User:Janismurillo

Addictive Personalities A person with an addictive personality is someone who has compulsions to behave in ways that are detrimental to their health. People with certain histories and personality traits tend to be more likely to become addicted. Addiction seems to run in families, specific addiction can vary, an alcoholic father may have a workaholic daughter.

Description
Person with addictive personalities may indulge in impulsive behavior, may have difficulty in delaying gratification, or an antisocial personality and a disposition toward sensation seeking. May have a high value of nonconformity combined with a weak commitment to the goals for achievement valued by the society. Also, a sense of social alienation and a general tolerance for deviance. Along with a sense of heightened stress. This may help explain why adolescence and other stressful transition periods are often associated with the most severe drug and alcohol problems.

Some factors that can put an individual at risk are: As a child, having addicted parents or other adults close to them. As a child, having too much, too little, or uncertain love, [discipline or safety. A tendency to find others who are also addictive. Feelings of insecurity, loneliness, or being different. Difficulty using positive emotions such as love, joy, and intimacy, in times of trouble.

Evidence
According to its supporters, the addictive personality is a distinct psychological trait that predisposes particular individuals to addictions. While the nature and the very existence of this trait is still actively debated in the medical, neurobiological and psychology communities, there are definite implications in the brain that contribute to addiction. Also important to this debate are the issues of gender in relation to addiction and how these are and are not compatible with the addictive personality theory.

The concept of addiction is rapidly losing all useful meaning, once, addicts were rare: they looked like Frank Sinatra's character in the 1955 film The Man With the Golden Arm: a heroin abuser suffering from the anguish of withdrawal.

With addictive tragedies striking every community in the nation, with many millions of Americans addicted to alcohol and drugs alone, scientists are currently trying to understand if there are there common threads that weave through all addictions, from hard drugs to cigarettes, from gambling to overeating. It is part of a much broader effort that has already seen progress in understanding the chemistry of addiction, as biochemists isolate the chemicals and mechanisms by which the brain gives itself pleasure.

Despite the wide difference between an addiction to drugs and an addiction to gambling, some mental health experts find it useful to view addiction as including all self-destructive, compulsive behaviors. Some even go so far as to include compulsive television-watching.

Skepticism
In bringing together much of the existing knowledge on the personality's role in addictions, with an emphasis on drugs and alcohol, a new study prepared for the National Academy of Sciences concludes that there is no single set of psychological characteristics that embrace all addictions. But the study does see common elements from addiction to addiction. The report finds that there are several significant personality factors that can contribute to addiction: