Curing Your Debt Addiction

Being buried in debt can be an indication of another underlying problem: debt addiction. In other words, the person in debt believes either consciously or subconsciously that he or she cannot live without incurring debt. It is a dependency in a sense and it hinders efforts towards debt reduction. Here are some points to consider in curing your debt addiction and starting on a path to debt reduction:  

Debt reduction starts with realizing you have a debt problem. This is somewhat similar to the alcoholic or gambler who has to acknowledge he or she has a problem when starting their addiction recovery programs. What is an addiction really? It is an inclination towards a behavior that is reinforced through practice. Usually, when the alcoholic stops practicing daily drinking, the addiction begins to subside. And it is the same for the gambler. And for the debtor, debt reduction will involve the cessation of practicing the addictive behavior of incurring more debt. However unless one owns up to the fact that they have this behavior, debt reduction will never happen.  

Stop going deeper in debt to begin your path to debt reduction. The gambler has somewhat psychological dependence on gambling. There is no physical dependence however the gambler has a compulsive need to win money by chance. And for the compulsive debtor, there is no physical dependence to incur debt however the debt is a result of a compulsive need to spend money and get that money as easily as possible by incurring debt. So the obvious answer is to stop incurring debt but this is easier said than done.

Unless the debtor incurs no further debt, debt reduction is only a faraway dream that will never be reached.   Your guilt playback will only hinder debt reduction. You are in debt. Accept the fact and move on to a debt reduction solution. If you are a person of any character at all, you are going to naturally feel guilty about incurring so much debt. You will find that you keep playing back all the years to analyze how you got here. What good does that do for debt reduction? You have to view your debt giant as an enemy to slay. Carrying around the guilt will do nothing but drain your energy needed for fighting the war against your debt enemy. If your debt was not incurred because of another crime then why worry about it? Just take action.  

Your debt reduction may have many false starts. In other words, you may begin with your debt reduction plan of incurring no further debt and then a medical emergency arises. What do you do? You may have to stall debt reduction for the moment and handle the medical emergency by paying for it with a credit card. This is why debt reduction is so tough. However, this is a war against your debt. You have to take your setback, get back up, and continue to march on the path to debt reduction. It is the same for those going through treatments for other addictions. Just like them, you will have good days and bad days on your debt reduction journey.