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I am wondering what is going on in a shopping addicts brain. What do they think when they buy stuff they don't need and they can't afford? If you buy a bicycle that you will never use for $1,400 when your account is empty?
My friend shops. Sometimes he doesn't even unwrap his stuff. He spends about $2,000 on motorcycle stuff per month. I don't know how many suits/boots/... he has. When he moved, I helped him throwing about 100 of his 300 T-Shirts away. He lives in a studio apartment, I don't even know where he puts all his stuff???
He currently maxed out his CC and has a stretchable loan (line of credit?). He had to get some of his retirement money paid out already to pay off his debt. A month later, his CC was maxed out again. So clearly, he didnt learn anything from it.
While he was married, his wife kept it all in order - under protest. Now he is just going crazy. I know it is none of my business, but I just wonder.
Why would you buy stuff you never even unwrap or plan to use if you don't have the money for it? You see your account going down, the CC going up but eagerly keep shopping? WHY?
Scientists know that humans find rewarding the things we need to do to survive, such as eat and reproduce. We learn to repeat any action that we find rewarding, which is called operant conditioning. The neural circuit -- the pathway to reward - includes the ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex and is the structure involved in the reward principle.
Shopping activates the brain's reward system.
Relief from stress is just as important as getting pleasure.
When that reward pathway is activated, that teaches us to repeat the behavior that activated it.
He must be "feeling relief" while shopping, which alters brain chemistry, for a short time. It must comfort him or fill a void somehow, albeit subconsciously.
It feels good while he's doing it, the item itself is just a by-product.
I know a couple who just lost a million dollar home, has no retirement and is now forced to live in an apartment. Their entire massive home was filled with new items from over the years, still with tags.
They literally sold nothing when the bank forced them out of their house, rented storage units and 3 semi trailers that they filled with their "stuff." They could of used the money, but refused to let go of anything. Their stuff will sit in storage till they die living in a small apartment with a spent retirement.
It is a hard concept to grasp - seeing someone give up everything to collect piles of new tablecloths left in wrappers and stacks of shoe boxes, never worn.
Is it the same as hoarding? I saw an elderly woman many years ago who had so much stuff that you couldn't walk through the house. There would be big tall piles of books on the hall floor and stuff crammed everywhere.
I also knew of someone who just kept buying clothing, never opening it, just buying it and she got evicted from her apartment. It was a fire hazard.
I have also personally known someone who bought things just to feel good for a while. They she would have to pay someone to clean it all out and take it away.
That TV show, Hoarders, explains the hoarding part. One women starting hoarding when someone died and she kept buying things to psychologically fill the emptiness. That seemed sad. I guess if you understand the reason for it, it can be sad. But just seeing it or knowing about the waste of money is maddening.
I have a friend who does this, but she doesn't buy much new stuff. She goes to garage sales and comes home with her van loaded with somebody else's old things. Her attic, basement, shed, and garage are filled, as well as the upstairs bathroom--the plumbing doesn't work, but instead of getting it fixed, the bathroom is used for storage. Floor to ceiling of big garbage bags full of stuff. This bathroom hasn't been operational in at least ten years that I can remember. The only bathroom in the house is one off of a bedroom where the daughter sleeps. (I guess it was the master bedroom once.)
She had a baby when her two older ones were already 11 and 12, so some friends and I decided to give her a mini-baby shower--take her to lunch and give her some gifts for the new baby. I went to her house to pick her up and she wasn't home yet so I waited (she's also late for everything). She showed up half an hour late and showed me the great bargains she'd just gotten at several garage sales, including THREE diaper bags--and of course someone was waiting at the restaurant with a brand new one for her as a gift.
My friend also doesn't throw any empty cigarette packs away. They just lay around. But because he is too lazy, not because he thinks he still needs them. When I throw them away, he is okay with it. It is just about the buying. Swiping the card.
And he doesn't realize that he is in deep shyte and digs himself deeper. I don't get it. I get the rewarding feeling. I have that, too. But then I look on my account and think "HMM, was that really necessary?" and I don't buy anything for a while. And especially not, when I don't have the money.
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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Dunno about "addicts", but the ones that get me are usually these gals who are clearly on a "Mission" whenever they go shopping, especially around this time of year. And they're often so cranky and competitive in their single-mindedness (aka, "outta my way"!), that I can see how fights sometimes break out in stores during the holidays!
Don't forget about it being "retail therapy". A lot of times, it soothes a person and makes them forget about the world. I also know people tend to buy things because it's what they grew up with. For example, whenever my xh wanted to make me happy, he'd buy me something. Buying gifts was his learned way of being happy. When he was a kid, and something upset him, his mom would buy him something. So now, as an adult, to soothe himself (or another person), he'd buy stuff.
He couldn't stop himself either. I was close to having to take away his credit cards. Instead, I divorced him. He maxed out al his credit cards and well, is in a ton of debt. So glad that's no longer my problem.
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