reminds me of this thread/video:
NRPNs too 
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Iâd be careful with referencing current neuroscience or the DSM as anything close to definitive. It is sometimes helpful, but also and maybe equally dangerous. Humans are complex. Psychological issues have a tendency to bleed into each other (co-morbidity). I used to joke back in 2015 when those of us who are medical providers for mental health were required to start using the DSM V for our paperwork with insurance companies, âif you think you have Aspergerâs Syndrome, donât worry, you wonât have it anymore after 10/1/15âthe DSM has removed it.â Again, it is just a joke. The underlying features of Aspergers are real, whether the DSM says so or not, or calls it something else. Trying to figure out whether a person is an addict or obsessional should not depend on whether the DSM would say they are, or arenât. Same with Neuroscience. What they say today, might be totally rejected next year. They are good starting points for a discussion, but hardly definitive or exacting.
A non-DSM definition of âaddictionâ is âa habit that brings positive feelings which when continued brings negative consequences that the person finds difficult to stop, even after realizing the negative consequences.â Does this include both addiction and obsessional thinking, along with corresponding behaviors? Sure. Who cares. In the end, what are you going to do about it?
There have been really great suggestions here. I like the common thread of figuring out what you are avoiding by GAS, and then addressing what you are avoiding. If it is âAnxietyâ then look at what is causing the anxiety and deal with it. Is it life choices? Is it a relationship issue? Family? Is it some as-yet undetermined and deep-seated sense of inadequacy? Whatever it is, think of GAS as a symptom, not a cause. Deal with the cause and the symptom will either go away or become substantially less of a problem.
Using myself as an example, I started acquiring gear about 25 years ago, built a small manageable studio and had fun with it for about 20 years, only buying things to keep it up to date (new computer, Midi controller, Audio interface). Then the pandemic hit. I was bored, anxious, lonely, and isolated, so to distract myself I joined forums like this, watched YT, and started buying gear, not just to play them, but to immerse myself in them, so I didnât have to pay attention to the world, and my world in it. The pandemic subsided, and so did my GAS. It is back up again this year, due to the upcoming elections in the US. I am watching my GAS and before hitting âbuyâ thinking about the reasons I am distracting myself, and also âwhere will it go in an already full studio.â So far, itâs worked pretty well this year and last year.
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home ownership cured my G.A.S. as well as my Virus TI2 and Rytm MK2.
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Itâs obviously a subjective thing that relies on a lot of consensus and, well, what Insurance will pay money to provide health care on in the United States.
Itâs also slightly more complex in that the DSM was brought up in the context of extreme pathologizing, I agree with the general point in that itâs not the delimiter or harm and health, but in response to turning sex/pornography, GAS, and watching Youtubes on the shitter into âaddictionsâ that require some sort of SLAA / GAS performative cultish response should probably have some (albeit better!) response.
Iâm trying to do 1 in one out at the mo but Iâm finding I have a new problem. I just sold my m8 mk1 and ordered a mk2 which will arrive in september. itâs around ÂŁ200 extra for the mk2, seems worthwhile. But now that 500 quid is sitting in my account and feels like free money. And coincidentally will exactly cover another bit of gear Iâve been eyeing up for the last few weeks.
Iâm trying to take a break from making music to get the passion / energy back. But clearing the mind is hard. I canât stop thinking about all the unfinished ideas I have and how good it feels to play live. Music creation is a gift and a curse.
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Dangerous? Come on.
The word addiction has drifted from disorder to symptom, and the tendency to label things lone consumptive behaviors as an addiction is a lot more about someone trying to put their own name on the map than it is about helping people.
If you throw out the DSM entirely we have no working definitions anymore.
You can redefine the term however you wish, but it is no longer the clinical meaning of the term, and one of the major problems with redefining it in this way is people start to think of (and argue) that hyperconsumption works the same as substance dependence, which it doesnât at all - nor does it work quite the same as gambling. These are real issues, issues that are obscured by using the same term to describe them all.
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Iâm going away again soon, this holiday will of cost me nearly 4 grand, could of got one of those new Arturia polys 
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Or a child
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Yep.
Little bastards
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Careful, more than one baby is a symptom of Baby Acquisition Syndrome: BAS.
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I lost today⌠OP-1 Field is arriving in a couple of days
Case in point and I know itâs probably offered tongue in cheek, but the performative need to post about sin / redemption is one of the worst âaddictionâ pattern to make it to forums covering music and technology.
As much sense as seeking AA sponsors on an internet site for alcohol brand influencers 
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Iâm selling a lot of gear and clearing up my studio in the process though. So⌠progress?
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No. Rationalisation.
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unironically buy everything. the fiscal celling is really not that high, thereâs a point where thereâs nothing left to buy. then the stuff that isnât worth keeping gets sold, and youâre left with what works. that is until something new is actually madeâŚM8, PT, Battalion, Syntakt. after a few years of whoredom you can easily scoff of new products, recalling the months of frustration and endless wasted time and money âtryingâ different types of new âround wheelsâ to make the same dumb sounds. hardware gas has driven me right back full circle into bitwig. I can do ANYTHING in the virtual, FOR freeeeeeeeeeeeee
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Problem seems, again, linguistic. Not enough words. There is addictive behavior (and experience) in life areas that are, even if kind of harmful, not pathological in the common sense or from the clinicianâs perspective.
Two approaches come to mind:
- normalize it as spectrum while addressing the mechanisms (after all, people who think they suffered from GAS, suffer somehow) and use the words within and without special clinical definitions
- use more distinct words and canonize them
Trigger warning: âwall of wordsâ, just disregard/skip if not interested.
