I’ve been doing Debtors Anonymous (DA) again. I did 2 online meetings over the weekend and I like the way it changes my mind around money. Like reading nutrition books helps with your diet, but being a 12 step fellowship it also has that spiritual element. DA has a wonderful balance between the physical, emotional and spiritual. There are the practical tools to keep you on track with money, like record keeping, and the steps and the fellowship bring the emotional and spiritual.
I came to DA during my sex and drugs adventure. I had just inherited half a million dollars and could see I was going to eventually spend 200K on sex, 200K of drugs, and waste the rest. My financial security was important to me, but more pressing was if I run out of money I would run out of sex and drugs. I had to protect this money with all the effort I could muster. I went to DA for 9 months and had a significant shift around my relationship with my finances.
The steps are so powerful. I didn’t even finish them. I got up until step 8 and realised that most of the harm I was doing to the people in my life was emotional neglect because of my drug use. I was not ready to get clean yet, so didn’t see any point in continuing. Never the less the power of steps one to seven was enough to make major changes in me. I was able to review my past behaviour with money and identify the patterns. I was able to see the defects and expose them to the light of day. They reduced.
The support of the fellowship helped, even though I only did a meeting a week and drove them a bit mad because I was so loose at the time. The tools of DA, especially the record keeping, gave me a lot more clarity around my financial position. At that stage I had a business that my ex ran from our family home. I had a vague sense that it broke even. It paid her a salary and all the household expenses. I was very grateful for this, and proud. I would travel the world and tell my travel companions that I had a business that I didn’t really have to do much for and paid my child support and had another business that I ran without her that gave me enough to travel.
It was all very vague and I always got depressed when I did the books, which wasn’t very often, because I always made less money than I estimated. DA allowed me to record my personal expenses which was a huge step forward. It still took me a long time to record my income, but just recording my personal expenses did more than what it appeared at face value. There was a huge emotional change. I was committing to paper (or Excel) that which I had purposely remained vague around my entire life. My strategy around budgeting was to deprive myself of most things in the hope that I would have enough for my acting out of sex, travel and drugs. I was finally taking personal responsibility for my spending.
The flow on effect of this moving out of denial around money was significant. Combined with step work I was able to see how my defects got me into trouble with money. I saw my education (or lack thereof) around money and how my mum didn’t give me much intimacy, but would buy my things to show her love. This dynamic persisted into adulthood and I would get into financial trouble every few years and she would bail me out. I would feel loved.
I also identified the relationship I had with my ex and how I derived a sense or worth and control by being the provider. We were separated, but I still controlled all the financials. She worked for me and looked after the kids and I paid all the bills. This made her dependent on me and gave me a sense of power. I also realised I was over-paying. If I took back my business and just paid her the child support she was legally entitled to then I was financially better off.
I made these changes and started to do much better financially. I did so much better financially I was able to ride on a wave of high income and stopped doing DA meetings. But in fairness I did get clean and settled down with a good women, now my wife. I continued keeping my numbers and tracking my expenses. I was able to remove the categories of sex and drugs from my spreadsheet. It took at least a year to settle into that new life, especially no longer being single and constantly spiking my hormones with new women. I finally got clean after a handful of relapses and now taking a serious look at DA again.
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