Thursday, September 29, 2011

Breaking an Addiction

My name is Melanie and I am addicted ...

to a game called Pathwords.


I've played this game on Facebook for a couple of years and justify the many hours time spent each week with the thought that I'm exercising my brain. I absolutely love this game. I begin and end each day with it; just a couple games (10-15 minutes max. - usually). At first it was fun just to see how many words I could find in the 5 minute time limit. But then I saw the scoreboard on the side and my competitive nature kicked in. I wanted to beat my friends in this game. I experimented with getting as many short words as possible (with fewer points per words) vs. searching for the longer (more points) words. The really long words are worth 130 points; get a few of those and you're doing really well. Anyway, ten minutes gradually turned into an hour (or two) and then I caught myself saying "Just one more game and then I'll stop" over and over each night. When I reached first place I was ecstatic! And also fearful that I would lose my top spot to someone else. I finally realized I had a problem but was powerless to stop it. I love my routine. And I need to keep working to remain in first place.

Until now.  I'm breaking my addiction tomorrow, but not by my choice. It's a harmless little habit that I really wish I could continue. But, alas, Zynga, the company who developed Pathwords, is shutting it down tomorrow. They sent a very nice note telling about their other games and inviting Pathwords players to join those. They apologized for shutting it down. But my beloved game will no longer be available after September 30. 

I'm sad.
I've been playing a lot this last week to try and reach a score of 2200.
But it's over.  I'm breaking this addiction, and I'll have to develop a new routine.
Great timing ... I just got an iPad. I'm sure there are some apps that could exercise my mind...

And it's all right as long as I go out still in first place!

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