Shopaholism: America's Newest Addiction?

Ill-advised shopping has certainly turned up recently in the news, and yet the issue also forms the core of a much more contentious and continuing debate. As spenders spend while the economy plummets, the psychiatric world is trying to decide whether compulsive buying should actually be considered a disease.

At least for now, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- which is known as the D.S.M. and is something like the bible of psychological maladies -- does not list the condition as a technical disease. While shopaholism, as the laymen say, has been recognized by the German psychiatric community as a subset of obsessive-compulsive disorder, it still awaits its day in the United States.

According to April L. Benson, author of "I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self," that day is almost certain to arrive.

Keep reading...

Comments

[iluvsam]

I know people who don't necessarily like to spend their money on buying things as they do eating out. They really can't afford it, but they spend thousands on restaurants by eating out several times a week. There needs to be a name for THAT, because it is just as financially destructive.

[NWBrunette]

This is the NEW addition? Oh please. This nonsense has been propping up a good portion of the economy for decades now. Why do you think advertising exists?

[Oxonian2001]

The culprit is the media. If TV weren't bad enough with its coverage of fashion and home improvement for lower middles, the NYT is just as bad for the upper middles: there's way too much of who is buying what and how much. (I've been keeping up with it the last 20 years and trust me, I know!) Seriously, when there are countless articles about women scooping up J Crew cashmere sweaters (and this is before Michelle Obama came to be associated with JCrew) in every color or Ms/Mr. so-and-so buying a 6,000 sq. ft custom designed house in Greenwich, who is not going to feel inclined to have just a bit more because everyone else is doing so? This is after all the Anglo-American culture that invented the idea of "keeping up with the Joneses." Not to mention all of those vapid chick-lit books on shopping: what a waste of paper!

So apart from all of the Wall Street and CEO crimes, are we surprised that debt has exploded the way it has? Please, publishers, keep the rubbish out. Leave fashion coverage to Vogue, Elle, and other glossies.

[vippy]

If this was the case why then are the retailers now going broke? Americans never had the money,
they had credit cards and lots of them file for bankruptcy, but unlike their European Counterparts,
they visit the retail stores to get out of the house, let the kids with them destroy the merchandise
and the fixtures or even drop off kids in the computer areas where the games are until they get back
from grocery shopping. Yep, was a retailer!

[DennyCrane]

It doesn't help that people can get credit cards with unlimited spending limits. It amazes me the kind of junk people will buy when they don't even have the money saved up for it yet. And these days, people have to have the latest version of everything. The new iPhone, new Playstation, etc. when there's absolutely nothing wrong with the one they have. It's no wonder we Americans have such a lousy savings rate. Well, hopefully this recession will force people to start saving.

[NWBrunette]

Your last statement... indeed... one hopes. But amazingly enough the malls around these parts are mobbed all day long, weekdays included.

[Fudgefase]

I've had this condition for a while now. I just love having new things. I love getting parcels through the post. I advise ANYONE who is married or involved with anyone with this condition to buy them lots of small, friendly tokens regularly - at least every second day. Flowers, chocs, small things, but really regularly. That'll help them fight the need to buy new things and will ultimately save you a great day of money and heartache.

[NWBrunette]

Please someone, help enable my co-dependence. Yes, more dysfunctionality!

[topkatnc]

TO shop or not to shop. We , Americans have to buy american-made products. If we are ever going to keep jobs from going over seas or to bring jobs back , we have to buy american made products. I know this is going to be hard to do. It will mean our love affair with Walmart will be over. This is one way to show uncle-sam that we mean business.

[Oxonian2001]

It's not just Walmart. Even Ralph Lauren has pieces from his EXPENSIVE lines made in China. I found one pair of leather pants from his couture line at yes, Filene's Basement. They were marked down from $2,300 or something obscene like that to $65.

Same with Dana Buchman and other designers. It's as if they want the customer to pay the SAME prices for stuff made in China as stuff that USED to be made in the US or Europe. Talk about price-gouging.

[NWBrunette]

Better yet, get over the addiction and stop shopping.

[Thinklongterm]

The Bling, Bling era is over. Of course it may take time for some to get the message.

[kellygrrrl]

Shopaholism WAS a problem for many -- but I'm pretty sure it's cured itself recently.

nobody is spending money, even if they have money to spend

[skippyB]

Shoparexism is here - from the market to the Market. Was is right.

[ladyv]

Shopping, like gambling, shoplifting, cocaine, opiates, sex, nicotine, extreme physical risk (snowboarding, skydiving, etc) and other common "addictions" is about dopamine stimulation. You're either elevating dopamine levels by boosting production, inhibiting reuptake, or some other mechanism. Dopamine is the best stuff in the universe. It's about anticipation of reward, not about obtaining the reward, so it's the process of shopping, gambling, whatever, that pumps the dopamine. Making the purchase quickly leads to a let down. So, the process has to be pursued again and again.

[Fudgefase]

Yes, exactly.

[Melanie226]

I have a feeling America's problem with Shopaholism will be cured with our new economic depression. I'm a big fan of personal responsibility, but we have been living in a society for the past 30 years that judges people based not on their character or ability to give back to their community, but on the designer labels on their clothing and accessories. When young people are constantly told that their self worth is derived from their Prada handbags, is it any wonder that Shopaholism exists? Thankfully, we have a tremendous opporunity to hit the re-set button on our social values despite the unfortunate circumstances.

[Peridolius]

I think these modern "disorders" are in our DNA and once served a very real function when we were emerging from the forests and staking our place on the savannah. Eating: the desire for sugar (carbohydrates) proteien and fats for basic survival. Shopping: the desire for hunting and gathering, again, for basic survival. But sugars were hard to come by out of season so we didn't get diabetes. Animals had to be strenuously hunted down so we didn't get fat. A day of obsessive hunting and gathering would yield necessary items for survival and there was no excess of anything in our early days on the planet. Now any of these drives, coupled with modern neuroses can ruin our lives because of easy access to too much . . . everything. Now we have to resort to psychotherapy or 12 step programs to change our behaviors.

Problems with money, debting, shopping or responsibility? check out www.debtorsanonymous.org and read the 12 signs of a compulsive debtor. It changed my life significantly. I didn't stay with the program for philosophical differences (12 steps are too magic based for me), but I was forever changed for the better by the wake up call of that 12 signs list.

[zull2]

One way to fix it is to stop importing cheap overseas garbage. When the perception that you can get something that would normally cost a lot more for a lot less, you get a reward stimulus that encourages you to buy more. Just like winning a payout on a slot machine will encourage you to keep playing, or a rat that pulls a lever to get a piece of cheese. It's how people's brains fundamentally work.

Yeah, the insane inundation with advertising subliminally encourages people to shop, but the actual addiction is caused by the perception that they got a "really good deal" for something they didn't really need.

[tubette]

definitely a bad time to suffer from it....