Debtors Anonymous (DA) is a twelve-step program for people who want to stop incurring unsecured debt. Collectively they attend more than 500 weekly meetings in nine countries. Those who compulsively incur unsecured debt are said to be engaged in compulsive debting and are known as compulsive debtors.
DA encourages careful record keeping and monitoring of finances—including purchases, income, and debt payments—to get a clear picture of spending habits. This information is used to develop healthier spending practices, supporting one in keeping a reasonable quality of life while still repaying debt. Similarly, DA recommends developing plans for the future to increase income.
DA's program is intended to facilitate a progressive personality change in its members, ultimately transforming their world views and changing their behaviors. Many DA members only partially accept the ideology of the organization. Parts of DA's program, such as stigmatizing labels used to describe members, may actually hinder acceptance of DA's ideology.
Read more about Debtors Anonymous: Development, Membership, Concepts, Changes in World View, Parallel Organizations
Famous quotes containing the words debtors and/or anonymous:
“So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 16:5,6.
“I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the world—so that the moment of intense turning seems still and universal—all are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)