/04)

mike: sounds good. (5/17/04)

Responses (sorted by date)
mike: sounds good. (5/17/04)
russ: 2 month update (5/15/04)
russ: Things accomplished so far, and coming... (3/9/04)
rodhugen: Hey (3/9/04)

Last Monday, Eric & I were talking over breakfast. We were discussing my lack of discipline. Why don't I do the things that I say that I want to do? When I look back on my weeks, I often find that I haven't done the things that really mattered to me, but I filled my time up with stuff that didn't matter in the end.
I spend a lot of time playing computer games. I delight in the way that they give me a to succeed in something. They give me something quick that I can accomplish, and yet they also give me long term goals that I can spend hours or even days on. I have a lot more hope of getting something done there than I do in real life. Yet the things there don't really matter.
So the question becomes, why do I keep choosing games over everything else?
It's not like I don't make other choices, sometimes. It seems like I live in the demand of the moment. When I have a chance for relationship with someone, I will quite willingly abandon everything else to spend hours and hours with them. Yet if there isn't somebody knocking on my door, I will play computer games.
People ask many things of me. When they ask, I immediately want to serve them and so I tell them that I want to do it. But if they aren't right in front of me, their requests suddenly don't seem very important (or at least, very immediate). So I play computer games instead, telling myself that I will help them later.
Eric says, and he's probably right, that this means that I really don't care about people. I don't know what to do with that. My heart certainly doesn't feel like that's true. Anytime that I look at my heart or my choices, I don't think that I don't care. It seems more like my urge to play computer games just gets in the way, making it impossible to discipline myself. I guess, in time, that God will deal with the lack of truly caring for others. But for now there's something more pressing.
I am addicted to computer games. Computer programming seems to also have the same power, since it gives me much the same benefit. At least at the surface level, the reason why I don't discipline myself is because I can't break free of that addiction.
Eric had a simple answer to this. When other people have struggled with addictions to computer games, they have simply given them all away. I've tried going cold turkey for a while - I even was off them for a month once - and yet my addiction comes right back as soon as it's "legal." Eric was adamant that I had to give them all away.
So, when I got home from work that night, Emily & I went through the boxes and found all of my old computer games. I've been playing them for 10 years or more, and have amassed quite a collection. Each one held a certain special memory for me, and Emily sat with me as I recounted to her what each one meant to me.
The next evening, we went to Bookman's to sell them. There were probably 40 or 50 games ther, all in great condition, many with all the manuals and packaging. I've seen them sell games like this for $5 a piece, so I was expecting to get at least $40 or $50 for whole set.
Bookman's gave me $2. $2 for 10 years of my life.
Actually, the only wanted 2 of the games...the rest were so old that they didn't want them at all. So I sold them, and the next morning gave the rest to the Salvation Army.
I'm sure that God has something to teach me through the experience at Bookman's, though I'm not really sure what it is yet. Something about totally giving away the old things that I valued and getting nothing back. I don't know exactly, but here's where I am a week later:
It's hard not having games or programming to go to. It means that I have to find something else to do with my time (like writing this blog, or working on the Buckshot Blu website). But what's worse is that I'm being forced to discipline my brain. I'm finding now is that I my mind goes to programming and computer games even more often than my body does. But if I'm trying to break myself of the addiction to them, then spending all my free brain time thinking about them is pretty self-defeating. Anyhow, since I won't be able to go play games or write programs, I don't feel like there's any point.
So now I'm having to find other things to think about. Surprise! I'm spending more time in prayer, more time reading the Bible, and more time thinking about how to love people intentionally.
Perhaps someday I'll be able to go back to those other things in a healthy waY, but Eric has told me not to wait for that or expect it; perhaps I won't ever be able to go back. Many alcoholics can never go back to alcohol; perhaps I will never return to computer games. In the meantime, I have more time to do whatever God has called me to do.
It's weird, though. You'd think that in the past week I would have had a lot of time to accomplish things that I've been meaning to do. The irony is that I haven't. Even today, I was exhausted all day and really felt like I should rest in the evening, but I really need to go get things (like buckshotblu.villagersonline.com) done. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

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From: rodhugen
Date: Tue Mar  9 06:01:34 MST 2004
Subject: Hey

Hi Russ,
Thanks for your blog. It lifts my heart every time an addict gives up his addiction. Watch the days ahead for the way in which your friends, co-workers, and maybe even family become the instruments that try to lead you back to your addiction. It is amazing how quickly the other side strikes back when we take a vow to break down our idols. It is interesting that you are tired and not feeling particularly productive. Withdrawal affects us strangely. I sdmire your courage and desire to do this in full view of the community. That will allow all of us working on similar problems to also be encouraged as well as sustain you in your walk.
You are correct about the fact that the vast majority of alcoholics can never again set foot in a bar. I can comfortably walk into one and sip a drink for awhile and walk away, but some of my best friends can not ever even attempt it. I get the shakes just driving by casinos because of my penchant for gambling, but some of my friends look at me like I'm nuts because I won't stop by the restaurant or go to a show at a casino because I know I don't do well there. The sweet thing is that God will fill up your gaming hours with stuff that matters to Him and become pleasure for you. God seems to offer what lasts eternally at the cost of early denial. The other side offers instant gratification (I made it to level 23!) at the cost of long term suffering (I've ignored life for 20 years). The wilderness always comes before the promised land in the upside down Kingdom. Walking out of slavery is the first step, but not getting whiney in the wilderness is step two. Remember not to create any golden calves. It is a real bummer to spend 40 years wandering around after having been set free.
So now that you have time, will we start seeing chapters of that theology book I'm dying to read?
:-)
Rod

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From: russ
Date: Tue Mar  9 06:48:33 MST 2004
Subject: Things accomplished so far, and coming...

