Many addictions that are as serious as alcohol, prescription drug, street and recreational drug addiction are all around us but we cannot detect the substances used in the affliction. For many dependency problems, we cannot readily see in an addicted individual, any "tell-tale" change after their engagement in the act of addiction, either.

Shopping addicts don't generally stagger after a shopping spree like an alcoholic might after the alcoholic has been drinking. You often cannot smell smoke or alcohol on a chronic gambler, so you may not even be able to help such an addict until well after his or her financial affairs, personal life and relationships, or job situation has become entirely unmanageable.

An individual struggling with food addiction issues doesn't leave crack pipes or liquor bottles lying around, and FOOD ADDICTION is a particularly difficult abuse problem to manage because, frankly, we all have to have a relationship with FOOD, each and every day of our lives, or human beings will fail to exist. Whether this addiction manifests iteself as anorexia and avoidance of food or as bulimia and purging of food, people who manage their relationship with food in an unhealthy way are struggling emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually with the very material that is life-giving for most of us. To food addicts, life-sustaining food, and their skewed relationship with food is DEADLY.

Some people are addicted to activities, such as video gaming, which also leaves no particular detectible smell on the breath or clothing, to enable loved ones to quickly spot a problem.

The above mentioned conditions are NOT the only addictions that fall under non-traditional categories of addiction. These addictions are, however, drawing the attention from addiction-recovery experts, counsellors, recovery care-givers, and are FINALLY starting to become better known in the realm of the GENERAL PUBLIC.

Professionals are much more aware of these hard-to-detect or almost atypical addictions and are rushing to gain information and experience with working with these addicts. When PUBLIC AWARENESS becomes much greater and people can talk about these addictions as openly as the addictions of other, more mainstream drugs, then more people afflicted with shopping, gambling, gaming and food addictions can get the help they need.

Often, shopping, gambling, food, and video gaming addiction are not viewed by a general public as addictions because everyone has to learn how to shop in our society, gambling is seen as a recreational activity, food is necessary for survival, and video games are often a very healthy stress-relief or even an exremely postitive, effective learning tool (simulation tools, training videos, etc) for many people.

There are very few outlets for gaining GOOD information about some of these less detectible conditions, but...

IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE A PROBLEM with one of these forms of addiction, it is still a good idea to approach ANY form of addiction-recovery information outlet to ask for information and help.

Almost any alcohol-recovery centre, agency or organization should be able to direct an individual to more appropriate resources.

I am a recovering addict myself. Drugs of choice: alcohol, pot.

I still apply myself very MINDFULLY when the topic of Shopping Addiction comes up because, although I share some traits or commonalities of addiction with every other addict or recovering addict around, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND SHOPPING ADDICTION! Rather, I can only understand shopping addiction at a surface level, and I always wonder if only other shopping addicts can truly understand everything about shopping addiction in other like-addicts.

This is entirely strange for me because I understand, quite well, the addiction cycles, the highs, the lows, etc., of other street drugs and such that I have never even tried.

My Shopping Addict friend RELAPSED several years ago when we were both involved in regaining our lives in an addiction-recovery program.

One day, about one week into a four week recovery therapy, I couldn't tell, I couldn't help her, I couldn't understand why she freaked out, cried and said she'd relapsed - because even the items she purchased seemed like normal items to me.

She had, in fact, relapsed, and I will still never quite understand or empathize as I would like to with the feelings she was experiencing at that time. I have understood other peers' relapses with cocaine (though I never used or abused cocaine myself), morphine (also never used or abused, I am allergic to it since childhood), etc., with great depth, but shopping addiction relapse is only a surface idea that I can comprehend with a certain kind of common sense but little emotion.

In response to the relapse, my peer IMMEDIATELY had severe limitations (by a sponsor and treatment authorities) put onto her already close circle of locations permissible to frequent and, for several days, was not permitted to go with me into situations and to locations that seem NORMAL and ORDINARY to most people.

In short - her addiction was HELL! For her to break her addiction habits, she underwent some of the strangest methods of 'substance avoidance' that I have ever seen or heard of...most of which were an intense kind of re-training of self-talk (many intense one-on-one counselling sessions) which other addicts involved in our recovery program did not experience.

