addictive personality

[spuddleduck]

this term is often mentioned. is there such a thing as an addictive personality? i was thinking about this last night as i munched my way through a whole bag of chocolate eclair sweets, opening the next sweet as the first was barely chewed. it took my thoughts back to similar things mostly eating and drinking. ive always been like this. i wouldnt have 1, i would always have more. i have one cup of tea... ill have more. i have one smoke, ill have more. just little things but i wonder if its all relative. even good things like exercise... when i got into it i would want more more more. pruning plants, ill start and carry on till they are a twig. just a thought. can anyone relate to this

[Doggygirl]

addictive personality

I can relate!!! Drinking. Smoking. Eating. Even pruning. I haven't found the key to over excercising yet.

I often wonder about this.

DG

[Chillgirl]

addictive personality

Personally I dont buy into the "addictive personality" at all. I believe this is another excuse created my our minds when we find something difficult to control. Thoughts are as habitual as actions and if you repeat a thought you will believe it. By changing the thought you can change the behaviour and therefore cure yourself of the so called addictive personality.....

[hippie37]

addictive personality

pruning plants, ill start and carry on till they are a twig

I was in pleats laughing at that one spuddle!!:H

Yes, I can so relate to this.

When I started questioning my addiction over a year ago I got caught up analyzing my past and where I thought it all started. I think it's a process we all go through. Right back to childhood I could remember being a boy who was never satisfied with just one fizzy cola bottle. I needed a bag full of them. It was either cola bottles or aniseed twists! I would always share my sweets, but hell I was so annoyed at having too (and woe betide anyone who took the fizzy cola bottle out of my 10p penny sweet mixture bag. I would feel so hard done by!). So I related my addiction to early childhood and my craving for sugar as a boy.

As a teenager, I related it to my newly found experience of masturbation and never being able to leave the damn thing alone. I was always chasing that feeling of ecstasy. And once I'd found it I was not going to give it up for anything or anyone. My eye-sight's improving slightly today!.

So before I'd even got onto drinking and taking drugs as a teenager I could see certain patterns of behaviour through my life with always wanting to feel good. I didn't like feeling sad. What kid does? I got sweets and I felt good because I related the sugar fix to that. Have you heard of a breakfast cereal called "Frosties"? (basically sugar coated cornflakes) Well I would still have to put sugar on them too. I probably didn't need the added sugar but I related sugar to feeling good. Same with the masturbation, I related ejaculation to feeling good. (who wouldn't!). But when your having sex because you want to change the way you feel because you don't feel good then it's addictive behaviour.

I'm not using the masturbation thing for titillation here but to highlight a very serious point that sex, food, gambling, drink, drugs, smoking, etc. are all things we use to make us feel good about ourselves. The problems arise when the behaviours we use to justify and rationlise our need to feel good about ourselves actually make us feel worse through having a conscience. That's when we're in trouble!!

So I don't think I have a personality that is addictive. My personality can change through sobriety. When I hear the term "cross-addictions" I get a bit confused because for me personally I have an illness that I call "addiction". So I don't have an addiction to smoking, drinking, drugs etc etc. I have addiction in ME. That's a personal choice though to look at it this way, for my own sobriety.

Have a great day spuddle, and keep away from those plants!!

Many Blessings
Phil

[Hippy Chick]

addictive personality

I never looked at it like that Phil. You described my childhood there.
Boy, what a light bulb moment for me.:wow:

Spuds - I dont think people can have an addictive personality because I dont think personality can be changed. I think they can have addictive behaviours because behaviours can be changed and controlled.

Chill is right - thoughts can be changed. The power of the mind is phenominal.

HC

[spuddleduck]

addictive personality

interesting replies. thats why i was questioning it, is it behaviour patterns, is it something in us.. i dont know. hippy, i was having the lightbulb moment while munching the sweets, im diabetic so have to be careful on the sweet stuff (i can have extra insulin so i can binge now and again). i now have a alki way of drinking non al drinks. im still topping my glass up before its even half empty, maybe thats a habit taken from my al drinking.

[IAD]

addictive personality

Spuddle.......I'm not sure about an addictive personality, but I do believe in swapping one habbit for another ! I use to see it all the time at AA meetings.....I'ld talk to some of the people before and after the meetings. I'ld asked them if they've noticed anything weird that they're doing since going AF. I would hear that they were switching one bad habit for another. They drank a hell of lot more coffee...they smoke alot more ciggeretts.....eat sweets all the time...etc. Each person to their own devices....I could remember thinking : Crap this person is giving up alcohol and finding a another way to kill them selves buy smoking twice as much as before. Oh well, just my thoughts. IAD

[Johnny]

addictive personality

hippie37;913659 wrote: [I]

As a teenager, I related it to my newly found experience of masturbation and never being able to leave the damn thing alone. I was always chasing that feeling of ecstasy. And once I'd found it I was not going to give it up for anything or anyone. My eye-sight's improving slightly today!.

