This is a guest post by April Lane Benson.

April Lane Benson, PhD., is a nationally known psychologist who specializes in the treatment of compulsive buying disorder. She has been in private practice in New York City for over 30 years. Dr. Benson is the founder of Stopping Overshopping, LLC (linked to website), and creator of Stopping Overshopping, a comprehensive program to help eliminate compulsive buying. She is the editor of I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self (linked to page on website about book). Her newest book To Buy Or Not To Buy?: Why We Overshop and How to Stop, is scheduled for publication at the end of 2008.
www.stoppingovershopping.com

 To Buy or Not To Buy— it’s a question we ask and answer almost every day, if not multiple times a day. For many people, this question is one that doesn’t cause much inner turmoil. But for compulsive buyers, it’s a high stakes question, and an affirmative answer can be devastating.

Current statistics tell us that about 5.8% of the U. S. population—more than fifteen million Americans—are compulsive buyers. When we think “addiction”, what comes to mind is most likely alcohol and drug abuse and eating disorders. Shopping is seen as a hobby, even as a necessity. Long trivialized as the "smiled upon" addiction, overshopping is at last coming out of the closet.

Today, in order to promote the ceaseless stoking of economic engines, every one of us is targeted as a consumer. We are pushed, prodded, programmed to purchase. In 2006, 9.2 billion credit card offers went out to America's three hundred million people—more than thirty offers to every man, woman, and child! Shopping itself has become a leisure and lifestyle activity; malls are the new town centers. We're immersed, cradle to grave, in "buy messages" that, with greater and greater psychological sophistication, misleadingly associate products we don't need with feelings we deeply desire. 

Strongly reinforced by society, shopping has become the classic mixed-message behavior. On the one hand, it's promoted endlessly (and to the ends of the earth) by those who profit from it. On the other hand, it's regularly the stuff of jokes. Shoppers are portrayed as self-involved, materialistic, and empty. As a result, compulsive shopping may be an even greater source of guilt and shame than alcoholism or drug abuse.

Just check out the bumper stickers. “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping," trumpets an SUV in front of me. For those who enjoyed high school Latin, there's “Veni, Vidi, Visa! ” A largely female version is “New Shoes Chase the Blues, ” while men weigh in with “He Who Has the Most Toys When He Dies, Wins. ”

What I’ve learned from a decade and a half of knowing, studying, working with, and writing about overshoppers—and from having been one myself—is that to change your behavior, you’ve got to change the way you feel about yourself and the way you go about meeting your authentic needs. It's about understanding who you are, and the difference between what you want and what you really need. In general, having more things means enjoying life less. Acquiring and maintaining objects can so fill up our lives and environment that there’s little time or space to use what’s been acquired. What we consume ends up consuming us.