or when you just dont care what your results are, and dont give it the time and attention it demands.
When it does not become an addiction is when you realize the cold and harsh reality that the odds are stacked against you - not by chance but by design.
When you take the money for the babies milk and buy PUT options on GOOG day before expiration. ROTFLMAO
It must be an addiction until you conquer the quest you embark upon by wanting to trade. This is to possess an accurate methodology (and have the savvy and skill to implement it) from which you make your fortune from the market. You take a challenge in which the weak or the stupid or the vain or the inconsistent or the shallow shall stumble or fail. Why would so many take such a challenge? No bars to entry is the answer. Just some money is needed. But a fool gets parted from his money, some or most of it, sooner or later. And the challenge ends for most without their dreamed success.
Just read this on Brett Steenbarger's blog: "Among the predictors of trading success, a "passion for trading" is grossly overrated. The successful traders have a passion for markets, which is very different from a passion for trading. Indeed, a passion for trading in the absence of passion for markets is a fair definition of addiction." Makes sense to me.