i just recently broke my habit with CSGO. My friend had introduced me to it during the Op Bravo era. I was terrible at the game and only played against bots for a while. I remember when I finally worked up the courage to play competitive. The first time I clutched a round I was amazed. I had never felt something so exciting before in a game. So I would start putting CSGO in front of other games. Instead of playing AoE with my bro I would instead boot up CSGO so I could DM to get my aim better and learn the maps faster.
Next thing I know I'm craving playing more competitive on my next days off. So all I do at work is read about csgo on reddit and watch youtube tutorials and videos. It begins to dictate my conversations with friends and even my wife. At this point the crates and skins come into play. I would only open a case if I got in a drop and would usually only open it with friends (just for fun). Next thing I now I was looking at my next car payment due and thought, "i got $30 bucks extra left, might as well open crates. who knows maybe i'll make profit and get a knife."
Well if you didn't guess it, it became a huge problem. To the point where my wife had to bail me out a few times to help cover my part of the bills. Bless her soul, she knew this entire time what I was doing but I always made up stories about how I wasn't sure where the money was going or it was because I was buying us too much food when we'd go out. I would get irrational and angry easily at her about money (secretly I knew it was my fault, but I didn't want to admit that).
At this point I was playing CSGO ~8-12 hours every night I had off and would constantly think about it when I was at work, on a date, or with family. I was heavily addicted and too stubborn to admit it to myself. Saying I was just having fun and could stop anytime I wanted to. I stopped going out and stopped worrying about social standards. All I worried about was my MM rank and my precious skins.
One day I guess I got lucky and unboxed 2 expensive knives within a few days (still way negative on money, but the addict in me didn't care). I had roughly ~1000 dollars worth of digital items and didn't know what to do. I had some many ideas on what to do with them and it was just burning holes in my paypal.
I can't tell you what made me stop playing. It wasn't a single decision or a day that I just quit. I just remember one weekend me and my wife decided to go fishing at a local pond. We ended up having an awesome time (she had never been fishing before) and catching a lot of fish. When were finishing up that night I had realized that I had went that entire afternoon without thinking about CSGO. I got home and booted it up like I normally would and just "wasn't feeling it". So I cuddled my wife instead and watched a movie with her. Slowly but surely I stopped craving the feeling. I sold all my skins for paypal money and bought us more fishing gear and transferred money to my savings. I still think about the game every once and a while. But I don't really miss it now. It's like being able to look through a doorway and see a different you. I was a person that I don't want to be again. CSGO is fun but it can easily become an addiction that is hard to handle. And it looks harmless because "it's just a video game".