Are you a shopaholic?
December 31, 2005 | 12:00am
Before flying off to some exotic place to join friends for New Year festivities, I made it a point to join my Bible group’s weekly prayer meeting. It was a joyous occasion as we had not seen each other since the holidays started. We were all excited to catch up on each other’s holiday experiences. As customary, we started our session with a beautiful prayer that I would like to share with my readers as the old year draws to a close:
"Father, we surrender this past year and give it up to You. We give You our failures, our regrets, and our disappointments, for we have no more use for them. Make us now a new people, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward that which lies ahead of us.
"We give You all our hopes and dreams for the future. Purify them by Your spirit so that our wills shall truly reflect Your will for us. As we stand on the threshold of another year, encourage us with our successes of the past, challenge us with the power of Your Word, inspire us with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and guide us with the presence of Your Holy Spirit. Amen."
Our spiritual leader, sensing that we wanted to get to the sharing part fast as we were so excited to listen to each other’s experiences, kept the lesson short but meaningful. She talked about self-renewal, being victorious over our old nature in spite of our tendency to sin, and being new creatures in Christ. She closed the lesson with these words: "By obeying God’s Word and yielding to the Spirit (Romans 8:11) we can be victorious over the flesh. The Christian gains victory by starving the old nature and feeding the new," she emphatically said.
Her closing statement struck a chord in us as most of us cannot resist temptation. Mea culpa, mea culpa!
Our sharing started and ended with one person. Our prayer mate had been absent for some time and we were all wondering what had happened to her. She shocked us by her confession: she was undergoing therapy for an addiction – she was addicted to SHOPPING! She was a shopaholic beyond control and had wreaked havoc on her family life and finances. Her husband found out about it when the bank called him up to say that his wife was already dipping her hand in their time deposit, forfeiting interests just to pay her credit card bills. Two of her kids had to stop schooling for one semester as there was no money to pay for their tuition.
She explained that no one knows what causes addictive behaviors like shopping, alcoholism, drug abuse, and gambling. Some evidence suggests that some people have a genetic predisposition to an addictive behavior. In her case, her mother was a mahjong addict to the point of neglecting her children. She would sometimes play 24 hours straight with only a few hours of sleep.
There are a lot of similarities among shopaholics and other addicts. For instance, while alcoholics will hide their bottles, shopaholics will hide their purchases.
What should a concerned family member look out for when they think shopping has become a problem?
• Spending over budget. The normal person will say, "Oops, I can’t afford to buy this or that." But the person with an addiction will not recognize the boundaries of a budget.
• Compulsive buying. The addictive person will buy compulsively. She goes out to buy one pair of shoes but comes back with 10.
• It’s a chronic problem. It’s more than two or three months of the year . For example, for most normal people, it’s only when they go on trips to Hong Kong, China, etc. or during the Christmas holidays. Not so with the shopaholic. She or he shops all year round.
• Hiding the problem. Shopaholics will hide their purchases from their spouses. They even have secret credit cards that their spouses don’t know about.
• It’s a vicious cycle. Some people will take their purchases back out of guilt, or sell their purchases – but only so they can shop for more. The cycle never ends.
• Impaired relationships. They spend a lot of time away from home to shop, cover up debt with deception and emotionally and physically isolate themselves from others as they become preoccupied with their behavior.
According to my friend, these behaviors also can signal a serious problem:
• Spending money or shopping as a result of feeling angry, depressed, anxious or lonely.
• Having arguments with others because of one’ s shopping habits.
• Feeling lost without credit cards and actually going into withdrawal without them.
• Buying items on credit rather than with cash.
• Describing a rush or feeling of euphoria with spending.
• Feeling guilty, ashamed or embarrassed after a spending spree.
• Lying about how much money was spent. For instance, owning up to buying something but lying about how much it actually cost.
• Thinking obsessively about money.
• Spending a lot of time juggling accounts or bills to accommodate spending.
If someone identifies with four or more of these behaviors, there may be a problem. My friend advises people to seek professional help like she did. But the first thing she did was to confess to her husband, ask for forgiveness and then she submitted herself to professional help. She realized the harm she had caused her family and sought self-help before it was too late. She gave all her credit cards to her husband, and did not allow herself to hold money.
Her doctor advised these steps to help a shopaholic:
• Admit that you are a compulsive spender, which is half the battle.
• Get rid of checkbooks and credit cards which fuel the problem.
• Don’t shop by yourself because most compulsive shoppers shop alone and if you are with someone, you are much less likely to spend.
• Find other, meaningful ways to spend time.
• And keep in mind that while behavior change is clearly crucial to recovery, so is reaching out for help.
Tomorrow is the start of another year. Like my shopaholic friend, let us start the year with a realization that while there is life, there is hope. It is never too late to start fresh, and renew your faith in yourself with the help of your loved ones and prayer.
