By the time Marshall Carpenter’s father broke down the barricaded door of his son’s apartment and physically ripped him away from his electronic devices, the 25-year-old was in a bad way. He could not bear to live a life that didn’t involve hours upon hours of uninterrupted screen time.
“I was playing video games 14 or 15 hours a day, I had Netflix on a loop in the background, and any time there was the tiniest break in any of that, I would be playing a game on my phone or sending lonely texts to ex-girlfriends,” Carpenter says. We are sitting in a small, plain apartment in a nondescript condo complex in Redmond, Washington. Marshall shares the apartment with other men in their 20s, all of whom have recently emerged from a unique internet addiction rehab program called reSTART Life.
“I was basically living on Dr Pepper, which is packed with caffeine and sugar. I would get weak from not eating but I would only notice it when I got so shaky I stopped being able to think and play well,” he adds. By then, he’d already had to drop out of university in Michigan and had lost his scholarship. His new friends Charlie and Peter nod sagely.
Charlie Bracke, 28, was suicidal and had lost his job when he realized his online gaming was totally out of control. He can’t remember a time in his life before he was not playing video games of some kind: he reckons he was addicted by the age of nine.
For Peter, 31, the low came when he had been homeless for six months and was living in his car. “I would stay in church parking lots and put sunshades up on the windows and spend all day in my car on my tablet device,” he says. He was addicted to internet porn, masturbating six to 10 times a day, to the point where he was bleeding but would continue. “I was a virgin until I was 29. Then I had sex with a lap dancer at a strip club. That’s something I never thought I would do,” he says.
How so, I bet you're suffering from online porn addiction without knowing about it
Mason Robinson
It is breddy gud...
Dominic Smith
Western hikikomori it's spreading
Thomas Gray
This was me at 18, no joke 14-15 hours a day or more Masturbating until i got a scab on muh dick
Poor guy
Jayden Torres
How did you recover?
Joshua Wright
Today was a pretty dark day for me but this cheered me up
Easton Hernandez
Yep, we're just following in Japan's footsteps Even some of my most successful friends are completely burnt out and only in their mid-20s. All they do is play video games after work now when they used to be very socially active and outgoing in college, one of them is on the verge of quitting and just living off online jobs for a while.
Anthony Gutierrez
I hit rock bottom and my gf cucked me I realised i was a beta piece of shit and that i cant blame all my problems on chad so i started trying to improve myself. Exposure therapy is INVALUABLE. There's still damage from the porn, i cum after a minute but its getting better. Get a job. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Understand that you dont need to treat other people like enemies just because you hate yourself.
Landon Adams
What do your friends do for a living?
Gavin Turner
>Exposure therapy is INVALUABLE Read this briefly online, so you expose yourself to things you're anxious of? What were you being exposed to to overcome your situation?
Jacob Williams
Of the ones in the same area as me >accountant (the one that's planning on quitting) >electrical engineer >software engineer >asset manager at a large bank Everybody is relatively very well off, moved out of our parent's homes, making lots of money, most of us are debt-free. Compared to a lot of people our age, we're doing excellent. But only one of us is living "right" (gf he plans to propose to, likes working, generally thinks society is fine). Everybody else is pretty lethargic and just existing. I live with two of them and all we do are play video games, go out to bars sometimes on the weekends, or watch Youtube videos in a comatose state after work some nights. Sometimes someone brings a girl home but it's always a one-night stand, nothing long-term.
John Price
Are all those guys addicted to online porn or masturbate on a regular basis?
Chase Anderson
Say you're in your safe comfort bubble by your computer where everything is absolutely mediocre, but it's a stable constant state where you can relax. Whenever you feel discomfort, you can just distract yourself through gaming, porn, or shitposting.
You're disappointed and ashamed of yourself, so you stop being a participant in life - you simply can't handle being jobless, sexless, and socially incompetent. You just shut it out, and leave the context of society. Going outside and participating in society forces you to confront all of your feelings of personal failure, so you really don't want to do that. It's just easier to shut it out.
Exposure therapy is based on controlled gradual exposure to the irritating/anxiety-causing stimuli, like going to the store/seeing 1 friend/applying for 1 job.
It allows the person to deal with the issues arising from it without being overwhelmed. Hopefully, after some time, the reaction to the stimuli has changed and it is now possible to function a bit better in social/societal contexts.
Jayden Nelson
The idea is that anxious people never get less anxious, they just become braver. My gf would drag me to parties and social events that i would never have gone to on my own and even though i would usually want to leave or just stand in a corner or something, i realized it wouldnt kill me.
I had a pretty fucked up life. Alcoholic single mother, sexual and physical abuse, abandonment issues, bullying, whole nine yards I used to unironically wear a fedora and now im on my way to manmode, feels good man
Jace Allen
One of my friends (he's a couple states away now) definitely is but he also has had the most successful sexual life of all of us. I think he's pretty emotionally broken in that regard though, he was the type to be having sex with a different chick every month in college and now he says he can't fathom settling down. He doesn't fuck around nearly as much anymore and he's also just playing video games and masturbating all the time now, by his own admission. I've been all over the place my whole life, in college I'd have times I wouldn't masturbate at all for 3-4 weeks and then I'd be masturbating 3 times a day. Since moving out I've mostly stopped, it feels worse the older I get.
