You go to the track to play horses. Bad day. You lose $5,000. You try to recover by buying 1,000 lottery tickets. With the odds of 100,000,000 to 1 against you so drastically reduced, you now have an excellent chance of winning, don’t you? Mistaken. Next, he cleans out his bank accounts, borrows on his insurance policies, takes out a second mortgage on his house, and heads off to Las Vegas. Not knowing how storm clouds form, you know you can reverse your streak of bad luck and emerge from your quagmire smelling like a rose garden. You roll $10,000 at blackjack, then your last $30,000 rolling the dice.

Woe to you! Now you can’t pay your bills. Where do you go from here?

To a credit counselor, of course. After all, the ad, “Bad credit? No problem!”, assures you a way out, right? The counselor says, let’s consolidate. You feel that you have been deceived. He should have known that the “No problem” part of the ad really meant “Big problem.” Next, he visits a bankruptcy attorney. She says file for the same. You sigh, agree, and decide on one last fling before you do it. She applies for 2 additional credit cards, uses them up, and goes skiing in Aspen for 2 weeks.

Then you come home and file. The day of the docket comes and the judge says, hey, wait a minute, there are some questions. Have you applied for a new credit card lately? How many charges? What amounts? Over the limit? Did you consult a lawyer before applying? Did you make several charges on the same day? Was there a sudden change in your clothing purchase? Were the purchases for necessities or luxuries? What is your current income and outlook? How many changes, and of what nature, in your lifestyle? Game? Luxury vacation?

Hold. Cornered. Caught. You now realize that while you are an exaggerated case, yours is somewhat typical of today’s “dead end” road to debtor’s prison, and the only thing left for you is to throw yourself at the mercy of the court. And sadly, the most recent bankruptcy law is little more than the “Credit Card Issuer Relief Act.” It tightens the screws on credit card debtors to the point that many will want the wounded relief of debtor prison.

How do you compensate, reform, adjust? Work hard, long hours. Save… Budget. Honor your debts. Pray. What other thing?