My shopping addiction hijacked my life. Now I realise what caused it

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. My shopping addiction hijacked my life. Now I realise what caused it Just now Share Save Add as preferred on Google Noel Titheradge , Investigations correspondent and Emma Barnett , Presenter of Ready To Talk Sally Gardiner says she will live with the consequences of the spending for the rest of her life When children's author Sally Gardiner's career first took off, friends assumed her extravagant spending was a byproduct of her newfound success. Lavish spending sprees included a £3,000 bathtub, prints by English pop artist Peter Blake, and trips to Parisian boutiques.

Sally was in her early 40s when her debut book was published, setting her on a path to sales of 2. 5 million copies and major literary prizes such as the Carnegie Medal. "Suddenly, I am in a different place," Sally says, "and for the first time in my life, earning really well.

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" She says she felt "ashamed" by the amount of money she was splashing out - but was hooked on the dopamine hit. A 'drumbeat' of compulsive behaviour Sally would lie to friends about her purchases and deny she was wearing new clothes. "I had no idea what had happened to me.

It was like, 'Who are you? '" Before long, she had amassed significant debts and was forced to sell her north London townhouse and move into a smaller flat. Even then, what she describes as the "drumbeat" of her compulsive behaviour didn't stop - she couldn't resist spending tens of thousands of pounds on an interior designer to decorate her new home.

By this point, one of her friends was walking from shop to shop in the town where Sally lived begging staff not to sell anything to her. Sally had developed a mid-life shopping addiction she could find no explanation for - and thought she was "going mad". At the same time her literary career was taking off, Sally's doctor started prescribing her dopamine agonist drugs for Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS), a condition she had endured for years.

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It meant she suffered from an unbearable urge to move, which typically developed most evenings. "It was constant: I can't sit down, I can't watch television, I can't go out to dinner," Sally says. "I'd have to stand up the whole time.

" Newly divorced with young children, it caused her to develop chronic sleeplessness, just as she was also going through the menopause. Sally says she tried every possible treatment but nothing worked; she would go to bed and lie awake all night. So when her doctor prescribed a drug, which immediately relieved her symptoms without any mention of psychiatric side effects, she was euphoric.

Only now - 20 years later and more than £500,000 worse off - does Sally realise her compulsive behaviour was the result of taking this medication. Devastating side effects Sally's story is among the hundreds the has heard over the past year and a half, describing the devastating side effects of dopamine agonist drugs.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.