I had known about 12 step fellowships for many years and had been a member of one of the larger ones – there are apparently 256 different kinds of 12 step groups! – before finally deciding to go to a Debtors Anonymous (DA) meeting. My father had been ‘generous to a fault’ and a chronic debtor, dying early in rented accommodation. He had also struggled to hold a job and had a knack of getting fired whenever the family was beginning to thrive. I believed it was a curse passed down from his father who lost his business in the 1920’s – somehow my father and I felt compelled to recreate this type of disaster each time life was getting more financially comfortable. DA made a huge difference to me. There are unusual tools, such writing down every single thing one spends (even if it was only 10p) and adding it up at the end of each month to compare to a Spending Plan for that month. I learned about budgeting, and it was interesting to note that I almost always blew my budget for ‘gifts’ as I felt I needed to give and give to others to justify my place on the planet (or something like that). Maybe I am just a generous person. However an inability to live within a budget was a problem and I still struggle to save money each month – basically I don’t but at least I am not currently in debt. The DA meetings in London are great and I enjoyed some of the other tools of the fellowship, for example an Ideal Spending Plan which helps you create a vision for the life you most want, and also ‘Pressure Release Groups’ where two other DA members help you work through your money issues. I am lucky that I have hung onto property since 1991 and so have benefitted from a 3x growth in house prices which has given me a large amount of equity – it almost feels like cheating as there is such a cushion beneath me making it difficult to take out too much ‘unsecured debt’ – but I know I can’t relax because compulsive diseases are cunning and baffling and I still have 20+ years left before I am at the end of my life and can prove that I can stay financially secure.
