Debt, Addiction, and Recovery, Oh My!

posted 1st July 2010    Written by: Katie    CATEGORY: Katie, Money, Season 2, What I've Learned

Growing up, I usually got what I wanted. If I wanted a doll, my mom would buy it for me. I can remember presents for days on Christmas. It would often take hours and hours of opening gifts Christmas morning. From what I can remember, my mom and dad were well off. Looking back now, it’s pretty clear that they were doing something right because I recall having home improvements done pretty often.

I knew that for quite some time, my dad did the working, and my mom paid the bills. I can remember her keeping the checkbook, tapping “MAC” for $5 for lunch, and doing the grocery shopping. I really had no concept of money, though.

When I entered middle school, we had this “Marriage Project” where I had to marry one of my friends, find a job, buy a house, buy a car, and pop out a kid. I was determined to spend every last dollar of the money allotted to us. We liked the $6,000 car, but that would leave us with an extra $2,000. In my mind, we had to spend that money. If we didn’t then it would go to waste.

My husband suggested that we “save” it.

“Save it? Why? Why the hell should we save it when we can get a 1999 Ford Explorer instead of a 1993 Plymouth Reliant Station Wagon?”

I was pretty forceful. He gave it rather easily. To this day, I wish he would have put up more of a fight or at least had his mom call my mom to give me a talking to on the importance of saving.

Years would pass, and I would find myself tangled in a pretty little web of credit card debt. No sooner did I start paying it down, that I realized that I could get payday loans. 134% interest didn’t matter to me. I was getting money without any need for more than my driver’s license number. So began my addiction to getting money and spending it quickly. The more quickly I’d spend the money, the better I’d feel. When I was feeling super bad, I’d binge spend then go through days of remorse and “I’ll never do this again” self torture.

Money was my drug dealer and shopping was my heroin. It made me feel amazing to walk into a store and buy something expensive. I’d literally buy anything and everything until every cent that I had was gone.

The one thing that I didn’t enjoy paying? Bills.

Car payments, car insurance and rent weren’t nearly as fun to buy as new Old Navy tee shirts and new gadgets. The risk of being homeless and car-less was a thrill. Everything about the situation screamed addiction. I made the connection early on. I didn’t want to stop, but I did start to feel bad. I found an awesome substitution that gave me the same thrill as buying things for myself without feeling selfish: buying things for other people.

So began that vicious cycle of insisting to pay my way plus the other persons, buying extravagant gifts, and loaning money. People would thank me, and insist they pay, but I’d shut them down and blame it on being so independent when in fact I had an addiction that would soon blow up in my face.

The blow up was huge. I lost almost everything from my car to my apartment to the respect of many members of my family. I hit rock bottom in every sense of the word. I’m endlessly grateful that my dad took me in. Luckily, I didn’t burn all of my bridges.

Even now, a good year from the blowup, I’m still in recovery from it. I never went to a “Spender’s Anonymous” meeting, but I did seek some therapy for it. I have an addictive personality, and a family history of addiction. I can’t blame it all on genes as I willingly made my own decisions, but I did have a little bit of an unfair disadvantage to begin with.

These days, I’ve learned to be super careful with money. I don’t have to spend every dime that I get. I don’t live paycheck to paycheck anymore. While I’m not banking $60,000 right now, I have a comfortable enough cushion to where I could float a month of bills if I had to. Being in Freelance really helps me because sometimes, I don’t know when my next paycheck will come in. So, when I do get paid, I need it for necessities, just in case the next check doesn’t come in for awhile.

Hi, I’m Katie and I’m an addict. I haven’t binge shopped in 8 months.

(photo: via)

Bookmark and Share
Comments (2)

2 Responses to “Debt, Addiction, and Recovery, Oh My!”

  • Alisha Says:
    July 1st, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    I had a very similar circumstance….but found out it was part of my mania from the bipolar. However, I did figure out that I have an addictive personality. It's interesting how many different "drugs" there are. Congrats on staying clean :) Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to learn life's important lessons.

  • emmajoan Says:
    July 7th, 2010 at 6:53 pm

    Go Katie go! Congrats!

Leave a Reply

name*


email* (will not be published)


website


comments