Is It Possible to be Addicted to Metal Detecting?

[Overkill Overkill]

Hello all,

I wanted to thank most of you who replied to my flurry of questions. I do realize on the surface my questions seem crazy, but I like asking them as they often turn out to yield interesting answers. Yes, I am very thin-skinned, so any replies that hint of sarcasm, etc. annoy the heck of me, but hey, life is short, right.

I just spent ~2 hours talking with my friend (sponsor) about being addicted to metal detecting. (You say: What the XZH@#% are you talking about?). Well, as you can tell from my posts, I am an intense person, and I am coming to terms that in addition to being motivated by the beach and water and finding cool stuff, I am also motivated by money (greed) and recognition ("Wow, look what Overkill Overkill found today on the beach!!") and not nearly as much as I thought for the sheer "fun" of metal detecting. The clincher came when my friend asked, "What if you gave everything you found away to charity - would you still want to metal detect?" Honestly, I had to reply "no."
I thought perhaps I could "moderate" my metal detecting by committing to a goal of just covering my expenses with my finds, but for me (and speaking for me only) this would be like trying to have just 1 beer. But I was wondering if anyone else 'struggles' with this issue? For example, does your significant other complain that you spend too much time hunting? Do you leave the beach feeling quite dejected if you don't reach a predetermined goal?

Sadly, I may have to give up metal detecting as I have had to give up alcohol, blackjack, and other vices. But I was wondering if any of you would be willing to comment on what drives you to detect?

 

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[TexasRT]

OK - I too didn't know anything about this HOBBY when I got into it a couple of years ago, I too ask A FEW questions here to get me pointed in the right direction. I then took the advice of the kind people on this site and went out and learned from doing, made adjustments as needed and kept going. I don't get to go as much as I would like but when I do, it is for the fun of it and I use it as time to relax and unwind as I'm sure a lot of others here do. As one who regulars this site mainly to just see the great finds and pickup a few hints here and there from others comments I may be out of line, but I really don't think this is the place to solicit help for personal issues. These people are obviously serious about their hobby and are more than willing to help when asked and I personally think it's not right to subject them to this type of questioning.
Just my thoughts and if I get kicked off for it, then thanks for the help in the past and happy hunting.

 

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[Montauk3]

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

 

[surfshark]

Someone once said, there is no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer. This is my first post and I've learned a lot from this forum. It has gave me a lot of great advice so keep it up, I'm still learning (we all learn something new every day)lets hope.OK here's mine, they are going to dig burms on the beaches to "stop" the oil why have i not heard about MDing those?that's the closes thing to a twenty foot deep hole that your going to get.I think it was a good question if it was a theoretical one. Thanks Surfshark