As someone who once walked into an AA meeting in search of help and answers for a friend who had an addiction/mental problem (long story - for another time perhaps), I have seen first hand the destructive behaviour that can be caused by addictions. Unfortunately, at the heart of most addictions there is an underlying emotional and/or psychological cause that seldom gets addressed.
I think there are two quotes that come to mind when I reflect on my own behaviours, and over the years they have been my motto when dealing with similar situations.
The first quote deals with the physical or physiological aspects of the behaviour, perfectly summed up below:
The only difference between medicine and poison is in the dosage
I think the mistake or misconception people often make with prescription medicine, a piece of advice, a new diet or basically anything that can be used to improve your health is to think that the more you use something the better the outcome will be. Not only are the therapeutic effects different for everyone, the tolerance beyond which we begin to experience adverse effects is also based on a number of individual factors when combined produces very different outcomes.
For people who are aiming to make money from Steemit, it is not surprising to see addictive behaviour with the contests, poker tournaments, cryptocurrency exchanges and other financial schemes/incentives having the same effect as they do in the real world. And I am not even going to get into the issue about bots and plagiarism!
For people who are aiming to use social media for influence and affect change, it is also not surprising to see abusive behaviour within the posts and comments, flag wars and trolling of user accounts but suffice to say that we are not immune from the side effects of social media platforms.
The second quote deals with the psychological and emotional aspects of the behaviour, best summarized below:
That which you cannot let go of is not worth holding onto
So those people who think that hoarding stockpiles of SP, SBD or Steem for a hefty nest egg might do well to be reminded that regardless of the currency (fiat or crypto/digital based), we are born into this life without money (which itself is just a concept) and as far as I know we don't take any away with us when our time is up. If the simple gesture of delegating SP to people who do make good use of it, or if transferring some SBD to people who are without essentials to get through the day is proving to be very difficult, perhaps there is very little value in simply clinging onto them for the sake of seeing the numbers increase in an intangible wallet.
As for those who seek to create but not resolve conflicts on the frontlines of every post, there will never been enough misery and anger if there isn't a purpose to the hurt and disruption that is caused to innocent bystanders as well as the people that suffer the most from it.
If there's something that every addict wished that they could do, it would be to STOP right before that very first 'experiment' or to STOP when they thought that they could indulge in their addiction just one last time.
We've seen some very good people and some very sad stories here - don't let Steem ruin your life.