I Have Been Addicted for 30 Years, And I Just Can't Stop

Growing up, my parents used to give me an allowance every day I went to kindergarten and junior high. I was supposed to use that allowance to buy food for the day. But somehow, I got into this addiction early on, and I used that money in a way my parents did not expect. Every day, I would go to the local store and use up all the money to buy Hotwheels cars. Yes, that's what I am addicted to. Tiny, diecast replicas of road-going or race-spec vehicles.

I was probably 5 or 6 years old when I bought my first HotWheels car. It was probably a Porsche or an Aston Martin. It's probably still stashed away in a box somewhere. Then, my mom used to trick me into going to the dentist by buying more diecast vehicles for me. I had a Dodge Viper, a Ferrari F40, a Ferrari F50, and a Chevrolet Corvette C5. I moved on to video games and skateboarding for a few years, but as I graduated from high school, the addiction came back.

I started by buying a few cars, some models that I liked. I found myself opening them up when I arrived home and placing them in a position in which they were highly visible when you'd enter the room. Then, I started following the official Hotwheels social media channels, and I noticed that they were about to release a whole new pack of diecast cars in the upcoming period. Hundreds of different models, including replicas of real-life vehicles and fantasy cars as well.

I've never been into the whole fantasy diecast vehicles scene, so I stuck to buying real-life replicas. Over a few years, I found myself owning almost 200 diecast cars. If you're not a collector yourself, that doesn't sound like much. But if you're serious about Hotwheels, that will sound less than impressive. I must say that growing up with this addiction hasn't always been easy. Because sometimes you find yourself in a store, and you're contemplating the idea of buying 50 or 60 diecast cars at a time.

That may not sound like such a bad thing, but it can turn ugly if it happens to you every single day. A single Hotwheels diecast vehicle will cost you around $2 or $3. But if you do the math, 50 of those a day, times 30 days, will lead to a budget of about $3,000 per month. Which leads up to about $36,000 a year. And for that kind of money, you can go into any dealership and buy yourself a brand new vehicle.

I've found myself becoming more and more attached to my little cars. I've started taking photos of them, trying to make them look as real as possible. I've taken pride every time someone saw a photo of one of my Hotwheels vehicles and said: "Is that a real-life car?". But then it hit me. I realized I might be addicted. So I looked up the symptoms of addiction. One of the first psychological symptoms is the inability to stop using.

I found myself trying to stay away from buying new diecast vehicles when I left home. But every time I got to the store, I would fill up my basket with them. The next symptom is the use and abuse despite health problems. While that applies to the use of substances, buying more Hotwheels is not going to affect your health. So that's a good thing. The only downside may be that your future partner may be annoyed by your behavior, and regard it as being somewhat childish.

Obsession is the third symptom to look for when you think you're addicted to something. The definition of that is "a person may become obsessed, spending more time and energy finding ways of getting what they need, and in some cases how they can use it". That may be a real concern, as I've often found myself exploring more and more stores trying to find that Super Treasure Hunt or at least the model I was missing from my collection.

Taking risks and taking an initial large dose may be further signs that you're addicted to something. But when it comes to Hotwheels, you're rather safe once again. The only part of you that is at risk is your wallet, so try to exercise some common sense and refrain from ordering all the cases launched by HotWheels in one year. You might not like all the variations either way.

The following video shows all the items sold by the company in 2020, and I feel that it would make more sense to just go out and purchase the cars you like. I've decided to stick to race cars and sports cars, and I've been better off, even though I've already gathered more than 200 cars in my collection. The conclusion is that I have been addicted to Hotwheels for 30 years now, but this is the kind of addiction that you can live with, and few people will ever be able to blame you for it.

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