Why We Built Lume

If you're reading this at 3am, screen still glowing, another day gone, we see you. If you just lied about where you've been, if you're exhausted from fighting yourself every day, if life is slipping away but you can't seem to stop: we've been exactly where you are.

League. MMOs. The games changed, but the pattern didn't. We skipped class, avoided friends, perfected the art of lying about our screen time. We chased ranks, chased the dream of going pro, chased anything that let us avoid real life. School? Failed out. Relationships? Avoided and lost. Health? Destroyed by energy drinks and sleepless nights. Years disappeared into a screen while everyone else moved forward.

It wasn't dramatic. It was quiet and terrifying: realizing nobody was coming to save us. We were in our early 20s, alone, watching our lives flatline while our friends built careers and relationships. That fear of waking up at 30 in the same place became stronger than the pull of one more game.

So we quit. Cold turkey. Uninstalled everything. Cut off gaming friends. Built a rigid routine: exercise, reading, learning new skills, anything to fill the void left by video games. The first weeks were brutal. Our brains screamed for dopamine. But we held the line because we had to.​

Three years later, we still struggle sometimes with focus and sleep. Recovery is slow. But now we're building companies, working out consistently, cooking real food, maintaining relationships that actually matter. The rewards come slower than in-game achievements, but they're real and they last. You just have to retrain your brain to value them.

That's why Lume exists. When we needed help, we found generic advice and judgment, but nothing built for people like us who needed to quit completely and rebuild from scratch. No structured program. No real community. So we built what we desperately needed: a recovery tool designed by people who've lived this, for people still fighting it.

You're not broken. You're not weak. We've been in that chair at 3am. We've told those lies. We've felt that anxiety. We made it out, and you can too. We're here.