2. What is addiction? What is personality?
Does personality cause addiction or does addiction cause
personality?
Stages of addiction
Risk Factors and Personality Traits
Addictive Personality – A myth?
3. Basically, addiction is an attempt to control and fulfill a desire for
happiness
An illness that undergoes continuous development from a
beginning to end
An emotional relationship through which addicts try to meet their
needs for intimacy
Pathological love and trust relationship
4. Alcohol, Tobacco, Illicit Drugs
Food
Gambling
Sex
Exercising
Internet/video Gaming?
Work
5. Loss of loved one
Loss of status
Loss of ideals or dreams
Loss of friendships
Facing new social challenges or social
isolation
Family problems – childhood and adult
7. • The combination of
characteristics or
qualities that form
an individuals
distinctive character
• Big Five Personality
Traits
8. Addictive personality gets created from the
illness of addiction and represents a change
resulting from the addictive process that takes
place within a person. This personality does
not exist prior to the illness of addiction, nor
does it represent a predisposition to addiction;
rather, it emerges from the addictive process –
Craig Nakken
9. A particular set of personality traits that make
an individual predisposed to addiction
Big Five Personality Traits
What influences personality traits
Biological
Environmental
12. • evidence shows some correlation between
personality traits and addiction, but not strong
enough to be definitive – it varies
Predisposition to addiction is more accurately
a combination of biological, psychological and
environmental factors
Debatable - there are many theories
Hinweis der Redaktion
Nearly all human beings have a deep desire to feel happy and to find peace of mind and soul. At times in our lives, most of us find this wholeness of peace and beauty, but then it slips away, only to return at another time. When it leaves us, we feel sadness and even a slight sense of mourning. This is one of the natural cycles of life, and it’s not a cycle we can control. We can either accept these cycles and learn from them or fight them, searching instead for elusive happiness.Nakken, Craig (2009-09-29). The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior (Kindle Locations 96-99). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition. Addiction exists within the person, and whenever addicts become preoccupied or act in addictive ways, this forces them to withdraw, to isolate themselves from others. The longer an addictive illness progresses, the less a person feels the ability to have meaningful relationships with others.Nakken, Craig (2009-09-29). The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior (Kindle Locations 237-239). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Thus, the ability to produce a pleasurable mood change is needed for an object or event to have an addictive potential.Availability of an object or event helps determine whether people will choose that form of addiction. The more available addictive objects or events are, the greater the number of people who form addictive relationships with them.A person can switch an addictive relationship from object to object and event to event. Switching from object to object helps create the illusion that the “problem has been taken care of,” when in reality one addictive relationship has replaced another.Nakken, Craig (2009-09-29). The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior (Kindle Locations 329-330). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition. Nakken, Craig (2009-09-29). The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior (Kindle Locations 325-326). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Development of addictive personalityBehavioral dependencyLife breakdown
Big Five personality traitsImage credit: http://thecareercafe.co.uk/blog/?attachment_id=2476
The most important aspect of Stage One is the creation of this addictive personality: the Self and the Addict. The Self represents the “normal,” human side of the addicted person, while the Addict represents the side that is consumed and transformed by the addiction. Eventually, the addicted person forms a dependent relationship with his or her own addictive personality.Nakken, Craig (2009-09-29). The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior (Kindle Locations 423-426). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition. The Addict side of the personality is very important for recovering addicts to understand because it will stay with them for life. On some level, the Addict will always be searching for an object or some type of event with which to form an addictive relationship. On some level, this personality will always want to give the person the illusion that there is an object or event that can nurture him or her.Nakken, Craig (2009-09-29). The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior (Kindle Locations 433-436). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.
-Big Five Traits – extraversion and conscientiousness -Biological – heritable factors; impulsivity, risk taking, novelty seeking (stress responsivity)-Comorbidity – usually substance abuse does not occur in isolation; four psychiatric conditions (depression, anxiety, antisocial personality disorder and ADHD)…most common are depression and anxiety. 20-50% of alcohol, cocaine or stimulant addiction, or opiate addiction have depressive/anxiety disorder. Comorbidity when people first try drugs not well defined…does this mean that drugs cause psychiatric disorders or vice versa?-Environmental Factors – family and non-family factors; parental involvement; child abuse or maltreatment create high depression levels or antisocial personality disorder