Pokemon Go – I’m addicted

Last week when the Pokemon Go game came out, I was determined not to be the last person on earth to start playing the game.. As you can guess, in the past, every craze that happens on the APP scene, I’m the last one to catch on.

At work during lunch my friends were discussing Pokemon Go and I decided then and there that I’m not letting this train out of the station without jumping on it. Oh boy was that an early warning sign that I should not have ignored.

I downloaded, created my avatar and went forth.. within a few days.. after finally figuring out that I needed to earn my Poke Balls by going to Poke Stops, I was fully immersed in the addiction.

Here are the signs of Pokemon Addiction that you need Poke-Therapy:

• At first all you want to do is see the Pokemon in your world and take pics of them using your phone.. but suddenly that’s not good enough, you want to take pictures of them in their environment, because it’s easier to capture them there.
• Taking pictures and capturing one or two will not do, you want to capture them all! How dare these Pokemon’s enter my world!
• You start having a panic attack when you can’t go after any Pokemon’s because you don’t have any Pokemon balls.
• You are constantly looking for Pokestops so you can reload with balls so you have enough when the Pokemon’s come at you.
• You almost break your (“If it’s not free, I’m not gonna pay“)  mantra and ALMOST break out the credit card so you can have enough Poke balls to capture as many creatures as possible. I have not gotten to this point yet, but I feel that I will be there pretty soon.

• You break out into a cold sweat when you realize you don’t have any Poke Balls and that you can’t get more till you go out into the REAL WORLD and find the pokestops.
• You want to get to the next level desperately and all you are thinking about is those Pokemon creatures and how you are gonna get all of them. This is where the obsession really begins!
• You start asking complete strangers (ahem teenagers that will look at you with disdain) where is the nearest pokestop so you can get your fix of 2 or 3 poke balls so you can continue your hunt.
• The line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred when all you see are Pokemon’s all around you! When you are in the real world and instead of doing normal walks, all you do is stare at your smart phone and say to yourself –> “How can I be that far away from the poke stop? I need more!”.
• You start “googling” –> “pokemon Go hacks” so you can get yourself to the next level as quickly as possible.
• You join a team for battle and then realize you have no idea what it is to do battle in a poke Gym.. when you get to level 5 and join a team..
• You walk heads down and expect others to get out of your way, be they cars of be they any inanimate objects (cars, poles) You almost walk into a pole, because you can’t seem to find the poke stop even as you are right on top of it!
• You start writing notes to yourself and adjusting your schedule so you have sufficient pokemon and me time so you can capture more Pokemon’s and go up another level!
• You power up your app and start crying when you see all these pokemon’s around you and you see the dreaded “No Poke balls remain” indicator on your phone.
• The temptation to stop your car and look for poke stops so you refill on pokeballs is so great, you break out into a cold sweat thinking about it.. Yeah that’s happened to me over the past few days.

There are plenty more signs and I anticipate that there will be a whole new legion of Poke-therapy sessions and support groups that will form for addicts like me. I’d like to hear from you on what lengths you have gone to feed your addiction.

This morning a friend of mine sent me a few links which I’m gonna share with you which exemplify this global addiction and the Pokemon Go Craze:

• Homer Simpson Plays Pokemon and ignores his kids
• Pokemon Mania on You Tube
• Win every battle in Pokemon Battle

The most important thing for me right now is that I’m at  higher level than both of my daughter’s and I’m not sharing with them my tricks. There I said it!

Yes they would destroy me on a regular basis on Trivia Crack, but now I’m cracked using Pokemon Go and I have no intention of losing this battle!

No Pokemon were hurt in the writing of this blog posting