Severe Chess Addiction

Chess is indeed an addiction. In fact, I quit my job to play chess.

Good that you are open about this.  My own experience with blitz was short but for me dramatic enough. I work with drug addicted people and I am very aware about the danger of drugs - and you know well that blitz is a powerful drug. 

Play Daily Chess,  only two games simultaneously. Be curious about the beauty of slow games,  long calculations and analyses. And yes,  forget blitz. The rating is a mirror of your strength,  but not more than this.  Like the mirror in your bathroom, don't take it too seriously.

It's about the price of getting better. I know from a GM who was open about his blitz addiction. He said that the addiction was so strong that he was not able to do his job -prepare for tournaments. He was also not able to quit his account. And this from a guy who grow up with chess.  Some people will tell you that you should go on playing blitz,  but they ignore the fact that you told us that blitz is affecting your life quality. This is the only thing that really count.  

Enjoy chess. Enjoy life. Try to forget about rating. It is the rating that takes away the pleasure of chess and life.

Confess your online blitz addiction to a trusted family member or close friend.  Ask them to hold you accountable for lapses.  Punishment to be determined.  Make the consequences just right.

 

Enjoy life, addiction-free.

I know what you feel bro. my gf has just gone in a journey, so I´m planning to stay playing aaaallll the weekend till she returns home.

I wonder what the ratio of male to female is on this site

Delete your account. Do it now. You can always create a new one in the future, but right now it sounds like this game (and it's very important to remember that it is just a game) is having a really negative effect on much more important parts of your life. It's not worth that. Close the account, take a couple of weeks off chess completely to clear your head, and above all talk to people around you. Then make a decision about whether you want to get back to playing, maybe with some kind of safeguards to make sure it doesn't take over your life again.

For what it's worth I have deleted my account and created a new one several times myself. The first two or three times it was because I was in a bad place in my life in general, which lead to me obsessing over online ratings as a way of escaping my problems which in the long run made them worse. More recently I have just deleted it any time I have a major event/deadline coming up so I don't have the option of procrastinating with bullet or blitz when I should be focussing on important stuff.

Good luck and I hope you can find solutions to your problems. Unlike may people you seem to have some insight into your issues and which parts of your own behaviour are making them worse, so I think you have a good chance of being able to deal with this and enjoying chess in a healthier way in the future.

And the award for the most user friendly username goes to @Uz5Ux2AQ!

There's no magical solution.

Once you recognize chess adiction is really an issue (which you already did), the rest is all up to you. We can give you obvious advices (do yoga, focus on other things, blablablah) but no more than that.

Chess is a mind F@#k, this dude makes a valid point, i will take it further, all u 1809-2000 players, are u really satisfied where your at? Im guessin, no, ok then, where will u be happy? Will u ever get there?, im guessin no again, thats the sad reality of it

1808 and under need not comment lol

I'm no expert but I used to be "addicted to chess." Basically I was distracting myself rather than deal with _________ issue. (Fill in the blank, what are you running away from?) I was playing too much chess to relieve anxiety. The anxiety was caused because I wasn't doing what I knew I should be doing - looking for a job.

Step back, have a look at your life and see if you are "running away" from something you should deal with. For example, looking for a job, pursuing a relationship, finishing college, making positive friends, etc. 

Life is to be enjoyed.

Doing an addictive activity feels great when you're doing it but you feel bad afterward for wasting too much time doing it.

Good luck and don't beat yourself up when you slip.

 

 

 

 

As the old saying goes... when the going gets tough, the tough quit! If life gives you lemons, quit! If your boyfriend spends all his time playing and studying chess, QUIT!

This was the best advice so far.

well said.... LOL

Hi Eliottka!

 

Why do you give the name "addiction" to your chess passion or chess love? This is the key point in my view...

You say it takes your time. Well, everything takes time in life, specially what you really love in life. It takes too much time and perhaps it implies to be outstandingly talented to become a Magnus Carlsen, so the many of us are condemned to be nothing more than "amateurs", which may give us the impression of wasting time in something that will never flourish at its highest conceivable level, at the level of perfection. Hence perhaps feeling guilty and telling oneself one should do more profitable things, such as: earning tonnes of money. No matter: it is your life.

Girlfriend, friends and family... sure they are important, sure you are also important, sure they shall understand you love in life something more than being a nice boyfriend, friend and relative. I mean: if you have a true passion, that should boost your social conduct... unless your social environment conceives not your passion as a truth in your life, it is to say: unless they hold against you you should be doing more profitable things.

Rating... Yes, that may be a problem... I mean: I do write poems, just as many people I love, because I try to get in contact with people similar to me. I know a friend who also write poems. She has spent years and years trying to have her poems rewarded by poetry prizes. And she writes fine, but she has never won a prize, which was destructing her. In the case you  may recognize yourself in my friend (out of poetry, inside of chess), just take it easy. I will give you this exemple: think of love, then think of marriage; marriage may be well, but if you do not love your partner, will a marriage make you love him or her? Now think of rating in the same way: one should love chess in the name of chess; then, if ratings, good ratings, come: great!, if they don't: no problem: are you going to love chess by means of rating?

 

I do not know whether my words will help you. Enjoy chess. If you have a passion in your life, just enjoy it.

 

Again: the point is: why do you call it an addiction?

 

Have a nice day!!

It's not about how much time you spend, to me addiction means that when you think it is time to stop, more often than not you can't.

Great Insight, thanks for sharing. What you say applies to many of us I guess. To me too, at least for a while. Now I play blitz very rarely. Usually  I play daily and try to enjoy even if I am losing.

I think this qualifies as chess addiction (or rather insanity):

 

27 classical games in 26 days !!