Guzzler 

 an antidote to sanity 

Imagine that one evening you’re surprised to discover you haven’t spent all the money you made that day.

 Symptoms 

So, the next morning, you wake up early and drive into town, where you buy the best suit and coat you can find. Perhaps you pick up a few other trinkets while you’re there: jewelled cufflinks to match your new shirts and a gold necklace to complete the look.

For lunch, you head to a high-class restaurant, inviting a crowd of strangers along the way. Your party dines on rare delicacies and the finest wines; after all, you have cash to spare and then some.

After paying the bill and adding a substantial tip for the Maître d’, you bid those newfound friends farewell and check your bank account on your smartphone. You are surprised to find your balance hasn’t decreased at all. In fact, it has risen significantly.

Dismayed but determined to rid yourself of this ill-gotten burden, you decide that the solution to your predicament is to plumb the deepest depths of your extravagance. That afternoon, you buy a house with gardens and stables for some horses you have no interest in owning, but you buy them anyway. Next, you buy a super-fast car, and another one for your latest companion. But no sooner have you parted with the cash than you find your wealth has multiplied through these purchases.

 Fever 

By now you are consumed by a belligerent compulsion to get rid of all your money. Boldly, you set off to explore the entertainment capitals of the world. At every port of call, you build a hoard of treasure in the hold—jewels, carpets, knick-knacks and clothes, cars, trumpets, budgerigars, and portfolios of art. You pour out money with both hands to any demented vagrant you meet along the way. You place bets in casinos with no hope of winning, but when you arrive home you never dare to open your letters because you know what they will say: your deposits in I don’t know how many banks all over the world are growing at an increasing rate.

 Diagnosis 

You rant, and you wail as the mania swells. There is only one diagnosis: your money has driven you insane. In a frenzy, you throw around stacks of the trash you’ve done nothing to earn, and yet, the more you discard, the more you consume, the more you give away, the more your smiling lips turn to a snarl, the more your stomach lurches and strains. Too much is far too much! It must stop. It must end.

Yet your cash continues to amass.

As if it has a mind of its own.

As if you are no longer its master.