Jessie H. O’Neill “Jessie H. O’Neill has written a hook that is long overdue. . . . The Golden Ghetto will help the reader find understanding, a sense of balance, and perhaps help him or her make peace with some of the issues of money. ” —From the foreword by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse Family Therapist Author of The Miracle of Recovery: Healing for Addicts, Adult Children & Co-Dependents • - V: , v. 'A : ' ’•!.> / ' ■ % ■ ! : • : : _ : : : : : : ** ; -• ' * .. • ' < - ■ v- ' • \ ' - Af ' v i- VV -. ' U--’*• v THE GOLDEN GHETTO THE GOLDEN GHETTO The Psychology of Affluence JESSIE H. O’NEILL with a Foreword by Sharon Wegscheider- Cruse 9 HAZELDEN® Hazelden Center City, Minnesota 55012-0176 1-800-328-0098 (Toll Free U.S., Canada, and the Virgin Islands) 1-612-257-4010 (Outside the U.S. and Canada) 1-612-257-1331 (24-hour FAX) http://www.hazelden.org (World Wide Web site on Internet) © 1997 by Jessie O’Neill All rights reserved. Published 1997 Printed in the United States of America No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data O’Neill, Jessie H., 1950- The golden ghetto : the psychology of affluence / Jessie H. O’Neill p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56838-119-0 1. O’Neill, Jessie H., 1950- 2. Spiritual biography—United States. 3. Wealth —Psychological aspects. 4. Adult children of dysfunctional families. 5. Problem families —Psychological aspects. I. Title. BL73.044A3 1996 96-27220 178 —dc20 CIP 02 01 00 99 98 97 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Book design by Will H. Powers Typesetting by Stanton Publication Services, Inc. Cover design by David Spohn Editor’s note Hazelden offers a variety of information on chemical dependency and related areas. Our publications do not necessarily represent Hazelden’s programs, nor do they officially speak for any Twelve Step organization. All the stories in this book are based on actual experiences. In some cases, the names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved. The resources section contains information from Taking Charge of Our Money, Our Values, and Our Lives: Guide to Forty Publications and Organizations. © 1996 by Christopher Mogil and Anne Slepian for the Impact Project. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of the Impact Project. This book is dedicated to all the courageous people who have so freely given their time and their stories to this endeavor. It is also dedicated to my mother, Rosemary Wilson Hoyle Austin, and my father, Joseph Philip Hoyle, for in spite of it all, they loved me more than anything in the world. But most of all this book is for my daughters, Rebecca and Maggie, in the hopes that by begin¬ ning to break the bonds of dysfunction, we can offer them a world in which the measure of a persons worth and the barometer of a persons happiness is not equated with the bottom line on his or her balance sheet. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Substance Abuse Librarians and Information Specialists (SALIS) https://archive.org/details/goldenghettopsycOOonei CONTENTS Foreword by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction: Growing Up in the Golden Ghetto 1 1 Money Is as Money Does 19 2 Affluenza: The Dysfunctions of Money 35 3 The Family Founder and the Myth of the American Dream 55 CONTENTS 4 Poor Little Rich Kids: The Hidden Legacy of Wealth 77 5 The Cocktail Party: Money, Gender, and Power 107 6 “Not Inhaling”: The Pyramid of Shame W 7 Money Dearest: Healing from Affluenza 163 8 Through the Eye of a Needle 215 Appendix: The Affluenza Questionnaire 239 Si Resources 245 Index 259 FOREWORD Jessie FT O’Neill has written a book that is long overdue. In my twenty-five years as a family therapist, there were countless times I would have welcomed her book both for myself and for my clients. In my work, I have encountered many wealthy families. I have been hired by the founder, patriarch, or matriarch often because they were having difficulty with children, in-laws, or grand¬ children. There seemed to be a great deal of concern about how the family heirs were going to handle the family business or for¬ tune. Quite often, the heirs were unable or unwilling to live out the plans and wishes of the senior members of the family. This brought about anger, hurt, and estrangement. The heirs them¬ selves felt inadequate, manipulated, and rebellious. There devel¬ oped a breakdown in communication that necessitated help from an outside source. Fortunately, feelings could be expressed and ul¬ timately healed when family members of all ages were willing to confront the issue of wealth directly. Jessies book addresses important topics such as addictions, workaholism, control, and narcissism and sheds light on the pain often involved in being wealthy—the unique variations on feel¬ ings of inadequacy, competition, jealousy. Working with trust fund young adults, I consistently found struggles with self-worth. ix FOREWORD Too many felt ashamed of receiving handed-down wealth, guilty because they had so much, and inadequate when compared to the people in the family who made the fortune. For years, the weight of the family fortune can sit on the shoul¬ ders of each generation, affecting people in ways they may not even recognize. I have seen children of wealthy families become al¬ coholic and the grandchildren respond in perfectionism and workaholism—which creates a family system that is a setup for new addiction. By the time three or four generations have passed, people are quite disconnected from the root cause of the problem which might very well have been the original wealth and the dy¬ namics that were played out to achieve that wealth. Both lay people and professional therapists will find this book most helpful in learning about the inner lives of the wealthy. Those from wealthy families will find the book most enlightening. This book will help the reader find understanding, a sense of balance, and perhaps help him or her make peace with some of the issues of money. Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse Author of The Miracle of Recovery: Healing for Addicts, Adult Children & Co-Dependents Consultant, Onsite Training Family Therapist x PREFACE When I went back to school at the age of forty for a masters degree in psychology and counseling, I was doing what I now would call “listening to my heart .” This listening is something I constantly en¬ courage my clients to do in their search for their own unique path. Before I, or my clients, can begin this journey in search of our hearts’ messages, it is necessary to first heal our childhood wounds. Over the years, as part of my own therapy and healing process, I had naturally begun to look at my family dynamics. This exercise was both painful and enlightening as I became aware that the presence of wealth had affected my family in countless ways, many of them negative. The dysfunctional relationship we all had with money seemed to directly contradict one of the driving myths of American life — that having money guarantees or is a prerequisite for happiness. This realization led me on a search to learn more about the ef¬ fects of wealth on individuals and on their relationships with oth¬ ers. This resulted for me in a “coming out” process wherein I finally began to own who I was and how growing up with wealth had affected me and my family. I spent months researching the topic only to discover that very little has been written about the damaging psychological effects of affluence. This book, to a large extent, breaks new ground. xi PREFACE As part of my research, I decided to interview wealthy people. But in order to discern whom I should interview, it was first neces¬ sary for me to define “affluence.” This was, and still is, a difficult task. Realizing that each persons definition might be different, I quickly turned my search for a definition into an interview ques¬ tion. The responses I received were varied and interesting. A central theme wove affluence with a lack of “worry” about money—where it comes from and how we can pay for the things we “need.” Peter Buffet, son of financier Warren Buffet, defined af¬ fluence simply as, “Having more than you need.” Alex Forbes, a relative of Malcolm Forbes, suggested that “one [part] is an atti¬ tude that there is enough and that one need not get trapped in the hopelessness of there not being enough and that you have some¬ thing to fall back on.” She adds, however, that true affluence should mean that “you have either the inner resources or the outer re¬ sources to take care of your needs. There will be enough and you will find what you need. This is a sense of security that is not based on any amount of money.” For many wealthy people, as well as for those whose primary focus is the accumulation of money, it is precisely that inner secu¬ rity which is lacking. For our purposes here, I define an affluent person as someone who doesn’t have to work in order to maintain a lifestyle that our culture would view as “upper class.” In mone¬ tary terms, this definition would probably suggest a net worth of three million dollars or more, which would provide a substantial income independent of the principal. The interviews with adults who grew up in affluent homes were the most interesting, difficult, and rewarding aspect of my re¬ search. I soon discovered that my experience of being raised in a family of affluence was not unique: The people I interviewed also reported many painful, often debilitating, and sometimes tragic experiences associated with growing up and living with wealth. Listening to their pain triggered my own. There was solace to be xii PREFACE found, however, in the knowledge that I was no longer alone in this particular struggle. The mere acknowledgment of the prob¬ lem—that, despite society’s assumptions, wealth doesn’t auto¬ matically provide happiness, that it often brings unhappiness, addiction, and feelings of inadequacy—was a powerful psycholog¬ ical release mechanism for those with whom I spoke. * * * * The road that has brought me to this work has been long and diffi¬ cult, but always enlightening. My need to better understand myself has evolved into a desire to help others. I am now a psychothera¬ pist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I specialize in the treatment of adolescents and adults with wealth-related problems, codepen¬ dency and addictions; many of my clients are “adult children” of dysfunctional homes (adults who were raised in dysfunctional family systems). I provide individual and group treatment as well as local and national workshops and seminars, using a combina¬ tion of traditional and experiential therapy. My professional training, as well as my personal experiences with alcoholism, food addiction, and Twelve Step programs, en¬ able me to help those who are struggling with the addictive quali¬ ties of excessive buying, spending, gambling, and hoarding, all common behavioral dysfunctions of the wealthy. Through media coverage, both nationally and internationally, I have developed a growing clientele with whom I work primarily via long distance phone consultations, with only periodic face-to-face sessions. I have discovered that as I accompany my clients on their jour¬ ney to the heart, I grow and change in ways I never dreamed pos¬ sible. My clients are my best teachers, and I know that I am most blessed to be where I am today, in the company of so many fine and courageous people. Healing from the effects of growing up in the Golden Ghetto xiu PREFACE has been a lifelong journey for me. Abundance has taken on a meaning that is less monetary and more spiritual. Over the last fif¬ teen years, the once-terrifying freedom granted me by my inheri¬ tance has become a unique, gratifying, ever-changing gift. It has allowed me the time and resources to pursue those talents that support and nurture me on my physical, emotional, and spiritual journey to greater health and well-being. A great part of receiving and recognizing that gift has become the need to share the abun¬ dance I have been given. Each relationship that I form becomes healthier as I become healthier, and each day my life is filled with greater affluence, in the larger sense of the word. Using the information at my disposal, I have tried to portray an honest picture of the benefits and problems of affluence. I have searched carefully for common threads between the professional literature and the personal interviews, and looked for similarities among the interview subjects. I will not pretend that my view¬ point is unbiased, for of course it is not. The vast majority of my hypotheses, as well as my firm conviction that the psychology of affluence is a topic worthy of attention, come from my own life experience. xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As is written in St. Luke 12:48, “To whom much is given, much is required ” This book is an expression of my desire to extend my own healing and share my joy and gratitude through service to others. I would like to thank my friend Bill Kauth, author of A Circle of Men, for all his support and networking that ultimately led to the publication of this book. Through him I was introduced to Mark Gerzon, author of Coming into Our Own. Mark in turn, sent this work on to his publisher, Jeremy Tarcher, who referred me to Joy Parker, whose unfailing editing, moral, and spiritual support have been a continual inspiration. The trail leads on to my agent, Sheryl B. Fullerton, whose faith and hard work led me and my manuscript into the friendly, accomplished, and professional hands of Steve Lehman, my editor at Hazelden Publishing. I feel privi¬ leged and blessed to have met and worked with people of such high integrity and commitment. I am deeply grateful to all of them for their generosity of spirit and their willingness to walk with me on this untraveled path. xv ' ■