Luke Thompson
Sorry to hear about your friend, I really think this porn and masturbation addiction really cuts across the spectrum and affects all men in a very tangible yet abstract way
I managed to quit porn and masturbation entirely and I'm around your age range, check out yourbrainonporn.com/
Also check out the book Boy's Adrift by Dr. Leonard Sax, it's a good read
Cooper Stewart
That picture is bs tho
Ryan Sanchez
Now realize esports and the online gaming industry in general promotes and feeds off this shitty behavior.
Jayden Hall
Not that I don't agree with pic related, but I'm almost certain those models are total bullshit
Ryder Morris
Must suck to be so utterly weak-willed.
Brayden Foster
>It has a name: internet gaming disorder
Jeremiah Brown
christ that dude looks like some sewer dwelling CHUDD vampire
Keep in mind these are scientific and academic studies funded by institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, the U.S. Navy, etc.
Nathan Jenkins
good stuff. I'm glad these young men found help
Parker Ward
It's real. I've been making moves away from online shit for a while. I'm old, so I remember my first apartment - no furniture, no cable, a handful of VHS tapes, an ancient VHS player, and a 19" TV that was off most of the time. But i had a huge record/cd collection, I had music playing if I was home, I read a lot, I went out a lot, people would come over to just hang out - and I didn't spend all day chatting with people, if I didn't call them, or they call me, I never heard from them. My stress levels were low. I started feeding into the current culture, and I don't like it. I don't like people being able to contact me at any time. I don't like being fed a constant diet of terror and fake news via TV. I hate that I read less. Nobody goes over to other people's houses anymore. If I go to the shore, or a park, nobody talks, they're all staring at a phone, or taking selfies for instagram. So I turned off cable. My TV is a computer monitor now. I read again. I leave my cell phone on my desk, I don't touch it, and I don't have any apps installed. I may get a flip phone. I play music all day again, if I'm home. My stress levels are dropping. Porn? I'm down to twice a month. It's fine. We're building The Matrix, and we don't even see it. We're so addicted to video games, we watch other people play them. It's considered a sport now. It's out of fucking control. I'd get rid of my high speed internet, but I need it for work, but I'm thinking about it.
When you turn off the internet...it's amazing how much time you have to get shit done. I forgot about that.
Logan Cook
You're fucking retarded >I used to unironically wear a fedora hopeless sheep, you've not changed, just deluded yourself into another fad
Jose Sanders
>implying it's any different than any other serious addiction
Henry Parker
Yeah WTF I didn't think this shit was real.
Dominic Bell
>it's amazing how much time you have to get shit done
Very true. When I moved apartments I didn't have any internet for like a month. I think I did more in that month than I'd usually do in six.
Liam Moore
...
Brayden Fisher
How do these guys even get gfs in the first place if they never leave their houses? I work, go to the gym, go out to bars with co workers and I can't even get a phone number. I'm only on my phone sometimes at work and then at night I get on here, I don't play video games or watch netflix. I'm a busy guy.
Jace Hughes
white people are fucking retards lol
Juan Mitchell
They should literally make everyone that goes on Sup Forums do this, by force if necessary.
Gabriel Garcia
IDENTIFY YOUR DRAGONS, THEN SLAY YOUR DRAGONS
Julian Clark
Whats that
Caleb Evans
Those two should hook up. They'd be super cute.
Wyatt Ramirez
cause youre ugly
Dylan Harris
Basically I'm the same as them. What do?
Michael Gomez
Stop being a shit cunt
Angel Gutierrez
Studies are opinions.
You know what science is? Research.
Studies only exist to get money for saying what someone wants them to say, and EVERY school and college is a greedy POS looking for a handout from anywhere.
Hudson Jackson
I'm about 10x better looking and a lot taller than the guys in those pictures
Justin Baker
The master race everyone
Carter Wilson
I can't. I'm a faggot loser.
Aiden Gomez
>porn is why I'm a two pump chump The only thing funnier than "internet addiction" is reading testimonials from someone who was "internet addicted" and used to be "beta" after getting cucked by his GF and posts the whole thing on Sup Forums
Leo Campbell
Fuckin' shit cunt
Bentley Rogers
clean your room
Isaac Butler
i got a bitches number yesterday if you look like youre about to fuck/kill everything in a 10 foot radius they take notice
Hudson Collins
>I'm really good looking and funny but I can't get numbers when I go out
I'm sure buddy.
Nolan Evans
you are first on the list, buddy!
Cooper Martin
>ex-girlfriends >he at one point had a girlfriend
FUCKING NORMIES REEEEEE
Oliver Robinson
Numbers are easy to get, and so is sex.Women are losers, because they're the ones who know they fucked up and waited too long.
There's plenty of hot desperate disposable trash women who can't get the men they want any more.
Camden Walker
>I was a virgin until I was 29 fucking faggot almost made it to wizardhood. goddamn stripper women
