<shrug>
Circa 2005, I was over 40 grand in the hole with nothing to show for it whatsoever. It took me a good many years to dig my way out of the hole and learn how to live sustainably. Now I've got a positive net worth in the five digits and that's with spending 2.5 of the intervening years unemployed and most of the rest of that time at just above minimum wage.
That said I'm a stupid person and I'll cop to it. Everyone else on the entire internet is so much smarter than I am they will never make mistakes in life and I will forever be the idiot who got himself in a bad position to these people. Oh well, that's part of paying your stupid tax.
Now, I'd like to think if I wanted to pursue a career as a financial adviser (which I do not at the moment), I could use my experience to guide people who had mental/emotional/physcological profiles similar to mine out of such courses of action in ways they would understand. I've been in an financial pinch, I know what you do to yourself to make it even worse.
I know how you justify it. I know the learned helplessness. I know what it's like to cognitively understand what's a good rational decision, but be emotionally unable to act on it and wind up doing something stupid instead. I know what it's like to envy people who have never had these problems, and to have the scorn of strangers. And I have learned to worry about being the best person I can despite these problems and ignoring the rest.
I had to overcome all of it, and I'm not proud of that one bit. Training yourself to listen to your brain is something I still haven't completely mastered but by gum I'm much better off than I was before, debt free for 3 years and counting. And I'd dearly love to spare another human being that process, it is not fun.
Maybe this guy sees an opportunity to do that. I'll leave the judging of him to people who are smarter than both of us.