PLEASE NOTE:
This entry is part of a book, GIVE ME SOME CREDIT, you can purchase at givemesomecredit.org and on Lulu.com.
All the situations below were resolved fully, but this is how I was feeling at the time...
The number of Americans with a credit card went up 42% between 1970 and 2007. An astonishing 93% of Americans now have a credit card, and “the average cardholder has 7 cards.”[i] Think about that: 93 out of 100 Americans owns at least one credit card, and of those who have at least one, the average cardholder has seven. Seven. It’s no wonder that, collectively, we owe $850 billion in credit card debt.[ii] That’s right: $850 billion. Just to put that in perspective, the world’s 54 poorest countries cumulatively owe about half that amount in foreign debt.[iii]
In other words, American consumers are collectively in twice as much debt as the world’s poorest 54 nations put together.
I’m treating six debtors in psychotherapy right now. Between these clients, my own experience, and the astonishing statistics listed above, I’m convinced of one thing. You’ve heard me say it before, but I’ll say it again: debting is a disease. It’s a terrible, often fatal disease, and the real shame is that it keeps you sick even after you stop debting. The reason for this is that you still have to deal with all the financial wreckage you created before you quit, and sometimes it can literally take years to do that.
For this reason, it’s very hard to stay abstinent, once you cut up the credit cards. If you’re just dealing with the fallout, and getting none of the reward (the fun of spending money like there’s no tomorrow), despair can set in quickly. Many debtors “fall off the wagon,” financially speaking, because they can’t deal with that despair. They turn back to spending to deal with the pain their spending caused in the first place. This creates a vicious cycle which is very hard to interrupt.
Debting can be treated, and it can be temporarily arrested, but it’s an addiction, just as potent as any drug. If it goes on unchecked, it will destroy everything in its path. It ruins relationships, self-esteem, health, and marriages. It leads to chemical dependency, serious depression, and death by stress or suicide.
I haven’t debted in over 13 months, and yet my time, thoughts and attention are consumed every day with thinking about my debt, worrying about getting sued, wondering if I’ll ever have enough money, wishing I’d declared bankruptcy, and regretting all the debt I accrued. Here’s the sick part: even as all this is going on, I still sometimes secretly want to go out and debt some more, just to get some relief from all the financial pressure I’m under. I know that would just make things worse, and somehow, day by day, I refrain from doing that behavior. But some days it is really, really hard. Like a heroin addict craving junk, I just want “one more fix” to give me a little relief. Dealing with my life without the drug of spending is almost unbearable.
I hear the stories of my fellow debtors, and I know I’m not alone. The addiction to money and spending is just like an addiction to drugs, and the credit card companies are our dealers. They’re pushing easy credit, their drug, and more and more of us are succumbing to it. The national addiction grows and grows, and has become an epidemic.
I had a woman in my office today who is unemployed, bankrupt, lost her house and her car, and still managed, post-bankruptcy, to run up another $50,000 in debt. She can see no way out. She is, as you would imagine, completely despondent. I had to write up a contract with her, whereby she promised not to commit suicide as long as she was working with me. I can only pray she will honor it. Debting has literally taken just about everything from her.
It’s a dark, dark disease. I hope anyone who may read these words one day will at least be comforted with the knowledge that you are not alone. There are other debtors out there, and this is a real illness. You’re not crazy. You’re not bad. You have an illness, and you can recover. I’ve only barely begun to recover myself, but I can tell you that my life is getting better. Although I often feel weak, frightened, and despondent, I’ve already begun to see evidence that things are turning around. I’m slowly developing faith that things will continue to improve.
You, too, must have faith, even if it’s just barely enough to get you into the next moment. Today, despite all the stress I’m under, I know I can recover. I am recovering. And I have faith that you can, too.
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