From the Mind of a Toxic Human
Hello League of Legends community!
My name is pretty much who I am, an alcoholic. I've struggled so much in my life at the age of 22 with something that I know will be a battle for many more decades to come as I continue the cycle of quitting and relapsing. It's inevitable. I've gone to jail, I've lost jobs, I've lost good friends, I've shamed my family, I've been dirt broke, I've lost girlfriends, and practically have lost everything except the college degree I am still pursuing.
I don't want to make this a depressing blog about my life, I am not about that, I usually keep my problems to myself but something today got me thinking about what I can do to possibly make the world a better place. This thread isn't about me or leagues necessarily, but it speaks in abundance to issues I see that transpire between reality and the game we all enjoy playing.
I've played leagues on and off for the past 3 years and for some reason have found a growing fire of passion for this game I've never felt before...I've started my ranked journey. I consider myself a better than average player, whatever that means. Provisionals felt otherwise lol, I went on to win 2 and lost 8 of my 10 games earning me a spot in the Bronze Tier 2 Division. Being my first time taking on ranked I quickly learned what all the elo hell jargon corresponded to, it does exist to a certain degree. I quickly dropped down to Bronze 4 after 50 games or so, and I wasn't surprised to tell you the truth. I felt like my attitude to the game alone was more attributed to the crappy rank I was given. During the 10 games I played in provisional, not only were the teams I on toxic to no other degree, but I myself was caught in the mix. Hopefully none of you reading this were on the receiving end of my drunken chat rage, but if you were I am deeply sorry.
I finally hit a wall though once I fell to Bronze 4. I felt like "man, this isn't the league I belong in given the skills, knowledge, and experience I have amassed in the 3 years of playing this". So I started analyzing what the hell was putting me at the rock bottom of Ranked. I realized that most of my losses typically had nothing to do with my mistakes or my teammates mistakes, but I realized rather than the losses most of the time were in reflection of toxicity spreading amongst my team.
For the last year, I've been making it a personal goal to work on something to improve myself as a human each and every week. It could be 1 thing, such as "having a cleaner room", or "writing things needed to do", such as bills so I am not having my electricity shut off. That being said, I really looked into myself here of the last week and realized just how my toxicity in the game I love to play transpires into my intereaction in the real world. I feel like at the job I work at now, my attitude is a reflection of the negativity I allow myself to fuel my brain within this game. I'll be honest, I devote a lot of time to this game, mainly because every game my goal isn't to win neccessarily, but to become a BETTER player. Things don't matter to me that I felt mattered to me pre-ranked. Where kills, kda, and general /all chat bragging was my primary objective in normals, in addition to a cold beer lol, I feel like now my goal in ranked is strictly to win by utilizing what I know and transforming myself into a better player each and every game.
In my last 30 - 40 ranked games or so, I've noticed my win rate has skyrocketed. I've won close to 80% of these last 40 games and I have to say the main reason was learning just how to treat the champions I am playing on my team for who they are, humans! I will still say that within these games I have from time to time let loose a rage moment, but the frequency has severally declined and I am more aware of the impact that my toxic rage moments have on my recent losses. In these recent ranked games I have also won a handful of games where we were completely up in the weeds, I mean we were losing 5 to 20 or 2 to 15 and through a simple catch of fresh air, or for me a quick cig break during death timer...I absorbed all the negative energy where I truly wanted to smash something, and generated it into a positive speech for my team. In these games where we were in the weeds, most of the time the other team was in fact better than us skill wise. But through collaboration and connection among each player, and I mean EACH player on my 5 man team, our positive energy was able to carry us to amass victory where the chances were slim, proving to me and the 9 other people in the game that there really is never a reason to truly lose hope and surrender. Sure, these were Bronze games, but I feel that it can improve any player and any team on any given division.
With that being said, I just wanted to end this with the notation that everyone you play with has bullshit they deal with in their lives, my life is full of it. I've felt so low, so shit as a human in certain parts of my short life that the only thing that matters is where and what I am drinking. I feel truly terrible for the times I have treated others with disrespect and toxicity because you have no idea what lives these people go through and at the end of the day we all log on this game to have fun.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
iDrink Moar Beer
