Addict Nation Read Online Free PDF

5 We’re all screaming statistics at each other, and yet the freight train of overconsumption is only accelerating. That’s because addiction does not respond to rational argument.
    “Addiction does not have to be a physical drug. Drugs provide biochemical indoctrination. If you shoot heroin, you will become biochemically indoctrinated and habituated to it. That’s on everybody’s radar. What’s off the radar is electrochemical indoctrination. When you see ads, they jolt your adrenaline. They change you physiologically. They are intended to do that. They create physiological habits. When you watch 3,500 ads every day—with a large percentage telling you that you are inadequate until you get the commodity—that’s bound to have an effect on people.”
    —Eugene Halton, Ph.D., professor of sociology
at the University of Notre Dame
    Drowning in Consumer Debris
    American overconsumption is a mass addiction. The average household contains more televisions than human beings. The United States has more cars than drivers. Every year we spend more than $22 billion on health clubs and health equipment. But on any given day, three-quarters of us are doing no exercise at all. 6 Zip ! It feels good to plunk down our credit card for a health club membership. We do so fantasizing about how buffed we’re going to get and how attractive we’ll look to others. Unfortunately, fantasizing doesn’t burn a whole lot of calories. How many of us have gym memberships that we never use? Actually working out is a lot sweatier than fantasizing about it or paying for the privilege. And to work out, we’d actually have to look in the mirror and see the disturbing “before” picture of how we look now!
    Instead of Running, Dancing, Swimming,
or Singing, We’re . . . Hoarding!
    If you find yourself having difficulty deciding what’s valuable and what’s not or if you feel irrational attachment to material items, you may be on the path to a deeper manifestation of the compulsion to collect called hoarding. Two million of us are compulsive hoarders. 7 The phenomenon has even inspired two disturbing reality TV shows: Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive. 8 The shows follow people who fill their homes with mountains of debris because they are completely traumatized by the thought of throwing anything out. This can even include dirty diapers, rotten food, and dead animals. Ironically, a common reason offered by hoarders to keep an object is its sentimental family value. But their hoarding is precisely what keeps their families alienated. Relatives refuse to visit because a hoarder’s home is generally filled with such squalor it’s nauseating and unsafe. Many hoarders admit to being powerless over the urge to buy. They may have closets stuffed with clothes they’ve never worn, but still can’t resist picking up a new sweater at a department-store sale. Eventually, they begin to drown in junk.
    In Las Vegas, a compulsive hoarder was dead for four months before her husband finally discovered her body under piles of debris in their home. Her clutter was so intense that even search dogs (who had worked Ground Zero and Hurricane Katrina) had failed to sniff her out. 9
    Materialism Is an Expensive Habit!
    The average rate of personal savings falls short of what most people need to feel secure. Millions of households actually spend more than their after-tax income. 10 No wonder we’re stressed out. Total U.S. consumer debt is in the staggering trillions of dollars. Many Americans are in a serious debt trap, with credit cards, home equity lines, and home mortgages eating up an increasing slice of their income. They’ve overspent to such an extent that they’re reduced to treading water financially, working just to keep up with their monthly interest payments. The banks encouraged a lot of this debt by enabling people to pretend they were wealthy through an ever- more-imaginative rollout of credit vehicles. Take second mortgages. Taking out a