More People Get Addicted to Bitcoin
Scotland’s Castle Craig Hospital offers addiction treatment. Their treatment center is a sprawling campus that was designed to introduce calm and reflection. Regional press says it is the first one to offer a concentrated program set to dealing with a growing phenomenon: cryptocurrency addiction.
Christopher Burn, the hospital’s creative writing coordinator and gambling therapist, explains how the “high risk, fluctuating cryptocurrency market appeals to the problem gambler. It provides excitement and an escape from reality. Bitcoin, for example, has been heavily traded and huge gains and losses were made. It’s a classic bubble situation.”
Speaking further, Burn said, “At what time in the journey from regular, functional adult to 21 year old Canadian living in a car to save money in order to buy lesser-known crypto, is it an addiction? What if the example does not involve a ballsy single dude; instead, it’s a family of five with three children, parents in their late 30s, who’ve sold their house in hope of riding the-then booming bitcoin core (BTC) price? Are these examples of addiction or are they simply badass pioneers who know something the rest of us do not?”
Tony Marini, on site therapist and former cocaine and gambling addict said, “Having been through it myself, my experience of addiction gives me insight and empathy towards others who have the same problem. I see cryptocurrency trading as a way for people to escape from themselves, into another world, because they don’t like the world they’re in. The first stage of treatment is to join other addicts in group therapy and share their life stories. This helps them identify with each other and realize that they’re not alone.”
This is just to say that if cryptos occupy too much space in one’s life in a way that the person no longer cares about the happenings around them, there is no doubt they have a problem.
Since Castle Craig hospital has experience in treating addictions, they have begun addressing crypto addictions using techniques developed by successful gambling addiction programs.
