As the busy holiday shopping season arrives each year, anticipation and excitement makes it easy for most buyers to forget about what’s happening to their credit card bills.

But with as many as 1 in 10 people afflicted with compulsive shopping disorder, the December days of retail frenzy and January clearance sales can be a time of continuing uncontrollable shopping. The results can not only be destroyed credit histories but bankruptcy, despair, and even criminal behavior.

Shopping addiction can also destroy families.

“Cyndi” is an addict. She doesn’t gamble, drink, or do drugs. She’s addicted to shopping. “You walk in and you’re immediately hit with that smell of retail,” she says.

Cyndi came from a difficult background: extreme poverty, her parents alcoholic and divorced, and her father committing suicide. “I began to try and even the score,” she says about the roots of her problem.

Targeting mostly jewelry, makeup, perfume and bath goods, she says her sprees weren’t all thrills. “It is very tiring. It’s like being someone else for the day.”

Cyndi, who was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic depression), asked that a fictitious name be used to identify her because she began shoplifting when she ran out of money.

She’s trying to turn her life around.

Mental health experts say 8 percent of Americans may suffer compulsive shopping disorder. Depression, loneliness, and anger can trigger buying binges. Says Cyndi, “It’s just an emptiness that you feel and you think, ‘You know, if I get this thing and this thing and this thing, I’ll feel better.”

Shopping sprees can also be a symptom of mental illnesses such as obsessive compulsive disorder or manic depression, says psychiatrist Michael Lardon, MD of Alvarado Parkway Institute Behavioral Systems in San Diego. “If they can’t afford it, if they’re buying stuff that they don’t need, then we say that this behavior is destructive or pathological,” he says.

Repetitious compulsion sets in, says Lardon. “As it gets more pathologic, then you start to get more destructive consequences and higher incidences of depression.”

Dr. Lardon says once the gratification of acquiring a new car, clothes, cosmetics, or knick-knacks has passed, the despair of emotional void quickly returns. “It’s a little like a brain loop that keeps going and going, ‘I need to buy it, I need to buy it, I need to buy it,’ and it doesn’t release until they buy it,” he says.

Among the rich, the middle class, and the poor, Lardon thinks today’s omnipresent consumerism is making the disorder more prevalent. “I think we’ve seen an exacerbation in compulsive shopping as a function of being able to buy on TV and probably the Internet,” says Lardon.

Mental health professionals say compulsive shoppers feel euphoric as they buy and spend. “Shopping becomes their best friend,” he says.

The drug-like high following a purchase can lead to kleptomania, particularly if the money has run out.

Feelings plunge when guilt sets in, akin to the “crash” after certain drug highs. Guilt led Cyndi to give her things away to charity or to friends. Some items still have their price tags attached.

The holidays can intensify the need for the feeling of amassing goods. “There’s a tremendous value on material possessions,” Lardon says. “People judge their self-worth on how they are perceived by others.”

Technology also fuels the urge to splurge, with easy availability of credit cards and express delivery services. “You can buy anything and it can be shipped to you in 48 hours,” Lardon says. “Most of it is junk. They don’t need it. And most of it they can’t afford.”

Compulsive shopping can be difficult to treat. Creditors often are running after them.

Treatment for compulsive shoppers usually consists of mood stabilizing drugs, psychotherapy, and financial counseling. “When we use the medication, we find that the brain loop doesn’t keep going around in circles, and people are more free to think about other things,” say Lardon.

What are warning signs of compulsive shopping disorder? “If you have impairment in your social, work, or legal spheres, then you need to seek some help,” Lardon advises.

Bankrupt and unemployed, Cyndi hit bottom and is currently in therapy. “Don’t do it: the stuff is not worth it,” she warns.