MAJOR IMMEDIATE DAMAGE CONTROL

...but such is the nature of shopping addiction.

When shopping addiction occurs, it is VERY SERIOUS - it is more than a person managing stress through use of a substance. It is a person whose perception and management of NORMAL AND NECESSARY ACTIVITY is all messed up beyond control.

When my friend relapsed with shopping activity - I was even WITH HER and did not know that she relapsed. I saw the items she purchased and none of them were out of the ordinary. She didn't buy in bulk (hoarding behavior), buy anything out of her price range or purchase any extravagant items at all. She bought the same kinds of things that I did when we went to the store.

I was supposed to be her 'safety-partner' for trips to the store.

Shopping Addiction is a BAFFLING condition!

The determining factor in my friends' relapse was that she crossed her own boundaries and purchased items that she absolutely did not need during a time when she was struggling not to "hoarde" (purchase in bulk), and perform other uniquely-personal shopping habits that had held her locked inside of shopping addiction.

Shopping addiction and recovery from such is the most intensely personal kind of addiction I have ever seen in another person both during my own recovery treatment time and ever since (5+ years). For my friend, her recovery included the most exhausting efforts to be turned inward, to her own perceptions and boundaries of self.

Even for her to receive HELP for her relapse - which NOBODY COULD SEE - she had to exert intense moral conduct - and CALL OUT to express something which not even a professional or the most experienced addiction-recovery expert would see through even careful scrutiny and observation.

I will never forget (or fail to be horrified at my lack of emotion over) the "cry for help" that my friend gave on the day she relapsed:

"I relapsed - look what I did!"

I looked in her bag and nothing was amiss...

There ended up only being a few key points that I could help my shopping recovery friend with:

* Reminding her to make a shopping list (of only absolutely necessary items for purchase)

* Asking about her state of 'being' EVERY TIME during our relationship/group time, to let her decide if she was well enough to accompany me on walks (I was told NOT to re-route my walks to avoid walking past stores, etc) - and being patient with her while she sorted herself out before either accepting or declining my request.

* If I was designated as her 'safety-buddy,' it was my job to return with her to the treatment centre FOR ANY REASON if she felt 'unsafe' in any way - no questions asked, no coaxing allowed. This also meant "no positive coaching" which most addicts really thrive on and empower themselves with.

**NOTE** I don't think these were typical shopping addict recovery rules, but were very specific to her situation, some tailored rules for her behavior, personal addiction-quirks, and to re-program her thinking process right from the ground up.

Beyond those three rules of sorts, those considerations I had to remember when I was with her, almost everything this lady did to positively move forward in her recovery was individual and self-generated.....

I felt helpless, myself, to do anything for my shopping recovery buddy most of the time.

Shopping addicts who are in recovery don't come with instructions like cocaine recovery, alcohol recovery, marijuana recovery, narcotics recovery - even gambling recovery buddies do!

Other recovery peers and I could support each other much more by avoiding walking past taverns, making sure not to 'talk nostalgically' about the things we did when we were active in our addictions, help each other check for, then avoid alcohol as an ingredient in shampoos, colognes, mouthwash, menu items in restaurants when we went shopping or out for meals together.

For our shopping recovery friend, we had few things we could do to help her avoid triggers or the actual act of her addiction, since - eventually - a person has to shop in order to obtain items for their basic needs - or risk turning over an integral and HUGE responsibility in life over to a 'helper.'

For our shopping recovery friend, to regain her health was to learn to plunge herself directly into her 'substance of choice' and just make this activity turn out right!

I only kept in touch with my shopping recovery buddy for about a year after she GRADUATED from our addiction-recovery therapy group, but she did complete the intense training that she agreed to in the therapy.

Though I do not speak with her regularly anymore, I am sure we will see each other again sometime, and writing this hub has put me in mind to search through all manner of boxes and containers for my old phone notebook.

I hope that when I call her, she's still doing well - and not struggling inwardly with self-control, anxiety, guilt, and shame anymore over purchasing a single purple toothbrush that, perhaps, was not on her shopping list.