The Addictive Personality
Written by Narcissistic Abuse Expert and Recovery Coach Randi Fine
Narcissistic Abuse Awareness and Guidance with Randi Fine
The idea of an addictive personality has sparked interest among psychologists, sociologists, and the public for many years. But what really defines an addictive personality? Is it a specific psychological disorder, or a set of traits that increases the risk of substance abuse and compulsive behaviors? In this blog post, we will explore the characteristics of addictive personalities, their causes, societal implications, and paths toward recovery.
How do you envision someone with an addictive personality? Do you picture an alcoholic, someone strung out on drugs, a chain smoker, or a gambler down on his luck?
Addictive behaviors are commonly thought of as behaviors that impair a person’s ability to function. Often they do but not all addictive behaviors have that effect. Some addictive behaviors do not negatively influence or impact the person’s life.
The Addictive Personality Debate
Doctors and clinicians still debate whether or not the addictive personality exists. The National Institute on Drug Abuse calls it a brain disease. Though addictive personality has not been classified as a personality disorder by the American Psychological Association, there are common traits that those with the tendency have—certain characteristics that make them more susceptible to physical or psychological dependencies that may negatively impact their quality of life. Not everyone demonstrating these characteristic will develop an addiction.
Traits of The Addictive Personality
Many people are unaware that they even have the tendency because their behavior doesn’t fit the image they have in their mind of those who do. Someone with an addictive personality can turn a positive activity, such as exercising, into an obsession. As one mental health expert put it, healthy people plan exercise around their life. Addicts plan their life around exercise.
Urges
Those with addictive personalities have urges other people don’t have that can impede their ability to make good decisions. They have the tendency to do things that are fine in moderation, things that those without addictive personalities do with no problem, and become addicted to them. They are prone to becoming dependent on substances, activities, and other people—just about anything. And they are especially at high at risk of becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling, food, pornography, exercise, work, and codependency.
Impulsivity
Impulsivity is a major characteristic of addictive personalities. People with this trait often struggle to pause and think through decisions. For example, an individual might quickly decide to spend a large sum of cash at a casino without considering the risk of losing money.
Emotional Instability
Emotional instability typically accompanies an addictive personality. Individuals may face frequent emotional fluctuations, making them more likely to turn to substances as a way to cope with negative feelings. For instance, someone might use alcohol to relieve stress or anxiety after a tough day, believing it will provide comfort. Unfortunately, this can lead to a dependency that increases emotional turmoil over time.
Coping Mechanisms
A common characteristic of the addictive personality is poor stress management skills. Without the benefit of healthy coping skills they are prone to using substances, activities, or other people as a way to manage their emotional discomfort and alleviate stress. They have the tendency to self-medicate, believing they are only using it symptomatically, but in fact are using it as a way to cope with life. Some have social anxiety or have trouble letting their guard down. Substances help them let go and have fun.
Sensation Seeking
Sensation-seeking is another key aspect of an addictive personality. These individuals actively seek thrilling experiences and may engage in risky behavior to satisfy their craving for excitement.
Insecurity and Approval Seeking
Many with addictive personalities suffer from insecurity or are excessive approval seekers. They may use substances such as drugs and alcohol to provide a temporary sense of worth, a pseudo-identity. Though they are aware that the sense of worth achieved that way is false, they like the way it feels and crave it more and more. They may turn to addictive substances in order to deal with insecurity, or they may ultimately feel powerless to stop an addiction once it starts.
Discomfort With Emotions and Feelings
Another marker of the addictive personality is the lack of ability to get in touch with feelings. The feelings are there but they may be too painful to look at. Feeling makes them feel vulnerable and out of control. This causes someone to focus outward, searching for anything that makes them feel good inside and comforts them.
Need For Instant Gratification
Those with addictive personalities often have the need for instant gratification. They crave the quick, powerful feeling that makes them feel good in ways nothing else can. The euphoric feeling is short lived so they are constantly seeking more. This sometimes occurs with those who have obsessive or compulsive personalities, and those who are perfectionists.
Commitment Challenges
Individuals with addictive personalities often exhibit a profound inability to create emotional attachments with others. This can result in a reluctance to commit to relationships, leading some to withdraw from social interactions, believing that genuine trust is unattainable. Their relationships may be brief and fraught with emotional distress, frequently involving others who share similar addictive behaviors or who are abusive. In such cases, substances like drugs or alcohol can become a substitute for the emotional connections they are missing.
Genetic Predisposition
Much has been written about genetic predisposition and its relationship to the addictive personality. It is theorized that 15% of American people have a predisposition to addiction.
Genetics can significantly influence the development of addictive personalities. Research indicates that around 40 to 60 percent of an individual's risk for addiction is due to genetic factors. Certain genes can heighten susceptibility to addiction, particularly those linked to the brain’s pleasure and reward systems.
Having an addict in the family does not guarantee that everyone in the family will become addicts. But many believe that hereditary factors can raise a person’s level of vulnerability to substance abuse or other addictions. That may explain why some gamble in moderation and others compulsively—why some can drink for enjoyment and others become alcoholics.
It does seem as if those with the genetic predisposition will engage in some type of excessive behavior but will not necessary choose the same stimuli they have been exposed to. Adult children of alcoholics may never drink but they may become addicted to gambling. Children of drug addicts may exercise excessively or be workaholics.
There is no single gene that determines a person’s susceptibility to addiction. Studies comparing identical and fraternal twins estimate that genetic factors account for 40 to 60 percent of the occurrence of the gene variation.
Researchers have discovered a number of genes that link to addiction through DNA testing. One gene causes dizziness and nausea from smoking and is more present in non-smokers than smokers. Alcoholism is rare in those who have two copies of the ALDH2 gene. Other genes have been linked to narcotic dependency.
Variants in certain genes have been shown to suppress dopamine signals in the brain. Those with these blunted receptors have the need to seek higher levels of stimulation to reach the same level of pleasure as those who don’t have the variants. DNA testing can offer vital clues in battling addiction but the use of it is very controversial. The concern is that some may use this information for discrimination purposes.
Environmental Influences
It comes down to the nature versus nurture argument. Environment and upbringing are believed to be equally important in shaping the personality. Our life circumstances and emotional experiences may have more influence than our genetic make-up does. Under this theory no matter our chemical make-up, we still have the ability to choose and control our actions.
A person’s environment can shape their risk for developing an addiction. For instance, coming from a family that accepts or encourages drug use can enhance the chance of experimentation among young individuals. In fact, studies show that children exposed to family substance use are 2 to 4 times more likely to develop similar habits later in life. Social influences, such as peer pressure, can also significantly impact choices regarding substance use and risky behaviors.
At Risk Factors
There are factors that may indicate a higher risk of developing a serious addiction. People who have difficulty thinking about the long term consequences of their actions are more susceptible to developing an addiction. So are those who do everything in excess and/or to extremes, and those who habitually substitute one compulsion for another. For example, stressed out workaholics may come home at the end of the day and start drinking to help them relax. They may use cybersex because they don’t have time for real relationships. They may stress-eat.
Those with addictive personalities are most vulnerable during periods of heightened stress such as adolescence and times of transition. People who suffer from mental illnesses, emotional disorders, and personality disorders are highly prone to addiction as well. Without being aware that they have a condition, they may self-medicate to manage emotions using substances or behaviors to relieve whatever discomfort they may feel.
Nonconformists, non-achievers, and those with deviant personalities are also prime candidates for addiction. Many adult addicts report having been subjected to deprivation or overindulgence in their childhoods. Others report that they were negatively impacted by their parents' constant, unpredictable fluctuation between over-praise and over-criticism.
Chasing the High
Addictions are unmanageable, excessive, and repetitive. The addiction activity begins harmlessly with a pleasurable experience, but over time more and more of the activity is needed to achieve the same effect. People become dependent on the high they get and find it difficult to stop the behavior. If deprived of their fix they will find a substitute. If forced to stop the behavior they will suffer physical or psychological symptoms of withdrawal that compel them to resume the addiction. Over time they lose the ability to cope with life without the addictive stimuli.
Defense Mechanisms
Deep down inside people with addictive personalities know that what they are doing is wrong. They know that their behaviors, choices, and actions are hurting them and their loved ones. But the need to feed their addiction supersedes everything else in their life.
To perpetuate their addiction they must deny that the substance, compulsion, or habit has anything to do with what is going wrong around them. That is why they become very defensive when confronted with their behavior. There are a variety of defense mechanisms used by those with active addictions.
Denial
People with addictions will deny that what they're doing is detrimentally affecting them while work, family, and social relationships suffer and their health declines. Their desperation often lead them to take extremes in getting the fix, which ultimately creates financial and legal issues.
Minimizing
With minimizing, those with addictions will acknowledge that something is wrong but not want to make a big deal out of it. When confronted by others they rationalize that others are placing too much emphasis on the problem; that it's not nearly as bad as others are making it out to be.
Repression
Repression is the conscious mechanism those with addictions use to completely tune out the fact that they have a problem. They simply stop acknowledging the addiction to themselves and others.
Rationalizing
Rationalization is used to explain away the consequences of their addictive behavior or choices. They rationalize that whatever happened would have happened regardless of their addiction. For example: The factors that led to the car accident would have caused it to happen whether he or she was intoxicated or not.
Deflection
When confronted about their addiction addicts may use deflection to take the focus off of themselves. They do this by bringing up the other person's shortcomings, similar activities that the person may partake in, or behavior the person may have exhibited in the past. For example, alcoholics might remind people that they have no room to criticize their drinking because they drink too.
Compartmentalizing
By compartmentalizing their addiction they are able to display the behaviors expected of them for windows of time. This fools them and others into thinking that they have control over their lives.
Undoing
People with addictions will demonstrate destructive behavior and then try to "undo" it by apologizing, offering gifts, or promising that they'll never do it again. They do this to distract others from the real problem; from the fact that they have an addiction.
Toxic Shame
Toxic shame is used by those with addictions to avoid taking responsibility for their problem. They see themselves as flawed and never measuring up; like their whole life has been a mistake. They believe they are victims of their past. Because they feel defective, they seek something that will make them feel better, but it is a hole they can never fill.
Normalizing
Wanting to feel normal, since they feel so shameful for their behavior, they surround themselves with others who abuse the same substance and have the same level of addiction.
Grandiosity
Most people with addictions suffer from low-self-esteem. Aware and shameful that they are messing up their lives, they use “Grandiosity,” the unrealistic inflation of their sense of self, as a defense mechanism to hide their feelings of vulnerability and low of self-worth. They may have low self-esteem yet still believe they are better than other people.
Hard Addictions
Addictions can be classified as hard or soft. Hard addictions, also known as substance addiction, are categorized by the rapid affect they have on many aspects of the person’s behavior as well as the effect they have on everyone around him or her. Abuse of alcohol, barbiturates, and narcotics are usually the source of this type of addiction. This is different than substance abusers who use from time to time. Substance addicts spend every waking moment finding ways to buy and use drugs or alcohol.
Soft Addictions
With soft addictions the abuser uses activities that are harmless to most people. The consequences of those behaviors are not immediately felt. Cigarette smoking and coffee drinking are two commonly known examples of soft addictions. It is much easier to hide soft addictions and cover up the behaviors that result from them. But soft-addictions have the propensity to lead to more serious addictions down the road.
Gambling
Gambling is another common example of a soft addiction. Gamblers with addictive personalities go through three stages. In the first phase, also known as the winning phase, the person has control over his or her behavior. The second stage is known as the losing phase. In this phase the person begins gambling alone, gambling large sums of money, and borrowing cash to pay off mounting debt. The third phase is called the desperation phase. In this phase the gambler engages in more risky, sometimes illegal behavior. In desperation he or she may borrow money from non conventional sources. Depression and attempted suicide are common in the third phase of gambling.
Eating Disorders
Other examples of soft addictions are eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive over-eating. Though there are other factors that contribute to this type of behavior, it can develop into pathological behavior that is very similar to addiction. The anorexic fixates on the goal of losing weight. Once the person begins dieting he or she finds it very hard to stop. Those with bulimia are after the same goal as those who are anorexic , but the mode of operation is different. Instead of limiting their diet they binge on large amounts of food and then purge it before their bodies have the chance to digest it. Compulsive eaters are not concerned with weight loss or weight gain, though the disorder often results in obesity. They have a compulsive urge to eat, whether hungry or not.
