Coming out of the closet with this one, and requesting support and prayers to get through my dark night. In the throws of turmoil right now and don't know where else to turn.
 
Been slamming down a six pack or less of beer daily, fully addicted alcoholic, but this is not the problem.
 
This plea for help will fall on deaf ears among keyboard players, so you piano dudes as a group cannot help, because there is no empathy about what I am going through.
 
As a guitar banger, I am trying to get beyond my addiction to using a pick, 50 years of habit is hard to break.
 
The possibilities of pickless playing are only as limited as the guitar is limited. Still the crutch of a piece of plastic that I can't abandon.
 
Have opened Reaper and set some brainless mp3 on a track and forcing myself to loop the song. Me on track 1, liberal vst effects. Let it go round and round until a weird glimmer of hope is there that I don't need the plastic plectrum. Was a quote by some obscure guitar teacher that told his student that if he wants to learn to play a guitar, the first thing he has to do is throw the pick away.
 
Serious struggle even if pickless opens a higher road ahead.
 
Thank you for your prayers and advice from anyone guitar player who has been able to get free of the pick.
 
John

I'd recommend taking lessons from a classical guitar teacher. Either that, or lookup some basic finger picking exercises on YouTube. I'm sure there are books available as well (Mel Bay, etc.).

or even Tosin Abasi. Most of the 8 strings players play without plectrum because they say the 8 strings force them to play different. plectrum can only hit one string at the time, but the 8 string force them to play different.
 
Tosin Abasi on Playing with All Fingers and Double Thumb Picking | Reverb Interview

Thanks guys for the feedback. The video is as amazing as it is depressing (like how far I got to go).

So let me get this right...when you put down a pick, you suddenly lose your base of skills in your fingering hand?  And your ability to count and hear pitches?  And your guitar turns into a mop?  Is this like Samson getting a haircut? 
 
Golly, that would be like starting all over!
 
/sarc 
:P :)

A better guitar player than me might not have to start over. Several aspects of my "style" draw on things that require the plastic with or without other finger involvement. So far I can't replicate the effects without a pick. Nothing is lost and the experience is somewhat liberating forcing me down different avenues.
 
John

OK, I do like like to finger pick my guitar. Nothing fancy, but nice little rolls. However, as you know it can be very soft as your fingertips are considerably softer than a plectrum. So I tried putting on finger and thumb picks - much like a banjo player. And as crazy as this sounds - I couldn't do it. Couldn't play like I did when the picks weren't on. Sounded worse than someone picking up the guitar for the very first time. Took the picks off and everything was fine. It was like I had to "feel" the strings. So in some ways, I can empathize with the OP.

Mandolin,
 
Think you understand the torture. Did every combination and permutation of the metal and plastic finger coverings trying to get the exquisite plastic resonance of an isolated pick. Nothing worked for me, fingers metal or plastic plated trying to feel the instrument. Nothing but the bare fingers if the pick was not there.. Everything else like in your experience made it worse.
 
Based my mediocre limitations as a guitar player on insane speed at the expense of meaningful content. Needed a hypersonic trill with a light gage pick to hit every note. Had mastered a funk technique of fingernail followed by a couple millisec delay before the pick hit for slower note definition (always got me the girls). Maybe best brain dead thing I got together connecting with the instrument is ringing the notes in a Byrds sorta way. Mini orchestra on a six string. Needs heavy compression for sustain, rewired circuit on a single coil design, and a pick.
 
Mush of the flesh simply does not deliver the glory.
Getting blisters on my thumb but this too shall pass. Trying to learn.
 
John
 

John,
 
I just want to make sure I understand. Are you trying to play with finger picks (e.g., thumbpick, index, middle, ring), or just plain ol' finger flesh? And having this ability as an alternate to the single-pick plectrum method most common in electric guitar playing? 
 
Are you seeking to play more like James Taylor, Segovia, or Mark Knopfler (for examples)?
 
 

Just try playing the guitar while watching TV or just sitting in the kitchen, noodle around with the finger picking (not really trying to do something technically specific, but something comfortable). You'd be surprised at how you can accidentally run into a picking pattern without knowing it and it's not a "forced" lesson. Once you get comfortable with that, you can always take it a bit further in fine tuning the technique.
 
I did this so much in the kitchen while the Mrs. was cooking/the little ones hanging around singing, I got very comfortable using the thumb and first 3 fingers......of course, playing children's songs (....and the wheels on the bus go round and round).