When Trading Becomes Addiction: Should I Intervene or Let Go?”

[shawonngp]

According to you, he has been associated with trading for the past two years. I have a doubt. Is he really trading or gambling? Does he trade futures? Otherwise, he should not lose so much money in spot trading, because if he sees that the market is going down after buying a coin, it is possible to exit spot trading with profit, if he holds it in the long term. He is too addicted, of course. You can help him quit trading and suggest finding an alternative source of income. Investing in trading is a high-risk, and it's not a job that guarantees a steady income.

[FirmWars]

My questions are:
→ Am I wrong to tell him to get out of the trading life in this situation?
→Am I asking for something unreasonable, or is this actually a serious red flag?
Honest and realistic opinions would really help.

How can you be wrong in telling him to stop trading when his life has almost been ruined because of trading, you are not wrong, your action shows that you love him and the way you can show this love more is to let him stop or let him be more responsible in trading. I never used to believe that one can be addicted to trading in a manner that they will sell off their properties, I thought it's just addicted gamblers that does that, if a trader is doing that, it doesn't tell good about the person. A trader should be smart and take calculated risk, not selling properties to trade.

[tygeade]

Trading addiction is as dangerous as gambling addiction because both are injurious to your saving, so you should never let your addiction go but you must treat it properly before any big loss happens. You may love technical analysis but never your trading career and seeing profits, yes floating profits may pump your adrenaline which must be the reason for many traders to get addicted to trading.

Due to addiction, traders never bother improving their technical analysis but keep trading among many losses. Simply, after two or three consecutive losses, traders must stop and look for what caused the loss and then working on fixing on technical part may help to prevent another loss and taking break will help not to get addicted to trading.

[dannyatwork8]

You keep mentioning 'taka', is this referring to the Bangladeshi national currency?

While I empathise with your situation and the helplessness you feel when your close ones are victims of addiction, it is also important to point out that you will have to fight long and hard for him to fully recover. It can't be a half effort. And even after that, there's no guarantee he will come out of it.

Good luck and you're right to intervene.

[Alphakilo]

Trading addiction is as dangerous as gambling addiction because both are injurious to your saving, so you should never let your addiction go but you must treat it properly before any big loss happens. You may love technical analysis but never your trading career and seeing profits, yes floating profits may pump your adrenaline which must be the reason for many traders to get addicted to trading.

Due to addiction, traders never bother improving their technical analysis but keep trading among many losses. Simply, after two or three consecutive losses, traders must stop and look for what caused the loss and then working on fixing on technical part may help to prevent another loss and taking break will help not to get addicted to trading.

Trading without checking back to previous trades to know what caused the loss or comparing stats just to have a proper analysis and learn from trading mistakes, is one of the worst ways to keep trading without making profits.
It's an addiction already and it's just like drugs.
The worst is not having discipline, not having emotional control, not learning from previous mistakes, not having a well defined strategy, not acknowledging risk management and financial management are all pitfalls that lead to more losses in trading that wins.

Perhaps an advice to such an uncle with this trading addiction is to stay away from it for a while and let his thoughts take over, maybe his mind will open up to better ways to reclaim his losses and be a guru in the end. I have never known a successful person who became successful without much background failures. That's just my point.

[Kelvinid]

→ Am I wrong to tell him to get out of the trading life in this situation?

Rather than giving him the advice to totally quit trading life which is something he may not really want to do, you can give him the advice to look for another source of income while he still pursues trading because some people would never learn especially when he knows that you're not a trader in a position that would understand him. Maybe with another source of income to support his daily needs he will be able to make better trading decisions from a position where he is under less pressure from wanting to make money to spend on basic needs.

Well that could also be a good alternative. Offering him some additional sources of income will make him realized that its not only trading that can make him profitable in life, and if he'll go for it, that would limit his trading exposure and addiction as he will be busy with another source of income.

Probably that could work if he is still open for some alternatives, but if his mind is completely closed and would only prioritize trading over anything else, I guess on that point you can't do something about it but wait until he will learn his own lesson from trading.

[slaman29]

Its a tough call and its never easy to advice. But you should ask a professional. I would even contact the police for help (they have a family unit so you can be anonymous) as they can actually help make your uncle's bank check for all the risks and make sure he never deposits more than % of his income.

Don't intervene directly, you can come off as unwanted help and that might make him go deeper.. That's my take anyway, I think you need to ask a professional.

[ancafe]

My questions are:
→ Am I wrong to tell him to get out of the trading life in this situation?
→Am I asking for something unreasonable, or is this actually a serious red flag?
Honest and realistic opinions would really help.

If he is unable to be responsible while trading and is spending more money, then telling him to quit isn't a bad decision either, as at least he won't waste more money trading. But it's much better if he starts learning trading the right way so he can slowly improve his skills and ultimately avoid losing more money. Trading is not easy because not everyone can be successful and in fact, more people fail than succeed.

