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There are several poignant similarities between deceit and debt.

Both can begin so innocently, so casually, and with such respectable rationalization. Both tend to take on lives of their own, to get out of control quickly, to become something you never imagined at the outset.

And both will strangle you, in the end.

The most elaborate prisons in the world are those we build for ourselves. Whether by financial deficit or by "truth deficit," we throw away our freedom, accepting in freedom's place the chains of bondage. We make ourselves slaves to our possessions, which own us, or to the lies we have told, the maintenance of which requires that we repeat and even embellish them forever.

Escape from slavery to our fabrications entails a pride-swallowing admission of guilt; a coming clean, setting the record straight, telling it like it is. Untangling the tangled web of our lies can be complex and can require tremendous courage.

But escape from financial bondage can be distinctly more difficult. One cannot simply wake up one day and decide to throw off the chains, with an expectation of unburdening oneself before the sun sets. The vise that we climb into the first time we spend money we do not have, the vise which is cranked tighter every time we live beyond our means, the vise which forces the air from our lungs and the joy from our lives, this vise must be painstakingly loosened one small turn of the crank after another.

The self-extraction of a debtor from this vise--and there is no other means of escape--often takes years....