System Addict: From Dopamine to Discipline.
What addiction taught me about waiting, watching, and winning in markets.
I’m not addicted to trading. Today, I’m addicted to my process.
I know a lot about addiction—I’m coming up on 15 years clean in November. I don’t hide my past. It’s part of who I am.
And if you’ve ever been there, you know the difference between chaos and clarity. You know what it feels like to chase, to grasp, to spiral. Trading can feel a lot like that—dopamine, impulse, the high of being “right.”
But that’s not sustainable. That’s not freedom. That’s not recovery.
Today, I don’t chase trades—I follow rules.
I don’t react—I respond to signals.
I don’t need the market to move—I wait for my edge to appear.
There’s a quote from Narcotics Anonymous that hits me every time:
“We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
For me, that power is structure. It’s a system. It’s a process that’s bigger than my feelings in the moment.
I’m not addicted to the action anymore. I’m addicted to showing up with discipline.
To sticking to what works.
To knowing that recovery—in life or in markets—isn’t about intensity. It’s about consistency.
One day at a time.
One trade at a time.
One clean signal at a time.
We’re in a Reflationary Regime. And this is the first input in my system.
Not based on forecasts. Not on hope. Based on price and what the growth and inflation data is actually telling us.
Where are we now: