Debtors Anonymous is fundamentally an organization to facilitate recovery from "compulsive debting." "Compulsive debting" is a neologism described variously in DA literature as a disorder, progressive illness, and a disease. As such, "compulsive debting" cannot be cured, although it can be arrested. Compulsive debtors are those who cannot control their debt, as a consequence their debt causes growing and continuing problems in their lives. "Compulsive debting" is also an umbrella term encompassing many different types of behavior from "incurring unsecured debt to compulsive shopping, from grandiose thinking to deprivation mentality." Members must decide for themselves whether or not they are compulsive debtors. To help them with the decision, DA provides a 15-item questionnaire (most compulsive debtors will answer yes to eight or more of the questions) and a list of 12 signs of "compulsive debting". An ethnographic study of DA members found they attributed the causes of "compulsive debting" to family maladjustment and a culture that constantly pressures people to spend money.