Broke and Broken: The Hidden Cost of Addiction

I just wanted to share something.

The other day I had an appointment.

Now, it seemed like just a typical consultation.

Guy comes in, and I met this guy before.

He sat down at my desk.

And I picture this guy.

He's a kind of a tough guy, rides a motorcycle, got tattoos up and down his arms, and kind of just, you know, the epitome of just a sort of.

You look at him, you're like, this is a tough guy.

And he sat down with me and he said, you know, Ralph, I really need some help with something.

And I said, great, I can help you.

He said, and he hands me this piece of paper.

And on this piece of paper, he's got written down his mortgage, how much his mortgage payment is.

He's got down his car loans, he's got down personal loans.

He's got all of his expenses listed out item by item.

Now, he didn't have a lot of stuff.

He had quite a bit of stuff.

Then he's got his cable bill, his grocery bill, all those sort of things.

Insurance, car insurance, motorcycle insurance.

And I'm looking through this list, and I'm saying to him, I say, okay, what's going on?

He says, well, I'm really struggling right now.

And I said, okay, well, tell me about your income.

And he potentially, he's a union guy, works union shops.

I don't want to give too much away because I don't want to give away this guy's identity.

It wouldn't be fair to do.

Anyway, we're going through this conversation.

He says, yeah, I'm making pretty good money, Ralph.

I said, okay.

So I added up his income, and I add up his expenses, and he had about $1,000 margin at the end, which to me is like, okay, $1,000 margin is pretty good for most people.

And I started to pry a little bit.

I said, hey, let me just ask you a question.

I said, you're sitting here today.

Now, I forgot to mention one thing.

Now, he did have a tax issue.

He had taken a draw from his retirement plan, and he ended up.

When he did his 24 tax return, he ended up owing some money to the irs.

So one of the reasons he came in is he wanted to sit down with me and sort of go over, hey, Ralph, how do I handle this?

Don't hold me to this.

I want to say he owed about $15,000 in federal tax and about 5.

$5,000 in state tax, about $20,000 overall, which is not a small amount with his income.

You know, something he could get through.

Probably set up A payment plan with the irs, and I'm starting working these angles.

And he said, okay, well, can you help me try to figure out a budget, how to figure out how to put this all together?

And I said, sure, I can help you with that.

I said, the first thing I want to do is really understand where your money's going.

And he sort of looked at me like, well, what do you mean by that?

He says, I wrote it all down.

I said, no, no, no.

I want you to really tell me.

Where does your money go?

Looking at your question, credit card statement, looking at your bank statement, all that sort of thing.

Just tell me where it's going.

I said, do you keep track of that?

And he says, well, no, I had to be honest with you.

I don't really keep track of that.

Now, listen, he's not the only one.

A lot of people that I work with on a daily basis don't take the time to do that little aside.

It's a great thing you should do.

But he hadn't done that.

And I said, okay, that's fine.

It's respectable.

I said, well, it seems like you've got some margin here.

He goes, yeah, but there's a bigger problem all of a sudden.

And I'm looking at this, and he's saying, what do you think about this?

What do you think?

We're going through all kinds of iterations.

And all of a sudden, I look over at this guy and the tears are just streaming down his face.

And I'm thinking to myself, what is going on here?

And then it occurred to me, see, it wasn't about the money all along.

See, a lot of people figure that people who are struggling with their money, well, they're making bad decisions.

They're not managing their money well.

They're not good at saving.

They spend too much.

So I pried a little deeper.

I said, tell me, really, what's going on?

And he said, well, you know what, Ralph?

He says, the truth is, if you looked at where my money went, I spent a lot of money at the bar.

I said, okay, well, you're not the only one.

I said, there's a lot of people that go to the bar.

He says, no, you don't understand.

I go to the bar a lot.

And I said, okay, well, we can work with that.

He goes, no, I don't think you understand, Ralph.

I have a real issue.

So here's this guy.

I mean, picture of a tough guy, right?

Not a tough guy.

Wants to fight with you all the time.

That's not what I'm talking about.

But a tough guy, strong guy, that's probably a better word to use, strong guy.

And he's laying it all out for me.

And she would have been real easy for me to say, oh, here's a budget, go do this, go do that, track your money, all that sort of things.

But that wasn't the issue.

Oftentimes money isn't the issue.

So if you're listening to this right now, if you're watching this right now, there's a pretty good chance that it's not about the money with you either.

You might be struggling with addiction.

This guy's struggling with addiction.

The thing I did was I pointed him to some AA meetings and I'm hoping he follows up with that because I think he really does recognize that he has a problem.

There are all kinds of addictions.

People are addicted to alcohol, people are addicted to food, people are addicted to spending.

There's all kinds of things that people are addicted to.

And it's really easy for us to sit back and judge that person and say, you know, why can't they save money?

They just, they're frivolous with their money.

They don't know where their money's going.

It's real easier for us to be judgmental of those people.

But this meeting the other day, it really brought it full circle for me.

And I just think we all need to just take a break sometimes and say we don't know what someone else is facing, we don't know what trauma they've gone through, what led them to this situation in their life.

And if that's you right now, I just want to encourage you, you can reach out to me at the show.

I'd be happy to talk to you and see if I can help you get back to where you need to be.

Because like I said at the beginning of this, sometimes it's more than the money, Sometimes it's a deep seated addiction.

How about we pray together, Father God, I just want to ask prayer right now for anybody who's out there struggling with addiction, Lord.

There are people listening and watching right now, Lord, who are struggling with this on a minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day basis.

And Lord, just ask that you would help them get through this situation in their lives, Lord.

Help them to lay it at the foot of the cross and finally relinquish control of that, Lord, and just give it to you.

And I, Lord, I just pray that you'll touch the hearts of those people who are listening and watching, who are battling addiction ever.

This client I worked with the other day, Lord, I ask that you would give him strength, give him strength to overcome this addiction that is crippling his life, that is costing him so dearly.

Lord, you are the great physician, Lord, and we know, as we pray right now, we know that you can fix this.

We know that you can solve this, Lord.

So I just ask that you would open up all of our hearts and help us to reach out to those who are battling addiction, Lord, and not just cast them aside and just assume that it's mistakes that they're making.

Lord, please be with everyone who's listening and watching today who's struggling with that addiction, Lord, and show them hope.

Show them a path forward.

And I ask this in the precious name of Jesus.

Amen.

I just needed to share that today because Lord's been putting that on my heart lately.

And I just felt like this was something I needed to share today.

So I would encourage you share this with somebody else.

Maybe there's somebody else that's out there battling addiction.

Put your arm around them and tell them it's going to be okay.

Give them an opportunity to talk to you.

Maybe they just need to be heard.

Maybe they just need to get it off their chest.

I'm going to encourage you.

Just share the show with them.

You can point them to financially confident Christian.

Like I said, sometimes it's not about finances.

Sometimes it's about what's going on in your life.

I just want to say thank you and God bless you, and you have a great day today.