This recovery story is made available by a member of DA under two conditions: (1) no name is attached, and (2) nobody makes any money off it. Feel free to read it for your own inspiration, and for that of your own local DA group.
As long as I remember....
I have been a compulsive spender as long as I remember. Even as a child I could never hang onto money. Debting had to wait until I was 17, when I got my first credit card. I had thousands of dollars in credit card debt before I got out of college. Don't ask me what I spent it in -- I haven't a clue.
After college, I noticed that inflation in the U.S. was going at over 20% per year, and I figured that that was about what the interest rate was on my credit cards, so that there was no reason to pay things off right away. NOT! I also figured I'd get nice raises at my job each year, so that I could afford to pay the bills LATER. (What logic!)
I was a sucker for sales. I assumed I couldn't afford to pay full price for anything. I was especially a sucker for CLOSEOUTS and END OF MODEL YEAR specials. IT MIGHT BE MY LAST CHANCE! I also couldn't resist contributing to just about any good cause that found its way into mailbox. I also really liked what the DA pamphlet describes as the feeling of control from using credit cards!
Two years out of college, I went to my first private credit counselor. She assured me that I was perfectly intelligent and capable of handling my money. She gave me a budget and sent me on my way. It would be six years, three credit counselors, and almost $20,000 more debt before I found DA.
Between that time, I got married, bought an over-leveraged apartment, got divorced, changed jobs several times (once involuntarily) and got into ACOA recovery. By the time I found DA, I had given up balancing my checkbook. I was pretty hopeless.
When I discovered DA (from a notebook that was a directory of 12 step fellowships in the area), I was pretty willing to go to just about any length. They said to come to meetings. No problem. Stop using my credit cards. No problem; they were all maxed out anyway.
Then they said to record all my expenses and income in a little notebook. I had sworn that I would never do this; I thought people who kept such records were obsessive-compulsive control freaks. Well, I was one, too, and my life was in a mess. I was willing to do whatever it took, because I knew my way wasn't working.
But the thing that clinched my willingness was the people at the meetings. There was a woman who had just returned from Switzerland and was about to go to Japan. There was a man who was about to leave for Rio. There was a woman about to take a cruise in the Carribean. There was a man who was saving up for a trip to Hong Kong (he never made it there; he went to India the following summer instead). And just about everyone had spend a week at the beach that summer. Incredibly, all were doing this with CASH. My one vacation in the past ten years had been the preceding month when I had maxed out my last credit card on a trip to Arizona. I saw no hope of ever taking another trip because no one would ever give me credit again. In DA I saw hope.
After recording for a month I got two DAers to meet with me in a pressure meeting to look at my financial situation. I was the good little DAer, typing all my records into spredsheets and bringing in lots of computer printout. To my surprise, they didn't look at the printouts and instead made me make a list of things I wanted but didn't have. They then set me on getting some of them.
It wasn't easy, but I kept with the program. I made regular payments on my debts. I took short vacations. I bought my own apartment -- not over- leveraged. I took a trip to Jamaica -- paid for in cash. (I had to figure out how to record in a non-convertable currency!)
I did writing on the steps. (My pressure group said it was important.) My fourth step (which I resisted doing for a year) was a major turning point. I filled up about 10 pages of resentments and fears about family, creditors, employers, schools. I got in touch with the fact that I felt a calling to teach at a university. So, working with my pressure group, I began the process of applying to graduate school.
I visited a school. I sent for the application. I registered and took the Graduate Record Examination for the first time (at age 32!). I filled out the application form, and wrote a great essay. I got accepted, and read the acceptance letter to one of my DA meetings the day I received it. I got a full tuition scholarship, with the promise of a part time job.
I sold my apartment and moved to a new city. I got a new pressure group. I went to DA in the new city. I was completely obsessed by how I would pay for my living expenses once my savings from the sale of my apartment ran out. And I had not yet paid off all my debts! My pressure meeting insisted that I didn't have to wait until my debts were paid to have a life. That would never have occurred to me. And my pressure meeting also insisted that I had enough money for my needs THAT DAY. And until the next pressure meeting a month later. After about two dozen pressure meetings, it occured to me that they might be telling the truth. (I am sometimes a slow learner!)
I worked hard during graduate school. I had a lot of other things going on as well: I got married in a great prosperous ceremony, with a wonderfully prosperous reception. My mother, and my grandmother both died the same year. My father stopped drinking and I had to go back to Al-Anon as a result. My compulsive eating really exploded as my spending went into remission and I got serious about OA. And then I had to look for a job.
I turned in my Ph.D. dissertation. I moved to another state within days, and started my dream job as an Assistant Professor in my field exactly one month later. I have to pinch myself that I am well paid to do something I love so much. I also have been blessed with consulting work that has generated thousands of dollars of extra income -- unsolicited! (I've had to turn down work because of lack of time.) My biggest DA issue right now is dealing with the unplanned-for prosperity!
And I know that all comes from God. I must therefore give back to the DA fellowship that has so blessed me.
We bought a beautiful huge Victorian house in a nice neighborhood recently. I never would have dared dream that I could have a home this nice. It too, comes from the grace of my higher power. I must return some of what I have received. I do pressure meetings for others and occasionally visit meetings to speak. Doing pressure meetings for OTHERS is actually the single tool, other than record keeping, that I think has made the most difference for me -- I see what others are struggling with and discover opportunity in their situation and in my own. I started an e-mail discussion group for DA, and just started a new live meeting.
I hope that this inspires people who read this. DA has brought me miracles. In 9 years I have never seen DA not work for those who work it. It takes a willingness to take the steps, and to use the tools.
(name witheld in the interest of anonymity)