Yeah, I'm sure that you'll start seeing that book I've been talking about. You'll also see a more rapid pace of new features here on the website, most likely.
Last night, I got Buckshot Blu's website to the point where I can't think of anything left to do: http://buckshotblu.villagersonline.com. As far as I can tell, the only thing left is to make it show up at buckshotblu.com rather than the villagersonline.com address.
It's nice to have some noticable success :)

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From: russ
Date: Fri May 14 22:34:18 MST 2004
Subject: 2 month update

So here I am, 2 months and 2 weeks from selling all my games. It's sort of amazing everything that has happened, and has not happened, in the meantime.
The exhaustion I mentioned in my first post is now much worse, but now I think I know what it is (mononucleosis). A little less than a month ago, I was near some sort of breakdown. I was always exhausted; I was having major anxiety attacks; I was totally overwhelmed at work; I was having increasing trouble sleeping. I thought that maybe it was all work-related stress, and was trying to press on as best I could. But Eric reminded me that this might all be exhaustion caused by mono (I was diagnosed with mono in January). A quick bloodtest confirmed that I was still sick. Things started to get better then. My boss sent me to the doctor, who said I should cut back on work to 20 hours/week. (IBM allows this as part of their benefits package.) Since then, I have dedicated my life to resting as much as possible, and I only work 2.5 days per week. This has uncovered a massive wave of exhaustion. Each week I have felt more and more tired, and less and less capable at work. But, it's nice to know that at least I'm doing my best to get better. And the anxiety is gone (mostly).
The computer games thing is more ambiguous. Good stuff first:
* I haven't gone back. Em keeps me accountable, not even allowing me the small fixes (like playing a game or two at an arcade).
* Without computer games, I'm now spending a substantial percentage of my computer time working on VillagersOnline. But exhaustion means that I don't have much free time...
* I am finding that lots of people have lots more power in my life than before. People can give their opinions and I go act on them and try to live by them.
* Em says that I am a better minister, though I'm pretty sure this doesn't have to do with computer games - it has more to do with exhaustion, as I'm too tired to say anything except what God really wants me to say. (There's a lesson to be learned, there.)
Struggles next:
* Eric said I shouldn't be sitting around waiting for community to give computer games back to me. I'm trying, and I think I'm (kind of) doing well, but several times a day, I still go back and feel a deep longing for them.
More disciplines:
* Not long after I gave up computer games, God asked me for some (mental) silence. This is exactly the opposite of meditation (at least as I have conventionally conceived it) - it seems that God wants me to worship Him by NOT thinking about anything, including Him. So I'm trying to be silent by choice more often, and typically several times a day he asks for me to be quiet for a while. I spend large portions of my days off (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays) down at the railroad tracks someplace, watching trains, sweating in the heat, enjoying nature, and generally trying to keep quiet.
* I'm trying to figure out what my art form will look like. Benji said that I should get into some form of art, and God has seconded the idea...but I don't know what, how, etc.
* Em has been saying for years that I should get to bed promptly between 9 and 10; now that I'm giving other people power to speak into my life, I've relented to her.
Confusing stuff next:
* I'm learning that part of my reason for playing computer games was that they were a coping mechanism to help me disconnect/wind down from stress. In this stressful time of my life, I keep finding the lack of them very painful. Could they play a healthy part in my future life?
* I had expected that God was trying to break me of an addiction. I'd expected some sort of "withdrawl" period, followed by a gradual reduction in desire. I haven't really experienced either withdrawl or a decline in desire. The desire has held relatively steady throughout. But I am seeing God change me in some massive ways (see above) that I guess must be connected to computer games, even though I can't see exactly how. Just recently it occurred to me that perhaps God's plan was not to decline the desire, but perhaps to give me the discipline required to submit that desire to the wisdom and limitations of my wife and my community. Dunno yet.
So, the hard discipline of giving up computer games (and, shortly thereafter entering mental silence) has segued directly into the hard discipline of resting up and trying to beat mono. I keep hoping that the worst is over, yet it seems like the last couple of months have been a steady progress of piling on more and more struggle. It's nice to be sick, though. It makes me comfortable to check out when it's all too hard or overwhelming. I just go get in bed, or drive down to the tracks, or curl up in a ball and try to hide. But God has gotten me through this far, and I'm sure He's going to get me through the rest. It's nice that, in the middle of all the struggle, I am finding myself changed in lots of good ways that I didn't even attempt to do. God just seemed to grant me some bonus character right when he slammed me with this load of suffering. That's nice, and it even gives me hope to endure if he plans for the suffering to get worse before it gets better.

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From: mike
Date: Mon May 17 16:21:33 MST 2004
Subject: sounds good.

There are three kinds of drunks. The drinking ones, the dry ones, and the sober ones. The drinking ones are a mess, the dry ones not much better off. A dry drunk is one that has stopped drinking, but has not delt with issues. He will start drinking again. It may be a day, a week, or twenty years, but he will start drinking sooner or later. A saber drunk is one that is dealing with issues in his life. He or she has the best chance of staying sober. You fall into the sober catigory. It is much easier to stop the addictive behavior for a time, than to work on the issues under the addiction. You are doing great. Hats off to you.

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