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 mea Read the rest of this entry »

Is there someone in your life who is spending compulsively, and you feel frustrated and angry with him or her? You don’t understand why they do what they do, and you can’t understand why they can’t just use a little more willpower. Perhaps you have tried bribery, threats, punishment, rewards, pleading, or trickery, to no avail. You may have decided to simply ignore the problem and hope it will go away in time.

The person you love who gives in to urges to spend is pretty much like you. He is not bad, nor is he acting purposely to harm you. Every time he goes on a spree it is because he is unable to cope with overwhelming feelings. He may be a college graduate, but he doesn’t have the life-skills to deal with his problems or the intense negative emotions that result from feeling powerlessness over them.

Although you may find it easy to live within your means and not abuse your credit cards, your friend or loved feels great self-hatred every time he tries and fails. When you put him down with insults or look disapprovingly or disappointedly at him, he feels even worse. Nothing you can say or do will make him feel worse than his inner critic is already doing.

Compulsive spenders, like alcoholics, often lead family or friends into acting the role of either persecutor or rescuer. When you accept the challenge to change the one with the problem by acting like an authority and policing her behavior, setting up punishments or simply yelling at her or belittling her, you will be the loser because the she will rebel against your power play. Sometimes the person who acts like the parent keeping the child in line can make the spender “shape up” temporarily, but the spender will feel resentment toward you and will find ways to go against your wishes.

Beware of becoming a rescuer. Don’t do for the spender what he can do for himself, if he ch Read the rest of this entry »

When you have an addiction to alcohol, the triggers are endless. When you make the effort to quit, it has been said that a trigger situation can have an impact, but it can actually be 3 weeks before you pick up a drink from that one incident. A delayed reaction.

You can get the urge to drink just by talking to someone on the phone with whom you either have a drinking history with or they could just be talking about drinking. You can get an overwhelming urge by watching a movie where the actors are drinking or watching an advertisement for beer.

When you venture beyond your front door, the triggers are endless. Driving past a liquor store can give you visions of drinking. Walking down the liquor or beer aisle at the grocery store can get you longing to pour one. Seeing friends who you have a drinking history with can set you off. Even just visiting an establishment where you have had drinks in the past will bring on the urge for a drink.

And that’s when things are going smoothly.

Any incident that upsets you or causes you discomfort can get you going. With enough aggravating situations you slip into the “what’s the use” alcoholic mindset and that’s it, you are going to have one.

It makes it even more difficult to stop drinking if you are in a volatile relationship with a significant other or your job causes you a fair amount of daily aggravation. If you are in social situations or any situation that causes you significant discomfort, these situations can put you into the “I’m having a drink” zone.

Where do these urges come from? You decided one day that you’ve had enough; you can’t take it anymore, that’s it. No more drinking. The problem with that is you’ve developed a physical addiction so every cell in your body (particularly your brain) is screaming “we don’t think so!” So your body literally fights you when you Read the rest of this entry »