LMAO.

On a serious note I have to say I can identify with this completely. I think that certain personalities of a more sensitive or 'aware' disposition have a tendency so seek comfort (use/fix/act out) where every they can. This is an innately human characteristic at all levels of conciousness, for those of us who happen to live in a decadent society where we can access 'security blankets' such as alcohol or drugs, these become our fixes, but interestingly this work on a much more basic level.

The example that comes to mind is that of the pictures I remember which hit our TV screens about 10-15 years ago of the orphanages in Romania. They were horrific scenes and I recall noticing that the children there had taken to 'rocking' themselves back and forth. This is a behaviour that is also common amongst patients with various psychiatric disorders who are in discomfort. The rocking motion provides comfort for no other distinguishable reason than it's constancy and familiarity.

Therefore I think that when any individual feels uneasy, at whatever level, they will reach for that which is familiar and provides comfort. I think an 'addictive personality' is likely to be synonymous with an above average degree of sensitivity and consequential discomfort.

So IMO the question should be; what is causing the discomfort?

[Zeppie2]

addictive personality

Great question Spuddle, I was thinking about that too a couple of months ago when I started realising I was obssessing over my new relationship.

I don't like labels but I think in some way a lot of us get addicted to pretty much anything. I became an alcoholic not through some personal tragedy but because I liked drinking.

I think we would make great dogs - really easy to train as we will do anything to get that reward, whatever it be.

I read a great book called "the addictive brain" I will try and google who wrote it. It cleared up a lot of things for me and now I have to pull myself up when I feel I am getting addicted to something.

[sunshine_gg]

addictive personality

Hell yeah, I can relate. Same here. Well, maybe not the exercise bit :H But even the over-pruning.. guilty.

Hippie... I, too, found that I have ALWAYS done this.. with just about everything. Whether it was an activity, sweets, drink, smoke.. really didn't matter.

Anyone know what happened to that bag of Goldfish I just opened?

[Hippy Chick]

addictive personality

Johnny after reading your reply, it has made me wonder if our addictions go all the way back to when we were children or babies? Are we trying to get back that loving feeling that we got from our parents. Or if we didnt get it from them, are we trying to give it to our selves to make up for what they didnt do?

hhhmmmmm.. Very interesting thread Spud. Very thought provoking.

[hippie37]

addictive personality

Loved reading your insight on this Johnny. I don't think I've met an addict/alcoholic who isn't overly sensitive....YET!

[hillsidetime]

addictive personality

Hey Spud, great question. Although I do not think that it is cut and dry, I do think that brain physiology is something that the medical field is just beggining to figure out. I do think that people are born with a certain temperment - regardless of how they are reared. I also believe that everyone has a genetic makeup that is different. I do feel that there may be a spectrum, and people who are on the low end of the addictive spectrum, may never understand what it is like to be on the other end. Yes addiction is a behaviour and a haibt. However, how people physiologically respond to stimuli is different. So I do think that some people may have more risk for addiction. Just my thoughts.
Hill

[PhoenixRising]

addictive personality

I like to do things again and again that make me feel good. Is that and addictive personality? LOL I've been addicted to more than one thing in my lifetime, and YES you CAN get addicted to exercise! The endorphins!!

Zeppie, is that your for real dog? What a FACE! LOL!!

Great topic, everyone.

PS I though "pruning" meant eating prunes and kept thinking "THIS isn't going to end well!" lol

[Time to change]

addictive personality

What a great thread!
I always obsessed about eating all my sweets as quickly as possible as a child. I really think my Al addiction stems from this and other obsessive behaviour I've displayed throughout my life.
It gives me comfort to think of it this way, as I, like many people on this site am not physically dependant on AL ,its a mental thing for me. Its the addiction thats the problem not the thing we're addicted to.
I've noticed I drink coffee in a pretty obsessive manner now that I'm trying to stay AF, I've had three cafetieres full one after the other since I got up this morning!

A perfect example - About 2 hours ago I started to crave red wine. It came from nowhere and I almost caved in after an hour of on/off obsessing about it.
Instead I went off to the local bakery for a cake - I came back with two and I've eaten them both in rapid succession. I could have just not had any wine and carried on with what I was doing and I certainly didn't need to eat two cakes, I wasn't even hungry, but I had to have something else in an obsessive way to get it out of my system!

I have OCD and I wonder if this is linked? It certainly would make sense.

Anyway my main point here is that It makes me realise its not AL I'm addicted to, Its the addiction itself! ....I think?! ....Hell, I don't know anymore but this is a Fab thread, it's really got me thinking.
Nice one Spuddle x