Addiction Recovery

If you are in a relationship with a compulsive spender and you are furious with his or her addiction, here are six tips to help you understand and support your friend or loved one.

1. Be Empathetic: You can’t imagine how a shopaholic feels. You simply cannot feel his or her cravings or urges. Do you have some bad habit or problem that you have been trying to get rid of unsuccessfully? Are you a chronic procrastinator, someone who keeps putting things off or showing up late and hate yourself for it? Maybe you have been trying unhappily to give up smoking or caffeine. That is how shopaholics feel, baffled by their urges and hating themselves for giving in to them.

2. Be Positive: Have you let your loved one’s negative behavior cancel all that you find wonderful about her? Remind yourself of her outstanding traits and qualities that are lovable. She may be a capable and endearing person with a warm heart. Compliment her when it is appropriate. Be supportive.

3. Encourage Recovery: Compulsive spending is not just a bad habit. It is a demonstration of a life out-of-balance. Self-help meetings or psychotherapy can help sufferers recover. The shopaholic will discover how to face and resolve the underlying issues that trigger spending sprees. If you don’t see an astounding transformation in a few weeks, curb your impatience. The best way to support your friend’s efforts is to stop hovering over him. His progress is none of your business.

4. Practice Unconditional Acceptance: No matter how much you want to, you can’t “fix” a compulsive spender. If you belong to a recovery group, you know that you can only change yourself. You can, however, give the gift of unconditional love and acceptance. Focus on the special inner self of the other one, knowing that she is worthy of love even if you don’t like what she is doing.

It doesn’t mean that if your wife continues to abuse your credit cards, you continue to pay the bills. When the behavior affects you negatively you must find a way to sort out your feelings and learn new ways to take care of yourself. Find a support group for yourself.

5. Change Your Tune: You may love your shopaholic friend yet find that you do not know how to control your reactions to his behavior. There are two harmful kinds of communication that helping friends often get caught in when there is an emotional crisis: blaming and discounting.

Avoid blaming. Verbal insults are like punches. You may be utterly frustrated because you can’t help the spender or he isn’t getting well fast enough so you blurt out insults or call him names. He is doing the best he can. His behavior often stems from low self-worth. This will not be remedied overnight. He will continue to make mistakes and have slips.

Blaming is dumping your feelings onto the other. Most of the time your anger and frustration comes because you feel powerless. It is fine to tell him that you feel frustrated, but don t beat him over the head for making you feel that way. Refrain from giving advice and offering solutions. That is called rescuing, and it will harm more than it helps. Instead, ask you friend, “What do you want to do about this situation?”

Discount demeans the other and belittles the spender’s feelings. If someone were to say, “How can you feel that way?” when you are worried and they aren’t, how would you like that? Most of us would feel as if the person challenging us doesn’t really understand. Rescuers and persecutors often tell themselves, “If that were me, I would never have done such a thing!” That’s true, but your compulsive friend isn’t you!

She does what she does because she can’t control her impulses. She will not get better because you judge her and tell her to stop spending. It is as if you have an itch on your back and are wriggling around trying to reach it when another person looks crossly at you and says, “Don’t itch.” How do you stop something that you don’t feel responsible for starting? The shopaholic doesn’t know how the itch to spend started. She would like to be free of it, but telling her to stop without telling her how to stop is meaningless.

6.Take Care of Yourself: You must set limits and take care of yourself when you are in a relationship with a compulsive spender.

Don’t let him abuse your generosity in service to his compulsion.

Don’t give her your credit cards.

Don’t co-sign any financial contract.

Don’t be a “binge buddy” and go on spending sprees with your friend.

Set limits and don’t back down … no matter what.

You are not responsible for how or when your compulsive friend or loved one recovers. All you need to do is concentrate on being a true friend.

Gloria Arenson is a Licensed Marriage ad Family Therapist. She is the author of How to Stop Playing the Weighting Game, Born to Spend, Five Simple Steps to Emotional Healing, Freedom At Your Fingertips, and Procrastination Nation. For more information go to http://www.GloriaArenson.com

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