My Higher Power's Timeline

I don't know when my problems with money really started. I remember getting my first credit card at age 18, for a department store, and that it was something I never considered how to pay back - I just thought it was basically an extension of my own money, and I charged it up to the limit pretty quickly.



I'm now 42 and I think this is the first time in my life I've been free of unsecured debt since that time. 24 years. I always seemed to be unable to pay for my needs, so I'd think I had to rely on credit, whether it was credit cards, student loans, payment plans, or overdraft protection.



I tried a number of different strategies for controlling my spending and debting - software, books, recorded programs, financial planners, etc. I would sometimes make some progress, but never managed to save money, so whenever the next inevitable "unexpected" expense came (vet care, car repairs, home repairs), I would be right back into the thinking that I needed to debt.



I came into DA after working another recovery program for about a year. I was on my way to a convention for that program and hid the credit card bills so my wife wouldn't find them. I knew it was dishonest, and I knew it was an indicator I had a significant problem that I needed to address. 

I live in a community without any face-to-face DA meetings, so I listened to the phone meetings, started to identify, and got a sponsor.

The sponsor I was working with was wonderful - she and I communicated by email every day. I would write on the steps and told her what I had spent the day before. I started having pressure relief meetings, and realized that we were spending $1000 more than our income every month.



I had an incident of compulsive spending a couple months into this work, and the same weekend had a slip in my other recovery program. It helped me realize that I needed more structure. There was a DA-HOW meeting once a month that was a three hour round trip from my home. I started attending those meetings, got a DA-HOW sponsor and connected with the fellowship by phone. 



I found someone else who was remote from the meetings, and we decided to try to start a phone meeting for DA-HOW on Thursday nights (this was March of 2009 or so). She left the fellowship, but another member stepped in to be a part of the phone meetings, so we started from there - it was just the two of us at times, but slowly, we started growing. 



Today, I have five and a half years of back-to-back abstinence from incurring unsecured debt, and I am completely free of the unsecured debt I had coming in the door - my family's only debt is our mortgage. We have had enough for our needs and even some wants this whole time. It doesn't mean that we received everything we needed on MY timeline, but in my higher power's time it all worked out.



We now spend less than we make even though I've become disabled and no longer work outside the home. We build savings, have regular PRG's, plan for upcoming big expenses, and use the money earned this month to pay for next month's expenses - no more living paycheck-to-paycheck. 



DA-HOW is a place I see miracles manifesting themselves. I have all of my numbers from when I came in the door, but I can't predict how things will work out, because amazing things happen when I put boundaries around my money. I've been worried about an unusual situation coming up with our taxes, and we received a windfall for over half the amount. Miracles happen here, and I'm so grateful to witness them and for the fellowship of DA-HOW.

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