Hello, I'm new and I have had an addiction to shopping for most of my life. I seem to go in high and low points where I'm always spending or go through points in my life where I was able to control it. My CC Debt huge now and I've been lying to my family for years to hide it. I hit rock bottom as I lost my job and now in huge debt. I finally told the truth to my family but it's hard living with what I have done to myself and possibly my family. I started to see a Men's counselor to figure out some of my issues. My wife wants me to join a group for Compulsive spending because she needs me to help control it. Does anyone know of any Counseling Groups that are Online to attend? Any other suggestions?
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Glad to here this.
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Welcome to the group, @jwcorbett20
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I'm sorry you're going through this difficult time; you've taken a very strong and brave first step in admitting your shopping addiction to your family and seeing a counselor. Are you able to collect unemployment since losing your job? You can use some of the unemployment towards paying off credit card debt. Another recommendation is maybe you can call your credit card company and ask if you can do some type of payment plan to consolidate your debt and pay it down each month.
There's a group called Debtors Anonymous that does skype or in person meetings- I found it by googling shopping addiction support groups (I haven't been to the meetings, but they seem to help people.) There is a really good self-help book about Shopping addiction called "To Buy or Not to Buy" and I have been reading that and I also am using an expense tracker journal where I write down each and every purchase I make. If you're able to, I recommend blocking shopping websites on your computer and possibly remove your saved credit card info from shopping websites so that you can't quickly buy things- that helps me a lot to second guess and stop an online purchase if I have to walk to my purse and take out my wallet and walk to my laptop. I hope this advice helps.
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@MiniMeltdown07
We found the Debors Anonymous and I’m going to attend my first meeting on Saturday. Thank you for the advice.