DSM and ICD are always problematic, given the great compromises in establishing thrm and their huge impact on health, society, economy. Remember the outcry when âtheyâ purged the concept of neurosis - borderline - psychosis with ICD-10. The models that lead to these words still worked and there are many groups and specialists who use the concepts (of Kernberg for example) today. One problem of ICD-10 was that they broke with some established theoretical concepts ex cathedra (no distinction anymore between what previously was called neurotic depression vs endogenous depression) but remained the old words here and there. Sometimes without a definition. So psychosis staid. Borderline PD stayed but became a list of symptoms easy to check (but also many persons who would be described as BPS/BPD didnât check anymore).
The ICD-10 approach was helpful in the way that next generations didnât need to think (overly) causally anymore (system may have reached dogmatic endpoints), which opened some doors of thinking otherwise and destigmatized some.
On the other hand it narrowed the things so many youngsters could only see the things in the catalogue (and didnât even know the classical authors like Jaspers, Bleuler etc.). Some of them (professionals) act like they donât know that models are there to describe the world (as good as it gets or as good as is necessary for the purpose) and to make good predictions of outcome or intervention. And that the diagnostical manuals are at least the second derivateâŚ
Also one of the main purposes of those manuals (i.e. having lists and check marks that protect the provider against the insurer (one way to put itâŚ) is not clear to many.
What I think I want to say is that when I talk about GAS being some kind of addiction I donât use the word as being an addiction in the sense of one of the manualsâ definitions (even though it might fulfill criteria for non-substance-induced addiction in a subgroup), but as in describing obviously common and shared patterns, where some, many, or âallâ features of addictive behaviors (including defense mechanisms like rationalization, sometimes anger) and experience (like craving, highs, crashes, feelings of guilt, feelings of shame) apply.
Therefore I think that approach might be helpful (more or less totally outside the medical system, except in case there was another clinical condition underlying and one wanted to address this one). As I wrote: acceptance (the disadvantage parts and the beautiful parts like total immersion or happiness in anticipation) and then personal decision if harm reduction or another better suited way of coping was desirable. Controlled use would also be something that could work in many cases 
And there are other ways to see it (like the collectorâs POV).
personal confessions of a self declared not officially diagnosed on and off gear addict
I, for me, personal case, YMMV, decided:
- I have phases
- It is about novelty
- I wonât make better music with it or be a happier person
- I have a strong desire to touch and understand music machines
- I love to understand the difference between similar machines
- It is not about ownership (40 minutes with SOMA equipment at superbooth was enough for above mentioned points)
- To me it is very important how a machine feels (touch wise and UI/UX wise) and what I personally can achieve soundwise
- Recording everything and listening to it again helps a lot
- It has some collectorâs parts in the personal variant
- totally love the physical experience and sound with the DX7
- âper accidentâ I have a collection of hardware sequencers and love it and treat it as such (much faster with ableton and max) - no need of ownership but access to it once in a while is really nice
- there is something about completeness and similarity (I downgraded all dark trinity to mk1)
- I love and appreciate the social interaction when buying via classifieds and collecting in person (even if that means long driving, or waiting until I am in that area again) - so many different nice persons and personalities and circumstances (like getting to know a young visual arts student in his studio somewhere in Berlin I didnât know that area existed)
- It is an expensive hobby (like motorcycles or special cars)
- you also âneedâ to develop personal engineering skills or befriend a mechanic (electronic engineer)
- this can also be a rewarding part of the hobby
- new regulations make buy and sell cycles with flattening losses with some gains difficult and take some fun out of it
- some paradoxes
- the necessity of cash flow is a driver to perform well in the main occupation/job/career
- without the hobby, the main occupation/job/career would be stellar (and not good enough) and that could be just as rewarding, I guess
- the not-necessity of earning money through the arts is liberating on the one hand but also âlazinessingâ on the other hand
- the day job limits the results of the hobby when there is a hyperfocus phase
- what you save by deciding on the keyboard version, you pay later with storage costs
- emotion wise, happiness and unhappiness seem to cancel each other out (null sum game), but the moments of happiness are very high (told you, features of common addictive experience and behavior)
- hence, as a hobbyist, I focus on the experience
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What do we get for free? Anything you want. Anything? Anything.
True for results, and also virtual experience if physical touch is not part of what you want and love in the process of making music.
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Iâd like to recommend a book here:
âThe Artistâs Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativityâ is a 1992 self-help book by American author Julia Cameron. The book was written to help people with artistic creative recovery, which teaches techniques and exercises to assist people in gaining self-confidence in harnessing their creative talents and skills.
In my opinion, GAS and endless looking for plugins, tutorials, samples etc. are distractions, which we use to sway our attention away from the fact that we donât enjoy (for one reason or another) the actual process of creating and/or finishing a piece of music.
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My problems are generally with structure and completion. I have a hard time letting go of finality!
While there are people who buy expensive guitars to stick in a case and barely play them ever, who keep things NIB for decades, but I donât think the majority of our cases are not enjoying creation over optimizing for learning new systems and workflows over fixing our current one.
Iâve got The Artistâs Way but have had some issues implementing it, whatâs been the most useful influence itâs had on you?
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Another practical anti gas tip: Arturia V collection demos. Want a CS-80? Buchla? Prophet or Juno60? no problem for 20 minutes you can do whatever you want, just record it., chop it up, make a track from your mini recording session (like all you heros did). Canât afford Ableton Suite? everything gets recorded to the temp project files just âleave them in placeâ when you close it.
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