Brother, can you spare 10 million dimes?

What's the most addictive commodity known to mankind? Heroin? Meth? Crack? Chocolate? Well, if you ask me, my money is on ... money.

Anybody out there have enough money? I didn't think so.

All our lives we are taught that there are more important things in life than money, but once we leave school and start into our careers, what's the foremost motivator? Money. Oh sure, there will be some people out there who say the work itself is their reward, and that money isn't important to them, but if that was true, they wouldn't collect the salary at all. No matter what Human Resource studies say, money is the reason why people work. If they didn't need money, potential employees would pursue hobbies, or volunteer at clinics.

No one is immune to money. How could they be? Just ask Maslow about his hierarchy of needs. We need it to live, to pay for our food, shelter, clothing, recreational activity, etc. And it seems, the more we get, the more we spend, and then the more we need.

Remember your first car? it was probably a real piece of crap, but you loved it 'cause it was a means toward freedom and independence. As you began to earn money, though, that car was probably replaced with something better, and newer. Ultimately, as time went on, and your earning power improved, you began to buy or lease new cars, and progressively better ones. The same goes for homes, vacations and clothing.

It seems the more money we get, the more money we need, because we elect to purchase better, more expensive things.

Paychecks are most-addictive of all because, unlike win falls, paychecks are gradual, scheduled enablers, like a morphine drip. Gradually, pay-raise-by-pay-raise, promotion-by-promotion, we take on more obligations - mortgages, car payments, spouses, children, pets, the list goes on and on. No matter our intentions, rarely do we find the will to save the extra money we earn. Instead, we adapt our lifestyles to the new flow of cash.

Suddenly, decades later, once we've inflated our standard of living to stupid levels, we realize how precarious our lives have become, how dependent we are upon our current salaries, and how at risk we are if our jobs go away. We all know better-compensated jobs are more difficult to replace than lesser-paying ones, and once that reality hits us, and we recognize the tenuous predicament into which we've gotten ourselves, we start paying pharmaceutical companies for sleep-aids and ulcer medication.

If this economy has taught us anything, it's that excessive consumption is foolish, and excessive leverage can be fatal. But, like heroin dealers, banks and employers encourage us to voluntarily put our necks on the chopping block so they can enslave us. The more debt we assume, the more risk we take, but we seem to be oblivious to that when lenders (banks or credit card providers) throw money at us so we can buy necessities like bigger homes, or motorcycles, or trips around the world. Similarly, employers are always pleased when we improve our standards of living, because then they know we are less likely to leave our jobs.

One employer during my career spent weeks trying to convince me to have children. At that juncture in our lives, my wife and I lived in a humble home and we both worked. My employer saw me as a flight risk and actually told me they'd be more comfortable with me as an employee if I had a family. See? They're heroin dealers - "c'mon, take my product; I'll give it to you for free, for now, until you can't live without it. Then I'll own your soul!!!"

So where's the 12-step program for recovering money-holics? After the last two years of economic futility, how many of us look back and regret our frivolity of the past decade? And for those of us who recognize our problem, how many will remember this when the economy improves, and how many of us will forget and bury ourselves further in debt and insist on buying that 24-carat gold Mercedes Benz Convertible with diamond-encrusted door handles?

This is a conspiracy of the highest order, my friends, and not even aluminum foil hats can protect us when the enemy is within us.