What is the relationship between self-destructive behavior and addiction?

Programmed Behavior?

The tendency toward negative thinking and self-destructive behavior might be psychologically programmed at birth. In 1987, researchers in Stockholm studied the records of 412 alcoholics, drug addicts, and persons who committed suicide to see if obstetric procedures were linked to harmful events later in life, as data from the United States seemed to indicate.

The results of the study also showed that people who committed suicide by asphyxiation had close association with asphyxia at birth; those who died by violent mechanical means had experienced a mechanical birth trauma; and people who became addicts were born to women who had been given opiates or barbiturates during labor. The research team concluded that obstetric procedures should be reexamined in light of a possible imprint for self-destructive behavior that manifests later in a person’s life.

Self-Esteem

Birth is only the first opportunity for the kind of psychic trauma that can put a person on a self-destructive spiral toward substance abuse or suicide. Early exposure to sexual abuse has been found to cause profound dissociation and lead to alcohol and drug abuse.

Other notable factors, such as parental unemployment, exposure to violence in the home, or being bullied at school, all can drain self-esteem, according to researchers. Being separated from parents, either physically by protective services or emotionally because of parental substance abuse, significantly increases the risk of self-destructive behavior.

Suicidal Ideation

Self-destructive thoughts can lead to dangerous actions. Suicidal thoughts build along a continuum from mild self-criticism to angry self-attacks and thoughts of suicide. Self-destructive behaviors exist in parallel, on a continuum that ranges from accident proneness to drug abuse, alcoholism and other compulsions to premature death.

Substance abuse is considered the third major risk factor for suicide, behind previous suicide attempts and depression. Substance abuse is a slow form of suicide. Research has shown that people who drink heavily and use drugs die several years earlier, on average, than the general population.

Human Drives

Research suggests that visceral influences—drive states such as hunger, thirst, sexual desire, emotions, physical pain, and addictive cravings—can “crowd out” a person’s better intentions with the sole mission of mitigating the visceral urge. All focus turns to the moment and the drive. During binges, the thoughts of cocaine addicts, for example, are focused solely on the drug; sleep, money, survival, loved ones, and other responsibilities lose significance.

This change in focus also is evident in binge eating. Binge eaters have high standards and expectations of themselves and are acutely sensitive to the demands of others. When they feel they have fallen short of expectations, they become negatively self-conscious, resulting in emotional distress, anxiety, and depression. To escape from this painful state of being, binge eaters narrow their attention to immediate stimuli and avoid thinking on a broader level, researchers say.

Genetic Factors and Environmental Trauma

People who suffer the sorts of trauma mentioned above and who are
genetically predisposed to addiction are at the highest risk for substance abuse. Some people are more prone to substance abuse through inheritance of gene mutations such as D2A1, the dopamine receptor found in 69 percent of severe alcoholics, 40 to 55 percent of persons with post-traumatic stress disorder, and 20 percent of nonalcoholics.

Dopamine works with serotonin in areas of the brain responsible for emotion and attention. Abnormal serotonin levels in substance abusers’ brains are linked to a mutation of the enzyme tryptophan oxygenase, which breaks down tryptophan.

Teenagers who receive important social supports such as family counseling after traumatic events fare better than those who are left to cope alone, whether they have the gene mutations or not. Recovery from substance abuse requires finding new pleasure-inducing activities, coping mechanisms, relaxation methods, and relapse prevention.

Bibliography

Baumeister, Roy F., and Steven J. Scher. “Self-Defeating Behavior Patterns among Normal Individuals: Review and Analysis of Common Self-Destructive Tendencies.” Psychological Bulletin 104.1 (1988): 3–22. Print.

Firestone, Robert W., and Richard H. Seiden. “Suicide and the Continuum of Self-Destructive Behavior.” Journal of American College Health 38.5 (1990): 207–13. Print.

Frederick, Calvin J., Harvey L. P. Resnik, and Byron J. Wittlin. “Self-Destructive Aspects of Hard Core Addiction.” Archives of General Psychiatry 28.4 (1973): 579–85. Print.

Heatherton, Todd F., and Roy Baumeister. “Binge Eating as Escape from Self-Awareness.” Psychological Bulletin 110.1 (1991): 86–108. Print.

Jacobson, Bertil, et al. “Perinatal Origin of Adult Self-Destructive Behavior.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 76.4 (1987): 364–71. Print.

Rodriguez-Srednicki, Ofelia. “Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dissociation, and Adult Self-Destructive Behavior.” Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 10.3 (2002): 75–89. Print.