Compulsion

I've known guys with good incomes and great families, really nice guys, that gamble away every penny they get ahold of. I know guys that drink themselves into a coma at least a couple times a week. I know guys that eat until they look like Jabba the Hut. I expect it has to do with experiences early on that become compulsions later in life.

As a young adult, I was poor. I rarely had a good job. I developed the habit of spending only a small fraction of what I made, knowing things would likely be worse at some point in the future and I would need the money. It doesn't matter that I haven't had money problems for over twenty years. I'm still a miser. People recognize this trait in me and deem it inappropriate, they are probably right. It doesn't matter to me. Hoarding money brings me satisfaction. So I continue to do it.

Elliot Spitzer apparently likes to have sex with prostitutes. I've known guys like that too. He probably will never stop. He has the money to indulge himself. His wife is, at the very least, resigned to it. Otherwise they would not still be married.

Will this destroy his political career? Almost certainly. Does it make him a bad person? Man, we're all bad people.

Tough luck, Elliott.