One of my favorite quotes is from an anonymous writer:
"Growing old but not retiring,
"For the battle still is on;
"Going on without relenting
"Till the final victory is won!"
"Father, we surrender this past year and give it up to You. We give You our failures, our regrets, and our disappointments, for we have no more use for them. Make us now a new people, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward that which lies ahead of us.
"We give You all our hopes and dreams for the future. Purify them by Your spirit so that our wills shall truly reflect Your will for us. As we stand on the threshold of another year, encourage us with our successes of the past, challenge us with the power of Your Word, inspire us with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and guide us with the presence of Your Holy Spirit. Amen."
Our spiritual leader, sensing that we wanted to get to the sharing part fast as we were so excited to listen to each other’s experiences, kept the lesson short but meaningful. She talked about self-renewal, being victorious over our old nature in spite of our tendency to sin, and being new creatures in Christ. She closed the lesson with these words: "By obeying God’s Word and yielding to the Spirit (Romans 8:11) we can be victorious over the flesh. The Christian gains victory by starving the old nature and feeding the new," she emphatically said.
Her closing statement struck a chord in us as most of us cannot resist temptation. Mea culpa, mea culpa!
Our sharing started and ended with one person. Our prayer mate had been absent for some time and we were all wondering what had happened to her. She shocked us by her confession: she was undergoing therapy for an addiction – she was addicted to SHOPPING! She was a shopaholic beyond control and had wreaked havoc on her family life and finances. Her husband found out about it when the bank called him up to say that his wife was already dipping her hand in their time deposit, forfeiting interests just to pay her credit card bills. Two of her kids had to stop schooling for one semester as there was no money to pay for their tuition.
She explained that no one knows what causes addictive behaviors like shopping, alcoholism, drug abuse, and gambling. Some evidence suggests that some people have a genetic predisposition to an addictive behavior. In her case, her mother was a mahjong addict to the point of neglecting her children. She would sometimes play 24 hours straight with only a few hours of sleep.
There are a lot of similarities among shopaholics and other addicts. For instance, while alcoholics will hide their bottles, shopaholics will hide their purchases.
What should a concerned family member look out for when they think shopping has become a problem?
• Spending over budget. The normal person will say, "Oops, I can’t afford to buy this or that." But the person with an addiction will not recognize the boundaries of a budget.
• Compulsive buying. The addictive person will buy compulsively. She goes out to buy one pair of shoes but comes back with 10.
• It’s a chronic problem. It’s more than two or three months of the year . For example, for most normal people, it’s only when they go on trips to Hong Kong, China, etc. or during the Christmas holidays. Not so with the shopaholic. She or he shops all year round.
• Hiding the problem. Shopaholics will hide their purchases from their spouses. They even have secret credit cards that their spouses don’t know about.
• It’s a vicious cycle. Some people will take their purchases back out of guilt, or sell their purchases – but only so they can shop for more. The cycle never ends.
• Impaired relationships. They spend a lot of time away from home to shop, cover up debt with deception and emotionally and physically isolate themselves from others as they become preoccupied with their behavior.
According to my friend, these behaviors also can signal a serious problem:
• Spending money or shopping as a result of feeling angry, depressed, anxious or lonely.
• Having arguments with others because of one’ s shopping habits.
• Feeling lost without credit cards and actually going into withdrawal without them.
• Buying items on credit rather than with cash.
• Describing a rush or feeling of euphoria with spending.
• Feeling guilty, ashamed or embarrassed after a spending spree.
• Lying about how much money was spent. For instance, owning up to buying something but lying about how much it actually cost.
• Thinking obsessively about money.
• Spending a lot of time juggling accounts or bills to accommodate spending.
If someone identifies with four or more of these behaviors, there may be a problem. My friend advises people to seek professional help like she did. But the first thing she did was to confess to her husband, ask for forgiveness and then she submitted herself to professional help. She realized the harm she had caused her family and sought self-help before it was too late. She gave all her credit cards to her husband, and did not allow herself to hold money.
Her doctor advised these steps to help a shopaholic:
• Admit that you are a compulsive spender, which is half the battle.
• Get rid of checkbooks and credit cards which fuel the problem.
• Don’t shop by yourself because most compulsive shoppers shop alone and if you are with someone, you are much less likely to spend.
• Find other, meaningful ways to spend time.
• And keep in mind that while behavior change is clearly crucial to recovery, so is reaching out for help.
Tomorrow is the start of another year. Like my shopaholic friend, let us start the year with a realization that while there is life, there is hope. It is never too late to start fresh, and renew your faith in yourself with the help of your loved ones and prayer.
One of my favorite quotes is from an anonymous writer:
"Growing old but not retiring,
"For the battle still is on;
"Going on without relenting
"Till the final victory is won!"
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