30 Signs You’re A Candy Crush Addict

Even if you aren’t a partaker, you’ve heard of it — and don’t act like you haven’t.  The fad that has swept not just this nation but the world, and has consumed countless of hours in many of our lives.  The most telling thing about the Candy Crush phenomenon is I have yet to come across a person who has started playing the game and not immediately been sucked in.  The habits we all now strangely possess can truly only point to the signs of an addiction.  We are a world that has become addicted to a colorful – some may say mindless – game, and I am honored (embarrassed? how dare you think that) to present to you a list of the attributes that confirm your addiction:

1. You have real conversations with your friends about what you call the variety of candies/shapes you encounter.  To one it is a cookie, to another it is a disco ball, when in actuality it most likely resembles a chocolate pop’em donut with sprinkles that I would devour in milliseconds if I could.

2. You close your eyes at night and the only thing you can picture are yellow lemon drop candies, next to red jelly beans, next to orange cough drops, next to blue lollipops heads, and then your brain goes haywire as you try to imaginarily swipe candies away from your memory.

3. You think you actually have some skills when you surpass a Facebook friend on your quest to nothingness.

4. You get a text notice about your data usage reaching its max for the month and you know the only course of action is to instantly shut down all candy crush playing activities.  Then, you quickly follow that up by thinking what data plan needs to be purchased in order to withstand the intensity of my playing habits.

5. You ponder self-inflicted amputation to your index finger/thumb when it betrays you and swipes in the wrong direction screwing up all your future moves and ultimately ruining your day.

6. You quit the game for weeks at a time thinking the break will give you some time to gain true perspective on life and it doesn’t at all.  All it does is yank you back in without even a question.

7. You have pity on those who are too cool to link to Facebook and will never understand these so-called quests they must complete in order to advance episodes.

8. You download it for your mom even though she is quite clueless when it comes to phone gadgets and you give her positive encouragement as she completes one board a month.  She also relays her conspiracy theories that she believes they dumb down the level for her and sometimes even just clear it on their own after she has spent several weeks on a particularly stubborn board.

9. You have a friend openly admit she adds her own sound effects when getting the holy grail of mixing a pop’em with a striped candy doing a wonderful number on your board, and you suddenly admirer her that much more.

10. You pass judgment (with and without reason) on those who spend their hard-earned money on extras or bonuses that allow you to beat boards more easily and are essentially the quick fixes to catapult you farther in the saga.  (This is a free app and in my eyes it must always stay that way or else they win, and let’s face it they have already have won, and if you are asking who they is I have no idea – maybe King Candy.)

11. You sit in the same room as people you should be conversing with but you are too busy crushin’ it, and that’s exactly what you say if someone dares to try to talk to you: “Sorry I’m crushin’ it!”

12. You can talk about strategy and see the value in it, but then you realize this game relies heavily on luck and you hate it for that fact.

13. You contemplate not sending a “friend” a life or extra moves because you are a jerk.

14. You think to yourself: “I gotta start playing right this moment because I want my 30 minutes penalty to begin ticking which would result in the optimization of the total amount of lives I can garner throughout the course of the day.”

15. You have verbally proclaimed to others that: “Some boards are just plain annoying, while others are annoying but enjoyable.”  And you have no idea what that means or what the point of uttering that sentence was even for.

16. You play on your phone, on your iPad, on your computer, on your significant other’s iPad so you can have 5 lives on each apparatus, and you feel great about it.

17. Your sister quits Facebook and of course has to notify you that she will no longer be sending you lives, and you are genuinely upset by this disturbing chain of events, and then you consider defriending her in real life for her extremely thoughtless blunder.

18. You still haven’t come to a conclusion on what you despise more bombs, tornadoes, reappearing chocolates, or concrete blocks.

19. You come across this post on the internet and your mind is blown.  Changing the time on your phone is pure genius and really should be at the top of the list for signs of a Candy Crush addict. (I also feel a bit sad that I am just discovering this stealthy tactic.)

20. You then come across (on Wikipedia of course) the staggering number that this game makes $633,000 a day and that was in July last year, and in the U.S. only, and just in the iTunes store.  Talk about mind being blown.  Then you pray to God to grant you the powers to create an app in the very near future.

21. You instantaneously feel akin with a stranger you catch participating in the game.

22. You internally get mad at one of the three if not all three of the babies you are  watching (or any person for that matter) if they happen to do something that leads to you mentally making a misstep in a level that you have been trying to conquer for what seems eternity.

23. You take offense to the new give up tab that pops up after failing to complete a level and wish it was the good ole days of just ending the game and waiting your time in the penalty box before continuing on with your dissent into antisocial madness.

24. You were once one of those people that sternly declared, “I don’t play games on my phone.”  And almost a year later you now know the error of your ways.

25. You’ve played it in your car with the Bluetooth on and the sound pounding through your speakers wondering what the heck your life has come to, and then after 45 minutes or so have passed you decide it is time enter your house after a long day’s work.

26. You, despite the previous sign, have thought about physically harming someone who plays the game with the sound on.

27. You justify your time playing the saga and not being productive in other facets of life by proclaiming: “It is a great stress relief and everyone needs stress relievers in their life.”

28. You frequently think impossible exists, but you know of others who have triumphed through the most troublesome level you thought there was, and then you learn the life lesson that impossible is always possible.

29. You have serious discussions (in your head) about what you will do when you reach the end.  How will your life look?  Will you actually have to get a life?

30. You spend your free time (not crushin’, obviously) writing this.

So if you relate to just a few of the signs mentioned, you probably are an addict.  If you relate to some of them you definitely are an addict.  If you relate to all of them I see us getting along quite well in our mutual patheticness.  And if you have yet to step into the Candy Crush mix disregard everything I’ve written and know you might not become an addict, but also just know in the end you will.  Furthermore, to help those who call this game mindless, pointless, a massive time waster – I equate it to someone who has never tried Chick-fil-A.  You can resist it all you want but your first experience with it will alter your life forever, and that’s exactly what the Candy Crush Saga does.  The first step to recovery is acknowledging you have a problem.  And let me tell you at one point I was a bit ashamed of my gamer ways, but now I can openly say I am Debbie and I am a Candy Crush addict.  Though Candy Crush may have consumed me as a person it does not define me as a person.  It just places me into the group with the other 500 million plus who have jumped on the bandwagon, and if that isn’t a distinct way to define your life than I don’t know what is.

Are you an addict?  Do you know an addict?  If so, what characteristics/signs have I failed to mention on this list?

And just remember, don’t be ashamed to keep on crushin’ it!