Risk management, discipline, psychology, and a trading plan are necessary so that people can better understand the impact of the risks they incur. Most people don't learn the right way but instead expect large profits in trading which can have a much worse psychological impact because no one can survive in trading if they lose more money.

[Furball808]

My questions are:
→ Am I wrong to tell him to get out of the trading life in this situation?

Not really especially you are seeing he is not being profitable meaning he must be doing something wrong and he needs to reevaluate his entire strategy if he wants to keep doing trading. But he may not listen to you if you are not a trader yourself.

→Am I asking for something unreasonable, or is this actually a serious red flag?
Honest and realistic opinions would really help.

He is being delusional and is causing more harm than good. Trading can be profitable if done properly but he clearly isn’t so he must change something.

[maydna]

If you thinks you can helps him, you can helps by not suggesting him to stops trading. You can tells him about other resources to learns trading more so he can improve his skills. But there is more important things to do which is he needs to make sure that he can leaves drugs forever.

I am afraid that if he can't leaves drugs, he can lose his focus in trading and make wrong decision. It may be difficult for him but he must do that before he become a heavy addicted to drugs.

You can suggest to search for other opportunities to makes money. He can uses that to earn money while he can still trading. If he realize what less of him and want to fix it, he will gets his second chances.

[barbara44]

According to you, he has been associated with trading for the past two years. I have a doubt. Is he really trading or gambling? Does he trade futures? Otherwise, he should not lose so much money in spot trading, because if he sees that the market is going down after buying a coin, it is possible to exit spot trading with profit, if he holds it in the long term. He is too addicted, of course. You can help him quit trading and suggest finding an alternative source of income. Investing in trading is a high-risk, and it's not a job that guarantees a steady income.

It is not stated if which type of trading he was doing but if let say it was futures trading, then he can incur more damage and won't last for two years. It is not the point though. Whether it was futures or spot trading, but as long as one has a control of themselves, they will only be fine. We can help someone to quit their addiction but the question is if they will also help their selves and cooperate with us.

Both investing and trading are risky but investing must still have a lower risk than on trading. It only takes time to earn a profit in investing, so it is the one that can't replaced a job, while I already saw traders who treat trading like a real job and earn regular profits on it. It only boils down to our skill and control.

[BitBakerr1]

At this point, you need to do everything possible to make sure that he stops trading because I can see that he is deeply addicted to trading and if you don’t stop him now it will destroy him totally in the future trading is a very good thing to do but when you don’t have self control, it will consume you and make you become frustrated. When you are trading and you start selling your properties just to trade, then you are deeply addicted to trading. We are only meant to use our discretionary income to trade when you are not using this then you are in a very big problem. Talk to him and tell him to leave trading completely because it will destroy him very soon. I know it may be hard for you, but you need to give it a try. He may listen to you and stop.

[Dechris_08]

I’m sharing something very personal from my life and I genuinely want honest opinions from everyone.
My younger uncle has been trading for almost 2 years now. At the beginning, it seemed like he was learning, but gradually it turned into something like an addiction. Over these two years, I haven’t seen any stable income or consistent profit—only repeated losses. He claims that at one point he made around 50,000 taka in profit, but due to poor risk management, he lost everything. To continue trading, he sold his expensive phone, sold a car worth nearly 500,000 taka, and also took money from family members (he denies it, but I know the truth). Now he barely owns anything—just a low-end phone and a laptop, which he uses for trading. I never wanted him to become a billionaire or millionaire. I would be completely satisfied if he earned even 10–20 thousand taka per month. I have repeatedly advised him to quit trading and take a small job, but he refuses to listen. He is so frustrated that he still says whatever little money he has left will also go into trading, and if that’s gone, he will be “destroyed.” Another important issue—he was addicted to drugs (yaba) for about 1–2 months before. I stood by him even during that time. Now he says that in the future his wife will not be allowed to work outside, will have no income of her own, and everything will have to depend on him. His family has almost given up on him. He lives alone with our grandmother. If I leave him too, he might completely collapse—that fear is what’s stopping me from making a decision.

My questions are:
→ Am I wrong to tell him to get out of the trading life in this situation?
→Am I asking for something unreasonable, or is this actually a serious red flag?
Honest and realistic opinions would really help.

Honestly, telling him to quit completely might trigger resistance, because it can feel like taking away his identity.

Instead, consider guiding him to controlled trading with accountability, like logging every trade, showing progress weekly, or using demo accounts.

Sometimes the path to “quitting” isn’t a hard stop but structured boundaries that slowly rebuild discipline and trust.

[SamReomo]

My questions are:
→ Am I wrong to tell him to get out of the trading life in this situation?

You're not wrong by telling him to get out of trading and do something else, it seems like he's not at all a good trader but someone who might have make 50k taka in profit out of sudden just because he might be lucky at that time.

A good trader never ever losses such amount but make profit time after time even if he/she is in loss they'll recover such losses by averaging.

He might be thinking that he's good at trading but to be honest trading isn't for everyone, only few people can be good at it and earn something from it, the rest will end up losing money in it.