potato wroteWell this is a hard topic that it might be hard to swallow for some of us. But i ditched gaming 2 years ago and i feel awesome. I replaced with sports, chess, ping pong, basketball, swimming, hiking, watching documentaries/animal shows.
You name it i joined clans, played in competitive clan wars, hosted servers, started a gaming website. Everything all about gaming.
From my point of view gaming is not the problem since we all seek that pleasure of having fun however it lacks positive vibes that you will never get as having to physically achieve your victory or try to.
I guess have some advantages since it lets the user learn some new things depending on the game but still after all these years as a geek and as a human gaming was only me trying to waste time thinking this is what fun is supposed to be.
Let me first say congratulations on being able to change your life habits into something you feel is more beneficial to you.
However, I disagree with your outlook on gaming itself.
I am 28 y/o industrial engineer, with a good career, a lovely fiancé, and a gaming hobby.
I had the same situation you had, same feelings, but instead of demonizing gaming itself, I looked at the core issue and realized that my problem was why the online component of gaming.
Online based treadmill games that drip feed you tiny hits of dopamine are the problem.
If you consider single player games, they compete with the best consumer media out there (movies, TV shows, books, music)
If you treat your games as consumable piece of media and not an endless dopamine drip, you can easily find value in your time spent.
I don't watch TV, I don't browse social media and don't follow the news. I instead play single video games.
The best tool to managing a video game hobby is the pause button, and I value that pause button immensely.