Film: Maine, U.S. plagued by ‘affluenza’

When another collection of self-storage units sprouts up like alders in an old meadow, Coleen O’Connell sees it not as an innocuous sign of the times, but as a symptom.

The disease that the proliferation of these steel-sided, windowless structures indicates, O’Connell believes, is “affluenza.”

It’s an affliction that drives many Americans to consume far more goods than they need, and willingly trade away time with their families so they can work to earn more money to buy even more things, she said.

O’Connell has a friend who owns so much furniture that she keeps some of it in a self-storage unit, and rotates the furniture in her home as a change of pace.

While the self-storage units were slow to come to Maine, they have been built elsewhere at a heady clip. There are 25 times more self-storage units in the United States than there were in 1970, according to one count.

O’Connell, 51, of Searsmont is on the faculty of the Audubon Expedition Institute, a Belfast-based environmental education institution that offers graduate degrees in human ecology. The study of this urge to consume – and its price in environmental and social terms – is something O’Connell has devoted herself to in recent years.

A documentary produced by public television stations in Oregon and Washington, “Escape From Affluenza,” will be shown from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Rockland Public Library. After the presentation, O’Connell will lead a discussion on the issues the film raises.

The documentary defines “affluenza” as a debilitating disease whose symptoms include “swollen expectations, shopping fever, chronic stress, fractured families, festering social scars, and resource exhaustion. Affluenza is the painful addiction to the relentless pursuit of more, and if not treated, it can lead to perpetual discontent.”

It’s not hard for O’Connell to make the case that Americans are on a consumption binge. The self-storage units are just one sign. She said one developer has begun building units adjacent to malls, so consumers can buy and store more easily.

“Look at the media,” she said, “and look at what they are selling. We can never get enough.”

Feeding that bottomless appetite in part is the instant obsolescence that accompanies the electronics market. People feel they must have the latest cell phone, computer, DVD player and TV, despite owning working versions of the same, O’Connell said.

The earning power of the current median wage is significantly lower than the wages earned in the 1960s, yet Americans seem to be buying more.

“Americans are carrying an enormous amount of credit card debt,” she said, and saving less than a generation ago. This translates into two- or three-income families with little time and lots of stress.

A teacher friend in Massachusetts surveyed her elementary school class and found that 17 of 19 pupils had breakfast daily at McDonald’s on their way to school, evidence, O’Connell believes, that families are not functioning well.

O’Connell lived for a time in Cambridge, Mass., and remembers walking home past apartments occupied by college students. When they returned home after the school year, they would leave things like food processors, computers, carpets, TVs, heaters and fans – all in good shape – on the curb with the trash.

It’s the same in parts of Maine. A story in the Bangor Daily News earlier this month chronicled the life of a Camden man who furnishes his home with pickings from the town dump, including such items as microwave ovens, in unopened boxes.

But it’s not all doom, gloom and guilt. O’Connell offers hope through groups that meet and discuss the notion of voluntary simplicity. People examine their lives, asking themselves, “what feels unmanageable here, what doesn’t feel good,” she said.

One exercise the groups use is to keep receipts of every purchase they make. People then ask themselves if they want to spend $500 annually on their morning coffee and doughnut, given how many hours they’ve worked to earn that money.

The documentary shows several families in different parts of the country who have made major lifestyle changes, living on less money.

O’Connell, who works 20 hours a week, is using her extra time to form the Maine Earth Institute, a nonprofit organization that offers resources to allow Mainers to launch voluntary simplicity study circles of their own.

She envisions groups forming around the state, as people explore their own solutions – or cures – to the disease of “affluenza.”