It is only a few more days and I am off to the amazing Energy Psychology Conference in Toronto Canada. Flying from very sunny California to the brisk Fall climate of Toronto always reminds me of my youth in NYC. I look forward to the chill air and being able to wear a parka.

Friends from all over the world will be there to share their expertise and creativity. I am delighted to be presenting a workshop about using Energy Psychology methods to treat Compulsive Spending and Debting. Unfortunately the medical and psychological community treat this addiction as if it were a joke, but we are a nation of spenders. We are spurred on by commercials and credit card companies to go out and spend. Even past President George Bush urged us to medicate the pain of the 9/11 trauma by shopping!!

I am going to explain that a stressed brain is a craving brain. We are all familiar with cravings for alcohol, drugs, food, and more recently computers, texting and Internet porn. It is time to realize that compulsive spending also wrecks lives. Spending addicts lie, cheat and steal to keep their addiction going. When I was researching my book, Born To Spend, I interviewed a woman who had embezzled money to pay for her spending habit and was going to prison the next day. I can vouch for the seriousness of this out of control urge to splurge since my own marriage to a compulsive spender led to bankruptcy and divorce.

If you can’t attend my talk you may want to read the book or listen to the audio version. Speaking of books, I promise that once I am back I will be launching my latest Ebook, Grownup Love: Getting It and Keeping It.

Keep tuned.

Many, many years ago when Overeaters Anonymous was in its infancy in Los Angeles, many members of AA with years of sobriety were invited to speak at OA meetings. They brought experience, strength and hope to a group struggling to get on its feet. Among the AA helpers was a wonderful woman named Dottie who was an inspiring speaker. Dottie was welcomed at the burgeoning OA meetings and became a friend and supporter of those wanting to be free of compulsive eating.

As the years went by and OA grew, other anonymous meetings sprang up for drug addicts and later spenders and sex addicts. Then word went around that Dottie was starting another new meeting that was different from all the rest. It was a meeting open to any and all people suffering from addictive or compulsive behaviors. No problem was considered more serious than another. It was a meeting where all attendees were practicing the 12 steps.

Soon after this meeting got underway I moved away from Los Angeles so I never found out what happened to that group, but I never forgot it. We desperately need a new support system today that is like Dottie’s since we have become a society riddled with compulsions of all sorts. People switch from one to another but are never free of the cravings to feel good at all costs.

As I look back over my life as a therapist I recall the very first client I treated after I was licensed. I’ll call her Betty. Betty was an overeating, drug-addicted alcoholic. She wanted to stop her compulsive overeating. Then she met her husband, who was a drug dealer, and she dropped out of therapy. She eventually returned, having divorced her husband. She was not using drugs and was trying to stay off booze, but food was a constant battle.

I worked with Betty for quite a while as she tried to kick all three of her compulsions. She never managed to get rid of all three at the same time. Finally she relocated to another city but kept in touch. I remember one of her letters in which she said that she went to an alcoholism counselor who told her, “I don’t care what you do, just DON”T DRINK!” She wrote that she stopped drinking and immediately gained 35 pounds!

I remember feeling angry when she wrote about what her new therapist told her since she was just “changing deck chairs on the Titanic.” It is common for people with addictions to go from one to another, never achieving total freedom from addictive cravings. That is the key. It is not about alcohol, food, drugs, or shopping, it is about the intense cravings to feel good when you are feeling bad, no matter how you do it.

Today we have ever-newer feel good activities: Internet gambling, porn, cell phones, texting, Facebook, email, IPods, and video games. These obsessive behaviors are not just affecting those practicing them. There are news reports every day of people killed by a driver who is on a cell phone or texting. I see people ambling across the street while talking on their cell phones, oblivious of the traffic.

The scary thing is that what we think of as harmless activities are actually dangerous actions that are turning us into a mindless culture of addicts. Can we put down our phones while we are wheeling the shopping cart at the market? Can we shut down the computer, take out the ear buds, and stop the chatter? If the answer is no it is time to create a new organization: Cravings Anonymous.

I have spent the last few days unable to tear myself away from watching a dreadful series that I am streaming instantly on TV. There are thirty-two episodes and I am almost finished with the lot. I am annoyed with my behavior and what a waste of time it is. Yesterday I tried to stop and couldn’t.

Then it dawned on me that I am using TV to escape because I am going through withdrawal from my reading addiction! I am ashamed to admit that I am a book junkie. I mean the “hard stuff,” the paper books, not the Kindle kind or audio books. I love to lose myself in a good story or fascinating biography. The feel of turning the pages and the weight of the book is so satisfying. There is nothing like the sense of expectation I feel when I start a 500-page book!

Due to the California state budget disaster our local library is on furlough for the two weeks between Christmas and the New Year. Before the closure, I loaded up on books to tide me over because when I have nothing juicy to read I experience withdrawal. Unfortunately, I did not choose as wisely as I thought and my reading stash is almost depleted. When I have nothing good to read I feel antsy, anxious and sometimes get grumpy. The library isn’t set to open for four more days and I am very worried about how I will last.

I have been an avid reader since childhood. I remember how happy I felt going home from the local library with my arms filled with books. When I gave birth to my son I knew that I was going to have a c-section so I went to the library ahead of time and made sure I put some books in my suitcase to take to the hospital since I was told that I would be there for up to one week. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get out for a while once we were home so I needed a stockpile.

