Who knows why we became so mysteriously compelled to be indebted to others!  The source of the compulsion to debt may remain a mystery forever, but that’s not important.  What is important what DA teaches us: that no matter what happens in our lives, there is never a need to choose unsecured debt.

A member shares about his compulsion to debt:

“The first time I came into DA I had a quick fix mortgage refinance after a year, and I was out of debt quickly. I thought I didn’t need DA anymore because I was ‘all better’.

“But the compulsion to debt kept calling me, and  I eventually stopped keeping my numbers. It was as if I needed to maintain fogginess about money, as if it was an hypnotic drug I was hooked on.

“I continued to refinance my mortgage every couple of years, until one day the bank stopped loaning me the money, which was a dreadful shock. What was I going to do without my annual ‘quick fix’?

“Having selectively forgotten everything DA taught me, I decided to use credit cards as my ‘Plan B’.  The plastic was readily available and the bank encouraged it, so why not?

“I never gave a thought to what years of 20%+ interest would cost me and my family.  This was the beginning of my long, miserable decline into inevitable compulsive debt. I thought I was going insane.

“Eventually I sold that house and returned to DA, with six figures of negative net worth. With my tail between my legs, I came back and admitted I needed help.

“I now realize that I had to learn my lessons the hard way. It was better to learn slowly, and let the lesson seep in to every area of my life.

“Now, after six years of solvency, I have the positive net worth I was looking for.  It took a long time and I’m not totally out of debt yet, but I’m stable, and back in the black.  I hope I never forget how DA saved my life.”

Do I now see clearly that DA is the only true answer to an insane compulsion to debt?

Meditation for Today:

Neither deaths, nor job losses, births, promotions, successes, failures, holidays, holy days, weddings, funerals, graduations, or accidents can force us to debt. Only our inner compulsion has that power, if we choose to forget all we have learned in DA. No matter what happens in our lives we don’t have to debt or overspend one day at a time – today (and it’s always today).

Affirmation for Today:

This day I will stay solvent. Today I am restored to sanity. If I have a need, any need, I will turn to the DA Tools to find the answers and ask for help. I will bookend with someone in recovery, and together we will unravel what is compelling me to debt. Unsecured debt is never the answer, because it is as toxic to me as battery acid.

I can always use collateral to secure a debt if I have to.  Or, I can do without.  If that is hard to do, I can reach out again for support and guidance on how to get through those feelings that I absolutely have to have something.  The feelings aren’t real, they are just feelings and will pass.

Honesty and humility will guide me. I do not need a “quick fix” or an expensive debt consolidation to be free today!

Prayer for Today:

I hope to have slow growth in DA, so that the roots of my recovery will grow deep enough to weather any storm, and my recovery will last a lifetime.

 Further Reading:

How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously*: Based on the Proven Principles and Techniques of Debtors Anonymous… Jerrold Mundis’ knowledge of overcoming compulsive debting is firsthand, and reading this book will help any compulsive debtor overcome the downward spiral of unsecured credit, and reverse patterns of under earning and overspending, no matter how entrenched those patterns are.

Also: DA Tool Eight encourages us to read AA literature, and a great place to start is with the AA Big Book “Alcoholics Anonymous”.  It explains the Twelve Steps like no other book, is filled with dozens of hopeful stories of recovery.

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