Property is the new sex, the new drugs, the new rock 'n' roll, and we're all immersed in a hedonistic party that makes Pete Doherty look like Dana.

Last week, the Central Bank released figures showing that mortgage borrowing has topped 120bn. Debt has doubled in just three years. That represents a graph of deterioration that would be familiar to, among others, alcoholics and those addicted to chemical substances.

As usual, the banks are ahead of the game.

They know where this is going, and they want to reach the point where maximum value can be added before the mugs cop on. Going forward.

Banks understand addiction, and want to be in place to pick up the pieces when the nation reaches its "rock bottom" in addiction terms. After fleecing us through our illness and growing addiction, they will then want to add further value during our recovery.

Take the EBS, Ireland's largest mutual building society.

The institution has published what it calls A little book about buying your first home, which features "12 steps to owning (or should that be owing? ) your first home".

The first step is a gem of wisdom: "Shop around then see how much you can afford to borrow." Einstein would be proud of that observation. But can you see how cunning the bastards are by employing the 12 steps? The 12 steps originated in Alcoholics Anonymous and form the bedrock for recommended recovery, invoking a higher power to give the alcoholic a dig out.

Now, a goddamn bank is trying to appropriate them for its own nefarious purposes.

This column won't stand for it. Just like Bono claimed to be taking back the Beatles song 'Helter Skelter' from Charlie Manson, so this column will retrieve the 12 steps from the EBS and give them to those who need them most. What follows are the 12 steps required to beat your property addiction and make you a better person, going forward.

1. We admitted we were powerless over the property market, that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves, in the personage of Brian Cowen, could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to Biffo, as we understood Him to be a man who would take away the bane of stamp duty that had stained our souls.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our ability to repay a mortgage in the face of robber barons and thieving banks.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to the nearest parasitical estate agent the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Became entirely ready to have Biffo remove all these defects of character, even if, as he says, he can't interfere in the market, or at least not unless it suits him.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove the stamp duty before we fell further into the abyss.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all, apart from bankers, solicitors, developers and all who had profited from our addiction.

9. Made direct amends to such people where possible, particularly if we had harboured any thoughts of murdering them through the darkest days, including all of the above.

10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it, unless the guide price was as off-kilter as the sincerity dripping from a coiffured estate agent.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Biffo, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, which is to vote his shower back in.

12 Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other home buyers, and to practice these principles in all our transactions, keeping thoughts of murder firmly under wraps.

There you go. Follow that path and you're on the road to recovery, saved from the national drug of choice, set free from the most boring subject of conversation since the weather. Hi ho.