My worst withdrawal experience came many years ago when my husband and I were invited to visit one of my husband’s friends who had moved to a nearby city. He picked us up at the airport and drove us to his new home on top of a hill. Once we were settled in I realized that I forgot to bring anything to read, nor had my husband. While our hosts were making dinner we looked around and discovered that there was not one book to be seen, not even a newspaper and only one magazine! This was before everyone had computers, the Internet or cell phones that went online. There was nothing to read!

Fortunately I was able to read the magazine as my usual bedtime relaxation, however when the next day dawned we found ourselves at the mercy of our hosts. They had made plans to entertain us at events that were nowhere near anyplace that sold reading matter. What would I do after sight seeing when they took us back up the hill? I was frantic and felt near tears at the thought of being held like a prisoner in a tower.
I knew that I was truly addicted because I was embarrassed to admit the urgency of my need to find a bookstore to our friends. They would definitely know I was nuts if I asked to borrow their car to go find a bookstore since they were obviously people who didn’t read… anything.

Thank goodness my husband shares my love of reading and took pity on me. Without outing me he arranged for us to stop by a local mall to look around. I made a beeline for the nearest bookstore and got my fix. My panic abated, and I vowed to never let myself get into this kind of bind ever again.

In my psychotherapy practice I specialize in using Energy Psychology methods to treat people with compulsive behaviors like overspending, computer addiction, overeating, and other ways that people use pleasure to mask pain. However, I don’t know if compulsive reading should be labeled as a psychiatric problem since the pleasure it brings doesn’t harm the mind or body. In fact it enlightens and de-stresses in a positive way.

On the other hand, like all addicts, I don’t want to give up this need for the pleasure of reading. I am happily married to another addictive reader so we get along just fine and don’t think the other person is weird for rushing to the library or bookstore when we run out of interesting reading material. We respect each other’s love of books and reading. Or are we simply binge buddies?

Compulsive Spending is No Joke

Although we joke that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping, shopaholics suffer from a major psychological problem. Compulsive spending and debting can lead to bankruptcy and ruined lives. I have counseled spenders who have embezzled money to pay for their excesses. This is no laughing matter.

Most of us occasionally overindulge and buy something that costs more than we would usually spend, but only from time to time. Compulsive spenders find the urge overpowering and frequent. The need to shop or spend is a compulsion. 

My definition of compulsion is: if you can’t control when you start or when you stop a behavior you have a problem. A common characteristic of “shopaholics” is that they buy things and never take the price tags off or wear them. Some people don’t even take their purchases out of the bag. That is because it is not about things! Spending is a way to medicate unhappiness, fear, anger and low self-esteem. It is an addiction. 

You may wonder what creates the urge to splurge. Some people learn to overspend when someone close to them is a compulsive spender who encourages them to do the same. Many go shopping when they are stressed or bored. Once they find themselves in a setting like a mall, that is filled with exciting temptations, it is very easy to give in. 

When the urge takes over shopaholics forget that that their plastic credit card is not play money. Like Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With The Wind,” they tell themselves that they will worry about their debt tomorrow. 

Although we think that women are shopaholics, men are too. Men buy more of the big toys like cars and boats, but they also overspend on clothing and tools. Compulsive spenders are all ages and from all economic strata. One of my clients was a student who had very little money, so she binged at thrift stores. Many alcoholics and overeaters turn to spending as another way to soothe their inner pain when they give up alcohol or sugar. 

Compulsive spenders buy things to make themselves feel better; use pleasure to mask the pain of life. Compulsive debtors appear to do the same thing, however there is a hidden agenda to their spending. They spend in order to use up their money because they don’t think that they deserve success, wealth, or love, but they may be unaware of it. 

Occasionally I see someone who escalates her behavior unconsciously in the hope of getting caught so she can get help. Others live lives that are filled with so much pain and dysfunction that they are oblivious to the consequences. When the urge takes over it is as if they are in a trance. They have to feed the hungry place inside, although things can never really fill that emptiness. 

The reason that shopaholics can’t control their impulses begins in the brain. Stress creates an imbalance between two important brain chemicals, dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine has to do with pleasure. When dopamine is stimulated it helps us get into action to achieve our goals. Once we have done that, the serotonin rises and gives us a feeling of satisfaction. Then we move on to something else. 

However, when we are very stressed, either physically or emotionally, the serotonin can’t always rise enough to offset the drive of the dopamine. It keeps firing, “I want it. I want it.” That is what happens in a spending binge. A woman may like a certain sweater and then buy it in every color it comes in before she stops. 

EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is a new, fast acting, often permanent, treatment for life problems. It is best described as acupressure for the emotions. EFT helps people release negative feelings and cravings by treating the energy meridians in the body. You only need to stimulate eight energy points, mostly on the face, by tapping or touching them. The stimulation goes to the brain and releases stress, calms emotions, and helps the thinking part of the brain to say, “No” to cravings. 

Friends and families of compulsive spenders and debtors usually stand by in despair as they see their loved ones fritter away money, deplete savings, and build up huge debt. The most important advice I them is what not to do. Don’t threaten, punish, cover up for, or try to bribe the spender into changing. It simply won’t work. If you cut up their credit cards they already know the number by heart! Some have credit cards that you don’t even know exist. Compulsive spenders are like alcoholics. They spend when they are upset. They will lie and cheat in order to be free to spend. The best thing you can do is to understand that they are not bad or stupid people. They are people who are in a lot of emotional pain. Encourage them to find help for their problems. Debtors Anonymous is a good place to start.