Exercise
Something as beneficial as exercising can become a preoccupation or addiction to those who are predisposed to having one. Running is the most prevalent; runners are known to get a runner’s high and can become dependent on it. This is attributed to mood-enhancing chemicals called endorphins that are released during exercise. An addiction occurs when the exercise activity is used as an escape or a coping mechanism. It's a problem when it becomes so excessive that the body suffers injury, and when it negatively impacts relationships.
Compulsive Bullying
Compulsive buying falls under the category of soft addictions. Those who do it are addicted to the buzz it gives them. It has nothing to do with what they are buying, it is simply their drug. They buy only for the sake of buying without ever intending to use it. Those with this disorder often suffer from other disorders such as depression, mood swings, and anxiety. Buying gives them temporary relief, but after they do it they feel heightened anxiety and intense guilt. One study showed that twenty percent of compulsive buyers suffer from an eating disorder as well.
Internet and Cell Phone Addiction
The two newest additions to the soft-addiction category are Internet abuse and cell phone abuse. They are more prevalent in younger generations, though there is a significant number of older people who develop these addictions as well.
Those who have an Internet addiction, also known as pathological Internet use, find they cannot control their usage of it. They may be drawn to online games, social networking sites, or other online sites, and will spend an excessive amount of time there. The use becomes an addiction when withdrawal symptoms such as mood changes are suffered when they are away from it.
Some people become addicted to cyber relationships. A problem occurs when these relationships are used to avoid face to face, interpersonal interactions. This addiction can lead to social, psychological, and work or school problems.
A recent study shows that those who are addicted to cell phone use display behaviors very similar to those with addictive personalities—low self-esteem, approval seeking, insecurity. Cell phones have become indispensable in our lives, but they can reinforce the tendency of over-attachment for those with addictive personalities.
The Impact of Societal Norms
Cultural Perceptions of Addiction
Cultural attitudes around addiction can greatly shape how individuals view their own behaviors. In some societies, addiction is regarded as a personal failing, while in others, it is seen as a health issue requiring support and treatment. This cultural context is important because stigma can prevent people from seeking help.
The Role of Media
Media portrayals of addiction often create misconceptions that complicate public understanding. Sensationalized stories can foster a lack of empathy for those struggling with addiction. Promoting accurate representations in the media can help break down stigma and encourage open discussions about addiction and recovery.
Recovery: Paths to Healing
Therapy and Counseling
Professional support is vital for those dealing with an addictive personality. Therapeutic methods like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) can address emotional challenges and help develop healthier coping strategies. Studies show that individuals undergoing therapy for addiction report a 30 percent higher success rate compared to those who do not seek professional help.
Support Groups
Support groups can provide essential assistance during recovery. Organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Gamblers Anonymous (GA) foster a sense of community and support among individuals facing similar challenges. Being part of a group can create a vital support network, promoting accountability and understanding.
Lifestyle Changes
Adopting healthier lifestyle habits can play a crucial role in managing an addictive personality. Engaging in activities like exercise, art, or mindfulness can help redirect the need for excitement toward more constructive outlets. Research shows that individuals involved in regular physical activity are 30 percent less likely to relapse into addictive behaviors.
Creating supportive environments with minimal triggers is also essential for long-term recovery.
Understanding Addictive Personalities
Grasping the concept of an addictive personality is crucial for anyone impacted by addiction, whether directly or indirectly. Recognizing the traits, causes, and societal factors connected to addiction can foster a more understanding and compassionate approach to recovery.
Addiction is not just a choice; it involves emotional, genetic, and environmental factors that intertwine. With appropriate support and strategies, individuals can begin their path to healing and personal growth.
Each recovery journey is unique and may take courage to confront the challenges of an addictive personality. Seeing this journey as a step toward self-awareness and empowerment is key to the healing process.
Randi Fine is an internationally renowned narcissistic abuse expert and recovery coach, and the author of the groundbreaking book Close Encounters of the Worst Kind: The Narcissistic Abuse Survivor’s Guide to Healing and Recovery Second Edition, the most comprehensive, well-researched, and up-to-date book on this subject. In addition to helping survivors recognize their abuse and heal from it, this book teaches mental health professionals how to recognize and properly treat the associated abuse syndrome. She is also the author of the official companion workbook Close Encounters of the Worst Kind: A Comprehensive Workbook for Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse. Randi Fine is the author of Cliffedge Road: A Memoir, the first and only book to characterize the life-long progression of complications caused by narcissistic child abuse.
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