That's what I did. I mean, my story is quite unique in that I never knew what meditation was (or religion, to be honest) and it just fell into my lap.
I think, looking back I can safely say that it did help me address a lot of emotional trauma. I didn't exactly have a gentle upbringing and I somehow entangled myself into all those memories.
Meditation helped me to clear the air, but as you say - it blindly became a somewhat of an addiction. So I stopped and started focusing on other things. And I still have a long way to go.
20 minutes twice a day for 5 years is not at all extreme
Absolutely, and this is the fallacy with tautological arguments like "You should not overdo anything".
The real question is how much is considered "overdoing", and then the argument falls back to a common-sense fallacy (until it doesn't work)...
From the article, it sounds like the author was spending more than just 40 minutes a day on their spiritual pursuits. They also didn't describe their actual practice.
This thread seems to be full of people trying to debunk meditation as some kind of dangerous dark art.
You can safely do anything up to the point that it benefits you. The moment your well-being suffers, or you neglect important parts of life, like friendship, you should stop.