I went back to school. You can find tons of online courses in just about any subject, and some will count for real college credit if you ever want to turn it into a degree. Many are free, but some will cost you and most are worth it. A way to make your addiction productive.

• Cooking / Baking
• Crochet / Amigurumi
• Gardening
• Jigsaw puzzles
• Learn a new language
• Take a course

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Will keep you fit, you won’t be able to think about your life problems for 1-hour … guaranteed, you’ll make new friends, you will build mental resilience and you’ll learn self-defence. So many benefits as long as you train for the long-term and avoid injury.

cooking! finding out about good ingredients and how to make them even better! fermenting too…

Woodworking!

If you played old PC games from like 1990s, dip your toes into that. Even if you didn’t, still go check out the old PC gaming scene.

Hit up GZDoom with mods, Duke Nukem 3D, X-Com Apocalypse, SimCity 2000 and 3000 Unlimited, Shadow Warrior, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, OpenTTD, etc.

Instead of playing video games, I’m leaning frontend programming. I’m making a chatGPT movie recommendation assistant right now. Finishing projects supplants the dopamine hits I got from gaming.

Making things, learning things.

E.g.:

• painting

• clay/ceramics

• learn a language

• learn the history of a region

• visit a museum

• grow vegetables

• make pickles

• learn a weapon

I always recommend roleplaying games like DnD or pathfinder as a hobby since it has a built in social and private element to it. You can join a group at most local game stores or by looking for organized play. Both Pathfinder and DnD have organized learning sessions where you can learn to play. Both allow you to start for free.

The good part is there is a regular scheduled social element usually weekly and between time you can do things yourself. That includes reading rules, making minis, practicing voices, writing modules, reading old source book, watching live streams, making maps etc. You don’t have to do all of those but you can really go in depth or as shallow as you want. All of the things you do my yourself will enhance the enjoyment of the group which is a great as well.

make a list of everyone that you would want to attend their funeral/wedding. and everyone that you would want to attend yours. come up with a realistic timeframe for yourself of how often you should connect with them, and set aside times in your schedule devoted to it. keep in touch.

• Try out recipes to cook from the internet. Thats an easy way to learn and in the end you can improvise.
• learn an instrument. Easier said than done really, best is to find a group and make fix appointments
• find a cool sport to do. Really, going out is sooo important. Dancing, martial arts, athletics, swimming, climbing, cycling. There is so much.
• learn another language that people actually speak in your area lol. For example signing! Signing is so useful, next to english, spanish, mandarin and russian maybe. Integrating deaf people is sooo important and it needs hearing people that can sign to translate.

Maybe try programming? It’s incredibly exciting once you get the hang of it. It can be frustrating at times but it’s really rewarding. Since becoming my hobby/job its given me an endless source of things to do at home. Plus it can open up new career paths :)

The word you are looking for is “hobby.”

Pretend to be a racoon. Trespass, go through the trash for things to eat or play with, crawl on rooftops and under the streets through storm drains.

a few ideas:

Learn:
An instrument
A living language
A dead language
A fictional language
A programming language
A new sport
A craft
New recipes
Bodyweight exercises

Go:
To Hell (Hell, Michigan)
Hike
Powerwalk your local mall
Cross country skiing
To your local arcade
To the coffee shop
On a road trip
Walk all the streets in your city
Test drive something interesting
To a movie
To your local library
To a concert
To an art gallery
To a museum