When do you have a problem???

How do you know when you have a problem in your life?? For some they may drink to much, for other shop to much, other gamble, etc... There are plenty of things in life that people have problems and addictions with. Some people treat girls and relationships awful, others would rather get high every single day and never leave the house. The problem with all of these things that if you are so tangled up in your problem, a. how do you know you have a problem, and b. have you surrounded yourself with people like you, so their is no one to tell you that you do have a problem.

An example would be if someone drank way to much, and was on a road of self-destruction. If that person has surrounded themselves with only drinking buddies and other locals at bars and liquor stores, who is there to tell them that they have a problem and that they are on a bad bath??? This could be applied to a women who is spending every pay check she gets on new purses, shoes, shits, etc...She is then showing all of these to her friends, co-workers, and others. All she hears back from them, is how great she looks, how great everything on her looks, and then people are asking her to go shopping with her soon. This women will never see that she has an addiction to shopping and is throwing away all of her money, the same way the drunk will never realize that he has a problem, because no one around them will take the time to talk to them about it.

On the other side, how do you go about talking to someone about this without sounding like a hypocrite? If everyone you know, including yourself, drinks and gambles and does things, but their someone specific you think does it way to much, how do you talk to that person and get them to take you seriously if you are the one with them every night doing those things??

It is tough to know when you have a problem or when you are on a path of self-destruction, all I can hope for is that my friends are man enough to ever let me know if they something that I do not.